Tag: rants

Blocking Ping

I just found out (almost by accident) that the U of C has decided to block ping. I knew ping wasn’t working – hasn’t been for what feels like forever. I just heard today that it was a deliberate move to block the port used by ping – to prevent hacking of unsecured Windows boxes using those ports.

So, let me get this straight. You’ve got a bunch of renegade unpatched Windows boxes on campus. Possibly 0wned. And, instead of, you know, fixing the problem by patching and securing the boxes, you block frigging ping. Great. Because, of course, ping has no useful purpose aside from hacking lazily managed Windows boxes. It’s not handy at all for doing things like diagnosing network problems, or monitoring servers, or whatnot.

On a positive note, I discovered that the U of C has (at least temporarily) decided to allow access to the iTunes Music Store. I was able to connect today and download Tuesday’s Free Song.

I just found out (almost by accident) that the U of C has decided to block ping. I knew ping wasn’t working – hasn’t been for what feels like forever. I just heard today that it was a deliberate move to block the port used by ping – to prevent hacking of unsecured Windows boxes using those ports.

So, let me get this straight. You’ve got a bunch of renegade unpatched Windows boxes on campus. Possibly 0wned. And, instead of, you know, fixing the problem by patching and securing the boxes, you block frigging ping. Great. Because, of course, ping has no useful purpose aside from hacking lazily managed Windows boxes. It’s not handy at all for doing things like diagnosing network problems, or monitoring servers, or whatnot.

On a positive note, I discovered that the U of C has (at least temporarily) decided to allow access to the iTunes Music Store. I was able to connect today and download Tuesday’s Free Song.

I hate April Fool’s Day

Every year, it’s the same crap. Websites trying to be clever by inventing “funny” fake items for April 1. Every year, my RSS reader gets filled with silly, inane little stunts. And it takes a few seconds for my crapfilter to kick in.

Maybe I’m just turning into a cranky old kurmudgeon (maybe? definitely?), but I don’t find 99% of these pranks even remotely funny. The Google Juice one was entertaining. And James Farmer’s “job offer” from WebCT. That’s about it this year. And all of the posts with interesting, but otherwise unusual content having to have “This is not an April Fool’s Joke” disclaimers is just frigging annoying.

I can’t wait for a week or so, for when these silly little timewasters have dropped out of the RSS feeds…

Update: Ha! Once again, Josh and I are on the same wavelength… We posted within an hour of each other, without seeing each other’s posts.

Update: BareBones Software, the makers of BBEdit, posted a perfect example of what I’m talking about. It probably took a group of people a good part of a day to come up with something that sounds awfully close to a real product announcement. Acronyms for APRIL and FOOLS etc… Why waste so much energy on this? I’m baffled. Oh, right. Because it’s “funny.”

Every year, it’s the same crap. Websites trying to be clever by inventing “funny” fake items for April 1. Every year, my RSS reader gets filled with silly, inane little stunts. And it takes a few seconds for my crapfilter to kick in.

Maybe I’m just turning into a cranky old kurmudgeon (maybe? definitely?), but I don’t find 99% of these pranks even remotely funny. The Google Juice one was entertaining. And James Farmer’s “job offer” from WebCT. That’s about it this year. And all of the posts with interesting, but otherwise unusual content having to have “This is not an April Fool’s Joke” disclaimers is just frigging annoying.

I can’t wait for a week or so, for when these silly little timewasters have dropped out of the RSS feeds…

Update: Ha! Once again, Josh and I are on the same wavelength… We posted within an hour of each other, without seeing each other’s posts.

Update: BareBones Software, the makers of BBEdit, posted a perfect example of what I’m talking about. It probably took a group of people a good part of a day to come up with something that sounds awfully close to a real product announcement. Acronyms for APRIL and FOOLS etc… Why waste so much energy on this? I’m baffled. Oh, right. Because it’s “funny.”

John Carmack Blogs – without RSS?

OK. A rant taken from Robert Scoble‘s playlist.

John Carmack – the guy that wrote Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena, Doom 3, and is trying to get into orbit with his own personal venture – has a blog.

But no RSS. WTF? Is he hand-rolling the pages in EMACS? Using some POS app that doesn’t do RSS? Have enough rock-star-zillionaire-programmer-groupies that he can’t imagine people not camping on his page waiting for updates?

I’m perfectly fine with his once-per-season posting routine – but when he does post something, I’ll want to read it, and I’ll never know about with without an RSS feed…

OK. A rant taken from Robert Scoble‘s playlist.

John Carmack – the guy that wrote Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena, Doom 3, and is trying to get into orbit with his own personal venture – has a blog.

But no RSS. WTF? Is he hand-rolling the pages in EMACS? Using some POS app that doesn’t do RSS? Have enough rock-star-zillionaire-programmer-groupies that he can’t imagine people not camping on his page waiting for updates?

I’m perfectly fine with his once-per-season posting routine – but when he does post something, I’ll want to read it, and I’ll never know about with without an RSS feed…

Network Problems at the U of C

If you’re trying to access any services on campus at the University of Calgary – it looks like our network connection took the Easter weekend off… All servers are up and running fine, but the pipe is plugged, so it’s slow going if you are trying to connect to anything on campus.

Which means I’ll have to put my tweaks to weblogs.ucalgary.ca on hold for a bit. Perhaps it’s a sign?

Hopefully it gets ironed out quickly, but everyone should be home eating chocolate bunny ears, so it may wait until Tuesday 🙂

Update: Sunday morning, and things appear to be more-or-less back in operation. At least weblogs.ucalgary.ca and the wiki are responding again…

If you’re trying to access any services on campus at the University of Calgary – it looks like our network connection took the Easter weekend off… All servers are up and running fine, but the pipe is plugged, so it’s slow going if you are trying to connect to anything on campus.

Which means I’ll have to put my tweaks to weblogs.ucalgary.ca on hold for a bit. Perhaps it’s a sign?

Hopefully it gets ironed out quickly, but everyone should be home eating chocolate bunny ears, so it may wait until Tuesday 🙂

Update: Sunday morning, and things appear to be more-or-less back in operation. At least weblogs.ucalgary.ca and the wiki are responding again…

Censorship in the Calgary Herald?

I was just reading the newspaper while eating lunch. I never read the newspaper. Perhaps this is why…

On page 8 of the first section, was an article titled “US warns allies over arms sales to China” (several articles in today’s paper start with X Warns Y over Z). Normally not a big thing. Didn’t even plan on reading the article. But, a huge photo above the article piqued my interest. It had been obviously manipulated to remove information that was part of the context of the photograph. It is a photo of some protesters, who are showing signs/placards/banners denouncing Condi’s visit to Seoul.

But, the biggest banner, front and centre in the photo, had a fake white box edited into it. Directly over top of the URL of the protestor’s organization. How is that not part of the message? It’s ok to post the photo of the banner, as long as the readers of the paper can’t find the information to fill in the backstory?

The URL they blocked out is http://alltogether.or.kr – I can’t read Korean, so I can’t verify the content. The content doesn’t matter.

This is exactly why I prefer to get my news from multiple sources.

I do realize that the photo was likely not touched up by the Herald, but somewhere between the photographer and the Associated Press food chain. The end result is the same – my local newspaper is censored.

I was just reading the newspaper while eating lunch. I never read the newspaper. Perhaps this is why…

On page 8 of the first section, was an article titled “US warns allies over arms sales to China” (several articles in today’s paper start with X Warns Y over Z). Normally not a big thing. Didn’t even plan on reading the article. But, a huge photo above the article piqued my interest. It had been obviously manipulated to remove information that was part of the context of the photograph. It is a photo of some protesters, who are showing signs/placards/banners denouncing Condi’s visit to Seoul.

But, the biggest banner, front and centre in the photo, had a fake white box edited into it. Directly over top of the URL of the protestor’s organization. How is that not part of the message? It’s ok to post the photo of the banner, as long as the readers of the paper can’t find the information to fill in the backstory?

The URL they blocked out is http://alltogether.or.kr – I can’t read Korean, so I can’t verify the content. The content doesn’t matter.

This is exactly why I prefer to get my news from multiple sources.

I do realize that the photo was likely not touched up by the Herald, but somewhere between the photographer and the Associated Press food chain. The end result is the same – my local newspaper is censored.

Telus DSL “Broadband” – Not so much.

I’ve been using Telus DSL for my home internet connection for a few months, after being a Shaw cable internet subscriber since 1997. I’m growing increasingly frustrated by the unbelievably non-broadband performance of Telus DSL. I have run multiple bandwidth tests on various services, and typical throughput ranges from 11K/sec to a whopping 18K/sec. On a service that promises 1500 kilobits per second. I would get almost the same performance with a 56K modem!

I’ve sent several requests to Telus “support” to see if they can figure out what’s going on. They responded by accusing me of attempting to attack their DNS servers (which appear to be poorly configured or just plain underpowered since they take up to 30 seconds to respond).

telus bandwidth test small

I just ran the same test, from the same server, on my desktop machine on campus. The result? 3MB/Sec. It’s not the website that’s slow.

Anyone know of decent, fast, and inexpensive home broadband in Calgary? Oh, and so The Goog will find this later: TELUS SUCKS.

Update: It’s 2 days later, and a Telus tech just phoned me. We spent just over 20 minutes trying to figure out wtf was going on with my connection. He gave me some more DNS servers to use, and that appears to have solved the up to 30 second DNS lag. Also, bandwidth appears normal now (just tested using bandwidthplace.com again, and got 811 kilobits per second – slightly below average for DSL in Alberta – acceptable, but not great). The Telus guy was really trying hard, and was as frustrated as I am because this bandwidth problems appear to be so transient and intermittent. Oh, well. It appears to be working now…

I’ve been using Telus DSL for my home internet connection for a few months, after being a Shaw cable internet subscriber since 1997. I’m growing increasingly frustrated by the unbelievably non-broadband performance of Telus DSL. I have run multiple bandwidth tests on various services, and typical throughput ranges from 11K/sec to a whopping 18K/sec. On a service that promises 1500 kilobits per second. I would get almost the same performance with a 56K modem!

I’ve sent several requests to Telus “support” to see if they can figure out what’s going on. They responded by accusing me of attempting to attack their DNS servers (which appear to be poorly configured or just plain underpowered since they take up to 30 seconds to respond).

telus bandwidth test small

I just ran the same test, from the same server, on my desktop machine on campus. The result? 3MB/Sec. It’s not the website that’s slow.

Anyone know of decent, fast, and inexpensive home broadband in Calgary? Oh, and so The Goog will find this later: TELUS SUCKS.

Update: It’s 2 days later, and a Telus tech just phoned me. We spent just over 20 minutes trying to figure out wtf was going on with my connection. He gave me some more DNS servers to use, and that appears to have solved the up to 30 second DNS lag. Also, bandwidth appears normal now (just tested using bandwidthplace.com again, and got 811 kilobits per second – slightly below average for DSL in Alberta – acceptable, but not great). The Telus guy was really trying hard, and was as frustrated as I am because this bandwidth problems appear to be so transient and intermittent. Oh, well. It appears to be working now…

Game Over.

Crap. It’s official. So, I guess we’ll be turning back to our official national sport: lacrosse?

Come on guys… How much money is enough (for either side). It’s a freaking GAME, people. You’re getting/making millions of dollars to play a freaking GAME. Perspective might be a good thing…

Crap. It’s official. So, I guess we’ll be turning back to our official national sport: lacrosse?

Come on guys… How much money is enough (for either side). It’s a freaking GAME, people. You’re getting/making millions of dollars to play a freaking GAME. Perspective might be a good thing…

On Meetings

I’ve always tried – not always successfully – to limit the amount of time I spend in meetings. Time spent in meetings is largely time spent not being productive (with a few notable exceptions). Well, there have been some changes here in the Learning Commons, with the net result for me being – wait for it – more meetings. That would be fine, but I still have the same deadlines and non-meeting workload. It’s going to be interesting over the next couple of weeks to find the balance.

The most “fun” is when these freshly appointed meetings result in a sudden awareness of previously undefined deadlines and commitments. Even more fun when they’re only a matter of weeks in the future… I’ll be doing some scrambling over the next couple of months, but it’s going to be fun! 🙂

On the upside, Norm Vaughan just started here in the Learning Commons. I bumped into him in a hallway farewell party for another staffer, and he mentioned that he reads my blog (Hi, Norm!). Woah. I still can’t get used to having people actually read this thing… He also mentioned that he knew of me from a previous life here on campus. I’d almost forgotten about those days – they seem so long ago. Are decades longer this century?

And, apparently I need to start a category for rants and/or rambling… Oh, well…

I’ve always tried – not always successfully – to limit the amount of time I spend in meetings. Time spent in meetings is largely time spent not being productive (with a few notable exceptions). Well, there have been some changes here in the Learning Commons, with the net result for me being – wait for it – more meetings. That would be fine, but I still have the same deadlines and non-meeting workload. It’s going to be interesting over the next couple of weeks to find the balance.

The most “fun” is when these freshly appointed meetings result in a sudden awareness of previously undefined deadlines and commitments. Even more fun when they’re only a matter of weeks in the future… I’ll be doing some scrambling over the next couple of months, but it’s going to be fun! 🙂

On the upside, Norm Vaughan just started here in the Learning Commons. I bumped into him in a hallway farewell party for another staffer, and he mentioned that he reads my blog (Hi, Norm!). Woah. I still can’t get used to having people actually read this thing… He also mentioned that he knew of me from a previous life here on campus. I’d almost forgotten about those days – they seem so long ago. Are decades longer this century?

And, apparently I need to start a category for rants and/or rambling… Oh, well…

CompuSmart Sucks!

I just attempted to give CompuSmart some money. I arranged my afternoon so that Evan and I could take the bus from our house to the Giant Congregation of Strip Malls known as Crowfoot Crossing, so we could trek to the local CompuSmart store to pick up a USB headset, and possibly an Apple keyboard.

I did my research. I went to their website to see what they carried, and to see what the price was, and to verify that it was in stock at that location. Check on all counts. I searched the store for the USB headset – and came up empty.

I then made a dash for the service counter, since the bus that was scheduled to take us home was going to be there in a few minutes, and if we missed it, we’d be stuck there for another hour.

The guy behind the counter couldn’t find the headset either. So, he went to the inventory computer. “Oh. We’ve got 4 on order. Looks like nobody has them. Montreal is backlogged.” Great. So, why does the website say it’s in stock? “Uh. It looks like the database didn’t get updated, or someone put in the wrong number of sales or something.” Great. I ask if it’s possible to give him the money now, and have them deliver it to my office, since I didn’t plan on making another afternoon trek on the slim chance that they may actually have one in stock later when they say so. “Well, that would be difficult. And it would cost you.” Great. I’m standing here, trying to give the company my money, and they couldn’t care less. The guy didn’t even offer to put me on the waiting list. He just stared at me, slackjawed, until I walked away. Then he scurried back behind the “service” counter.

I give up on the USB headset. The other thing I came for was an Apple keyboard, to replace my old Macally POS that feels like I’m typing on stale oatmeal. The website says it’s in stock. Both the USB and the Bluetooth wireless version. I scan the Apple section (that has a nice grey Apple logo banner flying above it). They have 2 bluetooth keyboards. And no USB ones. Crap.

And they still don’t have any iTrip for regular iPods – they have a couple for iPod Mini, but nothing for the 3G/4G series. They assured me right after christmas that they’d be getting a bunch in, and would keep some in stock.

Frustrated at wasting an afternoon, and pissed off at giving these losers one more chance, we head out of the store, hoping to catch the bus home. We did. Evan napped on the bus on the way home. He’s so cute. 🙂

As it stands, I will never, ever, ever give CompuSmart another chance. They have lost my business, permanently.

ps. this was the first time I used the <a rel=”nofollow” > attribute… No positive whuffie for these clowns…

UPDATE: 5 minutes after getting home, the order was placed successfully with Memory Express – these guys absolutely rock. Best prices, good people. Why on earth didn’t I go there first? Their initial price was $10 lower than CompuSmart’s, so even with the addition of the delivery fee, the price works out the same. That’s how you make happy customers! 🙂

UPDATE: I got the headset today, delivered right to my house. It works great! As an added bonus, it came with a coupon for 120 minutes of Skype Out calling! Sounds impressive until you realize that’s like $2… I just tried it (calling myself – lame), and it seemed to work quite well. On the phone, I sounded clear, with only a slight lag. I guess that’s understandable, since the call was routed over the internets to god-knows-where, then back over POTS to my home phone. Not sure how much I’d use Skype Out, but it’s a pretty decent option for conference calls where the long distance charges add up really quickly.

Note: The CompuSmart described in this post is the now-defunct Canadian retailer.

I just attempted to give CompuSmart some money. I arranged my afternoon so that Evan and I could take the bus from our house to the Giant Congregation of Strip Malls known as Crowfoot Crossing, so we could trek to the local CompuSmart store to pick up a USB headset, and possibly an Apple keyboard.

I did my research. I went to their website to see what they carried, and to see what the price was, and to verify that it was in stock at that location. Check on all counts. I searched the store for the USB headset – and came up empty.

I then made a dash for the service counter, since the bus that was scheduled to take us home was going to be there in a few minutes, and if we missed it, we’d be stuck there for another hour.

The guy behind the counter couldn’t find the headset either. So, he went to the inventory computer. “Oh. We’ve got 4 on order. Looks like nobody has them. Montreal is backlogged.” Great. So, why does the website say it’s in stock? “Uh. It looks like the database didn’t get updated, or someone put in the wrong number of sales or something.” Great. I ask if it’s possible to give him the money now, and have them deliver it to my office, since I didn’t plan on making another afternoon trek on the slim chance that they may actually have one in stock later when they say so. “Well, that would be difficult. And it would cost you.” Great. I’m standing here, trying to give the company my money, and they couldn’t care less. The guy didn’t even offer to put me on the waiting list. He just stared at me, slackjawed, until I walked away. Then he scurried back behind the “service” counter.

I give up on the USB headset. The other thing I came for was an Apple keyboard, to replace my old Macally POS that feels like I’m typing on stale oatmeal. The website says it’s in stock. Both the USB and the Bluetooth wireless version. I scan the Apple section (that has a nice grey Apple logo banner flying above it). They have 2 bluetooth keyboards. And no USB ones. Crap.

And they still don’t have any iTrip for regular iPods – they have a couple for iPod Mini, but nothing for the 3G/4G series. They assured me right after christmas that they’d be getting a bunch in, and would keep some in stock.

Frustrated at wasting an afternoon, and pissed off at giving these losers one more chance, we head out of the store, hoping to catch the bus home. We did. Evan napped on the bus on the way home. He’s so cute. 🙂

As it stands, I will never, ever, ever give CompuSmart another chance. They have lost my business, permanently.

ps. this was the first time I used the <a rel=”nofollow” > attribute… No positive whuffie for these clowns…

UPDATE: 5 minutes after getting home, the order was placed successfully with Memory Express – these guys absolutely rock. Best prices, good people. Why on earth didn’t I go there first? Their initial price was $10 lower than CompuSmart’s, so even with the addition of the delivery fee, the price works out the same. That’s how you make happy customers! 🙂

UPDATE: I got the headset today, delivered right to my house. It works great! As an added bonus, it came with a coupon for 120 minutes of Skype Out calling! Sounds impressive until you realize that’s like $2… I just tried it (calling myself – lame), and it seemed to work quite well. On the phone, I sounded clear, with only a slight lag. I guess that’s understandable, since the call was routed over the internets to god-knows-where, then back over POTS to my home phone. Not sure how much I’d use Skype Out, but it’s a pretty decent option for conference calls where the long distance charges add up really quickly.

MacOSX Menu Bar keeps crashing!

Normally, it’s just annoying. This time, I missed my bus because of it. My menubar clock was blissfully telling me it was “Tue 1:18:42 PM” – I just thought it was a particularly long day, since it felt later (it was a particularly long day, but that’s another story).

So, I keep plugging away.

Eventually, I glance at the menu bar on my other computer. “Tue 4:24:15 PM” WHA? Crap. Missed my bus. But, my laptop still says “Tue 1:18:42 PM” Thanks, crashing menu bar clock. I’ll be catching the next bus home…

At least it isn’t blinking “Sun 12:00:00 AM“…

Normally, it’s just annoying. This time, I missed my bus because of it. My menubar clock was blissfully telling me it was “Tue 1:18:42 PM” – I just thought it was a particularly long day, since it felt later (it was a particularly long day, but that’s another story).

So, I keep plugging away.

Eventually, I glance at the menu bar on my other computer. “Tue 4:24:15 PM” WHA? Crap. Missed my bus. But, my laptop still says “Tue 1:18:42 PM” Thanks, crashing menu bar clock. I’ll be catching the next bus home…

At least it isn’t blinking “Sun 12:00:00 AM“…