A week or so ago I mentioned that I got my DSL to a point of very high reliability. There’s a fair amount of truth to that, with a bit of a sudden change today. Here’s how it all went down.

I figured out that my DSL was acting up because of issues with wiring in my house. What exactly was going on I still don’t know. But I do know that the previous owners of my house installed a second phone line, and that the physical wiring for that line is still in place. By installing a DSL filter at the service box outside and wiring the DSL side to the second phone line, I was able to filter my whole house using that one filter and ensure a clean signal for the modem.

Of course, that service-happiness high lasted for about a week.

Last night and this afternoon my ISP decided to do something to their access concentrator. I’ve been switched to yet another one, not unlike the disaster that happened back in February. No, I don’t have another $20 a month to fork over just for a static IP.

So as of now I have bigmomma running my ZoneEdit update script which is hitting the No-IP dynamic update check server every five minutes. I may have to make the interval smaller (and I will switch to using Germantown for the remote IP check if I do this) but it looks like things will work out.

Naturally my static IP hack I used on my modem isn’t working anymore. It didn’t work for a period back in February either, but then began to work again. We’ll see. I definitely won’t be seeing 98.17.59.63 again for a while.

This is the response I got from the Roadrunner cable rep. Way to treat their potential customers, eh?

Dear Mr. Fuhry:

Thank you for your email. We always appreciate the opportunity to respond to our customers.

Thank you for contacting Time Warner Cable. The services and availability may vary based on Package Selection and promotions that may be available in your area. We have found the most efficient method of providing you with pricing are for you to speak to a sales representative who will explain all packages and assist you in customizing a service plan that best fits your needs. Please contact our sales department at 1.877.772.2253. Representatives are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Sincerely,
Mark

Your On-Line Time Warner Cable Representative

I replied to the e-mail politely noting that I already know what service plan I’m going for and that what I’m trying to find out is ethical and network management practices. Needless to say I think I will definitely be sticking with Windstream for right now. Especially now that I got it working nearly perfectly - more on that in a day or two.

Peter McCullough and I are starting up a community tech/news site aimed at geeks, affectionately called twogeeksonesite.com. Here we plan to post hardware reviews, track industry news, talk about current events, and provide a general tech discussion community. We’re not going for anything particularly Web 2.0 (e.g. social networking) but we are planning on something based on Enano and PunBB (and yes it will run the latest alpha code). I’ll be posting again when it’s all set up, but until then beware of scaffolding and “registration disabled” messages.

Hi,
Just a while ago I checked the Road Runner website and it looks like Time Warner is offering the service where I live. I have a few friends that used RoadRunner in the past until their area was bought out by Comcast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner_Cable#Former_divisions_sold_to_Comcast). I’m currently using Windstream DSL and I’m seriously considering upgrading to Road Runner cable, just have a couple questions though because I’m a power user and use my Internet for a lot of different things. My current situation is that I have an ISP that does absolutely no throttling or firewalling (which I positively love) but the connection isn’t as reliable as I’d like it to be. So my questions are:

• Do Time Warner and/or Road Runner support, financially or otherwise, any legislation that could have any impact (positive or negative) on net neutrality? If so, what bills are they, and where can I view more information about the legislation on the Internet?
• Do you have a monthly bandwidth limit? If so, what is the cap?
• Do you throttle any traffic using port blocking, deep packet inspection, or any other method? If so, what all is blocked?
• Are any ports firewalled by default? I am currently running a web server, mail server, and SSH server from my home. (My question applies to your home/residential service; I will not purchase a business account just to lift inbound port restrictions.)
• Does your acceptable use policy (AUP) or terms of use (TOU) have any restrictions on what types of traffic, inbound or otherwise, residential customers may allow? E.g. are there any legal restrictions that would prevent me from running a web server or a properly secured mail server?
• 15Mbits down is all fine and dandy, but what is the average upload speed of a residential connection? 1Mbit would be nice, but 1.5 or 2 would be even better. 5Mbit would be outstanding.
• How often does RR go down for maintenance? When was the last service outage in my area? Were customers notified of it in advance? How long did the outage last?
• Is there any possibility (even a 1% chance) that my area will be bought out by another provider, specifically Comcast, within the next three years? This is the one issue that I’m scared to death of with residential cable. As you probably know, Comcast is under heavy fire from both customers and the FCC for their questionable (and sometimes downright illegal) network management practices.
• Are there any times of day (or week) when traffic is throttled slower than the peak limit? Also, my DSL modem sometimes connects at a much slower speed than the expected 1.5Mbit/sec due to environmental conditions. Will this happen with cable? Power, phone, and cable lines are all buried underground in my area.
• Is the modem simply a bridge to the Internet or does it behave like a router with NAT? Can I access the modem to forward ports or, preferably, DMZ my router?
• How often does a residential IP address last on average? How much is a static IP address per month?
• Finally, my router and DNS server are at the south end of the house whereas the cable connection is at the north end. I have 75 feet of standard coaxial cable to work with, but does cable Internet require a higher grade of cable to work reliably and at full speed? Needless to say the modem would be in close proximity to the router.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. As of right now I am very seriously considering an upgrade to Road Runner provided that your policies are in line with net neutrality and will be for the forseeable future. I look forward to applying for Road Runner cable.

Sincerely yours,
Dan Fuhry
dan@enanocms.org

In what may seem like an ironic turn of events, the Pioneer VSX-5000 amplifier responsible for the deaths of two subwoofers and a sound card has taken its own life, perhaps in an attempt to make retribution for its crimes.

The 22-year-old receiver and amplifier had a lonely and traumatic history that began almost as soon as its original owner purchased it. It expressed lament for a lonely childhood where it was not put to use and accumulated a considerable amount of dust.

The county examiner said that the most likely cause of death was a short circuit. No traces of ozone were found in the surrounding atmosphere.

The amp did not leave a suicide note and its original owner was not available for comment.

“Resuscitation efforts are underway,” said the current owner, Dan Fuhry, “but at this point things are looking very grim. We’re going to try the good old slap on the side, but that is currently our last remaining hope for the amplifier.”

Known for its loud output but warm capacitors, the Pioneer receiver enjoyed music with considerable bass. It loved video processing and equalizer functions, and had a talented FM receiver. “It’s such a shame to see this piece of history leave us,” Fuhry said in an interview. “It was just a great multi-purpose device. We’re going to miss it.”

The Pioneer VSX-5000 is survived by Logitech X-540 III and its host computer, Nighthawk, who told us only that she will miss not having to push ALSA to the limits. The receiver specified in its will that it did not wish for a memorial service. If resuscitation efforts are not successful, it will be recycled.

The amplifier was playing Empty Walls by Serj Tankian at the time of its death Wednesday evening. “Suppose it wasn’t into alternative metal,” mentioned Fuhry.

So I was working on my iPod trying to disable Stealth MAC without removing it. I tried using UIctl after RTFMing on launchctl and everything that it does. Unfortunately something caused my Touch to stop responding, and nothing came up when I rebooted.

I reluctantly decided to restore my device. It’s not an easy thing because I had a lot of crap on there, though it was all replaceable. I pulled up WinPwn and built an IPSW with everything but Cydia, which seems to not fit on the restore image. Everything looked to be going great, until iTunes gave me the dreaded 1604 error. Things looked really grim as I saw people talking about their $500 paperweights, and so on, and so forth.

The best instructions I could find were to log out and log back in to a Windows system as a different user. Then it occurred to me - what if iTunes’s database somehow became corrupt?

So I figured out that the 1604 error is in fact easily fixed, and here’s how:

1. Navigate to your Application Data folder. I did this by going to Start > Run and typing %APPDATA% (case matters).
2. Delete or rename the “Apple Computer” folder.
3. Start iTunes

You should be warned here that this will blank your music library and preferences, and if you bought music from the iTunes Music Store, beware that you might lose it. I personally don’t know either way because I’ve never purchased from iTMS.

Furthermore though, if you choose to rename the folder, you can have two iTunes profiles, one for restoring your iPod and one for general use. It’s not a fantastic way of doing things, but it’s better than not being able to restore IMO.

(Disclaimer: I cannot assume responsibility for any damaged or lost data or hardware caused by following these instructions.)

Wow! Has it really been a month? I must be busy or something - imagine that.

So a lot has happened in the past month, most of it being IRL things that I don’t talk about here. (That’s why God made Facebook.) But a few things have happened in my online and computer life as well.

The biggest and best thing: I got new speakers! The third X-540 set came in last week and it works great. I’ve been a lot more careful about turning this set off before playing with cables or rebooting my system, something that I’ve never had to do with other speakers. It’s a pain in the behind, but luckily Nighthawk doesn’t undergo reboots that often anymore. They actually sound pretty good for $120 speakers, so assuming they keep working for a few years I would consider them a good buy. Can’t really make an accurate judgment yet though.

A bit has gone into Enano as well. I’m working on several major feature additions to the ACL system, primarily tools for debugging existing rules. There’s a new API for calculating “effective permissions” and seeing where they are inherited from, and there will be a UI for it in 1.1.4. At this point I don’t know when 1.1.4 will get pushed out, but being an alpha it will not need to undergo a lot of testing, so I can release it when I feel that all the features I keep meaning to add are added.

I did a couple of things IRL too, namely a visit to the Albuquerque area where I have a bit of family. I did a lot of hiking around; the first day up on Sandia Peak I was pelted with snow and sleet. Pretty extreme for the Southwest, eh? I also visited Sky City and a couple of other nearby places.

Guess that’s about it, but I’ll hopefully be posting more regularly again.

Yep. Now I’ve lost the sound card too. Needless to say I think this Pioneer amp is too fast and too furious. So I’m gonna be removing it from my lineup. Now all I have to do, is convince Logitech to send me another set of speakers, which I know I’ll get right this time.

There’s only one problem: I’m now stuck with the crappy AC ‘97 audio built into my motherboard and I lack a MIDI port, something that I use extensively. So I’m gonna be looking around for a half-decent sound card and probably a job to pay for it (and possibly *more* new speakers). Looks like fate has finally caught up with me.

216 days and 17 hours. That is how long my server was up without interruption according to the uptime command as of this afternoon. Not bad for an area that gets power outages like crazy this time of year (it hasn’t happened in exactly that many days).

The important thing is that I beat Neal Gompa’s record, 200 days. We’ve been in friendly competition about it for quite a while now and I was quite excited when uptime counter finally reached 200 days. There is a good and valid reason that it’s over now.

Last night I was fiddling around with NFS shares trying to make the Ubuntu live CD bootable with PXE. (I have no life. :P) Unfortunately I messed something up and got rpc.mountd to deny all mount requests, thus locking me out of 80% of my home directory from Nighthawk, and messing up my network boot system which uses Pelswick as a TFTP server. A reboot looked more and more imminent as I could not seem to get nfsd to unload (it’s built as a kernel module). Today in the late afternoon I took Bigmomma to runlevel 1 and gracefully stopped enough services to be able to peacefully umount /home, after which nfsd unloaded.

The problem came when I remounted /home and realized that I had been meaning to mount it with extended attribute (xattr) support enabled. I realized that I had not done this and once again umounted the device. When I did so, I got a big fat kernel panic, the first one I’ve seen in kernel 2.6.14.

So I let it sit there for a minute thinking about all that the server had been through during the last 216 days and decided that Bigmomma was about due for maintenance. So I turned the system off, pulled out the CD burner and 3.5″ floppy drive that were only used during the installation, blew 7 months’ worth of dust out of the case, replaced the cover, and booted her back up. She’s happily serving files and web pages again.

I did end up with a few “double free or corruption” messages from rpc.mountd so NFS isn’t quite perfect yet. It’s still a little unsteady even after recompiling the nfs-utils SRPM. Still working that part out.

Well, whaddya know. I suppose that I’ll have to rewrite a little of my story but I think it will be better now that it’s more complete.

Basically what happened is I got two dead babies. One of ‘em was shipped from geeks.com and the other straight from Logitech. Both were completely dead on arrival. That’s the short version.

The long version is this: I ordered a new set of Logitech X-540 speakers from geeks.com for $115 including shipping. They were all that fit in my budget, and I figured they would be okay for the price. They came in and I got them all installed and they were working OK for an hour or two. I was adjusting some cables on my amp when it accidentally got switched to FM mode and started sending static to them - moderately loud static.

Now, mind you, this has happened to my old speakers, in fact they took tons more abuse than even that. But the fact that Logitech makes their DSP boards *that* cheap is just insidious. The speakers immediately stopped working, with strange noises being produced when turning the volume control and several other weird problems. IMHO for $115 these things should be able to withstand that. If I remember correctly they weren’t even turned up all that loud, which means absorbing that signal should not have been a problem.

Since the item got shipped manufacturer-direct, I contacted Logitech and they said that I had a defective set. Understandable. They also told me to go back to the seller since I had the item for less than 30 days. The resulting e-mail conversation was quite a funny one:

Support rep: “Please reply back to this email if you have purchase the X-540 speaker system for more than 30 days. The replacement unit will come from us if you have purchased the speaker system for more than 30 days. I look forward to your reply.”

Me: “According to my records I placed the order on April 12, 2008. I’ll e-mail back and re-open the support case on May 12 or so if I don’t have any luck with geeks.com. Thank for getting back so fast last time, I really appreciate it!”

Support rep: “Thank you for taking the time to reply my email and elaborating further on your issue. Since 30 days has passed since you have purchased the X-540 speaker system, I would like to proceed with issuing a replacement unit for your defective X-540 speaker system. In order to proceed with this, please provide me with all the details below.”

Me: “Attached is a screenshot of the order history window showing the purchase in question. Again from my previous message, I placed the order on April 12, 2008. So a month has not in fact passed yet since my order. The retailer from which I purchased the set has not replied to my message that I sent a week ago as of today, so as far as I’m concerned Logitech is not obligated to send out a new set until approximately May 12 assuming the retailer chooses not to provide support. Thank you again for the support.”

Support rep’s boss two days later: “Your fulfillment has been shipped. The following products were included: 1 | X-540″

No tricks, no cheating, that’s what really happened. They said it would take 10 to 14 business days to process; it took 1. That was a good sign, +1 for Logitech’s customer support.

Now if only their products were half as good. The new set was dead on arrival - I got absolutely no sound out of it and saw that the power LED was dimmer than it should have been. What a mess. So I now have two completely unusable subwoofer units and 10 satellite speakers sitting in my basement waiting for me to learn their fate.

I hope Logitech takes this as a lesson. No doubt that they built good speakers - the construction is solid and setup is straightforward and simple. But there is a huge problem with the circuitry that drives those speakers, and that is that it’s just way too cheap. It can’t handle even a normal signal - one would have to turn the output volume on their PC down just to avoid overloading the circuitry. That’s a problem because most users will leave the software volume all the way up and control the audio volume with the physical knob on the control pod.

Either way, I’ve e-mailed both geeks.com and Logitech about this and am waiting for them to reply. Chances are that if one doesn’t do something then the other will, but the worst that could happen is me being out $115 and learning an important lesson: to avoid Logitech hardware at all costs.