I suppose it makes sense…
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/05/shouty_sun_engineer/
Credits: Cory Stevens
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05Jan
Tags: Hard Drives, Latency, Noise
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05Jan
Ever wonder who the first “.com” was? Well, now you’ll know not only that, but the next 99 after the granddaddy of them all:
http://tech.msn.com/products/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=16348222
Tags: Internet, Oldest Domain
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22Dec
Priceless…
Tags: Tech Support, Website
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13Dec
So, apparently in the infinite wisdom of the nation’s largest cable television company, Comcast, it was decided that while everyone is confused about the “Broadcast” digital transition in February 2009 - it was the perfect opportunity to have a “transition” of their own for Washington State residents.
That’s right. Lets just get it all done at the same time. Even more amusing, Comcast has invested heavily into their “if you have Comcast, we’ve got you covered” campaign - even saying on their own website “Your Ready Already” if you’re connected to Cable television through their lines. Brilliant.
This article from The Seattle Time’s columnist Brier Dudley goes on to greater detail about it. He thinks we’re about 4-months out.
Merry Christmas!
Tags: Comcast, DTV, Transition
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04Dec
So this is a new one, at least for me.
Today I come across a nasty malware infection from a computer I’m working on - Something Windows Defender calls “TojanDownloader:Win32/Zlob.ANS”. Sounds somewhat familiar.
I pull out my trusty old Friend MalwareBytes. It removes a slew of stuff. Reboot the machine, scan again, finds a few more pieces, takes ‘em out. No problem.
Then I try to open up a webpage. No love. Hmm… Wonder why? Hosed network stack? No, I’m remoted into the system…
I notice that I can ping to my hearts content. That’s odd. Yet when I try to open up a page it’s almost like my requests from the browser are hitting a dead wall off the cuff… Proxy settings? This network dosen’t use them…
Sure enough, I check and lookie what I see:
So, whatever the flip was installed, was proxying all traffic through itself. Nice. It’s gone now, so no big deal. But I sure hope no passwords were sent whilst it was listening…
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19Nov
So, I’m on hold with McAfee Gold support. They tell me there is going to be a delay due to “extended hold times”. Great. But instead of cheesy music, or even silence as I hold, I hear this:
“How many times have you accidentally dumped too much salt into your pot of food while its cooking? Well, you don’t have to start over from scratch. Simply drop in a peeled potato. It’ll absorbe the excess salt for an instant recipe repair.”
Thanks… Mom?
So much for the elevator music…
Tags: McAfee, Tech Support
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18Sep
How things have changed…
Credit: Adam Cozens
Tags: Funny, Lean Computers, Time Life
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08Aug
Hackers at the DefCon Conference going nuts at the “LAN Party” table.
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05Aug
Gets the grease, as they say.
Adobe decided to give me grief today about an ‘upgrade/platform swap’ between Adobe PhotoShop 7.0 Upgrade (PC) -> Adobe PhotoShop CS3 Upgrade (Mac) as well as Adobe Illustrator 10 Upgrade (PC) -> Adobe Illustrator CS3 Upgrade (Mac).
Apparently, even though they allow you to ’swap platforms’ - the official rule, per the rep I talked to, is to only do this when the upgrade is completed on a single platform.
Confused? In other words, in this scenario where we were moving both to the new versions of the software AND going from a PC to a Mac at the same time, you have to do a ‘two-step’, if you will.
Upgrade the older PC software to the latest version first, and THEN call Adobe for a platform swap, at which point they’ll send you the CDs for the platform you wish to move to (for free, they claim).
When I bitched, whined, moaned, and complained that just a month ago we did this same process with InDesign and they gave me *no* issues (and after the better part of an hour on the phone), the rep *reluctantly* gave me an exception and provided the challenge/response codes needed to activate the new CS3 versions, on the Mac platform, without using the older (PC) serial numbers.
So, what’s the moral of the story?
Either do it the way Adobe wants you to - or just hunker down and keep whining until the rep can’t take it anymore.
The later was kinda fun
Tags: Adobe, Illustrator, PhotoShop, Platform Swap, Tech Support, Upgrade
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05Aug
Seeing their global competition in Sweden, according to Engadget, it looks like Comcast, with the help of DOCSIS 3.0, is hoping to bump up speeds for “20% of its [customer] footprint” to 160Mbps down / 120Mbps up - by the end of 2008 (not holding my breath). And as an added bonus, Comcast even says they’ll stop their ‘ol hack the TCP stack method of quasi-bandwidth thottleling (AKA, kill off BitTorrent, and everyone but the seeders/leechers are happy).
Sounds spiffy. Here is my only question/comment/gripe.
Aside from finally (yet, officially not) admitting they were discriminating against BitTorrent use and further reveling they’ll be working with the BitTorrent folks to expeditiously (as in, 8 months) find a better way to “manage” network resources, if you (Comcast) are REALLY going to bump up speeds so much… Totally blow our poor 10/100 cards (well, I run gigabit, so not me - shamless nerd-plug) out of the water and give us a major “Power Boost” (no pun intended); why on earth are we NOT talking about a symentrical offering.
We’ll, I should be fair. It’s not JUST Comcast. Looking at SpeakEasy’s ADSL2 offerings, they will do 8/1, 10/1, and all the way up to 15/1 (if you live less than 3.46 feet from the CO). FiOS (if you can even get it at all) is drinking the Kool-Aid too. According to their manifest, they offer 5/2, 15/2, 15/15, and 30/15 packages. Okay, so they at least have a (single) symmetrical option. But WHY aren’t they all? If it’s about giving “options” to the customer, okay FiOS, do 5/5, 15/15, and 30/30 packages. Okay SpeakEasy, do 8/8, 10/10, and 15/15 price-points. I just don’t see the logic anymore.
The school of thought, I think, was that people do more “downloading” then they do “uploading”. It’s been tried to be explained many times. Maybe at one time this made sense. But in this VoIP-talking, XBox Live-playing, P2P-sharing world - this just doesn’t pass the smell test.
I mean, this is America. We have re-defined family time for the better. Look how much we have evolved. In a sense, we’ve reached the “Gold Standard” in raising our families. We’ve come up with advanced ways to get to know each other. We’ve made ourselves the defacto experts in the ability to focus in on our individual needs. But the pinnacle of our success, where we with out a doubt shine the most, is in lovingly paying personal attention to one another:
Back on topic now. Besides, who turns on their computer to simply visit a “web page” anymore. And how much bandwidth does that take anyway? It’s peanuts compared to the aforementioned services. If anything, dare I be controversial, I’d almost think it should be reversed - A big upload pipe and for those “pesky webpages” a slightly smaller download pipe. I’d just be happy if they just made them all the same, honestly. Could you imagine, in a business if your copying a file on the file server to your desktop took 5 seconds, but your copying the same file back took 50 - 75 seconds. My customers would riot.
I mean, it’s just dumb, honestly. If you give someone, now, access to a 160Mbps pipe, they will be hard pressed to max it out under normal browsing / downloading circumstances anyway. How many non-ginormus companies are paying for the kind of bandwidth needed to max out the down-link of these end-user modems. Who knows, maybe this kind of competition will be the catalyst in driving down the outragious price per Mb for datacenter connectivity (bonus!). If something doesn’t change in enterprise bandwidth pricing, it’ll be pretty funny when/if the day comes where you’re hard pressed to find your downloads bottle-necking at the neighborhood node and it becomes common place where any slow down ends up being at the head-end because companies simply can’t afford enough bandwidth at their datacenters.
The same goes for the uplink. Which is precisely what bothers me so much about this “stcking with the old” mentatlity. In the (relatively) lower speed offerings of today, I suppose I can understand the “value” placed on the uplink, and why for example, your SDSLs often command a premium over your ADSL counterparts. But 160Mbps/120Mbps? It feels like a slap in the face.
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help getting this vision of some overly juicy, double-venti oct-shot drinking, and/or otherwise just plain odd CEO kicking back in his executive leather high-back chair giggling to himself over how pleased he is that even with great new offerings like this, he’s “still able to stick it to ‘em on the uplink”.
*Shakes Angry Fist*
Tags: Comcast, DOCSIS 3.0, Internet
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