Service Delivery in bandwidth poor locations

Being in the country presents some interesting challenges and one I find that I come up against frequently at the moment is, as the title suggests, getting needed services into various remote sites. Although ADSL is quite widespread, and where not available various wireless services (NextG and the like) are able to cover the connectivity issues. But in the case where one is attempting to link sites via a VPN, 512/512Kbps is really not enough for modern applications, particularly if you're pushing internet as well as mail and remote desktop connections over that particular link. Even an ADSL2+ link with speeds up to 24Mbps/1Mbps is not really adequate for the task at hand.

So how to get around this? I'm thinking along the lines of a division of service, decentralising where possible and using cloud technologies to take the burden off the VPN links, that is, push email out to the cloud and whatever other services available out to the internet, thereby reducing the outgoing bandwidth requirements at the central site. Hopefully this will free up more bandwidth for RDP and the like. Additional ADSL services can further reduce the burden if I push http traffic out that way (using a Netgear dual WAN router or the like).

I have recently had to put this theory into practice and it seems to be working out, but it's not entirely solving the problems. Perhaps a packet caching device at either end, such as the ones produced by Riverbed, might be the answer. It's a difficult question and it gets worse when people want to put voice over it as well. You can use clever calling plans to get cheap inter-office calls more easily than implementing a whole other VPN simply for voice. And at the end of the day, let's not forget that ADSL is provided in a "best effort" scenario and no provider in the country guarantees bandwidth availability.

Tricky tricky tricky....

Skyrim issues

I really like playing the Elder Scrolls games - I've played and completed Morrowind, Oblivion and now I'm working through Skyrim. The issue I've got is frequent freezes. Now I play it on the PlayStation 3 and do that for a very specific reason - I don't have to worry about compatible hardware or any of that jazz, I just want to play the damned game. So when I find that a game, configured for very specific hardware crashes like this it's extremely irritating. I've got both the PS3 and the game patched to the latest updates so that's all current and I'm not missing any potential fixes.

Generally I find the gameplay very good, enjoy the skill system and the levelling. I try to avoid using online walkthroughs or FAQ's - that's cheating! This means I occasionally screw things up and go back to a recent save (of which I have a lot because of the afore mentioned crashes) it costs me in time. In the 45 minutes I've played today it has crashed twice. I turn off the PS3, turn it back on, go through the disk recovery and then I can eventually get the game started again.

I hope they can get things sorted with it. It will be a much better game once it's stability issues are improved on.

AB out.

Netgear DG834 woes

For quite some time I've used the Netgear DG834 as my router of choice, particularly as a low end router providing easy site-to-site VPN's. These little white routers will support up to 5 VPN tunnels and have proven themselves to be quite reliable under most circumstances.

Unfortunately, I think I've discovered the circumstances that these routers do not work well under. I have two sites under my management that have had no end of trouble with these routers. Here is the situation and the symptoms:

• both sites are ADSL2
• both sites have a single VPN connection to them as the responder
• both sites have appropriate ADSL2+ capable filters and short cables etc
• both sites drop their ADSL connection (not line sync) after 13 to 16 days and then fail to reconnect.
• A restart of the device (soft or hard) and the connection will stay up for anywhere between 5 and 16 minutes - whatever the time length is, it will always die after that time e.g. if it's 10 minutes, then it will lose connection every 10 minutes.
• both lines have been tested (and charged to the end user) by the carrier and the wholesaler and no line problems have been found. There are some very mild anomalies but nothing that should cause these sorts of issues
• both routers have the latest firmware, have been reset to default and still show the same errors.

Netgear have shown no willingness to engage with me on this issue. After calling them four times and speaking with four different 1st level techs I can't get them to acknowledge that the routers might have a problem. Mind you, it's only 2 routers out of 40+ that I have in place out in the real world. Replacing the routers with devices running different hardware results in a stable connection again so it's not the lines! Once everything has been eliminated as points of failure, the final location of the problem is the Netgear Router. So I've had to replace them and that's the subject of my next entry.

Financial Bail out

For anyone in the money markets the last month or so has been a devastating one. I've been reading a bit about the way this whole thing started, with the bad debts in the USA and how this is now flowing on to the rest of the world. The biggest thing that irks me is the lack of responsibility being taken by people.

Take the people at the bottom line of things - those people who took out mortgages for homes that they could never effectively repay. Yes, during the first 6 or 12 months when they were paying 1% interest back they could afford it. When the honeymoon was over and their mortgage repayments became what they should be - well then they were screwed and many choose to walk away on their bad debts. Accordingly, the over-priced homes they had bought were then sold for less than the purchase price, so the debt wasn't covered by it and the lenders had to take a write off. Consider the massive inflation in home prices that was caused by all these cheap mortgages and people paying far more than a home was worth. It turns out this is a widespread thing, and it's happening in Australia too.

Deregulation of the financial sector is probably partly to blame, but the greed of these people in the financial sector is more to blame. It's not about responsible stewardship of people's money - it's about how much they can make and how fast they can do it. The major banks here in Australia are posting record profits. The executives are getting massive bonuses. If the market falls here like it has in the US and the Australian government bails them out that is the worst kind of financial mismanagement that there is. The record profits and bonuses should go back into the banks to keep them solvent. The people's money should be protected - both people with money in the banks and the taxpayers who are being asked to foot the bill (and by and large they're the same people).

In the US no-one is taking responsibility for the fall. Bailing them out only serves to indicate that you can do this sort of thing and get away with it. What a load of shit! It's like murdering someone and walking away with the smoking gun in your hand and a nation of witnesses. The US government should be ashamed of themselves. A cleansing needs to happen - all the bad debt, all the bad operators and all the bad investment groups need to be shutdown. That's the point of letting them crumble. Yes there will be some financial hardship for the people with their money tied up in this but it will pass. The cycle will continue and hopefully, the next loop around will be a better one that before. I've always refused to put money in the stock market. I can't see the pay-back on betting on confidence in companies and really, that's what it is. A company can still make products to a high standard but their share price won't reflect that - it'll go up and down based on the most absurd premises - the company's CEO shagged someone else's missus or something ridiculous. I wish I were joking. 

The worst thing that could have been done was to provide a safety net for the people who have caused the financial melt down in it's current state. They are not being held accountable for their actions and I read recently that in the US they are not even being prosecuted! What the fuck!? Let's just allow them to get off without responsibility. I suppose that's the Bush way. I wonder if it will be the Rudd way as well?

Back pain - not cool

Over the last few days I've experienced a fair bit of back pain. A dull ache that spirals up to a sharp pain in the area between my waist line and shoulder blades. Not a lot of fun to cope with. Between the 2 hours of sleep a night and the rush, bustle and general unpleasantness of the holiday season, I'm starting to get a bit cranky. I think it's more the stress of this time of year than an actual injury of any type - although I do have to stoop over or bend when I do a lot of household stuff (which I've actually been doing). Coming back to the stress of Christmas though... I've been downtown a bit and the behaviour of people at this time of year is appalling. Of course, we all hear the wonderful Christmas stories from the media - marking this the one time of year they'll actual cover something good, but we don't get the unpleasant underbelly of Christmas coming to the fore.

For example, as everyone rushes to get stuff for people, their driving habits worsen. I've been cut off about 5 times more often in the last week than all year. And people do the most discourteous things in addition - failing to indicate, tail gating etc. I've taken to keeping away from the major roads in town - the other routes are far more scenic and less stressful.

My significant other works part time in retail and she comes home cranky after every shift. Why? Because people are arseholes and Christmas is their time to shine. Commercialism overrides common sense (what little those dumb fuckers have anyway), manners are ignored and common courtesy is completely disregarded. It's clearly at times like this that I think humanity should be drowned in a bucket. Personally, I blame the commercialisation of Christmas. I've read a couple of bits and pieces today on the net regarding diamonds and the advertising of them as a way of purchasing your way to a woman's heart. Why would you use those common old rocks, sold at a premium? At any rate, it brings out the worst in people.

I remember when we were kids and there wasn't a lot under the tree. There was always some sporting stuff (we played cricket, hockey, tennis, golf, soccer, AFL and loads of others) or a replacement bike every few years as we outgrew/destroyed the ones we had. There were a minimum of computer games and the like, being that it was before the great wussification of children began and very few plastic toys. Nowadays kids seem to get plastic crap that lasts all of 10 minutes, and an arseload of games and things designed to keep them inside. I see kids these days at school that have the physical co-ordination of a drunk monkey. It's appalling!

So who is to blame for all of this? The parent? They are besieged by advertising regarding junk for kids, they are hammered by the kids wanting said junk and they are exhausted because they work long and hard to try to get the money to pay for it all. So is it the advertisers? Nope, they're just doing their job and they do good at it. It weakens, belittles and undermines us all, but hey, that's their job and they work hard at it.

It comes back to a common theme for me - the big corporations are at (and I do realise that free will and the right to choose are not to be dis-regarded here) fault. Those big, faceless, accountable only to their greedy shareholders entities that seem to rule the world. Of course, the shareholders are average people, but they don't give a shit. They want a return on their stocks, and they want it NOW! Damn the impact of the activities of those corporations on the people and the planet - we want our fucking money and we want it to increase every year damn it! It's bloody appalling and I am continuously shocked and appalled by the people who piss and moan about how bad things are, but own stocks in these organisations - and therefore have a say in the governance of that organisation. Do something about it you spineless cretins!

Unfortunately the lure of riches, glamour and stuff is too great and the corporations who have poisoned our minds and are currently destroying our world use these things to blind us to what is happening. The power of the people is undermined in a calculated and heartless manner through the manipulation of those lying pussbag politicians and so we all suffer.

Try not to buy *too* much useless shit this Christmas!

Struggling with Creativity

I had attempted to write each day for December, but it's really not working out. When I want to write is generally when I'm trying to work and the great ideas I have are often swamped by the complexities of my tasks here at the office.

Plus, I'm just finding it damn hard to write something interesting! And this led me to an ongoing thought stream I've had and that I pondered in some depth yesterday. You see, yesterday I watched the movie "The World's Fastest Indian" with Anthony Hopkins in it. Basically, the movie is about a Kiwi fellow by the name of Burt Munro who wants his 1920 model Indian motorcycle to be the fastest of its type in the world. He was focussed on his goal, lived, ate and breathed it and eventually it came to fruition. That passion, that burning desire to achieve a single goal - I don't have that.

Nope, no passion for anything in particular. Even the things I really like doing, if I couldn't do them any more I'd miss them but I'd probably move on without lamenting the fact on a daily basis. While I find this lack of passion somewhat disquieting it does have it's benefits. I find a balanced approach to life is much more easy. There is no sporting team that I love, no vehicle I love and no place I love. Likewise for the myriad other things that people are passionate about. I like certain cars, I like certain places and I enjoy various activities. But I'm not so passionate about it that I'll devote my life to them.

Is this mediocrity? A cover for a lack of self-confidence - a feeling that I can't be the best at anything so why try? I don't think so. As long as I'm giving my best effort I'm happy with the outcome. There is always some place to improve, but I'm not so crazed about it that I'll feel awful for ages afterward. I'd like to think I'm a bit Zen about the whole thing. The variables I can control are my own variables - the effort I'm making, the focus I've got etc. I find that the more passionate I am about something, the more pressure is on me to succeed and less enjoyment I ultimately get from it (even when I am successful).

I think that this could be applied to a few things for many people. Sport is the obvious example. I'm tied up with hockey and the like in my home town and nothing disgusts me more than moron spectators screaming at their kid, or someone else's kid or the umpire for what is happening on the field. There is very rarely a positive slant to these comments and it doesn't serve to help anyone out. Isn't the object to enjoy one's self whilst on the field? Don't we want to encourage our kids to do well - but praise the effort they make, in case the results aren't as wonderful as we expect from our progeny? At least this gives you an out -if they make a big effort but don't get to the line in the manner they/we expect, then you still have something great to say to them. And the effort is the only thing they can really control isn't it?! The results are often dependent on others, the environment or just dumb luck.

I guess I do have a passion after all - a passion for people to be reasonable and to look a bit beyond the moronic behaviour that is so often exhibited in this society. I'm not looking to apportion blame, but rather to suggest that things be considered in a slightly different light.

Expect this post to be edited :-)

Experiences with Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty Gibbon

I've spent a fair bit of time around Linux and I was very interested to see what this new distribution had to offer. I went the cheater's path for my work PC (a Dell GX260) and upgraded first to the RC and then patched to the full version. I like it a lot on this machine, it detected my wide screen LCD properly, looks nice and feels like it runs faster than 7.04. So, all good.

At home however, the story varies significantly. I have a whitebox with an AMD processor in it, a 250GB SATA disk and standard everything else. It currently runs Windows Vista Ultimate (ugh!) and I had approximately 80GB free that I thought would be handy for Ubuntu. I will note that this particular machine, when I attempted to install OpenSuSE 10.3 on it, appears to have some obscure SATA controller and SuSE was unable to detect it. I was prepared for the eventuality that Ubuntu wouldn't see it either, but to my pleasant surprise it did.

I ran the install, popped GRUB on the system and rebooted. Everything had seemed to go well, the partitioning etc was a breeze and Ubuntu have done a very nice job of making the installation process as painless and thought free as possible (good for the newbz out there that say Linux is too hard to install). After the reboot I was greeted with the unhappy result from GRUB: Error 17. Subsequent reboots and I got Error 18 and even Error 15. The SATA controller problem (I suspect) had struck again. What *really* ticked me off was that Vista was unable to repair the boot partition and I lost the lot. Now fortunately I have backups (let that be a lesson to all of you who don't) and I didn't lose any data. I did, however, lose several hours of time and my temper at least twice.

The SATA controller in this particular machine is not a fancy one. The board is a fairly standard one and it ran Ubuntu 7.04 without any issue. And yet neither OpenSuSE 10.3 or Ubuntu 7.10 worked with it properly. Very annoying. Vista (sadly) did work with it properly and is once again working with it properly. *sigh* I want to get away from the Microsoft world (it's expensive!) and I am restrained once again due to hardware issues.

So a win and a loss with Ubuntu 7.10 and one complete recovery failure with Vista. Life goes on.