Technology Chat

Fantastic Video Conference System

2007-11-08T10:44:00.000+10:00

Found a great video conference system. Check out Sightspeed.com . I have had to investigate it for training with my daughters condition. The school she is going to be attending via teleschool uses it.

Over a standard 1.5Mbit connection it appeared i was getting at least 15Frames per second.

Very Impressive!!!

Basics of SEO

2007-07-21T14:38:00.001+10:00

To simply improve your search engine ranking requires a series of steps. These steps will be discussed over the comming weeks.

Computers running on LIGHT?????

2007-03-15T16:23:00.000+10:00

Just found an interesting article regarding advances in computer technology. Instead of using electric signals the whole system would run on light instead.

This poses the question though - can it run completely on light - no, not that i can fathom from the articles. There would still need to be some level of electronics involved but the logic circuits would use the light switching circuits to achieve much higher theoretical speeds than current silicon technology can achieve.

More information can be found here.

Yet another one bites the dust!!

2007-03-15T15:54:00.000+10:00

Well it looks like yet another ISP has bitten the dust. Reports on Whirlpool have stated that administrators have been appointed to handle the affairs of Wild I&T. Their reports have stated the following

Administrators Ferrier Hodgson admitted that "returning control of the Company to the Directors is not a viable option". A sale of the business is being pursued, and the Administrators recommend a liquidation of the company.
Quoted from whirlpool.net.au

This is really starting to show how bad the industry is. The questions need to be asked. (1) Is it just way too competitive for smaller ISP's to make a living out of this industry or (2) is there a monopoly that is just forcing the smaller ISP's out of business to ensure they stay afloat themselves.

In my personal opinion - option 2 is looking to be more likely the reason for it. I know thru contacts in the industry that the Telco Giants are continually giving discounts with one hand then charging double or more for something else. You think you are going to be getting ahead on one front then they sneak a higher charge onto something else in the back door and slap you in the face with it.

Seems to me that someone needs to work out where the priorities lie. I know that the majors are in it to make money as well but how far will they go to ensure their own survival and profit margins.

Another ISP bits the Dust

2007-03-15T15:52:00.000+10:00

Yet another ISP has bitten the dust. RAWNET - a regional ISP of northern queensland has been turned off by its upstream provider. This just goes to show that it is hard to make a living out of the ISP business.

Reports are still rather sketchy about why this has happened but i would like to speculate that they have gone in too hard and too fast. The required infrastructure to set up something of this scale takes months of planning and constant tuning until it is right.

Talking from experience - I attempted to set up and run a small ISP myself. After nearly 3 months of negotiations with providers i still had not signed a single contract that could guarantee me service for my clients. No wholesale provider would ever guarantee that they themselves wouldn't have their service turned off at any point. Even though they provide the infrastructure and the data source.

To me this indicates that the whole industry in general needs a good shake up.

Wireless or not??

2006-11-08T07:32:00.000+10:00

The question is simple. How much "wireless" technology can we have before we run out of bandwidth. I know from my own training that there are physical limits to how much information we can put into the "free air space" that surrounds us.

A story on ITWire (Unwired & Austar: "Spectacular performance" needed to succeed) shows how major companies are looking to push us into the whole wireless environment.

I am already starting to see on a regular basis people having issues with existing 802.11 systems. They are often having to change channels on a regular basis to avoid cross talk between networks. A recent installation i was involved in was attempting to use a very directional attenna to achieve a link between 2 buildings. These buildings are 400m apart. Both ends had extremely high gain attenna's to achieve enough signal strength to maintain link. Upon starting up the "receiving" end of the 2 points we picked up 14 wireless networks all within line of sight of the attenna. Out of interest we swung the attenna around thru 360 degrees and picked up a total of over 100 wireless networks. This was all within a commercial environment - imagine what a domestic or home environment would be like.

Can i ask the simple question. When will it all end. People are already stating that mobile phones are causing cancer. Wouldn't the massive adoption of wireless networks and the amount of transmission power required to send data over longer distances cause the same sort of issues?

We also have a limit to the amount of physical frequencies available (lists might be available on ACMA). There is also a limit to the amount of data able to be sent on each of these frequencies. Cables allow for basically the same amount of frequencies to be sent down it as there are frequencies transmitted via wireless. (again there are limits to this too). Fibre allows for multiple streams of information to be sent down a single fibre. You can transmit multiple streams all at the same frequency simply by using a different color. To me this seems a better option. The more adoption of fibre there is the less it will cost to install and maintain. This also leads into a recent story regarding FTTN and FTTH. Both of these technologies will allow extremely fast internet/telephony/IPTV services all on a single piece of glass.

Well that has been my rant. Lets hope that someone might be able to make a judgement call on this.

Australia Backwards - Yet Again

2006-11-07T22:43:00.000+10:00

Now i think it has been a while since i really had a whinge, But i think this really warrants it.

Read this first

As usual with the Australian government they have decided to try and limit the amount of content Australian and the international Internet users are allowed to view.

Google has really summed this whole attempt of running our lives with the comment - "If such advanced permission was required, the Internet would promptly grind to a halt."

How can we allow the Government to limit how and when we search the internet. How can they restrict the details of particular items due to the "possibility" that there may be offensive or copyrighted material.

This leads me to further points which i will not get into at this point for fear of making this entry too big. Needless to say, i believe that the Government and in general the whole "World Goverment" system is backwards in trying to protect us from the 1% of morons and immoral people that could cause problems.

I know that piracy is a major problem, however instead of trying to "block" the problem why not try to work with the people who are pirating the software etc and try to compromise and understand why they are doing so. If major companies like "Redhat" and "Ubuntu Linux" are able to give away their software but still make money why can't some of the music industry work out a way to save money, make it cheaper to purchase the material and therefore reduce the amount of piracy that is happening.

Been a while

2006-06-27T16:18:00.000+10:00

Well it has been a while - work commitments etc have caused me to forget about my ramblings.

Not for much longer.

I will start my ramblings again shortly as well as a new job. Hopefully this blog will soon turn into a daily posting site.

More to come!!

repost : Who's fault is it

2006-03-22T18:57:00.000+10:00

The question has been raised recently - who should pay for the time involved in fixing a problem that isn't actually related to the fault they rang about.

I know that is a cryptic question but the longer explanation is following.

The caller rang up saying that the application involved was continually crashing their computer and was costing them lots of downtime and lost worktime etc. After nearly 4 hours of diagnosing and many expensive long distance phone calls let alone the time involved or wasted in the diagnosis - the fault is finally found to be another companies rival software installing system files that conflict or corrupt the original application.

Now how do we ever prove that they have purposefully or innocently made their application corrupt ours. Who do you bill for that lost time. Or do you simply put it down to "Customer Service"

This question has been raised a number of times by all of us - and no one can come up with a correct answer. The following could be some possible outcomes

1. Bill the Customer - The customer decides that they are paying too much and will go with the competitor instead. This means lost business

2. Bill the Competitor - They then turn around and bill you for any faults that they claim are from your software affecting theirs. This could then be put further into them falsely claiming against your software. Result --> your company could go broke

3. Take it on the chin - Well this seems to be the most common option taken by everyone. The problem here is that you still really do lose out. Why should you be supporting someone else's application when they couldn't be bothered to write it properly in the first place. On the up side - your client remains happy and you don't end up with a war between companies.

Well i have had my little whinge for the day. I will be posting this on my other blog as well. It is at a new address. http://helpdeskhell.connect2us.net

Drivers License for Computers

2006-03-08T17:50:00.000+10:00

To sum things up simply - people should be issued a license of sorts before using a computer.

My thoughts behind this are simple - while working in a Tech Support call centre i experienced one of the weirdest calls i have ever had the misfortune to take.

Whilst asking a female client to click on the start button i heard a tapping sound followed by the responce "It isn't working" - this ended up being the lady TAPPING ON THE SCREEN to get the start button to work. Now i had to stop myself from bursting with laughter and try to compose myself enough to ask the question - "Now you are using your mouse and clicking on the start button aren't you.". This was followed by an extremely long silence and a subtle "yes".

It just amazes me that people are so silly as to attempt to use a very advanced program without any experience in computers at all.

To top it off the same person called back the next day and wasnt able to print. The short story is that she hadn't even turned the printer on. I mean without being nasty - how stupid can you be. If it doesn't print check that it is turned on first i guess.

Well enough for today. I am guessing that my ranting will lead towards the same lines as BOFH
as this seems to be the way things are heading for me. Stupid people doing stupid things.

New Toy

2006-02-18T13:22:00.000+10:00

Well, I finally got my new toy thru. I have been waiting for a while to be able to get a new Digital SLR camera. All that i can say now is WOW!!. I am very impressed by the performance of the new Pentax.

I received the new *ist DL and can only say that it is quite simply an awesome camera. I have been snapping pics everywhere and cannot fault it in any way. I even attempted to do a 'BULB' exposure at night and was more than impressed. Eventually i will stop playing around and take some serious photos which i will post somewhere on the web.

My first opion of the camera was quite simply just WOW. even the box was extremely well packed and the feeling of opening the box was quite impressive. They have designed the packaging so that basically every part of the camera can be taken out without having to remove every other part first.

Upon first start up you are asked to simply set the time and the time zone. This is easily achieved with the 4 way navigation button on the back of the unit. The screen is extremely clear and easy to read as well as VERY large. The 2.5 inch screen makes it very clear what mode you are in and the preview screen shows an extremely high definition image.

Well enough ramblings at this point. I need to go play with this new toy and learn the best way to use it.

Search Engine Optimization

2006-02-16T21:02:00.000+10:00

A good friend of mine has just let me know about a new blog he is writing. It is to do with search engine optimization.

This is a great site and is already full of great information. I know he will continue to improve and update this blog as time goes on. I have linked it off my front page as well.

The article will also be published at ThePublisherhouse.com as well.

Who's stupidity was it??

2006-02-16T19:55:00.000+10:00

Well, My own humility might be blown away with this comment but i have to wonder about the stupidity of some programmers.

I have been working ona website now for a rather extended period. It started as a simple change of appearance of the site - which has since turned into a total rewrite of the whole site from start to finish including the database and all the code to run the site as well as the administration for the site. This small project which i quoted a rather small amount on has now turned into a MASSIVE project with basically the same amount of pay.

My gripe is simple. Programmers who don't think ahead when it comes to rewriting the site in the future. The whole site was completely undocumented and had absolutely NO consistent theme to any of the variables used or the way that the flow of the code was designed.

After many months i have basically written out all code bar a few small segments. I have not rewritten these segments quite simply because i have absolutely NO IDEA as to how they work. All that i know is that they do work and do return what i would expect.

I have to ask the question of some programmers (or should i say code mashers) - How do you expect to remember in say 6 or 12 months how a particular piece of code works when in most cases the code is so poorly written that it takes anything up to 15 minutes to follow the simplest of code paths.

One instance came to light today where i had to look over the original code to try and work out how to mash together some of the data from the original website database into the new site. We are at the point of going to a beta testing of this site and currently am trying to import the data ready for final testing. I had to follow a simple thing where some information was to be added to the original database. I was trying to understand how piece of information 'A' was then transformed into massive information pieces 'B C D E F'. After opening 11 different include files, 4 web browsers and 3 SSH sessions i was finally able to follow the code segment. Only to find that 'B C D E F' was always there and hardcoded into the database and only ever appeared once 'A' was passed to it. This total waste of time took in excess of 2 hours, 3 coffees and about 1000 obscene words.

Well i have had my say i guess. I do not under any circumstance try to say that i am an expert programmer. I am barely a novice compared to others that are around, but i do know that simple instructions and comments in the code could have easily saved me many hours of pain with this website.

Banking Disasters

2006-02-16T08:30:00.000+10:00

Well, first thing in the morning and i am already upset for the day. I have just had a run in with the banks yet again.

It amazes me that it takes so long for the simplest of things to be done with the banks. To do a transfer from one bank to another can take anything up to 5 working days - even between banks that are supposed to be linked together. What really annoys me though is that when you have to pay using a cheque that the second that cheque is banked into ANY bank the money is withdrawn from your account virtually immediately.

How can the bank draw money from your account that quickly but cannot put money into your account with the same speed. To me it seems that they are using OUR money to make themselves richer. To top it off they also charge US to put OUR money into OUR account.

Sitting down and looking over bank statements i also find a rediculous amount of fees that always seem to be there. How can we be charged an account keeping fee each month when we already pay for each transaction? We also get charged each time we withdraw money from an ATM.

The other thing that has amazed me on several occasions is that they are able to charge you the fees from your account BEFORE and with a priority in front of any other transaction. I personally have had two or three times where a monthly payment has come out after they have drawn their fees out. This caused my account to become overdrawn - and as usual i then get charged MORE fees as well as having the payment dishonoured. You can never tell when they are going to charge the fees - it could be any day either before or after the end of month.

How do we as average people do anything about this abuse of trust that is allowed to be put upon us by the banks. How in this day where we can send a video around the world in seconds - can we not have a banking system that is able to treat us with the respect that we deserve

Future Dream Hardware

2006-02-15T21:11:00.000+10:00

Further to my earlier post tonight, I was watching a segment on Beyond Tomorow and was starting to wonder how far technology is going to go.

The segment on the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show gave me the impression that every person will shortly be carrying around a tv in their pocket. This really does scare me as a parent - i often have a problem getting my children to do anything when the TV is on. We jokingly call it the TV - Total eVaporation .

This brings me to the point as to how much television do we really need to watch. We are able to get webcasts, podcasts, streaming video, video messages, video attached to emails and the list goes on. Do we really need yet another way for someone to fry our brains with more targetted advertising methods. Imagine that any provider of mobile phone services can basically re-telecast any Free to air TV service and put their own banner ads or targetted advertising into the program. This also then leads to further issues with Copyright infringement. Most of the devices shown are capable of capturing and storing these video signals. We already have enough of an issue with the digital music revolution and MP3 etc. do we need the same thing with our Television networks next?

Oh well - enough ramblings for tonight

PC Parts Dilema

2006-02-15T20:32:00.000+10:00

Well, late at night again and sitting here thinking. Yes, i know, that is something that shouldn't be done often as it tends to be very dangerous.

Tonight i have been looking around for a friend who is wanting to upgrade their computer. So far i have visited over 15 online stores that can supply to this area. To put it very politely i have become very confused and really havn't worked out which way to go for this friend.

My dilema was rather simple to start with. They need a simple system without all the nice and fancy stuff that seems to be commonplace now.

From the 15 sites that i visited i was only able to compare about 3 different mainboards on price as each company seemed to have their own brand or they stocked a totally different range of models etc. Each company raved about how their model of motherboard was the best but not one of them actually stipulated why that was the case. Each one said that they can outperform the other without showing proof that this is the case.

My simple and modest opinion is this. If a manufacturer is able to say that they are the best why don't they prove it. Why don't they show a comparison between different brands or models and why they can outperform the other model etc. Most car manufacturers are able to physically show that their car is better because of XYZ readings achieved on a standard test track using standards that ALL manufacturers must match with. Some of these computers are used in a situation where it can easily be considered life and death.

A good case in this is a common brand of machine is used in a medical monitoring situation. I have heard of at least 2 cases within the last 3 months where a brand new machine (under 12 months old) has suffered a serious failure. This serious failure is rather simple - a complete Hard Drive collapse. Both of these machines where shown to not be in a situation that could have in any way created or caused a failure. To resolve the situation and get the computer back into a situation of being able to maintain the most important job of all - keeping someone alive - the technician had to physically go to a local computer store and buy a new hard drive for these machines. To avoid this issue happening again he chose a completely different brand of hard drive. Making matters seem even worse was the fact that the original hard drive performed only 1/3 as good as the replacement unit. It seems that the manufacturer didn't actually check and rate the performance of its units. To this date both machines are still working better than they did from the first day they where turned on.

Well my ramblings have again probably upset some people but at times i need to vent my frustrations. I simply have to ask the question though after all this - Why can't a computer manufacturer actually state and prove why you should buy their product instead of making all the unfounded promises and false impressions gained by fancy boxes and images. Why should we believe anything that is said on the box when all it is - in my opinion - is simply someone who thinks that they can make up some fancy words and draw some fancy pictures to make me buy.

What a better world would be like

2006-02-14T21:41:00.000+10:00

Thinking back over today i wonder if there is an easier way to look after websites and web servers. After having to move a series of sites from one server to another, then finding version compatibility issues with PHP and Apache , fixing them and finding more problems it really makes you wonder.

Sometimes thinking about how we have to continually update a server to maintain the security and stability of the server causes you to wonder if it is really worth it. I was wondering what the life of a Systems Administrator would be like if you didn't have to worry about the hackers and script kiddies that are around at the moment.

I know these are probably just ramblings but it really does make me think of the way life could be.

If we didn't have to worry about hackers then all the masses of people involved in currently finding weaknesses could be used instead to make a product not only stronger but better and faster. If the undesirable peoples of the world who have nothing better to do than create ways to upset others put their talents to better use and made ways to actually fix the problems instead of creating new ones - we would probably have operating systems and applications that are far superior to what we currently have.

Wouldn't the world be much simpler for all if there was no concern about virus infections or trojan attacks. Imagine how many people, who are currently employed to fix these issues, could be put to much better use in developing far more advanced applications. We also wouldn't have to waste so many CPU cycles in each pc on attempting to secure and avoid breaches.

I know that what i say now really won't change anything around the world but i would like to put forward that all the script kiddies try to put their talents to fixing problems instead of creating more. That hackers should work with security people to try and close all the weaknesses instead of just creating more work and expense for the smaller companies who simply cannot afford to just throw money away. Speaking from experience i spend an average of 8-10 hours a week simply removing the junkmail from my inbox. Looking at the amount of wasted bandwidth and time that this creates for me alone, i wonder how much some of the bigger companies are losing out on each and every day.

Well i guess that i have had my 2 cents worth. Maybe one person reads this and understands what i mean. Maybe that one person will be able to convert one hacker or script kiddy away from their life of annoyance into something worth while.

Late night thoughts

2006-02-09T21:12:00.000+10:00

Thinking back on the day today it has been an extremely busy one. I had one of my friends in the hosting industry call me with an interesting problem on a Cobalt RAQ550 based machine.

The problem was that the SMTP server continually failed every night at about 1 or 2 in the morning. This was initially put down to it continually filling up the /var partition with log files. While this problem seemed easy to resolve - it wasn't.

After much diagnosis and painfull removal of hair follicles - It was finally discovered that on this machine a user email account called "httpd" was taking up a massive 140Meg of space with bounceback emails. It appeared to be that one of the sites hosted on this server had been configured without the proper settings for sending emails. This was located to be one of the 60 or 80 sites on that server.

The offending site was notified of the issue that they had been causing. It was a strange coincidence that they where the ones complaining when the system was failing. It was also strange that they didn't even know their website was supposed to be sending them emails on a regular basis - or the fact that they had probably missed out on possibly hundreds of potential clients due to a simple misconfiguration.

It all just shows that no matter who you are or how good you may think you are that anyone can make mistakes. These mistakes may not show up for years but when they do they can often be extremely costly!