Posts

Showing posts with the label network

My Experience Using Blogger with My Own Domain

UPDATE June 25, 09: I heard back from GoDaddy Support this morning, we clear and accurate instructions. I think by the time you see this, you will be able to once again get to my blog at www.CHRISdotTODD.com -- now I just need to get CHRISdotTODD.com to work. I thought I knew my way around the web, how to develop and post content and apps, etc. One area I've not spent time with is domain registration and management. When I started CHRISdotTODD.com , it took about 3 clicks and $10 to get setup on Blogger (part of the Google family). I was led to believe that Blogger would make sure I had a chance to renew, and never lose my domain -- very similar to how they remind me annually to pay an extra $10 for extra space I use. This seemed like a great way to have my own domain, and not have to learn any more about the real guts that keep the Internet working for us. Well, turns out on May 1st my domain registration had expired and Blogger never bothered to notify me. Since I've been b

Use Verizon and everyone will think you're from Canada

I've been using Verizon FIOS for about a year, and up until recently I've been happy. Unfortunately, recently my ip address (which Verizon assigns to my router) changed and now it appears I'm coming from Toronto, Canada. In fact if I run a Trace Route, it says I'm coming from Toronto, Canada as it's taking 21 hops and traveling over 2100 miles within the Verizon network before they release me onto the Internet. Hop Time Host IP Location 1 1.183 xo-gateway 140.239.191.1 Rowland Heights, CA, United States 2 7.517 ip65-47-242-9.z242-47-65.customer.algx.net 65.47.242.9 Culver City, CA, United States 3 7.119 ge6-3-0d0.mar1.santaana-ca.us.xo.net 207.88.81.193 , , United States 4 8.589 p5-1-0-3d0.rar1.la-ca.us.xo.net 65.106.5.81 , , United States 5 9.406 te-4-1-0.rar3.la-ca.us.xo.net 207.88.12.153 , , United States 6 22.022 207.88.12.154.ptr.us.xo.net 207.88.12.154 , , United States 7 9.234 205.158.79.122.ptr.us.xo.net 205.158.79.122 , , United States 8 12.424 0.so-2-2-0

AT&T gets on the bandwagon with network slowdown practices

AT&T has released new information that they will also start degrading customer network throughput for those that use more than what AT&T would consider average. You can read all the terms of service on the AT&T site . Here are some highlights in order of appearance, followed by my commentary: Broadband access is provided in speed tiers of: (1) 200 Kbps to 768 Kbps downstream (not available for AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet service) (2) 769 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps downstream (3) 1.56 Mbps to 3.0 Mbps downstream (4) 3.1 Mbps to 6.0 Mbps downstream; (5) 6.1 Mbps to 10.0 Mbps (available only with AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet service) (collectively “Service Capability Speeds”)... ... AT&T Uverse High Speed Internet throughput speeds may be temporarily reduced when a customer is using other U-verse services in a manner that requires high bandwidth. This could occur more often with higher speed Internet access products. ... While this performance optimization process w

Microsoft Update + ZoneAlarm = No Internet Access

With the last Microsoft patch this past Tuesday, if you were a user of ZoneAlarm , you were no longer able to access the Internet. I happen to be one of those users. I could get to my router, but not the Internet. Other devices on my network, of course, also were able to access the Internet. When I finally discovered that ZoneAlarm was the problem, I found a reference on the ZoneAlarm site . Apparently the patch was fixing quite a serious flaw in Internet addressing. "You'd have the Internet, but it wouldn't be the Internet you expect. (Hackers) would control everything." - Securosis analyst Rich Mogul I find it funny that fixing the flaw caused ZoneAlarm problems. Anyway, if you're finding this post, then you were not affected or you have solved the problem.

Free Secure Wireless Connection from your Home

If you're lucky enough to have free access to a wireless Internet hot-spot, it's easy to connect your entire home network to it and get free Internet access. David A. Karp explains how with just a few slides at PC Magazine (pcmag.com). This is a great solution if you live in an apartment complex or close in the city.

Testing / Improving Your Wireless Connection

Image
A while back I had reported difficulty with the reliability of my wireless connection. I learned that different channels may perform better than others, and by switching, my wireless connection is much more reliable. There are also various tools that can help the educated person with their wireless network. NetStumbler is one such program. With NetStumbler, you can test the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The higher, the better (i.e. a lower number is bad).

Troubleshooting Your Internet Connection

I seemed to have found several good resources related to speed and connectivity issues. My wife in particular has been frustrated that certain http connections seem slower than most – more specifically Yahoo! And Go Daddy . I decided to do some investigation, including whether I have other options besides Comcast (which I do not if I want broadband). I found a site called T1 Shopper , which provides tools and help, plus links to bandwidth testers. For example, here is their information on traceroute . They can even run a traceroute from their end to me, though Comcast seems to block the last hop. T1 Shopper also offers a download calculator . I cannot speak about the services they can hook you up with, but I believe the resources are great. Back to my connectivity issue. Here is what I sent to Comcast. Does this seem technically right? Any suggestions for better ways to troubleshoot and report connectivity issues? It seems we have problems connecting to websites reliably. My wife no

D-Link Router Vulnerability and UPnP

eEye Digital Research notified D-Link in February of a flaw in their firmware in several of their routers. After six months of not correcting, eEye has notified the rest of us. If you have one of these routers, you may want to put some pressure on D-Link to correct this bug. In the mean time, if you turn of Universal Plug-n-Play (UPnP), it will prevent the problem. For that matter, you may want to turn off UPnP whether you have this router or not. UPnP was designed to make it easy for non-technical types to get their router properly configured by software. The problem is that when enabled, any malware running on your PC could change your router settings without you knowing. Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte first discussed the dangers of UPnP in Episode 3 of Security Now in September 2005. Why then do we have UPnP? Microsoft has an article that talks about all the benefits to UPnP here . Regardless of the benefits, turn it off -- Learn to make the manual changes required, so you fully und

How fast is your connection?

Image
You may find that your ISP is already offering tiered Internet service -- mine does (Comcast). If that is the case, you better check and make sure you are getting the speeds you are promised. How might you do that? Try Speedtest.net . You will need Flash 8, though they promise a Flash 7 version for Linux users (this week). Fortunately, I had pretty good results with the testing. I wonder if Comcast keeps up at the higher speeds.