I have had a tivo for I'm guessing over three years now. When our Tivo got killed by a power spike, I tried watching TV without it.
Once.
Sure, DVD recorder would be nice. Getting rid of the phone connection would be nice. A bigger storage capacity would be nice.
But it would be kind of like asking for the stack of $20 bills that someone's handing me to be bundled more neatly.
My tivo unit blew out a while back (power surge?). I didn't even bother reconnecting the cable box to mv TV until the replacement unit arrived in the mail a week later.
I've got access to stats for a couple of largish connections (good mix of individual and organization traffic) and that number seeems a little high.
All the traffic I see to/from microsoft - including msn and hotmail, accounts for perhaps 30% of my traffic on a typical day. On a day when somethign like DX9 comes out, that figure goes up a bit - but still not to the 50% level.
Do you maybe have a customer who builds systems and mass-updates them? that would almost make the number reasonable....
Perhaps I can help clarify the method of assigning an EQ (Evil Quotient) to an organization. As on Slashdot, a higher number is generally good.
CEO has visible body piercings: +1 Company is profitable: +1.. for more than two business quarters: -2 They make something you like: +2.. but you have to actually pay for it: -3 CEO denounces another CEO with a 0 EQ: +1 Company allows wearing of sandals in office: +1 Company requires workers to actually work: -4 Company has more than 100 employees: -1 Board meetings are held in exotic locations: +2.. specifically, non-extradition countries: -3 Company changes name after "that incident": -2 Company makes the most popular products: -4 Company makes neat stuff you'd never buy: +3
If the government mandates that (possibly defective) filters be implemented on every connection, then you are absolutely correct. But this is a case where organizations have made an affirmative decision to *obtain* filtering systems, for whatever reason. I may not particularly be thrilled when I can't access a site from work that I'd like to....
The obvious exception is libraries and the like. And I'm kinda torn by that one. On one hand, I believe that free speech is an absolute. But I'm also a parent. I feel pretty safe letting my kids (we're talking under 10 years old here) browse the entire library.
But I'd be insane to let them use a computer there. A typo in a search box gets you a screen-ful of pop-ups showing a naked woman getting sprayed with semen by three men. Hell, I've typed in "www.whitehouse.com" by mistake myself.
A bright 16-year-old is going to figure out how to get around the internal proxy server. More power to him. I browsed a friend's stack of porno magazines when I was younger than that, and I've turned out just fine. Aside from this obsessive desire to liberally coat Ed McMahon in Smucker's Grape Jam, that is.... and to answer the question, finding the list would constitute destructive trespass since it would lessen the value of the filters; the owner of 'h0tl0l1ta5.com' might want to pay $15 to switch to 'h0t-1olita5.com' to get around the filters. (
You could be right. Cable modems use something that looks a little bit like what IBM would have come up with if they couldn't have tortured us with Token-ring.
If you're one of those really weird people who reads technical documents for fun (like me) take a look at www.cablemodem.com - the way that DOCSIS is actually laid out is pretty impressive, with the ability to channel-hop on demand (two of your neighbors go on a pr0n-browsing spree, so the headend tells your cable modem to jump to a channel with less traffic so your SSH session doesn't get hammered by Debbie doing Dallas.
Neat technology for something like linking gamers together.
I kinda like the idea of having no idea at all where online friends are from, unless they care to tell me. Sometimes I can figure it out from little hints (color vs. colour) or if I note that they use phraseology that indicates they use a slavic language to think.
But if I'm gonna play Quake against 'em I guess it's better to pick someone in the same general hemisphere at least.:-)
... that tivo and others are getting popular. In my area they are pushing their PPV-on-demand services -- as well as HBO/Showtime on demand -- very heavily. I did order a movie using the service and found that I could, indeed, pause it, fast-forward, rewind, etc.. but seeing as I already have those features on Tivo, it's not as much of a draw for me as it might be for a brand-new subscriber.
Groan.... Never said you should. Twisted-pair works perfactly fine for carrying a baseband signal. Like 100baseT. Or DS-1. Or POTS. (it does not do as well, as anyone using DSL has noted, at carrying anything resembling a broadband signal)
My point is that copper is a more appropriate technology *for* *the* *average* *consumer* than fiber-optic is.. and if someone's telling you differently, you would do well to question exactly what it is that they're selling you.
>Would fiber would have to worry about Downstream Signal to Noise Ratio?
Yes.
>Upstream SNR?
Yes.
>Transmit Power?
There are two standard levels used:.3db below what I need, and 5db above what I can handle. Carriers like to alternate between these two.
>Receive Power?
In spades.
>Signal degradation due to splitters?
The causes for signal degradation on fiber are more numerous than I can name. And trying to find the one guy at a carrier who understands them can be a hair-pulling experience that makes ISDN look like a cakewalk by comparison.
>Bandwidth saturation on a DS3 at peak times?
Bandwidth saturation has nothing to do with media. GigE over fiber behaves just like GigE over copper.
>Electromagnetic Interferance?
No, but on the other hand, coax stands up to being nudged occasionally much better. That, plus the ability for a typical homeowner to terminate cable with simple hand tools, makes it a lot more attractive to me.
I run gig ethernet over copper (with the usual distance limitations) cheaply and easily. 1000baseT equipment runs under $100 per port. 1000baseF equipment costs quite a bit more.
Leaving aside extremely expensive technologies like DWDM, fiber is a baseband technology: it carries one signal at a time. Coax, on the other hand, uses broadband, which is why you can fit 130 channels of broadcast TV (each using about 2.4mb/s of bandwidth, 8 channels of HDTV (20mb/s each), and 30 channels of IP data (20mb/s each) down the same wire - and use cheap, store-bought equipment to do so.
Fiber certainly has a place; but that place is gererally where you're dealing with sustained, high-volume data (OC-3 and up), you can afford a hardware cost of $6,000* per port, and you can protect the fiber from physical damage.
*it actually goes waaaaaay up from there. A channelized OC48(2.04gb/s) card for a router has a list price that's comparable to a reasonably nice single-family house.
IPv6's biggest driver was the rapidly-dwindling address space pool. But that problem is virtually gone due to the availability of NAT, and the way that web servers have cleanly implemented name-based hosting services.
Unless there's some new service that's only available on '6, or some other reason for people to learn a complex new technology... I just don't think v6 will ever be widely implemented.
10 yeara ago, fiber was the obvious best choice for high-bandwidth connections. Nowadays, though, a good chunk of coaxial cable seems to be a more practical choice.
A cable modem capable of communicating at 20+mbps goes for about $80. 100 of them can coexist politely on the same broadcast domain.
On the other hand, an optical transceiver costs about 10x as much, is very picky about how the connection is terminated, and doesn't compensate automatically for differing power levels (anybody who carries a bag of attenuators around a colo knows allllll about that:)
For linking cabinet c19.33 to the meet-me room at 1 Wilshire? Gimme fiber. Linking two POP's together across town? Single-mode fiber!
Connecting my house to the internet? Gimme copper. Preferably coax.
Fiber, implemented at the carrier level, is an incredibly efficient transmission medium; I lease OC48 wavelengths in the same physical fiber as half a dozen other companies, and I get a lot of bandwidth for a (comparatively) smaller price. But I don't use fiber in the office, or at home.
I've learned that one never ever buys a printer without first checking what refills cost, and whether they are available from more than one company.
When my wife was making a bunch of copies for a community group, I got her to stop using my inkjet after I realized that it was costing me almost 20 cents per page - four times what I pay at the local self-serve copy joint.
In the long run, I think the answer is.... it doesn't really matter.
While it varies from country to country, getting a wiretap authorized, placed, monitored, and reported on is a big expense, and a big manpower drain.
I've dealt with the cops on a couple of incidents. Unless you're talking about a really big case, where someone's been killed, or massive thefts, you're lucky if one agent has more than a few hours to look into it.
Unless you're a creep on the level of Bernie Ebbers or Martha Stewart, it just ain't gonna happen. It's like sending out the SWAT team to give parking tickets.
LAKELAND - One Lakeland police officer was disciplined and another resigned after allegations they exchanged computer messages derogatory to the chief and dispatchers.
Former Sgt. Monty Mathis and Officer William Knobloch, both of the traffic division, were caught exchanging messages that referred to the police chief and several dispatchers as clueless and to an accident victim with a severe brain injury as a turnip, police officials said Thursday.
As a backbone router geek, I have had the liberty of working from my home for the last couple of years, usually keeping whatever hours please me, and often doing my work from my bed, while watching "Law and Order" reruns captured on Tivo. (Belated kudos to the couple of co-workers who heard the Tivo 'ding' and managed not to bust out laughing during those weekly staff calls)
I've attended conference calls while slouched in the hot tub, completely submerged except for my head, while occasionally muttering an approving comment into my headset, usually to cover up the noise of the filtering system kicking in.
I've done major configurations on well-known business portals while smoking a cigar and hoping the 802.11 link won't crap out before I 'wr mem'.
But I've always wanted to do late-night maintenance work FROM my hot tub. And it's within range of my 802.11 equipment. But I just don't have the guts to bring my beloved Dell laptop that close to water.
But now this piece of equipment may allow me to achieve my goal: Getting paid for being as close to a chronic vegetative state as possible.
The problem is (being a service provider), if I give my customer the rebate, I end up having to pay the difference.
Most ISP's themselves have burstable circuits, and have a CIR that's some fraction of the total bandwidth.
If it doesn't affect my costs... I'd consider trying to work out a compromise with the customer. Given the alternatives of making a customer mad, or not having enough money to make payroll next week... Sorry, but that's what contracts are for. If you're not comfortable with the liability, ask your ISP to cap your usage at a certain amount.
There are some "validations" in the SSN. One of them makes it easy to spot a "number picked at random", and the other, which you do need a lookup table for, tells you when the number was issued and in what area of the country it was issued.
Anyone born in the last 15 years has often had an SSN assigned shortly after birth. Previously, it was typically issued when you opened your first bank account, or when you took your first job.
So that, combined with a person's age (or reasonable approximation) has a strong correlation for checking validity.
If you see a 45-year-old male with a brooklyn accent showing up with an SSN that was issued five years ago in Oregon, it would raise an eyebrow or two.
Back to this breakin.. It's time to treat data repositories like banks: Regulate them, and refer anyone who even tries to break into one to www.bop.gov for a nice long visit.
I read the correspondence. It seems like the exchange went something like this:
"Hello, we see something that looks like illegal software on your public server. If so, please take this opportunity to remove it."
reply: "You're mistaken, it's a legal, well-known package."
response: "You're correct, please accept out apology."
Now maybe I missed the part where the stormtroopers break down the door, but it seems like an honest mistake, quickly rectified, and politely explained.
Mean that buying any PC immediately causes Best Buy to sell it for $100 less than you paid.
The first computer I owned was a Compaq Portable (about as portable as a 20" color TV with a handle on it). I paid $3,000 for it - with a 10mb hard drive and a 1200bps Hayes modem.
Today, that same $3,000 - not even adjusting for inflation, and buying only retail equipment, would get me a 2.5+ghz machine with a 20" LCD flat panel. And if I noodge the sales droid enough, toss in a disposable HP printer (as if they make another kind...)
The only concern I have about personal computers these days is... how the heck do I keep track of the exploding volume of information on them?
How do I keep 2,500 family pictures? And find the one of a friend's birthday party?
How do I organize 10 years of letters and emails? And not lose track of the ones from my dad?
In most areas, T1 service is a tarriffed service, meaning that there are fairly explicit descriptions of what a customer can expect - response time, universal availability, etc...
I do love 802.11 for the ability to take my laptop around my house.. but honestly I have been rather underwhelmed by the performance. I've used both 802.11a and b, a couple of different brands of each. Realistically, I have found my distance limitation to be perhaps 25-60 feet, in both residential and commercial settings.
My bed is 29 feet from my access point, and has a line-of-sight to it. Still, I get only 40% signal. Throughput with 802.11b is maybe 2mb/s... with 802.11a, it's an eye-popping 40mb/s! but alas, if I move to my wife's side of the bed, the bandwidth dropps off significantly. How am I supposed to evaluate these results when I am duct taped to a BED???
I'm inclined to disagree. Most spams are sent to over 100,000 recipients. Assuming it costs a penny to send each one, the cost just jumped from perhaps $22 (the cost of one disposable dial-up account) to over $1000. Instant death to the business model of spam.
There will be some negative consequences: Giving away free email accounts will be a more difficult business proposition. Implementing mailing lists will require a little thought (though I imagine either posting them online or using some sort of "bulk permit" would help get around that).
All things considered... I think it sounds like a reasonable way to put some value back into email.
Remember: When you're getting a free lunch, it's a FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT. When someone else is getting a free lunch, it's a LOOPHOLE.:-)
I have a slightly different opinion on it. I think VOIP should be regulated (if at all) in the same manner as any other traffic on the internet. The internet and the phone network are different enough that trying to use one set of regulations for certain classes of traffic is doomed to failure. Argentenia has learned this the hard way; the cost of blocking VOIP and the lost revenues from ISP's are more than the revenue lost by the telephone service.
I am a fence-sitter on the whole "universal service" thing. On some days I think it's a great idea, improving the lot of humankind and increasing the value of every computer in the way that ubiquitous fax machines increased the value of other faxes. On other days, I think it's a wrong-headed attempt to redistribute wealth in an inefficient manner to people who don't need it.
This has been an area of difficulty when implementing Linux on fairly important servers (i.e. the kind my boss will know about when it goes down)
I've used both native hardware support (Currently Dell's PERC option, but have used compaq's RAID controllers too) with excellent luck - but little in the way of "how do I make sure the array is healthy?"
My servers are in a colo facility that's normally only visited a couple of times a month, so a beeping server or a red LED doesn't help much.
I've also used software RAID in linux (at least the mirror variety, not striping) with no problems.. but I've never had to recover from a crash, so I don't really know if it's working, do I?:)
Slashdot Mirror
I have had a tivo for I'm guessing over three years now. When our Tivo got killed by a power spike, I tried watching TV without it.
Once.
Sure, DVD recorder would be nice. Getting rid of the phone connection would be nice. A bigger storage capacity would be nice.
But it would be kind of like asking for the stack of $20 bills that someone's handing me to be bundled more neatly.
My tivo unit blew out a while back (power surge?). I didn't even bother reconnecting the cable box to mv TV until the replacement unit arrived in the mail a week later.
I've got access to stats for a couple of largish connections (good mix of individual and organization traffic) and that number seeems a little high.
All the traffic I see to/from microsoft - including msn and hotmail, accounts for perhaps 30% of my traffic on a typical day. On a day when somethign like DX9 comes out, that figure goes up a bit - but still not to the 50% level.
Do you maybe have a customer who builds systems and mass-updates them? that would almost make the number reasonable....
Perhaps I can help clarify the method of assigning an EQ (Evil Quotient) to an organization. As on Slashdot, a higher number is generally good.
.. for more than two business quarters: -2 .. but you have to actually pay for it: -3 .. specifically, non-extradition countries: -3
CEO has visible body piercings: +1
Company is profitable: +1
They make something you like: +2
CEO denounces another CEO with a 0 EQ: +1
Company allows wearing of sandals in office: +1
Company requires workers to actually work: -4
Company has more than 100 employees: -1
Board meetings are held in exotic locations: +2
Company changes name after "that incident": -2
Company makes the most popular products: -4
Company makes neat stuff you'd never buy: +3
I'm only hitting the major check-offs here.
If the government mandates that (possibly defective) filters be implemented on every connection, then you are absolutely correct. But this is a case where organizations have made an affirmative decision to *obtain* filtering systems, for whatever reason. I may not particularly be thrilled when I can't access a site from work that I'd like to....
... and to answer the question, finding the list would constitute destructive trespass since it would lessen the value of the filters; the owner of 'h0tl0l1ta5.com' might want to pay $15 to switch to 'h0t-1olita5.com' to get around the filters. (
The obvious exception is libraries and the like. And I'm kinda torn by that one. On one hand, I believe that free speech is an absolute. But I'm also a parent. I feel pretty safe letting my kids (we're talking under 10 years old here) browse the entire library.
But I'd be insane to let them use a computer there. A typo in a search box gets you a screen-ful of pop-ups showing a naked woman getting sprayed with semen by three men. Hell, I've typed in "www.whitehouse.com" by mistake myself.
A bright 16-year-old is going to figure out how to get around the internal proxy server. More power to him. I browsed a friend's stack of porno magazines when I was younger than that, and I've turned out just fine. Aside from this obsessive desire to liberally coat Ed McMahon in Smucker's Grape Jam, that is.
You could be right. Cable modems use something that looks a little bit like what IBM would have come up with if they couldn't have tortured us with Token-ring.
If you're one of those really weird people who reads technical documents for fun (like me) take a look at www.cablemodem.com - the way that DOCSIS is actually laid out is pretty impressive, with the ability to channel-hop on demand (two of your neighbors go on a pr0n-browsing spree, so the headend tells your cable modem to jump to a channel with less traffic so your SSH session doesn't get hammered by Debbie doing Dallas.
No, no, you misunderstand. If you compress all the way down to zero, you must be incredibly intelligent, because you are more compressible than I am!
... therefore I am.
:-)
I'm not sure I should be flattered that the best way to tell a picture of me from a picture of a rock is that I have more redundant image data.
Neat technology for something like linking gamers together.
:-)
I kinda like the idea of having no idea at all where online friends are from, unless they care to tell me. Sometimes I can figure it out from little hints (color vs. colour) or if I note that they use phraseology that indicates they use a slavic language to think.
But if I'm gonna play Quake against 'em I guess it's better to pick someone in the same general hemisphere at least.
... that tivo and others are getting popular. In my area they are pushing their PPV-on-demand services -- as well as HBO/Showtime on demand -- very heavily. I did order a movie using the service and found that I could, indeed, pause it, fast-forward, rewind, etc.. but seeing as I already have those features on Tivo, it's not as much of a draw for me as it might be for a brand-new subscriber.
Groan.... Never said you should. Twisted-pair works perfactly fine for carrying a baseband signal. Like 100baseT. Or DS-1. Or POTS. (it does not do as well, as anyone using DSL has noted, at carrying anything resembling a broadband signal)
My point is that copper is a more appropriate technology *for* *the* *average* *consumer* than fiber-optic is.. and if someone's telling you differently, you would do well to question exactly what it is that they're selling you.
Yes.
>Upstream SNR?
Yes.
>Transmit Power?
There are two standard levels used: .3db below what I need, and 5db above what I can handle. Carriers like to alternate between these two.
>Receive Power?
In spades.
>Signal degradation due to splitters?
The causes for signal degradation on fiber are more numerous than I can name. And trying to find the one guy at a carrier who understands them can be a hair-pulling experience that makes ISDN look like a cakewalk by comparison.
>Bandwidth saturation on a DS3 at peak times?
Bandwidth saturation has nothing to do with media. GigE over fiber behaves just like GigE over copper.
>Electromagnetic Interferance?
No, but on the other hand, coax stands up to being nudged occasionally much better. That, plus the ability for a typical homeowner to terminate cable with simple hand tools, makes it a lot more attractive to me.
I run gig ethernet over copper (with the usual distance limitations) cheaply and easily. 1000baseT equipment runs under $100 per port. 1000baseF equipment costs quite a bit more.
Leaving aside extremely expensive technologies like DWDM, fiber is a baseband technology: it carries one signal at a time. Coax, on the other hand, uses broadband, which is why you can fit 130 channels of broadcast TV (each using about 2.4mb/s of bandwidth, 8 channels of HDTV (20mb/s each), and 30 channels of IP data (20mb/s each) down the same wire - and use cheap, store-bought equipment to do so.
Fiber certainly has a place; but that place is gererally where you're dealing with sustained, high-volume data (OC-3 and up), you can afford a hardware cost of $6,000* per port, and you can protect the fiber from physical damage.
*it actually goes waaaaaay up from there. A channelized OC48(2.04gb/s) card for a router has a list price that's comparable to a reasonably nice single-family house.
IPv6's biggest driver was the rapidly-dwindling address space pool. But that problem is virtually gone due to the availability of NAT, and the way that web servers have cleanly implemented name-based hosting services.
Unless there's some new service that's only available on '6, or some other reason for people to learn a complex new technology... I just don't think v6 will ever be widely implemented.
10 yeara ago, fiber was the obvious best choice for high-bandwidth connections. Nowadays, though, a good chunk of coaxial cable seems to be a more practical choice.
A cable modem capable of communicating at 20+mbps goes for about $80. 100 of them can coexist politely on the same broadcast domain.
On the other hand, an optical transceiver costs about 10x as much, is very picky about how the connection is terminated, and doesn't compensate automatically for differing power levels (anybody who carries a bag of attenuators around a colo knows allllll about that:)
For linking cabinet c19.33 to the meet-me room at 1 Wilshire? Gimme fiber. Linking two POP's together across town? Single-mode fiber!
Connecting my house to the internet? Gimme copper. Preferably coax.
Fiber, implemented at the carrier level, is an incredibly efficient transmission medium; I lease OC48 wavelengths in the same physical fiber as half a dozen other companies, and I get a lot of bandwidth for a (comparatively) smaller price. But I don't use fiber in the office, or at home.
I've learned that one never ever buys a printer without first checking what refills cost, and whether they are available from more than one company.
When my wife was making a bunch of copies for a community group, I got her to stop using my inkjet after I realized that it was costing me almost 20 cents per page - four times what I pay at the local self-serve copy joint.
In the long run, I think the answer is.... it doesn't really matter.
While it varies from country to country, getting a wiretap authorized, placed, monitored, and reported on is a big expense, and a big manpower drain.
I've dealt with the cops on a couple of incidents. Unless you're talking about a really big case, where someone's been killed, or massive thefts, you're lucky if one agent has more than a few hours to look into it.
Unless you're a creep on the level of Bernie Ebbers or Martha Stewart, it just ain't gonna happen. It's like sending out the SWAT team to give parking tickets.
(from Tampa Tribune cached on google)
Ok, time for me to 'fess up.
As a backbone router geek, I have had the liberty of working from my home for the last couple of years, usually keeping whatever hours please me, and often doing my work from my bed, while watching "Law and Order" reruns captured on Tivo. (Belated kudos to the couple of co-workers who heard the Tivo 'ding' and managed not to bust out laughing during those weekly staff calls)
I've attended conference calls while slouched in the hot tub, completely submerged except for my head, while occasionally muttering an approving comment into my headset, usually to cover up the noise of the filtering system kicking in.
I've done major configurations on well-known business portals while smoking a cigar and hoping the 802.11 link won't crap out before I 'wr mem'.
But I've always wanted to do late-night maintenance work FROM my hot tub. And it's within range of my 802.11 equipment. But I just don't have the guts to bring my beloved Dell laptop that close to water.
But now this piece of equipment may allow me to achieve my goal: Getting paid for being as close to a chronic vegetative state as possible.
The problem is (being a service provider), if I give my customer the rebate, I end up having to pay the difference.
Most ISP's themselves have burstable circuits, and have a CIR that's some fraction of the total bandwidth.
If it doesn't affect my costs... I'd consider trying to work out a compromise with the customer. Given the alternatives of making a customer mad, or not having enough money to make payroll next week... Sorry, but that's what contracts are for. If you're not comfortable with the liability, ask your ISP to cap your usage at a certain amount.
There are some "validations" in the SSN. One of them makes it easy to spot a "number picked at random", and the other, which you do need a lookup table for, tells you when the number was issued and in what area of the country it was issued.
Anyone born in the last 15 years has often had an SSN assigned shortly after birth. Previously, it was typically issued when you opened your first bank account, or when you took your first job.
So that, combined with a person's age (or reasonable approximation) has a strong correlation for checking validity.
If you see a 45-year-old male with a brooklyn accent showing up with an SSN that was issued five years ago in Oregon, it would raise an eyebrow or two.
Back to this breakin.. It's time to treat data repositories like banks: Regulate them, and refer anyone who even tries to break into one to www.bop.gov for a nice long visit.
I read the correspondence. It seems like the exchange went something like this:
"Hello, we see something that looks like illegal software on your public server. If so, please take this opportunity to remove it."
reply: "You're mistaken, it's a legal, well-known package."
response: "You're correct, please accept out apology."
Now maybe I missed the part where the stormtroopers break down the door, but it seems like an honest mistake, quickly rectified, and politely explained.
Mean that buying any PC immediately causes Best Buy to sell it for $100 less than you paid.
The first computer I owned was a Compaq Portable (about as portable as a 20" color TV with a handle on it). I paid $3,000 for it - with a 10mb hard drive and a 1200bps Hayes modem.
Today, that same $3,000 - not even adjusting for inflation, and buying only retail equipment, would get me a 2.5+ghz machine with a 20" LCD flat panel. And if I noodge the sales droid enough, toss in a disposable HP printer (as if they make another kind...)
The only concern I have about personal computers these days is... how the heck do I keep track of the exploding volume of information on them?
How do I keep 2,500 family pictures? And find the one of a friend's birthday party?
How do I organize 10 years of letters and emails? And not lose track of the ones from my dad?
In most areas, T1 service is a tarriffed service, meaning that there are fairly explicit descriptions of what a customer can expect - response time, universal availability, etc...
I do love 802.11 for the ability to take my laptop around my house.. but honestly I have been rather underwhelmed by the performance. I've used both 802.11a and b, a couple of different brands of each. Realistically, I have found my distance limitation to be perhaps 25-60 feet, in both residential and commercial settings.
My bed is 29 feet from my access point, and has a line-of-sight to it. Still, I get only 40% signal. Throughput with 802.11b is maybe 2mb/s... with 802.11a, it's an eye-popping 40mb/s! but alas, if I move to my wife's side of the bed, the bandwidth dropps off significantly. How am I supposed to evaluate these results when I am duct taped to a BED???
sigh.. What we do in the name of progress!
I'm inclined to disagree. Most spams are sent to over 100,000 recipients. Assuming it costs a penny to send each one, the cost just jumped from perhaps $22 (the cost of one disposable dial-up account) to over $1000. Instant death to the business model of spam.
There will be some negative consequences: Giving away free email accounts will be a more difficult business proposition. Implementing mailing lists will require a little thought (though I imagine either posting them online or using some sort of "bulk permit" would help get around that).
All things considered... I think it sounds like a reasonable way to put some value back into email.
Remember: When you're getting a free lunch, it's a FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT. When someone else is getting a free lunch, it's a LOOPHOLE. :-)
I have a slightly different opinion on it. I think VOIP should be regulated (if at all) in the same manner as any other traffic on the internet. The internet and the phone network are different enough that trying to use one set of regulations for certain classes of traffic is doomed to failure. Argentenia has learned this the hard way; the cost of blocking VOIP and the lost revenues from ISP's are more than the revenue lost by the telephone service.
I am a fence-sitter on the whole "universal service" thing. On some days I think it's a great idea, improving the lot of humankind and increasing the value of every computer in the way that ubiquitous fax machines increased the value of other faxes. On other days, I think it's a wrong-headed attempt to redistribute wealth in an inefficient manner to people who don't need it.
This has been an area of difficulty when implementing Linux on fairly important servers (i.e. the kind my boss will know about when it goes down)
:)
I've used both native hardware support (Currently Dell's PERC option, but have used compaq's RAID controllers too) with excellent luck - but little in the way of "how do I make sure the array is healthy?"
My servers are in a colo facility that's normally only visited a couple of times a month, so a beeping server or a red LED doesn't help much.
I've also used software RAID in linux (at least the mirror variety, not striping) with no problems.. but I've never had to recover from a crash, so I don't really know if it's working, do I?