How many of you have ever had to pay for an email which has been sent to you?
Ummm, probably every single person who has ever paid an ISP for access to the Internet. Not everyone gets it free from work or school, millions of Americans actually pay $20-$50 a month, sometimes more, for access. (sarcasm) Shouldn't we find some way for them to get access without paying for the full cost of the phone line and access? (/sarcasm)
You want me to send a perfectly formatted email from one specific email address? I don't think so.
Ah, and some of us still long for those days when that was the only way. Not NetSol being the only registrar but the simplicity of emailing in a change and having it go in the next database update.
That seems like a reasonable description of what he's done, essentially saying "Pay me a few thousand or I'll make sure you pay even more court fees."
First, IANAL, but, if the person/entity making the threat of legal action has a legitimate claim then this is perfectly legal, this is how you entice someone to settle so that you don't have to spend the time and money to actually sue them to get what you want.
Now, if the person/entity threatening lawsuit have no legal basis for a claim you tell them to piss off. If they file suit you file a counterclaim for malicious prosecution, or in some jurisdictions harrasment by barratry.
do gps handheld units use a digital compass based on a floating iron point? or do they recieve gps cordinates and derive your direction from that somehow?
It is always going to be digital and calculated based on your position, but whether you want geographic north or magnetic north is up to you and the user typically can select which they want. The GPS receiver can be told where magnetic north is and calculates direction just the same as it would for true north.
I remember my Garmin knew that my magnetic deviation is 11W in central PA. Altho the $64,000 question is: Is there a way to update the position used as magnetic north in the GPS receiver so that it will be accurate in 10 years? Or for someone how knows better than I, does the GPS data stream include/can it include this information?
Since all of this started - we have been buying Dells. This is all that is going to come out of this for the next two years is companies moving to Dell or getting in deeper with IBM than they were before.
I personally don't like HP and I LOVE Compaq. I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, I LOVE the Proliant server line. I have been doing this pushing 20 years and I'd put a Compaq box up against anything.
To start: Me Too.
I've been buying and running Compaq servers for as long as I've been working on servers, about eight years now. Compaq builds a kick-ass server, but this merger is going to make me walk away from them. About two years ago I started buying desktops and laptops from IBM, the Thinkpad is just killer, but with HP most likely influencing Compaq's server line in a negative fashion I am pretty sure I am going to start buying IBM servers. What this means to me is that I will buy IBM until Big Blue gives me a reason not to.
NPR, surprisingly enough, had a short segment on this last week. They interviewed some sysadmins and asked what we thought. A lot of guys felt like I do, either for HP or for Compaq, and as a result of the unknowns of the merger were going to pull business, others liked one's workstations and the other's servers and hoped the merger would keep what they perceived as the best of both worlds.
No one knows what is going to come out of this, but what I do know is that for the forseeable future IBM has a new server customer or few.
At CDN$21/GB the cost is pretty steep for an MP3 player. I don't see this tax being extended to hard drives intended for computers and as I understand it most large capacity MP3 players use 2.5" laptop hard disks anyway.
Based on that what is to stop Creative from shipping a diskless model that requires the end user to install their own hard disk thus placing the burden of paying the tax on the consumer. For those of us south of the border it would be analogous to purchasing from a vendor outside your own state and having it shipped in to avoid sales tax. Just like a state government with regards to the sales tax I am sure the Canadian government would require its citizens to report the tax and pay it, but come on, who really does?
(Yes, I understand that most consumers would be incapable of doing it themselves, but most people know a geek and how many of us would help out to keep the RIAA and friends from collecting on this tax?) The side benefit is that the consumer can use any size laptop drive they desire.
Just a quick note for those complaining about how this has a "right" slant to it, it is most likely because it is in the "VIEWS" section of Fox News. Look at the pretty little graphic at the top of the screen, it says it plain as day.
We do not guarentee uptime, nor does your ISP I imagine.
Not an uptime guaruntee per se but my SLA with uunet provides for a full month's refund for as little as 15 minutes of unscheduled downtime. Seems like quite a motivating factor. We also pay >$1200 for service each month, so we're not talking low-revenue residential here.
For those like me who have only one broadband option and need a definite backup plan, think about Starband or even uunet's VSAT service as a backup. Sure latency might be fun but it will give you access when nothing else will.
I live in Philly and think about moving every payday.
This makes a common point about a lot of cities in Pennsylvania. I live in State College, none of the municipalities here have been able to pass consolidation so we're still a bunch of little governments. I live in Patton Township where my wage tax is 1%, but the borough of State College is 1.8%. One local business (Accuweather) moved to Ferguson Township to escape the borough's business taxes. (Along with building a new building a few years ago, but taxes were a factor as I understand it)
The point is that a lot of cities/municipalities have higher taxes than those nearby. Whatever you do don't move to Maryland. Not only are taxes higher there but your rights mean nothing to the state government.
The government in PA and in Pittsburgh has been talking a lot about trying to make Pittsburgh into a tech city to help make up for the problems in the steel industry. PA's state income tax is 2.8%, and sales tax is 6% on non-necessity items. No yearly personal property tax on cars and the like, altho your house will be taxed by the local government. Another poster mentioned the "Small Business Bribery Zones" that the gov't has put in place as well. Basically, you move your business into one of the development zones and pay no state taxes for 10 years. Woo.
Young white American male/female backpacking across Europe - search for illegal drugs
In my experience in flying between European countries customs has been a joke, if anyone was even there to talk to. Hell, my last trip over in November I didn't even get an entry stamp.
Single male entering Thailand - visa declined
US passport holders are not required to have a visa for stays of less than 30 days. Thailand is part of the visa waiver program. Before I started travelling a lot (office in India) I thought it was difficult to go some of these places. It isn't. The visa waiver program makes it very easy, and for most other places it just takes a little bit of money. I realize it is ethnocentric to say but in my experience merely holding a US passport changes the ease with which one can move between certain countries.
I see your point, however, that if we (Americans) begin to profile people based on their ethnicity that we should also expect to be examined in a similar manner entering other countries. Well, I have news for you. We're already pulling Arabs aside! I flew from Heathrow to Dulles about a month ago and found that the United gate agent had a list of people she wanted to hand check. They asked what seat you were in (1D for me! upfront is nice) and if you weren't who they wanted you got to board, if you were unlucky you had your bags hand inspected. Let's just say when I went through there weren't any white people being checked out.
Another anecdotal note, when I came home in December 2000 via Dulles no one even looked at my passport. As I found out later, and an article here talked about it, our flight was precleared, there was no one they were interested in so the immigration guys just ignored those of us with US passports.
I have been around the world twice in the last 18 months and the only country I had trouble with was Japan. The guy couldn't understand that I was only going to be in Osaka for a day and wanted to enter the city to look around. Eventually he just stamped me and let me go.
I think hese people are wack jobs but I have felt something similar.
I had the fun experience of helping a friend set up his ISP's wireless network and on top of the tallest building in town is located an 800 MHz cell site. When working up there in proximity to the cell site (ie 15-25 feet) I could definately feel something odd, but when I went back downstairs I was fine and I have no after effects.
Exposure to high-intensity RF can do funny things to you, just look at chicken in the microwave, but the regular stuff we all live in won't hurt, much.;)
As a side note there was a sign up there that said something to the effect of, "WARNING: This area exceeds FCC limits for human exposure to RF."
IBM's commercials are pushing Linux more and more, and when it come to IBM, when you're talking Linux, you're talking Red Hat
Along those lines why shouldn't this push IBM into thinking about buying out Red Hat. IBM has shown reasonable committment to Linux, even integrating some into AIX.
Personally I think an IBM buy of RH would be the best for the world, and I think they might do it to keep it out of AOL's hands.
Obviously the easiest thing to do is to have an SUV with Starband and a proxy server in it with an 802.11 access point parked next to a tent with some tables and chairs and a bunch of laptops. Now, I'm assuming you do want to use this in inclement weather too. Then...
Use the largest van (trailer) you can legally drive around with (53' I think) and build in a slide out section on one side. If you figure the front five feet go to HVAC, servers, a generator (sound insulated, 5 kW may be more than enough, two 5 kW if you want to be sure and have a backup) and storage and use 4' per workstation you should be able to fit a total of 24 workstations in. I would seriously recommend using laptops with 802.11, again Starband and a proxy. During transport and parking of the van these can be stored in a secured location. You want to be careful you don't have too much trouble with vibration damage too, not much of a problem if you've got a suspension system in the vehicle or trailer.
Keep in mind you'll need an exit at both ends, you don't want to be the guy responsible for a bunch of kids getting incinerated.
Be careful with the lighting too. Think about a nice warm environment, the kind you'd like to work in.
There is a federal law written and passed a few years ago that supersedes all condo regulations, neighborhood associations, housing covenants, etc. that allows you to have a DBS satellite. (ie one of the 18" ones) I believe it to be called the Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1994. Your condo may not allow it if you damage it but they can't tell you you can't put the satellite on a pole in a bucket of concrete on your balcony.
I'm not saying that being 19 disqualifies one from being qualified for the job....but how do you have five years of experience? What companies hire 8th/9th graders into their IT staff??
Forward looking schools, like the one I went to. I was primarily reponsible for a small network (maybe 50 stations) when I was 14 in tenth grade. Yes, I learned Novell inside out then, then went on to bigger things as we expanded the network to include a connection to the Internet just before connecting to the Internet was the cool thing to do. I had hardware experience, software, and network experience as I got to bring it all together, along with a few friends who did the things I couldn't or didn't know how then.
My problem was always that I expected everyone I dealt with to be on my level, super-high IQ and smart. Well, people (in general) are not smart, and one of the best things I ever learned to do was to evaluate people and expect what they were capable of, not what I was capable of, from them. As others have mentioned a big part of the problem can be ego. When you're young (I'm 24 now) and given lots of power or authority it is easy to become a jerk. Step back and listen carefully to everyone, don't speak out of turn, learn how to interact in a professional business-like manner, dress better than you did in high school, and most of all, reign in the ego. Don't be humble to the point of being annoying, but don't let people think for a second that you're a pompus asshole, and be approachable! Pick your fights very carefully, if you have to fight at all. You've already got two strikes against you (age and age) and it's easy to strike out.
Basically, anyone building a new house is pretty much clueless if they dont run 1-2 cat5e or cat6 cables to every room. It costs nothing in comparison to the price of the house and eliminates future problems.
While this is true I find myself recommending that people pipe as well. On a single or two level house this is very easy and provides incredible flexibility. (ie You've got one RG-59 to your TV but decide you want DirectTV as well so you simply run the RG-6 through the basement and then up the conduit into the wall) This way the homeowner can run *anything* they want in the future and keep it in the walls.
Again, it does cost more, but you're not limited in capacity or medium in the future. But you're right, a few strands of CAT5 at the minimum.
Does anyone know if @home billed for service ahead of or after the month of service provided? If ahead of then I paid for 30 days of service and only got 10 days. I plan on calling my credit card company and asking them to reverse the charge.
I don't want to kick them while they're down but its bullshit that I paid for a service I am not getting, I am sure many others feel the same way. It's too bad there had to be a pissing contest with ATT.
Reuters has a story about Cingular building a nationwide 3G network.
Is this Nationwide or Nationwide*? You see, Nextel and Sprint have both advertised nationwide all-digital networks for the last few years. Now, I live in State College, Pennsylvania. We're about 100,000 people in the middle of nowhere. Nextel just turned up their network about a month or two ago, and Sprint did so about four months ago. So, to me, these networks are not nationwide.
I hate these companies that come out and say they have nationwide converage but really only service certain major cities or a few metro areas. Let's just be honest and say that services will be deployed in these cities and the rest of the country can stick with AMPS or something slightly newer.
So I guess the HandSpring Visor GSM phone I have with GSM service via Voicestream dosen't exist???
Yes, it does exist today, but how long have GSM networks been in the US? Maybe a few years at best. How about widespread deployment? Yah, in my small town (100,000 people) we just got our first GSM carrier this year, and they are some little podunk operation that won't do roaming. I can't wait until the AT&T conversion.
I just got back from India and Europe and am thoroughly embarrassed by our government's and wireless carriers' inability to play ball with the rest of the world. At least AT&T finally got the clue, I hope.
This talks about crashing a phone via SMS, but what about devices on CDPD or GPRS like those road signs or weather telemetry, or even electric meters in some locales. That's not only on the wireless network but on the IP network. Has anyone tried to muck with those devices yet? On most CDPD and GPRS plans the customer pays for each byte transmitted, what if someone just streams data towards a customer to run up their bill?
It is my understanding that the digital cable receivers and PVRs report 'anonymized' viewing data back to their creators/owners to provide a better idea of who is watching what. This can provide a better model from which to produce ratings information that can only benefit networks by allowing them to maximize viewership of shows that people like. The Neilson Ratings used to be collected through a notebook that had to be filled out. Shit, I'm too lazy to do that, but I don't terribly mind the cable company telling the networks that, for example, on Monday night at 9:00p that 27% of their 40,000 customers were watching Dennis Miller make an ass of himself on TV. (Was it me or did Dennis seem under the influence of something during the Steelers game?)
Anyway, in the long term I am all for paying for what I watch on TV. Video on demand via a subscription system using a PVR distribution architecture, in my opinion, is the way to go.
If you think about it we really only need six or eight live TV channels. The rest of the bandwidth can be used for distribution at a typical rate of 6:1. (Six channels worth of TV for every one 6 MHz analog channel) PVRs should be able to be built in quantity with up to 150 hours of recording at reasonable quality, maybe even with a cable modem built right in. As storage space continues its decline in price it is not unreasonable to expect 300 hour capacities within 24 months at a resonable price. Cable companies can use this to push content out to the edge of the network to provide true video on demand.
The nets need to embrace this technology and encourage it to mature. Maybe advertising could be permitted for something like 1 or 2 minutes every 30 minutes, and those who don't want to watch them can just FF through. Customers could complete a profile and receive targetted advertising or even regionally targetted advertising in a much more effective manner. Advertising should still exist because when not overused is an excellent conduit to introduce new products. The KEY is that it is NOT OVERUSED.
I have spoken about this subject before in regards to what Linux needs to accomplish before gaining desktop marketshare, but it is also relevant to this discussion.
As the top guy for my company's IT operation I have a responsibility to my users to provide a system that is simple for them to use and reliable to provide nearly uninterrupted use. On the desktop I typically deploy Windows 2000 now. I plan to avoid XP as long as I can. I am not a Microsoft fan by any means but I will freely admit that I think they got it pretty damn close to right on Win2k.
But for servers I run run run from Microsoft. My servers are one of AIX, Netware, or Linux. What does this give me? Great uptimes with minimal system maintenance on my part.
At this juncture in time I think a mixed environment is simply the best for usability and minimal management. As one of the other posters mentioned, Win2k can be locked down with policies to prevent users from mucking with things. Win2k on good hardware (A and T series Thinkpads for us) is very reliable. Our servers are obviouslby IBM for AIX, Compaq for Netware, and commodity hardware for Linux. For centralized authentication we are using NDS to serve out LDAP and radius to the proper devices.
I think this ends up giving the best of both worlds. Windows interface on the desktop with Unix/Netware on the backend for server reliability.
Go ahead and try it. Who here wouldn't retaliate against a terrorist/DoS attack?
Heh, reminds me of my favorite story of retaliation for attacks... I forget now where I read it but this kiddie had been breaking into this company's systems and deleting stuff, generally causing lots of no-fun problems. One would argue today that proper security would be a way to fix this, but I think this was before firewalls and the like were commonplace. The victims eventually flew to the attacker's town and staked out his house waiting for no one to be home. When the time was right they entered with baseball bats and destroyed anything with a chip in and left a note to the effect of, "How does it feel now?"
Really now, most states do have anti-unauthorized access laws on the books and mechanisms for regular citizens to charge people with crimes. (In PA anyway you can file a private complaint against someone and prosecute them yourself in district court at least.) The trick would be filing the complaint against a John Doe and seeking a subpoena against the RIAA to produce the attacker to stand trial. A few trips down this road and either the RIAA will be out of attackers or the attackers will quit with the realization that "I just followed orders" is not an appropriate defense.
I would recommend using federal court but I don't know what machanisms exist for prosecuting someone when you're a private citizen.
because the phone system is actively refusing to tell you this information, because they probably pay extra to get it this way.
Having some experience with high capacity voice at my office I can speak to this. When you receive a call that indicates 'Unknown' or 'Out of Area' what is really happening is the call is originating from a switch or network that does not provide CLID.I have quite a few circuits which do not produce CLID when I call out. For DTI (Digital Trunk Interface), basically regular voice lines on a T1, the LD carrier would have to program a CLID tied to each switch port and they're just not going to do it. On our PRI (ISDN on T1) circuits my telephone system sends CLID to the telco's network which passes it on to you. (Which makes it fun to call people with the caller id set to their number.) If someone calls you from Podunk, Kentucky, where thay're still on a crossbar switch they'll show up as 'Out of Area' as well. So be careful, some international calls will too.
If you really want to know who is calling you every time you pick up the phone invest in an 800 number and the equipment to receive ANI if the telco can't send it as CLID. It is impossible for a regular telephone customer to block or falsify their ANI. ANI is also used for 911 and 900 calls too, although I did find one phone sex operator who charged based on caller id. Knowing I could falsify CLID created quite a temptation. The downside is you will pay for every call you receive. The upside is I don't know of many telemarketers that acutally will call your 800 number. (unless they're selling office supplies!)
Re:How to win a war in the Middle East
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I've been thinking about how you would even go about trying to win a war in the middle east. It is quite a tricky problem.
But who do we really want to fight in the Middle East? The terrorists. How do we fight them? Now, that is the million dollar question.
My proposal is quite simple. Harrassment We make it widely known that US policy will be pro-active in the destruction of terrorist camps and infrastructure and that any collateral damage to a host country is not our problem. When we (or an ally) suffers a terrorist attack *ALL* terrorists get hit. If we can trace this to bin Laden then we should not only hit him but also any other terrorist group we can point a finger at. The result? Three things:
1: Reluctance among not only host countries but individuals who aid terrorist groups for fear of attack through no overt action of their own.
2: An overall weakening of all terrorist groups as their capabilities are reduced through loss of property and life and through disassociation from people and countries who enjoy not being bombed for others' actions.
3: Peer pressure from other terrorist groups not to attack us for fear of retaliation. Example, if I am in Hammas and bin Laden does something that I get bombed for, who should I be pissed of at? Of course I will be pissed at who bombed me, but I will also be pissed at bin Laden for getting me bombed when he knew it would.
The only way to prevent a terrorist attack is to make the terrorists fear the response. One of the goals of US retaliation policy for many years was to make it appear that the US would respond to any attack like a madman hungry for revenge. (Hence the authorization for the release of nuclear weapons as a response to chemical or biological attack on us or our troops) Now the time has come to implement that policy and a super-majority of Americans support it. The terrorists want fear in us. They're not going to get it. It's time for us to wield the big stick we've got and make them fear us. ("I fear we may have awoken a sleeping giant." or so)
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Ummm, probably every single person who has ever paid an ISP for access to the Internet. Not everyone gets it free from work or school, millions of Americans actually pay $20-$50 a month, sometimes more, for access. (sarcasm) Shouldn't we find some way for them to get access without paying for the full cost of the phone line and access? (/sarcasm)
Ah, and some of us still long for those days when that was the only way. Not NetSol being the only registrar but the simplicity of emailing in a change and having it go in the next database update.
Fond memories.
First, IANAL, but, if the person/entity making the threat of legal action has a legitimate claim then this is perfectly legal, this is how you entice someone to settle so that you don't have to spend the time and money to actually sue them to get what you want.
Now, if the person/entity threatening lawsuit have no legal basis for a claim you tell them to piss off. If they file suit you file a counterclaim for malicious prosecution, or in some jurisdictions harrasment by barratry.
It is always going to be digital and calculated based on your position, but whether you want geographic north or magnetic north is up to you and the user typically can select which they want. The GPS receiver can be told where magnetic north is and calculates direction just the same as it would for true north.
I remember my Garmin knew that my magnetic deviation is 11W in central PA. Altho the $64,000 question is: Is there a way to update the position used as magnetic north in the GPS receiver so that it will be accurate in 10 years? Or for someone how knows better than I, does the GPS data stream include/can it include this information?
I personally don't like HP and I LOVE Compaq. I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, I LOVE the Proliant server line. I have been doing this pushing 20 years and I'd put a Compaq box up against anything.
To start: Me Too.
I've been buying and running Compaq servers for as long as I've been working on servers, about eight years now. Compaq builds a kick-ass server, but this merger is going to make me walk away from them. About two years ago I started buying desktops and laptops from IBM, the Thinkpad is just killer, but with HP most likely influencing Compaq's server line in a negative fashion I am pretty sure I am going to start buying IBM servers. What this means to me is that I will buy IBM until Big Blue gives me a reason not to.
NPR, surprisingly enough, had a short segment on this last week. They interviewed some sysadmins and asked what we thought. A lot of guys felt like I do, either for HP or for Compaq, and as a result of the unknowns of the merger were going to pull business, others liked one's workstations and the other's servers and hoped the merger would keep what they perceived as the best of both worlds.
No one knows what is going to come out of this, but what I do know is that for the forseeable future IBM has a new server customer or few.
Based on that what is to stop Creative from shipping a diskless model that requires the end user to install their own hard disk thus placing the burden of paying the tax on the consumer. For those of us south of the border it would be analogous to purchasing from a vendor outside your own state and having it shipped in to avoid sales tax. Just like a state government with regards to the sales tax I am sure the Canadian government would require its citizens to report the tax and pay it, but come on, who really does?
(Yes, I understand that most consumers would be incapable of doing it themselves, but most people know a geek and how many of us would help out to keep the RIAA and friends from collecting on this tax?) The side benefit is that the consumer can use any size laptop drive they desire.
Just a quick note for those complaining about how this has a "right" slant to it, it is most likely because it is in the "VIEWS" section of Fox News. Look at the pretty little graphic at the top of the screen, it says it plain as day.
Not an uptime guaruntee per se but my SLA with uunet provides for a full month's refund for as little as 15 minutes of unscheduled downtime. Seems like quite a motivating factor. We also pay >$1200 for service each month, so we're not talking low-revenue residential here.
For those like me who have only one broadband option and need a definite backup plan, think about Starband or even uunet's VSAT service as a backup. Sure latency might be fun but it will give you access when nothing else will.
This makes a common point about a lot of cities in Pennsylvania. I live in State College, none of the municipalities here have been able to pass consolidation so we're still a bunch of little governments. I live in Patton Township where my wage tax is 1%, but the borough of State College is 1.8%. One local business (Accuweather) moved to Ferguson Township to escape the borough's business taxes. (Along with building a new building a few years ago, but taxes were a factor as I understand it)
The point is that a lot of cities/municipalities have higher taxes than those nearby. Whatever you do don't move to Maryland. Not only are taxes higher there but your rights mean nothing to the state government.
The government in PA and in Pittsburgh has been talking a lot about trying to make Pittsburgh into a tech city to help make up for the problems in the steel industry. PA's state income tax is 2.8%, and sales tax is 6% on non-necessity items. No yearly personal property tax on cars and the like, altho your house will be taxed by the local government. Another poster mentioned the "Small Business Bribery Zones" that the gov't has put in place as well. Basically, you move your business into one of the development zones and pay no state taxes for 10 years. Woo.
In my experience in flying between European countries customs has been a joke, if anyone was even there to talk to. Hell, my last trip over in November I didn't even get an entry stamp.
Single male entering Thailand - visa declined
US passport holders are not required to have a visa for stays of less than 30 days. Thailand is part of the visa waiver program. Before I started travelling a lot (office in India) I thought it was difficult to go some of these places. It isn't. The visa waiver program makes it very easy, and for most other places it just takes a little bit of money. I realize it is ethnocentric to say but in my experience merely holding a US passport changes the ease with which one can move between certain countries.
I see your point, however, that if we (Americans) begin to profile people based on their ethnicity that we should also expect to be examined in a similar manner entering other countries. Well, I have news for you. We're already pulling Arabs aside! I flew from Heathrow to Dulles about a month ago and found that the United gate agent had a list of people she wanted to hand check. They asked what seat you were in (1D for me! upfront is nice) and if you weren't who they wanted you got to board, if you were unlucky you had your bags hand inspected. Let's just say when I went through there weren't any white people being checked out.
Another anecdotal note, when I came home in December 2000 via Dulles no one even looked at my passport. As I found out later, and an article here talked about it, our flight was precleared, there was no one they were interested in so the immigration guys just ignored those of us with US passports.
I have been around the world twice in the last 18 months and the only country I had trouble with was Japan. The guy couldn't understand that I was only going to be in Osaka for a day and wanted to enter the city to look around. Eventually he just stamped me and let me go.
I had the fun experience of helping a friend set up his ISP's wireless network and on top of the tallest building in town is located an 800 MHz cell site. When working up there in proximity to the cell site (ie 15-25 feet) I could definately feel something odd, but when I went back downstairs I was fine and I have no after effects.
Exposure to high-intensity RF can do funny things to you, just look at chicken in the microwave, but the regular stuff we all live in won't hurt, much. ;)
As a side note there was a sign up there that said something to the effect of, "WARNING: This area exceeds FCC limits for human exposure to RF."
Along those lines why shouldn't this push IBM into thinking about buying out Red Hat. IBM has shown reasonable committment to Linux, even integrating some into AIX.
Personally I think an IBM buy of RH would be the best for the world, and I think they might do it to keep it out of AOL's hands.
Obviously the easiest thing to do is to have an SUV with Starband and a proxy server in it with an 802.11 access point parked next to a tent with some tables and chairs and a bunch of laptops. Now, I'm assuming you do want to use this in inclement weather too. Then...
Use the largest van (trailer) you can legally drive around with (53' I think) and build in a slide out section on one side. If you figure the front five feet go to HVAC, servers, a generator (sound insulated, 5 kW may be more than enough, two 5 kW if you want to be sure and have a backup) and storage and use 4' per workstation you should be able to fit a total of 24 workstations in. I would seriously recommend using laptops with 802.11, again Starband and a proxy. During transport and parking of the van these can be stored in a secured location. You want to be careful you don't have too much trouble with vibration damage too, not much of a problem if you've got a suspension system in the vehicle or trailer.
Keep in mind you'll need an exit at both ends, you don't want to be the guy responsible for a bunch of kids getting incinerated.
Be careful with the lighting too. Think about a nice warm environment, the kind you'd like to work in.
There is a federal law written and passed a few years ago that supersedes all condo regulations, neighborhood associations, housing covenants, etc. that allows you to have a DBS satellite. (ie one of the 18" ones) I believe it to be called the Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1994. Your condo may not allow it if you damage it but they can't tell you you can't put the satellite on a pole in a bucket of concrete on your balcony.
Forward looking schools, like the one I went to. I was primarily reponsible for a small network (maybe 50 stations) when I was 14 in tenth grade. Yes, I learned Novell inside out then, then went on to bigger things as we expanded the network to include a connection to the Internet just before connecting to the Internet was the cool thing to do. I had hardware experience, software, and network experience as I got to bring it all together, along with a few friends who did the things I couldn't or didn't know how then.
My problem was always that I expected everyone I dealt with to be on my level, super-high IQ and smart. Well, people (in general) are not smart, and one of the best things I ever learned to do was to evaluate people and expect what they were capable of, not what I was capable of, from them. As others have mentioned a big part of the problem can be ego. When you're young (I'm 24 now) and given lots of power or authority it is easy to become a jerk. Step back and listen carefully to everyone, don't speak out of turn, learn how to interact in a professional business-like manner, dress better than you did in high school, and most of all, reign in the ego. Don't be humble to the point of being annoying, but don't let people think for a second that you're a pompus asshole, and be approachable! Pick your fights very carefully, if you have to fight at all. You've already got two strikes against you (age and age) and it's easy to strike out.
While this is true I find myself recommending that people pipe as well. On a single or two level house this is very easy and provides incredible flexibility. (ie You've got one RG-59 to your TV but decide you want DirectTV as well so you simply run the RG-6 through the basement and then up the conduit into the wall) This way the homeowner can run *anything* they want in the future and keep it in the walls.
Again, it does cost more, but you're not limited in capacity or medium in the future. But you're right, a few strands of CAT5 at the minimum.
Does anyone know if @home billed for service ahead of or after the month of service provided? If ahead of then I paid for 30 days of service and only got 10 days. I plan on calling my credit card company and asking them to reverse the charge.
I don't want to kick them while they're down but its bullshit that I paid for a service I am not getting, I am sure many others feel the same way. It's too bad there had to be a pissing contest with ATT.
Reuters has a story about Cingular building a nationwide 3G network.
Is this Nationwide or Nationwide*? You see, Nextel and Sprint have both advertised nationwide all-digital networks for the last few years. Now, I live in State College, Pennsylvania. We're about 100,000 people in the middle of nowhere. Nextel just turned up their network about a month or two ago, and Sprint did so about four months ago. So, to me, these networks are not nationwide.
I hate these companies that come out and say they have nationwide converage but really only service certain major cities or a few metro areas. Let's just be honest and say that services will be deployed in these cities and the rest of the country can stick with AMPS or something slightly newer.
Yes, it does exist today, but how long have GSM networks been in the US? Maybe a few years at best. How about widespread deployment? Yah, in my small town (100,000 people) we just got our first GSM carrier this year, and they are some little podunk operation that won't do roaming. I can't wait until the AT&T conversion.
I just got back from India and Europe and am thoroughly embarrassed by our government's and wireless carriers' inability to play ball with the rest of the world. At least AT&T finally got the clue, I hope.
This talks about crashing a phone via SMS, but what about devices on CDPD or GPRS like those road signs or weather telemetry, or even electric meters in some locales. That's not only on the wireless network but on the IP network. Has anyone tried to muck with those devices yet? On most CDPD and GPRS plans the customer pays for each byte transmitted, what if someone just streams data towards a customer to run up their bill?
It is my understanding that the digital cable receivers and PVRs report 'anonymized' viewing data back to their creators/owners to provide a better idea of who is watching what. This can provide a better model from which to produce ratings information that can only benefit networks by allowing them to maximize viewership of shows that people like. The Neilson Ratings used to be collected through a notebook that had to be filled out. Shit, I'm too lazy to do that, but I don't terribly mind the cable company telling the networks that, for example, on Monday night at 9:00p that 27% of their 40,000 customers were watching Dennis Miller make an ass of himself on TV. (Was it me or did Dennis seem under the influence of something during the Steelers game?)
Anyway, in the long term I am all for paying for what I watch on TV. Video on demand via a subscription system using a PVR distribution architecture, in my opinion, is the way to go.
If you think about it we really only need six or eight live TV channels. The rest of the bandwidth can be used for distribution at a typical rate of 6:1. (Six channels worth of TV for every one 6 MHz analog channel) PVRs should be able to be built in quantity with up to 150 hours of recording at reasonable quality, maybe even with a cable modem built right in. As storage space continues its decline in price it is not unreasonable to expect 300 hour capacities within 24 months at a resonable price. Cable companies can use this to push content out to the edge of the network to provide true video on demand.
The nets need to embrace this technology and encourage it to mature. Maybe advertising could be permitted for something like 1 or 2 minutes every 30 minutes, and those who don't want to watch them can just FF through. Customers could complete a profile and receive targetted advertising or even regionally targetted advertising in a much more effective manner. Advertising should still exist because when not overused is an excellent conduit to introduce new products. The KEY is that it is NOT OVERUSED.
I have spoken about this subject before in regards to what Linux needs to accomplish before gaining desktop marketshare, but it is also relevant to this discussion.
As the top guy for my company's IT operation I have a responsibility to my users to provide a system that is simple for them to use and reliable to provide nearly uninterrupted use. On the desktop I typically deploy Windows 2000 now. I plan to avoid XP as long as I can. I am not a Microsoft fan by any means but I will freely admit that I think they got it pretty damn close to right on Win2k.
But for servers I run run run from Microsoft. My servers are one of AIX, Netware, or Linux. What does this give me? Great uptimes with minimal system maintenance on my part.
At this juncture in time I think a mixed environment is simply the best for usability and minimal management. As one of the other posters mentioned, Win2k can be locked down with policies to prevent users from mucking with things. Win2k on good hardware (A and T series Thinkpads for us) is very reliable. Our servers are obviouslby IBM for AIX, Compaq for Netware, and commodity hardware for Linux. For centralized authentication we are using NDS to serve out LDAP and radius to the proper devices.
I think this ends up giving the best of both worlds. Windows interface on the desktop with Unix/Netware on the backend for server reliability.
Heh, reminds me of my favorite story of retaliation for attacks... I forget now where I read it but this kiddie had been breaking into this company's systems and deleting stuff, generally causing lots of no-fun problems. One would argue today that proper security would be a way to fix this, but I think this was before firewalls and the like were commonplace. The victims eventually flew to the attacker's town and staked out his house waiting for no one to be home. When the time was right they entered with baseball bats and destroyed anything with a chip in and left a note to the effect of, "How does it feel now?"
Really now, most states do have anti-unauthorized access laws on the books and mechanisms for regular citizens to charge people with crimes. (In PA anyway you can file a private complaint against someone and prosecute them yourself in district court at least.) The trick would be filing the complaint against a John Doe and seeking a subpoena against the RIAA to produce the attacker to stand trial. A few trips down this road and either the RIAA will be out of attackers or the attackers will quit with the realization that "I just followed orders" is not an appropriate defense.
I would recommend using federal court but I don't know what machanisms exist for prosecuting someone when you're a private citizen.
Having some experience with high capacity voice at my office I can speak to this. When you receive a call that indicates 'Unknown' or 'Out of Area' what is really happening is the call is originating from a switch or network that does not provide CLID.I have quite a few circuits which do not produce CLID when I call out. For DTI (Digital Trunk Interface), basically regular voice lines on a T1, the LD carrier would have to program a CLID tied to each switch port and they're just not going to do it. On our PRI (ISDN on T1) circuits my telephone system sends CLID to the telco's network which passes it on to you. (Which makes it fun to call people with the caller id set to their number.) If someone calls you from Podunk, Kentucky, where thay're still on a crossbar switch they'll show up as 'Out of Area' as well. So be careful, some international calls will too.
If you really want to know who is calling you every time you pick up the phone invest in an 800 number and the equipment to receive ANI if the telco can't send it as CLID. It is impossible for a regular telephone customer to block or falsify their ANI. ANI is also used for 911 and 900 calls too, although I did find one phone sex operator who charged based on caller id. Knowing I could falsify CLID created quite a temptation. The downside is you will pay for every call you receive. The upside is I don't know of many telemarketers that acutally will call your 800 number. (unless they're selling office supplies!)
But who do we really want to fight in the Middle East? The terrorists. How do we fight them? Now, that is the million dollar question.
My proposal is quite simple. Harrassment We make it widely known that US policy will be pro-active in the destruction of terrorist camps and infrastructure and that any collateral damage to a host country is not our problem. When we (or an ally) suffers a terrorist attack *ALL* terrorists get hit. If we can trace this to bin Laden then we should not only hit him but also any other terrorist group we can point a finger at. The result? Three things:
1: Reluctance among not only host countries but individuals who aid terrorist groups for fear of attack through no overt action of their own.
2: An overall weakening of all terrorist groups as their capabilities are reduced through loss of property and life and through disassociation from people and countries who enjoy not being bombed for others' actions.
3: Peer pressure from other terrorist groups not to attack us for fear of retaliation. Example, if I am in Hammas and bin Laden does something that I get bombed for, who should I be pissed of at? Of course I will be pissed at who bombed me, but I will also be pissed at bin Laden for getting me bombed when he knew it would.
The only way to prevent a terrorist attack is to make the terrorists fear the response. One of the goals of US retaliation policy for many years was to make it appear that the US would respond to any attack like a madman hungry for revenge. (Hence the authorization for the release of nuclear weapons as a response to chemical or biological attack on us or our troops) Now the time has come to implement that policy and a super-majority of Americans support it. The terrorists want fear in us. They're not going to get it. It's time for us to wield the big stick we've got and make them fear us. ("I fear we may have awoken a sleeping giant." or so)