Last year we were getting 28mbps Using Comcast internet, with an upload of 2.5 mbps. Some crummy local AT&T sub-contractor TM Construction or something like that, cut our live and refused to care. So I patched the line with a splice. I think it was a holiday 3 day weekend. SO I had to do it myself. We still got 28 mbps down and 2.5 up. Our internet was fine. A couple months later, TM construction came back out and wouldn’t you know it, they cut our line again. So this time we had Comcast come back out and replace the whole line with this heavy duty orange cable. Our internet was peaking at 30mbps. We held out for a few months.
But here recently our internet speeds have drop tragically. We are now getting 3 mbps down and oddly enough our upload speeds increased to 3.5 mbps down.
I was told a couple months ago that the speeds are supposed to increase to 50mbps near Humble area.
I can only assume that right now they are upgrading the cables or whatever and right now there is a crummier connection.
How is your internet speeds in the Spring and Humble areas? What is your bandwidth in this area?
Tag: internet
Gawker sends out Breach Notice
It seems during the period of time that all of the internet is flipping upside down from hackers, attackers and ddos assaults Gawkers has been compromised. Passwords have been stolen and account information has been stolen. Here is a letter I received from Gawker.
This weekend we discovered that Gawker Media’s servers were compromised,
resulting in a security breach at Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Gawker, Jezebel,
io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin, and Fleshbot. As a result, the user name
and password associated with your comment account were released on the
internet. If you’re a commenter on any of our sites, you probably have
several questions.We understand how important trust is on the internet, and we’re deeply
sorry for and embarrassed about this breach of security. Right now we
are working around the clock to improve security moving forward. We’re
also committed to communicating openly and frequently with you to make
sure you understand what has happened, how it may or may not affect you,
and what we’re doing to fix things.This is what you should do immediately: Try to change your password in
the Gawker Media Commenting System. If you used your Gawker Media
password on any other web site, you should change the password on those
sites as well, particularly if you used the same username or email with
that site. To be safe, however, you should change the password on those
accounts whether or not you were using the same username.We’re continually updating an FAQ (http://lifehac.kr/eUBjVf) with more
information and will continue to do so in the coming days and weeks.Gawker Media
==============================================
You are receiving this email because your email
address was associated with a Gawker Media user
account. We are using this list only for the
purpose of sending you this important notification.
Server Outages sept16-2010
I have been watching servers go down in waves since about 8 am central time. No info yet as to what may be the cause.
IMHO one hub/ major server is down and we are now being temporarily routed through another, and well now we are bottle necking.
but who can tell?
We shall see.
I do know that Internet is not down, just some locations can not be reached.
alexa servers just went down, twitter went down. but twitter could have been nailed by an influx of people saying “WTF?”.
Just saw facebook stumbled also.
Affiliate advertising company website Adbrite.com was down.
We at truxtertech.com were down for about 15 minutes here.
***added***
Well, so far there is no message saying what happened. Anyone know? I know this information will not help anything, other than make me stop asking “WTF”.
One View of Pirating
I was having a discussion of what pirating was in a forum that I typically converse in. I was having an issue with games for windows live not accepting my install cd key, the thread was created to inform the other users of said site of what betrayal i was facing from something i trusted to invest $60 into. Here is more on games for windows live having a limited install.
I said “no one pirates itunes garbage”. This person from the site gave a response that stunned me. I didn’t expect it , I didn’t believe it till the second time he stated it more clearly. He actually said “iTunes itself is free, some Apps are free, but with a jailbroken device you can find most any app you…..” it goes on a bit after that, but really. I can handle only so much. So I realized I was actually holding a conversation with someone who is brand new to the topic. This person did not see the heyday, this person got interested in computers and the internet, within the last three years. This person was born after 1994.
So I decided to make it clear for others who did not get to be a part of the boom. I give you internet history on it’s dirty side. The side that will not be in future history books.
I give you the response I gave him
You just now told me what age group you are in.
Sorry didn’t know how new you are.
Itunes the name means “music” (tunes is clue #1)
I tunes has been selling music for +5 years now.
The apps thing is quite new
Roughly 3 yearsBack in the day, music was the number one controversial pirated item on the internet.
There used to be some major hitters in the pirating world.
Napster
Limewire
winmx
Kazzaa
Almost all are gone now.
Some have resurfaced as something else.
Truly if it was not for them, the public never would have demanded greater speeds for their internet connections and we would not have the internet the way it is now. 2.0 would not have been an option. php would not have been an option, flash well it would have demised…. well in a flash.
1994-1998 Music pirating was so common that radio station djs would make their playlist at home and bring to the station these crappy assed 32-64bit overly compressed 200k songs and play them on the radio. some of us would bitch how it sounded like the music was being played in a sewer drain.
Around 2000- 2002 Itunes was announced. No one moved for the first year. because it was free. but apple played a bunch of clever commercials. by 2004 all pirating had come to a skid. there was a huge standstill, because Kazaa was seized and millions of i.p. addresses were placed public as targets of interest by the riaa..You know what… I have gone to far with this. i think I have a cool post for the tech blog… later dude.
Some of the time-line might be a tiny bit tilted, but it’s can’t be by much.
What is a Phishing Scam
In short, it’s someone who contacts you pretending to be someone else, disguised as well as possible into fooling you into believing this. They will use mail,email phone call, or direct face to face contact. in an email they will make a fake website that looks just like your bank’s website. They will send you an email to their website and the email will look like it came from your bank, they will say “hurry we need you to sign in and change your personal information because we think you have been compromised” or they will tell you to just send them your information. next thing you know, you are out of money and in debt.
This video belongs to another person I liked it so I embedded it. It gets to the point
Wired – No Such Thing As Cyber SPace
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/cyber-hype/
BUZZZZZZZ!! Sorry, You lose! Cyberspace does exist and is alive and well in the IT/IS Realm of professionals …not GEEKS!!
Cyberspace. A metaphor for describing the non-physical terrain created by computer systems. Online systems, for example, create a cyberspace within which people can communicate with one another. Like physical space, cyberspace contains objects (files, mail messages, graphics, etc.) and different modes of transportation and delivery. Unlike real space, though, exploring cyberspace does not require any physical movement other than pressing keys on a keyboard or moving a mouse; cyberspace is the transportation realm of vital data once it has left physical space on the sending side and has not yet reached physical space on the receiving side of transition destination. Cyberspace relatively speaking is the equivalent of Internet processing ( aka.. Parsing)
What the Heck is With Comcast at Night ?
$130 a month and comcast goes all scrambly at night. Middle of a show and bam, I’m forced to watch a dvd. So far this has happened all three times I tried laying back watching tv late at night, this month. Are they making some huge un-announced move ? Well it sure feels like it.
bet in a month or two we will get some crazy news about how we are being helped with some useful plan to prevent pirating by charging us $2 a mb of file transfer, on top of our monthly bill. You know, give you something you think is convenient while jabbing you in the back with something that is not good for you at all.
Well, nothing I can do about it other than change tv and internet providers. no big deal, probably cost me a whole lot less.
Houston we Have a problem (since I am in Houston).
2 hours I sit and watch this stupid movie that I am doing my best to stay focused on because I am bored. Last 30 minutes, cuts out. Now I am sitting here killing my site’s stats by ranting like this. I want my time warner back.!!!!
Why I Hate Linkedin
The number one thing I hate the most is a friend in my address-book sending me crap to sign up to. I hate that friend who is so stupid they sign up to a site and it asks them the password to their email account so the website can see how many of their friends are on that website’s services. I hate when that person comes back to me the next day asking me how they can get their email back from the spammer who stole it. I hate having to fight with and for them at the same time.
Nothing makes me want to say ” Dude you are an idiot, I got the email the day you signed up to “insert site name here,here,here,here. So I know exactly how you lost your email password.”
Websites that force you to give up your email password so you can use their services, IMHO have no respect or scruples whatsoever. The people who sign up to those sites, further encourage them to think it is okay to do so.
How does this all tie into linkedin?
This is what I see
I see this when I hit the “Home” button. It takes me to that lump of tacky steaming hot junk. So I went through the whole set up of trying to just give it my email and password, because they wanted to “see how many friends I have using it” it shows i have 114 in my addy book, and forces me to select as many as I have to invite them all. I unchecked everyone and selected accept send or what ever, it refreshed and made me sign back into linkedin, and it showed me the same page. I am appalled by this. I thought this was a tech community, not a “hey the internet used to be full of scammers who did this all the time and people fell for it and we all called them idiots but these are different days now so it’s it is ok now” type of website full of morons who make sparkly myspace web-pages that cause seizures.
I clearly am not accepted at linkedin because my I.Q. Is clearly far to high.
Unacceptable Perv-ofile (School Staff)
According to an article in boing boing a school District in (PA) [Lower Merion School District] Handed out laptops to students. This school reportedly has been reprimanding students for their behavior while at home. One student was shown a picture taken of them while doing something the school objected to, from within the child’s bedroom.
The laptops the children received had cameras on them. Reportedly these camera were used to spy on the children while not at school.
Their is notice that they are worried about children being to informative while online talking with strangers and the wide open public.
Update: The school district admits that student laptops were shipped with software for covertly activating their webcams, but denies wrongdoing.
Any person caught doing such a thing should be more than just investigated, they should be put in public notice.
Do we not have laws that protect us from this? should anyone for any purpose be so above the law that they can get away with such an invasion of privacy?
The students all should be allowed to return the laptops they where given (or are renting or purchased), the school should refund all deposits, and every principal,teacher,executive involved should be fired and replaced and spend no less than 5 years in federal prison for invasion of privacy illegal monitoring and surveillance without proper license and prior permits.
If they let this go, what exactly is freedom for? what is the proof that we protect the rights we obey ?
Internet Price changes, Fair? or Fare?
We all know that Comcast is going to increase their prices. They made that announcement the moment they found out they could not start charging website owners for the “traffic they bring them”. and we all see the new filters Comcast has put into their servers, the ones that direct us to their designated page, so we do not ” get the inconvenience of a 404 page”. To the common that say they are doing us a wonderful favor of removing unattractive pages that display nothing for us. The wise know that the filter is there and could potentially be used for extortion. Meaning specific websites could be shut off by a specific internet provider. Let’s say a large enough internet provider, one that has a 40% foot hold of all united states internet users. 40% of all users being filtered by one company, is bad bad bad bad. If 40% of the readers who view this site just suddenly stopped reading, I would really feel like I am being shut down and feel like I could potentially be done wrong.
I don’t know about you, but I pay my web provider to allow me to go to websites using their services. So they are already making money from me and many others, for just that. The internet providers making money off of the website owners for the traffic that hits said websites using said owners, purely is greed. That’s almost like building a toll road, keeping fees for usage of the toll-road active, meanwhile using tax money to maintain said toll roads. Oh, they do that in Houston. hmmm..
Well the truth is, internet usage and file downloads have all been increased. How? well not by using Comcast. but closer to you than that. Smart phones or App phones, all have constant running apps that use internet at all hours of the day. Pretty much all phones that use android have a default of keeping you signed into Gmail 24/7. You have to pay the internet fee for this services if you do not have internet services already. Here’s the funny part (before you say .. oh ok. that’s a lot), you pay $35 a month for that internet service. You can’t really do anything with that service other than stay connected. It’s a tiny 3 inch screen. the actual file transfer is so tiny it’s just a tiny portion of what what it would be on your home pc. yet the cost is 80% of the pc internet fee. Sure Comcast wants in on that action and that kind of fee. So now they limit our monthly usage and want to charge us for overages. Well because the number of users have increased. sure they did, Comcast bought out other services. The world did not suddenly gain 60% more people who use internet. Just Comcast’s user count increased. The amount of servers and hubs have increased at the same time . Picture a janitorial company buying out all the other janitor services, and then increasing fees because demand is up… like they lost all of the mops and janitors they just hired or something. Same thing.
Meanwhile Comcast cranks up their bandwdith to outrageous speeds. Unthinkable speeds compared to five years ago. 5 years ago 2.5 mbps was hard to come by. Now internet speeds are commonly 25mbps. there is no way you will drop that kind of service, you will just try an not go over your amount of consumable internet downloads. Well that’s just the way we all think. That’s kind of is dense. In reality you want faster so you can download more much easily, but are willing to download less to keep fees down for overages. They know how to market us.
I advise you do not fall for this stuff. If we all just drop capitalistic companies, these companies can not continue with what they do. Net Neutrality, H.R.6123, what ever you want to call it