From windsor at warthog.com Tue Aug 1 08:55:14 2006
From: windsor at warthog.com (Rob Windsor)
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 10:55:14 -0500
Subject: History of UNIX
In-Reply-To: <2453B3E4-C0EB-4BD2-8847-3276EA637B96@extragalactic.net>
References: <2453B3E4-C0EB-4BD2-8847-3276EA637B96@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <44CF7962.9010507@warthog.com>
Guy B. Purcell wrote:
> I just came across this page & thought others also might find it pretty
> neat: .
Yeah, that's been around for a while. I first saw it back when OpenBSD
was the latest (DragonFlyBSD wasn't around yet).
I'm glad to see that they're staying up on it.
Rob++
--
Internet: windsor at warthog.com __o
Life: Rob at Carrollton.Texas.USA.Earth _`\<,_
(_)/ (_)
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
-- Major General John Sedgwick
From pcubbage at opencountry.com Thu Aug 3 23:07:31 2006
From: pcubbage at opencountry.com (Paul Cubbage)
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 23:07:31 -0700
Subject: A call looking for volunteers at the Linux World Installfest (sponsored
by Open Country)
Message-ID: <44D2E423.1080109@opencountry.com>
Hi all,
Due to (lucky) late breaking events, Open Country will be sponsoring the
Installfest at Linux World. We are asking local LUGs, free software
organizations, and interested parties, to participate.
Given the variety of distros systems and the many odd issues to deal with, we
need your help, expertise, ISO's, CDs and booth time! Rewards are spiritual!
plus fun, swag, parties, mondo geeking, chocolate, networking...
Other vendors may participate with systems and software. Stay tuned.
If you are on the list of an organization whose members might be interested,
please forward this email.
Any direct contacts with distro vendors would be a great help.
Please contact me if you are interested!
Thanks!
Paul Cubbage
Evangelist
Open Country, Inc.
From pcubbage at opencountry.com Fri Aug 4 09:40:20 2006
From: pcubbage at opencountry.com (Paul Cubbage)
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:40:20 -0700
Subject: Linux World Installfest (sponsored by Open Country)
In-Reply-To: <44D2E423.1080109@opencountry.com>
References: <44D2E423.1080109@opencountry.com>
Message-ID: <44D37874.20503@opencountry.com>
As one person so kindly pointed out, I (doh) didn't include the dates:
The Exhibit hall, where the Installfest will be located, is open 10AM-5PM,
Tuesday-Thursday, August 15-17.
Paul Cubbage wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Due to (lucky) late breaking events, Open Country will be sponsoring the
> Installfest at Linux World. We are asking local LUGs, free software
> organizations, and interested parties, to participate.
>
> Given the variety of distros systems and the many odd issues to deal with, we
> need your help, expertise, ISO's, CDs and booth time! Rewards are spiritual!
> plus fun, swag, parties, mondo geeking, chocolate, networking...
>
> Other vendors may participate with systems and software. Stay tuned.
>
> If you are on the list of an organization whose members might be interested,
> please forward this email.
>
> Any direct contacts with distro vendors would be a great help.
>
> Please contact me if you are interested!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Paul Cubbage
> Evangelist
> Open Country, Inc.
>
> _______________________________________________
> svlug mailing list
> svlug at lists.svlug.org
> http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/svlug
>
From guy at extragalactic.net Fri Aug 4 13:18:10 2006
From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell)
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 13:18:10 -0700
Subject: Wiretapping routers
Message-ID: <5942ED93-F8B8-4583-AA54-AD7B426D473F@extragalactic.net>
A co-worker just sent me this link . Will it
never end?! Well, maybe this will help push through more global
adoption of full end-to-end encryption technology, but that won't
help the low-level routing & ICMP traffic, of course. Geez.
-Guy
From vraptor at employees.org Sat Aug 5 06:59:30 2006
From: vraptor at employees.org (vraptor at employees.org)
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 06:59:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Wiretapping routers
In-Reply-To: <5942ED93-F8B8-4583-AA54-AD7B426D473F@extragalactic.net>
References: <5942ED93-F8B8-4583-AA54-AD7B426D473F@extragalactic.net>
Message-ID: <20060805063838.F51043@willers.employees.org>
On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Guy B. Purcell wrote:
> A co-worker just sent me this link sysadmin/blog/2006/07/now_what_does_the_fbi_want.html>. Will it never end?!
> Well, maybe this will help push through more global adoption of full
> end-to-end encryption technology, but that won't help the low-level routing &
> ICMP traffic, of course. Geez.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that the FBI knew that the Senate
would receive pressure to ratify the Cybercrime Treaty and that they
will now be enforcing every other country's ridiculous net laws as
well as the bad ones our own congresscritters pass?
"August 03, 2006
[Update: The Cybercrime Treaty was ratified by the Senate late last
night. The U.S. will now have to comply to requests for assistance
from fifteen countries, and growing.]
The Convention on Cybercrime is a sweeping treaty that has been
waiting in the wings of the Senate for nearly three years. Now the
administration is putting pressure on the Senate to ratify it in the
next two days. If it does, it would mean the U.S. would enforce not
just our own, but the rest of the world's bad Net laws. Call your
Senator now, and ask them to hold its ratification.
The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other
countries' "cybercrime" laws - even if the act being prosecuted is not
illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws
limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the
identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications
on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to
obey other jurisdiction's requests to log their users. behavior
without due process, or compensation.
The treaty came into force last year on the international front, but
not in the US, where it needs to be ratified by Congress first. So
far, ratification has been blocked thanks to a "hold" placed by
conservative lawmakers. But Republican senators this week are now
being heavily pressured by the administration to drop their
objections, and let it fly.
Ratifying the Cybercrime treaty would introduce not just one bad
Internet law into America's lawbooks, but invite the enforcement of
all the world's worst Internet laws. Call your senators now, and tell
them to hold this invasive treaty at bay."
I guess this will be the real test of whether our new Supreme court
justices are mouthpieces for the current administration or true
Constitutionalists.
=Nadine=
From sigje at sigje.org Wed Aug 9 11:10:29 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 11:10:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: LinuxWorld BoF and possible creation of a BayLISA SIG
Message-ID:
LinuxWorld is coming up, and GROUNDWORK Open Source is hosting a BoF on
Monitoring that might be very interesting to BayLISA folks. Additionally,
BayLISA is going to announce the creation of a Monitoring SIG at this
meeting in cooperation with GROUNDWORK Open Source.
Details following:
BoF: Network, Device, and Environment Monitoring
Wednesday, 08/16/2006, 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM (but LinuxWorld says we can
stay longer)
Free with LinuxWorld exhibits pass (pre-register online to avoid long
lines onsite)
Speakers:
Ian Berry, Project Lead, Cacti
Kees Cook, Project Lead, Sendpage
Matt Massie, Project Lead, Ganglia
Tobi Oetiker, Project Lead, RRDtool, MRTG, Smokeping
Remo Rickli, Project Lead, NeDi
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/events/12SFO06A/conference/
tracksessions//QMONYA04SIUC
A roundtable on open source tools for network and server monitoring
and management, we'll briefly discuss the the state of the IT
management tools industry -- both commercial and Open Source. The
project leads for ganglia, Cacti, rrdtool, MRTG, NeDi, Sendpage and
Smokeping will present briefly on their tools and answer questions.
Finally, we'll describe approaches that integrate multiple open
source tools to create a comprehensive Network Monitoring solution.
From sigje at sigje.org Wed Aug 9 11:46:28 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 11:46:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Linux Picnic - August 19 - Sunnyvale Baylands Park, Sunnyvale
Message-ID:
As BayLISA did last year, we are sponsoring the LinuxPicnic which is
coming up on August 19. The RSVP form is up and running so if you are
planning on coming to this free event please do sign up:
http://www.linuxpicnic.org/guests/rsvp.pl
We are still looking for volunteers for the event, so if you are
interested in helping out please do let me know by replying to this email
with your interest.
Jennifer
From tony at usenix.org Fri Aug 11 16:20:22 2006
From: tony at usenix.org (Tony Del Porto)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:20:22 -0700
Subject: UPS Batteries, etc
Message-ID: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org>
Hey folks,
Back in January of 2005 there was a thread on UPS batteries, but I
seem to only have part of it. So....
In practice, is it best to replace UPS brand X's batteries with
official replacement batteries from brand X, or is it reasonably safe
to purchase generic replacement batteries from a reputable vendor? If
the latter, any recommendations for said reputable, preferably local,
vendor? I'm faced with $2k in replacement battery costs if I go with
official replacements, and I don't plan to keep the UPS system we
have in place for more than six months. I'd love to upgrade now and
avoid the replacement issue altogether, but APC doesn't have any
available units to buy right now.
Thanks,
Tony Del Porto
SysAdmin
USENIX Association
2560 9th Street, Suite 215, Berkeley CA 94710
tony at usenix.org | www.usenix.org | www.sage.org
From hal at deer-run.com Fri Aug 11 16:41:53 2006
From: hal at deer-run.com (Hal Pomeranz)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:41:53 -0700
Subject: UPS Batteries, etc
In-Reply-To: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org>
References: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org>
Message-ID: <20060811234153.GC21971@deer-run.com>
> In practice, is it best to replace UPS brand X's batteries with
> official replacement batteries from brand X, or is it reasonably safe
> to purchase generic replacement batteries from a reputable vendor?
I've done both. The nice thing about the "official replacement"
packs is:
1) The install is generally much more turnkey. The generic
replacement sets often require you to use parts (fuses, bus bars, etc)
from the previous battery packs, meaning a little more wrenching time
for you when doing the replacement. The "official replacement" packs
generally just pop right in with minimum fuss.
2) The "official replacement" packs include postage paid return labels
to send the old battery packs back to the menufacturer for recycling.
If you have a local, cheap option for recycling led-acid batteries then
this is less useful.
As far as the on-line vendors, I've used BatteryWholesale.com a couple
of times and they've been fine.
--
Hal Pomeranz, Founder/CEO Deer Run Associates hal at deer-run.com
Network Connectivity and Security, Systems Management, Training
From david at catwhisker.org Fri Aug 11 17:05:43 2006
From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:05:43 -0700
Subject: UPS Batteries, etc
In-Reply-To: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org>
References: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org>
Message-ID: <20060812000543.GX490@bunrab.catwhisker.org>
On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 04:20:22PM -0700, Tony Del Porto wrote:
> Hey folks,
>
> Back in January of 2005 there was a thread on UPS batteries, but I
> seem to only have part of it. So....
I'm confident that I could find the whole thing. How useful that would
be is a different matter. :-}
> In practice, is it best to replace UPS brand X's batteries with
> official replacement batteries from brand X, or is it reasonably safe
> to purchase generic replacement batteries from a reputable vendor?
I suspect that a couple of salient criteria would be the capacity/size
of the UPS & what kinds of batteries it uses.
The UPSen I use at home use 12V, 5.0 Ah motorcycle (lead-acid)
batteries, which are pretty generic. The UPS for the MUX for the
DS3 that's being installed at work uses Li-ion batteries; I suspect
that they are rather less generic. :-}
> If the latter, any recommendations for said reputable, preferably
> local, vendor? I'm faced with $2k in replacement battery costs if
> I go with official replacements, and I don't plan to keep the UPS
> system we have in place for more than six months. I'd love to upgrade
> now and avoid the replacement issue altogether, but APC doesn't
> have any available units to buy right now.
You've tried various resellers?
Anyway -- I ended up buying the 12V motorcycle batteries from a
place in San Diego (Rage Batteries). Granted, that doesn't qualify
as "local" for this context from my perspective, but the price
(including shipping) was better than other sources I found, and I
was able to buy 15 of the batteries without being concerned that I
wouldn't be able to actually receive all 15. And they've been
working fine; that UPS keeps things going for about 1.5 hours now.
IIRC, the batteries were made by Yuasa.
Peace,
david
--
David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org
Propagating claims that 63.192.123.122/32 is dynamic demonstrates cluelessness.
See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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From jxh at jxh.com Fri Aug 11 17:45:24 2006
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:45:24 -0500
Subject: UPS Batteries, etc
In-Reply-To: <20060811234153.GC21971@deer-run.com>
References: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org> <20060811234153.GC21971@deer-run.com>
Message-ID: <44DD24A4.8090302@jxh.com>
Hal Pomeranz wrote:
> 1) The install is generally much more turnkey. The generic
> replacement sets often require you to use parts (fuses, bus bars, etc)
> from the previous battery packs, meaning a little more wrenching time
> for you when doing the replacement. The "official replacement" packs
> generally just pop right in with minimum fuss.
I've had "replacement" batteries where the terminals aren't _quite_ the
same, and I ended up doing significant modifications to the external
metal, i.e. even further from turnkey. Dealing locally should permit a
side-by-side comparison.
> 2) The "official replacement" packs include postage paid return labels
Yup. And 3) The manufacturer may extend the warranty on the whole unit.
APC "Charge-UPS" kits do this for some units. This once paid off for
me handsomely; the warranty included advance replacement and overnight
_air freight_. I don't know how much it cost them to send a box of lead
Priority Overnight, but it had to be a significant fraction of the money
I paid them for the batteries.
From harker at harker.com Fri Aug 11 20:18:07 2006
From: harker at harker.com (Robert Harker)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:18:07 -0700
Subject: UPS Batteries, etc
In-Reply-To: <44DD24A4.8090302@jxh.com>
References: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org> <20060811234153.GC21971@deer-run.com> <44DD24A4.8090302@jxh.com>
Message-ID: <44DD486F.7040506@harker.com>
I weigh in on the generic replacement batteries. I have some HP UPSs
that I replaced the batteries on. I recommend that you open your unit
up and take a look. If they seem to be custom batteries, then SOL.
But if they seem like standard sealed lead acid batteries, they they
are probably stock items. Batteries are specified by amperage and voltage
My UPS takes 7.0 AH 12 Volt batteries. The next thing to look at is overall
dimensions of the batteries, L x W x H. The last thing is the type and size
of the power tabs on the battery. There are multiple brands available.
My personal feeling is that sealed lead acid batteries are a stable
technology, so brand should not matter as long as it is a fly by night brand.
Funny thing for me is that when I opened up some older, smaller Trip-Lite
UPSs I had laying around, they a single of the same battery.
I also used Rage Batteries in San Diego because of their price. When looking
at price, always include shipping. For many vendors, shipping was almost
as much as the batteries them selves.
Hope this helps
RLH
From tony at usenix.org Fri Aug 11 22:25:07 2006
From: tony at usenix.org (Tony Del Porto)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 22:25:07 -0700
Subject: UPS Batteries, etc
In-Reply-To: <20060811234153.GC21971@deer-run.com>
References: <75815F2E-B811-4470-A786-44A2DDA5DA3F@usenix.org> <20060811234153.GC21971@deer-run.com>
Message-ID: <623513C5-EB3A-438A-9798-4FE71866FAAE@usenix.org>
I've found a cheap local option for recycling: Sears Auto Centers.
They have a regular collection of batteries and allow you to put
yours on the pile for free. I dropped off 4 batteries yesterday at
the Sears Auto Center on Telegraph in Oakland. I called first to make
sure they really did take them for free, and it took longer to find
someone to point me at the battery pile than it did to dispose of the
batteries.
And regarding fitting generic replacement batteries, that's exactly
the sort of thing I'm concerned about. The batteries I just pulled
from the "extended life" battery packs have threaded terminals on top
to which a harness is attached. I held on to the harnesses, but
having not looked under the hood of my car in a while I don't
remember if most lead acid batteries come with threaded terminals.
I'll look into Rage batteries and see where that goes.
Thanks for all the responses!
Tony
From david.carmean at netapp.com Mon Aug 14 11:22:17 2006
From: david.carmean at netapp.com (David Carmean)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:22:17 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain or low cost
In-Reply-To:
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
Message-ID: <20060814182217.GT695@netapp.com>
Resurrecting an old thread here...
Anyone here have experience with Cerberus? OTRS? Kayako? SupportTrio?
We (Engineering) are trying desperately to get off of Corporate
IT's evil Vantive system.
Thanks.
--
David Carmean Network Appliance, Inc
Infosystems Architect, 495 E. Java Drive
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
From jadams at tellme.com Mon Aug 14 12:07:26 2006
From: jadams at tellme.com (Jim Adams)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:07:26 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public
domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <20060814182217.GT695@netapp.com>
Message-ID:
Bugzilla works well...and is free. ;-)
On 8/14/06 11:22 AM, "David Carmean" wrote:
>
> Resurrecting an old thread here...
>
> Anyone here have experience with Cerberus? OTRS? Kayako? SupportTrio?
>
> We (Engineering) are trying desperately to get off of Corporate
> IT's evil Vantive system.
>
> Thanks.
From gars at lanl.gov Mon Aug 14 12:49:40 2006
From: gars at lanl.gov (Gary Sandine)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:49:40 -0600
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public
domain or low cost
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <1155584980.9159.6.camel@aquila.lanl.gov>
Hi all,
I'm new to this list. (vaguely...) I am a systems administrator for a
large network in a scientific / research computing environment.
On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 12:07 -0700, Jim Adams wrote:
> Bugzilla works well...and is free. ;-)
Same goes for Request Tracker. It offers a built-in knowledge base if
you want it.
http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/
[..]
> On 8/14/06 11:22 AM, "David Carmean" wrote:
>
> >
> > Resurrecting an old thread here...
> >
> > Anyone here have experience with Cerberus? OTRS? Kayako? SupportTrio?
> >
> > We (Engineering) are trying desperately to get off of Corporate
> > IT's evil Vantive system.
> >
> > Thanks.
From pcubbage at opencountry.com Mon Aug 14 12:54:30 2006
From: pcubbage at opencountry.com (Paul Cubbage)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:54:30 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public domain
or low cost
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <44E0D4F6.8080203@opencountry.com>
Jim Adams wrote:
> Bugzilla works well...and is free. ;-)
also idiosyncratic, and not easily configured, or modified.
It's greatest virtue is that it works and a whole lot of people know how to use
it. Definitely a lowest common denominator.
>
> On 8/14/06 11:22 AM, "David Carmean" wrote:
>
>
>>Resurrecting an old thread here...
>>
>>Anyone here have experience with Cerberus? OTRS? Kayako? SupportTrio?
>>
>>We (Engineering) are trying desperately to get off of Corporate
>>IT's evil Vantive system.
>>
>>Thanks.
>
>
>
From iennae at gmail.com Mon Aug 14 15:38:06 2006
From: iennae at gmail.com (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 15:38:06 -0700
Subject: Fwd: Survey on project management for Systems Administrators
In-Reply-To: <9D12E3B7122E214F92BE5E82ABACAC469C0A68@ex5.mail.win.hw.ac.uk>
References: <9D12E3B7122E214F92BE5E82ABACAC469C0A68@ex5.mail.win.hw.ac.uk>
Message-ID:
This may be of interest to BayLISA folks to participate in.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shenton, Jonathan A
Date: Aug 14, 2006 1:46 PM
Subject: Survey on project management for Systems Administrators
To: president at baylisa.org
Hi
My name is Jonathan Shenton and I'm a Senior Systems Administrator, a
member of SAGE and a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society
I'm studying for a master's degree part time from Heriot Watt
University and I would like your help for my dissertation on projects
focused exclusively on Systems Administrators.
Please would you be willing to ask your members to fill in this simple
survey about their experiences of projects?
To access it, please click on this link
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=748822414965
In exchange for completing this survey I shall provide them with a
copy of my finding and I will also run a draw for a $20 Amazon
voucher.
The closing date for this survey is August 25th.
Many thanks
Jonathan Shenton
Postgraduate Student of Heriot Watt University
--
Jennifer Davis
From sigje at sigje.org Mon Aug 14 16:24:34 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 16:24:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: BayLISA August general meeting at Yahoo
Message-ID:
August General Meeting - Amanda
August 17, 2006
Time: 7:00-10:00pm
Location: Yahoo Inc!
Bldg E, classroom 9.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA
Amanda
Amanda is a popular open source network based backup and archiving software.
Amanda uses native tools and can back up a large number of machines running
various versions of Linux, Unix or Microsoft Windows operating
systems. This talk
will provide an overview of Amanda latest release (2.5) and future
project roadmap.
For more information, see http://wiki.zmanda.com
Paddy Sreenivasan, Zmanda Inc.
Paddy Sreenivasan is an Amanda developer working at Zmanda Inc.
Directions to Yahoo :
Directions to campus are available at
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/address.cfm
Ignore the last two steps in the directions, instead of turning first right
into Yahoo, turn first *left* into Bldg E. parking lot. A security guard will
be available to let you into the Bldg. at the main door.
Thanks,
Alan
!DSPAM:44e105e1289848724220109!
From fabrice at life.net Tue Aug 15 06:39:32 2006
From: fabrice at life.net (Fabrice Nye)
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 06:39:32 -0700
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking -
public domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <20060814182217.GT695@netapp.com>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
<20060814182217.GT695@netapp.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060815063414.04debd30@mail.spamarrest.com>
I tried OTRS a couple of years ago, and it seemed
to work exactly in the way I intended it to. It
is fairly customizable and would probably work
both as an internal IT trouble ticket system and
as an external customer technical support system.
The main thing that attracted me to this package
was that most transactions could occur via
e-mail, and that I could modify the behavior by
tweaking the scripts. There is also a web
interface, which can be made to look any way you want.
--F.
At 11:22 8/14/2006, David Carmean wrote:
>Resurrecting an old thread here...
>
>Anyone here have experience with Cerberus? OTRS? Kayako? SupportTrio?
>
>We (Engineering) are trying desperately to get off of Corporate
>IT's evil Vantive system.
>
>Thanks.
>
>--
>David Carmean Network Appliance, Inc
>Infosystems Architect, 495 E. Java Drive
> Sunnyvale, CA 94089
--
Fabrice Nye
Redwood Shores, CA 94065 [37?32'20.9"N; 122?15'0.4"W]
Phone: (650) 596-9321
Fax: (772) 619-3777
http://www.life.net/fabrice
"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to
serve as a horrible warning."
--Catherine Aird
From rowan at hovenweep.org Tue Aug 15 21:25:02 2006
From: rowan at hovenweep.org (John "Rowan" Littell)
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:25:02 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
Message-ID: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
So, I'm moving to the Bay Area -- Oakland, to be specific (actually,
I'm already here, but still getting settled -- hi all). And I'm
trying to figure out what options I have for internet service.
Naturally, don't figure myself for a complete dunce at managing
simple network equipment (although Comcast would certainly love to
sock me for it if they can). I don't have a particular preference
for cable or DSL, as long as it's reasonably fast (384k is probably
sufficient, more is great), relatively stable, and won't treat me
like a complete moron (either at installation time or when I call to
tell them that their router is spewing bogons). I will have
traditional land line phone service and cable TV (unless someone
really wants to talk me into Dish Networks). I'll be connecting,
directly, either an old 486 running ipfw/ipnat or a Linksys workalike
(and behind that a couple of Mac laptops); providers who insist on
Win* installations will be chucked in the bit bucket where they belong.
What to people suggest/love/hate?
Thanks,
--rowan
From sigje at sigje.org Tue Aug 15 22:34:39 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:34:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
References: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
Message-ID:
Welcome to the Bay area! :) We have a BayLISA meeting on Thursday.. not
sure if you'll be able to make it down from Oakland, but it might be a
good time to meet folks and say hello!
Jennifer
From rick at linuxmafia.com Wed Aug 16 00:44:26 2006
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:44:26 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
References: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
Message-ID: <20060816074426.GH10204@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting John Rowan Littell (rowan at hovenweep.org):
> So, I'm moving to the Bay Area -- Oakland, to be specific (actually,
> I'm already here, but still getting settled -- hi all). And I'm
> trying to figure out what options I have for internet service.
The usual DSL recommendations are (from somewhat leaky memory):
Raw Bandwidth Communications
Speakeasy.net
Sonic.net
probably a couple of others that I'm forgetting.
There are some commercial wireless networks. Also, some people profess
to like monopoly-cable vendor Comcast, and a few depraved souls claim to
not hate Pacific Telephone^W^W Pacific Bell^W^W SBC^W AT&T.
I'm a very satisfied Raw Bandwidth customer in Menlo Park. Their
service Just Works. Their principal Mike Durkin has Major Clue.
The Usenet "ba.internet" is the traditional place to get current on the
provider-reputation demolition derby.
From vraptor at employees.org Wed Aug 16 07:39:49 2006
From: vraptor at employees.org (vraptor at employees.org)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 07:39:49 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: suggestions of Helpdesk software, request tracking - public
domain or low cost
In-Reply-To: <20060814182217.GT695@netapp.com>
References: <35789.167.4.1.39.1152561720.squirrel@167.4.1.39>
<20060814182217.GT695@netapp.com>
Message-ID: <20060816073424.G15627@willers.employees.org>
At last $work, we had very good luck with Jira--not free, but low cost
and you can try before you buy. Our Java guy was able to quickly
build some integration with Confluence, the wiki by the same folks.
www.atlassian.com
Their development team is very conscientious and competent. We found
a bug which was fixed in their next minor release, which came about 2
weeks later.
We used Jira for tasks, bug tracking, development feature tracking,
and part of our project management (e.g. the part for the techies, not
for the management team. ;-)
Good luck with your search.
=Nadine=
On Mon, 14 Aug 2006, David Carmean wrote:
>
> Resurrecting an old thread here...
>
> Anyone here have experience with Cerberus? OTRS? Kayako? SupportTrio?
>
> We (Engineering) are trying desperately to get off of Corporate
> IT's evil Vantive system.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> David Carmean Network Appliance, Inc
> Infosystems Architect, 495 E. Java Drive
> Sunnyvale, CA 94089
>
From cos at indeterminate.net Wed Aug 16 11:03:29 2006
From: cos at indeterminate.net (John Costello)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 11:03:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <20060816074426.GH10204@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID:
On Wed, 16 Aug 2006, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting John Rowan Littell (rowan at hovenweep.org):
> > trying to figure out what options I have for internet service.
> The usual DSL recommendations are (from somewhat leaky memory):
>[snip snip]
> There are some commercial wireless networks. Also, some people profess
> to like monopoly-cable vendor Comcast, and a few depraved souls claim to
> not hate Pacific Telephone^W^W Pacific Bell^W^W SBC^W AT&T.
I hate the above mentioned telecom from the knotted depths of my soul with
an undying passion that exceeds the loathing that I have for
USWest^H^HQwest. Avoid them.
I know a few people in the Bay Area who liked Speakeasy.net (one formerly
in Marin, one currently in Berkeley, one possibly in Oakland), and I like
them here in the PNW.
From ames at montebellopartners.com Wed Aug 16 16:21:31 2006
From: ames at montebellopartners.com (Ames Cornish)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 16:21:31 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
References: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
Message-ID: <1155770492.15519.20.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Rowan,
I've had four different DSL services at three different locations over
several years. The AT&T was awful -- if you're lucky, it just works.
If you're unlucky, it won't work, you'll spend up to 6 hours per
complaint call, and in the end they won't fix it. I'm now using
DSLExtreme at two different locations and have been very happy for about
three years.
- Ames
On Tue, 2006-08-15 at 21:25 -0700, John "Rowan" Littell wrote:
> So, I'm moving to the Bay Area -- Oakland, to be specific (actually,
> I'm already here, but still getting settled -- hi all). And I'm
> trying to figure out what options I have for internet service.
> Naturally, don't figure myself for a complete dunce at managing
> simple network equipment (although Comcast would certainly love to
> sock me for it if they can). I don't have a particular preference
> for cable or DSL, as long as it's reasonably fast (384k is probably
> sufficient, more is great), relatively stable, and won't treat me
> like a complete moron (either at installation time or when I call to
> tell them that their router is spewing bogons). I will have
> traditional land line phone service and cable TV (unless someone
> really wants to talk me into Dish Networks). I'll be connecting,
> directly, either an old 486 running ipfw/ipnat or a Linksys workalike
> (and behind that a couple of Mac laptops); providers who insist on
> Win* installations will be chucked in the bit bucket where they belong.
>
> What to people suggest/love/hate?
>
> Thanks,
> --rowan
--
Ames Cornish ~ http://montebellopartners.com/
650-331-1402 ~ ames at montebellopartners.com
From kobus at bixdata.com Wed Aug 16 19:09:38 2006
From: kobus at bixdata.com (Kobus Jooste)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:09:38 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
Message-ID: <001b01c6c1a2$31e39920$6501a8c0@athlon64xp>
Hi
I live in Oakland, work in Berkeley.
I had SBC/Yahoo DSL now Comcast Cable and DSLExtreme. I actually
monitor all my connections.
SBC Yahoo DSL is the slowest for me, uptime is OK. Happy to stop
service.
Comcast Cable is the fastest at home, uptime is medium to OK. (down
like 2 or 3 times a month, 0.5-4 hours at a time)
The best service overall is DSL Extreme, which has almost 0 down time.
The DSL Extreme 6MBs down 384 Up is a tad faster than Comcast cable on
downloads, and quite a bit faster on uploads.
Kobus
http://www.bixdata.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On
Behalf Of John "Rowan" Littell
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 21:25
To: baylisa at baylisa.org
Subject: Bay Area home internet
So, I'm moving to the Bay Area -- Oakland, to be specific (actually,
I'm already here, but still getting settled -- hi all). And I'm
trying to figure out what options I have for internet service.
Naturally, don't figure myself for a complete dunce at managing simple
network equipment (although Comcast would certainly love to sock me
for it if they can). I don't have a particular preference for cable
or DSL, as long as it's reasonably fast (384k is probably sufficient,
more is great), relatively stable, and won't treat me like a complete
moron (either at installation time or when I call to tell them that
their router is spewing bogons). I will have traditional land line
phone service and cable TV (unless someone really wants to talk me
into Dish Networks). I'll be connecting, directly, either an old 486
running ipfw/ipnat or a Linksys workalike (and behind that a couple of
Mac laptops); providers who insist on
Win* installations will be chucked in the bit bucket where they
belong.
What to people suggest/love/hate?
Thanks,
--rowan
From Brent at greatcircle.com Thu Aug 17 10:02:20 2006
From: Brent at greatcircle.com (Brent Chapman)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:02:20 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID:
At 11:03 AM -0700 8/16/06, John Costello wrote:
>I know a few people in the Bay Area who liked Speakeasy.net (one formerly
>in Marin, one currently in Berkeley, one possibly in Oakland), and I like
>them here in the PNW.
For folks in the Bay Area, local ISP Sonic.net is what Speakeasy.net
used to be (tech-savvy, good customer service, and particularly good
at dealing with experts like us as customers) for about 1/2 the
price... When I moved to SF a few months ago, I just couldn't
justify continuing to pay Speakeasy's price, so I switched to Sonic,
and I've been very happy with them.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc.
Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989
For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/
Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog
From bh at bh.org Thu Aug 17 10:19:41 2006
From: bh at bh.org (bh at bh.org)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:19:41 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: from "Brent Chapman" at Aug 17, 2006 10:02:20 AM
Message-ID: <20060817171941.31429.qmail@bh.org>
I would also add that at least in my own experience, support from Speakeasy
has deteriorated in a big way over the past several years. When I signed
up with them for DSL several years ago, they were very responsive (especially
compared with PacBell, my previous provider). However I ran into at least
a half dozen incidents where the DSL performance took a nosedive, and I tried
to get help from Speakeasy. It seemed that with each incident, the service
level degraded further. The worst, and final straw, was when I logged a support
ticket using their online site, they took over a week to respond, and their
only "resolution" was to update the ticket to advise me to call them.
Shortly after that, I gave up, and switched to (gasp!) Comcast cable service.
Knock on wood, several months later, I have yet to need their support ... it
has just worked ... at 6Mb/s instead of 512kb.
-Bill
> For folks in the Bay Area, local ISP Sonic.net is what Speakeasy.net
> used to be (tech-savvy, good customer service, and particularly good
> at dealing with experts like us as customers) for about 1/2 the
> price... When I moved to SF a few months ago, I just couldn't
> justify continuing to pay Speakeasy's price, so I switched to Sonic,
> and I've been very happy with them.
From bill at wards.net Thu Aug 17 12:22:20 2006
From: bill at wards.net (Bill Ward)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 12:22:20 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
On 8/17/06, Brent Chapman wrote:
> At 11:03 AM -0700 8/16/06, John Costello wrote:
> >I know a few people in the Bay Area who liked Speakeasy.net (one formerly
> >in Marin, one currently in Berkeley, one possibly in Oakland), and I like
> >them here in the PNW.
>
> For folks in the Bay Area, local ISP Sonic.net is what Speakeasy.net
> used to be (tech-savvy, good customer service, and particularly good
> at dealing with experts like us as customers) for about 1/2 the
> price... When I moved to SF a few months ago, I just couldn't
> justify continuing to pay Speakeasy's price, so I switched to Sonic,
> and I've been very happy with them.
My mom was on Sonic for a year but recently switched to AT&T/Yahoo due
to price. These ISPs that offer DSL are really just reselling the
AT&T service, so there's no way they can compete on price. We'll have
to wait and see how good the service and uptime are with AT&T but thus
far we have no cause to complain...
From bill at wards.net Thu Aug 17 14:04:39 2006
From: bill at wards.net (Bill Ward)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:04:39 -0700
Subject: PenLUG next week - Alex Martelli, Python 2.4 and 2.5
Message-ID: <3d2fe1780608171404s12e02f1dk4309e89a5b6d05f5@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, August 24th, 2006
Time: meeting 7:00 - 9:00 PM, social/networking until 10 PM
Location: Twin Pines Park, 1225 Ralston Ave, Belmont, CA 94002
RSVP: Not required, but send mail to rsvp at penlug.org if you can.
More info: see www.penlug.org for directions and other stuff
Alex Martelli, Python 2.4 and 2.5
The Python programming language is well-known and widespread, but many
developers may be unfamiliar with the latest features, particularly
those introduced in the 2.5 release (currently in Beta, and scheduled
for definitive release in August). This talk presents many interesting
new Python features, focusing on the 2.4 and 2.5 releases.
Alex Martelli is Uber Technical Lead at Google, Inc. Martelli holds a
laurea in Ingegneria Elettronica from Bologna University. He wrote
Python in a Nutshell, and co-edited the Python Cookbook. He's a member
of the Python Software Foundation, a Python committer, and the winner
of the 2002 Activators' Choice Award and of the 2006 Frank Willison
award for outstanding contribution to the Python community. Before
Google, Martelli spent a year with Texas Instruments, 8 years with IBM
Research, 12 as senior consultant for think3 inc; and three as a
Python freelance consultant, mostly for AB Strakt. He has also taught
Programming, Numerical Computing, and OO Design at Ferrara University
and other venues.
--
Help bring back the San Jose Earthquakes - http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/
From rick at linuxmafia.com Thu Aug 17 14:46:27 2006
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:46:27 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060817214627.GM24135@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Bill Ward (bill at wards.net):
> My mom was on Sonic for a year but recently switched to AT&T/Yahoo due
> to price. These ISPs that offer DSL are really just reselling the
> AT&T service....
No, they're not -- at least not Raw Bandwidth and similar ones. They
use the ex-PacBell, ex-SBC, now-called-AT&T company's ATM cloud and
last-mile gear, but do _entirely_ their own DSLAM and IP-provisioning
work. Thank Ghod.
> so there's no way they can compete on price.
Raw Bandwidth's small premium is worth every penny to my household for
competence and reliability. On the rare occasions when
SBC/whatever-they-are-this-week shoots their customers in the foot,
Mike Durkin is on them like a remora until it's fixed.
From scott at sonic.net Thu Aug 17 15:48:02 2006
From: scott at sonic.net (Scott Doty)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:48:02 -0700
Subject: Let's be fair. (was Re: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060817224802.GA12194@sonic.net>
On Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 12:22:20PM -0700, Bill Ward wrote:
> On 8/17/06, Brent Chapman wrote:
> >At 11:03 AM -0700 8/16/06, John Costello wrote:
> >>I know a few people in the Bay Area who liked Speakeasy.net (one formerly
> >>in Marin, one currently in Berkeley, one possibly in Oakland), and I like
> >>them here in the PNW.
> >
> >For folks in the Bay Area, local ISP Sonic.net is what Speakeasy.net
> >used to be (tech-savvy, good customer service, and particularly good
> >at dealing with experts like us as customers) for about 1/2 the
> >price... When I moved to SF a few months ago, I just couldn't
> >justify continuing to pay Speakeasy's price, so I switched to Sonic,
> >and I've been very happy with them.
>
> My mom was on Sonic for a year but recently switched to AT&T/Yahoo due
> to price. These ISPs that offer DSL are really just reselling the
> AT&T service, so there's no way they can compete on price.
Sir, I protest -- that is about the most unfair statement I've ever read on
this list. Sonic.net and other resellers are the little guys trying to make
good, and the only involvement from the ILEC is the loop to the customer.
First, how about looking at ISP reviews? http://www.broadbandreports.com/gbu
Our service is rated solid "A's". Where is SBC YAHOO? B- B B+ C+ B B+ --
and the "C+" is for their tech support.
If you would please examine http://www.sonic.net/sales/ , as well as
http://www.sonic.net/ , you will see many features not found with
SBC/AT&T/Yahoo/Ugh service, and learn: not only are we price-competitive
with the ILECs, we are able to provide a tremendously satisfying member
experience.
http://www.sonic.net/sales/
Obquote:
DSL
Intro Pricing From $12.94*
Feature-rich high-speed internet access including IPv6 tunnelling,
multicast routing, VPN termination, and multiple mailboxes.
(This is once penny less than SBC/AT&T/Yahoo... )
Reviews of our service can be found here:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/comments/896
> We'll have to wait and see how good the service and uptime are with AT&T
> but thus far we have no cause to complain...
Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic.net, and President of the California ISP
Association (CISPA), will be happy to discuss this on ba.internet ...
Dane has communicated on ba.internet, as well as our local sonic.* groups,
ever since we opened our doors in 1994.
So I would appreciate more *rigor* on the list before bad mouthing a local
company that has given so much to the communities it serves, both on the
Usenet, as well as through participation in organizations that ultimately
help the consumer.
http://www.cispa.org/ for more info on CISPA...
-Scott Doty
CTO, co-founder, co-owner: Sonic.net, Inc.
From ahorn at deorth.org Thu Aug 17 15:50:57 2006
From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:50:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <20060817214627.GM24135@linuxmafia.com>
References:
<3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
<20060817214627.GM24135@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID:
On Thu, 17 Aug 2006, Rick Moen wrote:
> Raw Bandwidth's small premium is worth every penny to my household for
> competence and reliability. On the rare occasions when
> SBC/whatever-they-are-this-week shoots their customers in the foot,
> Mike Durkin is on them like a remora until it's fixed.
>
Not really pertinent to home use, but I have found when using resellers in
a business environment, each reseller adds their own support SLA on top.
So, for example reseller A may have a time to respond of four hours, at
which point they determine that its an SBC failure. SBC then have a four
hour response SLA.
So you end up waiting eight hours before you even have an engineer looking
at the fault. Small businesses beware.
Cheers,
Al
From bill at wards.net Thu Aug 17 16:01:21 2006
From: bill at wards.net (Bill Ward)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:01:21 -0700
Subject: Let's be fair. (was Re: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <20060817224802.GA12194@sonic.net>
References:
<3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com>
<20060817224802.GA12194@sonic.net>
Message-ID: <3d2fe1780608171601q7a068cb6y8ecef6cb2d1cd5d6@mail.gmail.com>
On 8/17/06, Scott Doty wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 17, 2006 at 12:22:20PM -0700, Bill Ward wrote:
> > On 8/17/06, Brent Chapman wrote:
> > >At 11:03 AM -0700 8/16/06, John Costello wrote:
> > >>I know a few people in the Bay Area who liked Speakeasy.net (one formerly
> > >>in Marin, one currently in Berkeley, one possibly in Oakland), and I like
> > >>them here in the PNW.
> > >
> > >For folks in the Bay Area, local ISP Sonic.net is what Speakeasy.net
> > >used to be (tech-savvy, good customer service, and particularly good
> > >at dealing with experts like us as customers) for about 1/2 the
> > >price... When I moved to SF a few months ago, I just couldn't
> > >justify continuing to pay Speakeasy's price, so I switched to Sonic,
> > >and I've been very happy with them.
> >
> > My mom was on Sonic for a year but recently switched to AT&T/Yahoo due
> > to price. These ISPs that offer DSL are really just reselling the
> > AT&T service, so there's no way they can compete on price.
>
> Sir, I protest -- that is about the most unfair statement I've ever read on
> this list. Sonic.net and other resellers are the little guys trying to make
> good, and the only involvement from the ILEC is the loop to the customer.
I don't know what ILEC is. I am not in the ISP industry so I don't
know the jargon.
> First, how about looking at ISP reviews? http://www.broadbandreports.com/gbu
> Our service is rated solid "A's". Where is SBC YAHOO? B- B B+ C+ B B+ --
> and the "C+" is for their tech support.
We never had complaints about your service, except for one minor one -
my mother mistakenly registered using the wrong username (she entered
the string we had meant to use as a password under the username field)
and sonic refused to correct the error without canceling the service
which would cost lots of money.
The only complaint I raised was price and I know there's not a lot
resellers can do to compete with the guys they're reselling. Also,
after her year was up, we inquired with sonic about re-upping and
getting the introductory price for another year, but the rate we were
quoted for that was around $20, not the $13 we could get from AT&T.
Getting a fresh account from AT&T was a better deal.
> If you would please examine http://www.sonic.net/sales/ , as well as
> http://www.sonic.net/ , you will see many features not found with
> SBC/AT&T/Yahoo/Ugh service, and learn: not only are we price-competitive
> with the ILECs, we are able to provide a tremendously satisfying member
> experience.
>
> http://www.sonic.net/sales/
>
> Obquote:
> DSL
> Intro Pricing From $12.94*
> Feature-rich high-speed internet access including IPv6 tunnelling,
> multicast routing, VPN termination, and multiple mailboxes.
>
> (This is once penny less than SBC/AT&T/Yahoo... )
That's only true for new users. My mother was perfectly happy with
sonic, except for the price once her initial year was up.
> Reviews of our service can be found here:
>
> http://www.broadbandreports.com/comments/896
And I'm sure they're all excellent.
> > We'll have to wait and see how good the service and uptime are with AT&T
> > but thus far we have no cause to complain...
>
> Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic.net, and President of the California ISP
> Association (CISPA), will be happy to discuss this on ba.internet ...
> Dane has communicated on ba.internet, as well as our local sonic.* groups,
> ever since we opened our doors in 1994.
>
> So I would appreciate more *rigor* on the list before bad mouthing a local
> company that has given so much to the communities it serves, both on the
> Usenet, as well as through participation in organizations that ultimately
> help the consumer.
Rigor is not a factor when we are just talking anecdotes. Anecdotal
evidence should not be mistaken for research. And what bad mouthing?
All I said was that AT&T was cheaper. How is that bad mouthing?
--Bill.
--
Help bring back the San Jose Earthquakes - http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/
From rick at linuxmafia.com Thu Aug 17 17:03:38 2006
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:03:38 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To:
References: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com> <20060817214627.GM24135@linuxmafia.com>
Message-ID: <20060818000338.GQ10162@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Alan Horn (ahorn at deorth.org):
> Not really pertinent to home use, but I have found when using resellers in
> a business environment, each reseller adds their own support SLA on top.
> So, for example reseller A may have a time to respond of four hours, at
> which point they determine that its an SBC failure. SBC then have a four
> hour response SLA.
>
> So you end up waiting eight hours before you even have an engineer looking
> at the fault. Small businesses beware.
1. I was specifically talking about CLECs[1], _as opposed to_ resellers.
None of the DSL-issuing CLECs I spoke of (Sonic.net, Speakeasy, Raw
Bandwidth Communications) is merely a reseller. In fact, please note
my having pointed out to Bill Ward the crucial areas in which they
bypass the telco (ILEC) and most of its screwups, sharing only the local
loop and ATM cloud.
2. To stress again briefly, quality of DSL CLEC management makes all
the difference. E.g., Raw Bandwidth's Mike Durkin detects and acts on
SBC/$WHOEVER screwups immediately, knows exactly whose gonads to
squeeze, and has them on speed dial.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_local_exchange_carrier
From rick at linuxmafia.com Thu Aug 17 17:21:14 2006
From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:21:14 -0700
Subject: Let's be fair. (was Re: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <3d2fe1780608171601q7a068cb6y8ecef6cb2d1cd5d6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <3d2fe1780608171222g5589c47fsc9717b73152a16db@mail.gmail.com> <20060817224802.GA12194@sonic.net> <3d2fe1780608171601q7a068cb6y8ecef6cb2d1cd5d6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060818002114.GF26972@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Bill Ward (bill at wards.net):
> I don't know what ILEC is. I am not in the ISP industry so I don't
> know the jargon.
Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incumbent_local_exchange_carrier
Roughly speaking: the Baby Bells + GTE, i.e., the companies that own
the telco central office a couple of miles from people's houses plus the
cabling underneath or over street _to_ their houses (those facilities
being termed the "local loop").
The entity formerly known as SBC is an ILEC.
CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers) are companies like the
worthy Mr. Doty's Sonic.net and my personal favourite Mike Durkin's
Raw Bandwidth Communications, who are permitted by the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 to interconnect their equipment such as
their _own_ DSLAMs (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer -- see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSLAM) at the telco/ILEC central offices
and offer competing services over the shared local loop.
> The only complaint I raised was price and I know there's not a lot
> resellers can do to compete with the guys they're reselling.
Again, these are _not_ resellers you've been (and I've been) discussing.
They offer completely independent (and invariably much better)
equipment, IP provisioning / routing, and other aspects of service,
sharing _only_ the ILEC local loop.
Saying that Sonic.net (et alii) is just a reseller is very inaccurate
and sells them quite a bit short. I'm sure you did not intend it as
such.
From guy at extragalactic.net Fri Aug 18 11:33:09 2006
From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:33:09 -0700
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
References: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
Message-ID:
On Aug 15, 2006, at 9:25 PM, John Rowan Littell wrote:
> ...I'm trying to figure out what options I have for internet
> service... What to people suggest/love/hate?
I'm quite happy with BayLISA's own ISP, meer.net. I monitor the
circuit and downtime is extremely minimal (I've seen T1s with more
downtime).
-Guy
From jxh at jxh.com Fri Aug 18 12:07:27 2006
From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 14:07:27 -0500
Subject: Bay Area home internet
In-Reply-To:
References: <2D4288B7-3896-40B1-A074-0257871A3602@hovenweep.org>
Message-ID: <44E60FEF.3070801@jxh.com>
> I'm quite happy with BayLISA's own ISP, meer.net. I monitor the circuit
> and downtime is extremely minimal (I've seen T1s with more downtime).
Me, too, and I live in St. Paul! (STPLMNEM, if you're keeping track.)
They re-sell Covad, in my case, and Covad leases copper -- but probably
not much else -- from Qwest, my iLEC. I have residential ADSL at
6012/768 on a dry pair. _Every_thing goes in and out through Chicago,
due to Covad's cloud.
But I still get to contact Meer first for support, and that makes all
the difference. Meer Possesses Clue, and they easily earn the premium
over what I might pay to Qwest directly.
(And even Qwest has been pulling up their socks lately: They now
dispatch 7x24 even for residential POTS service, not just hi-cap. They
apparently finally figured out that a paying customer is a paying
customer, though I have no doubt there are still anecdotal horror
stories being created.)
From Brent at greatcircle.com Mon Aug 21 10:40:18 2006
From: Brent at greatcircle.com (Brent Chapman)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 10:40:18 -0700
Subject: Disaster relief technical volunteer opportunity
Message-ID:
After Hurricane Katrina last year, I spent some time in Mississippi
and Louisiana working on disaster relief efforts, along with many
others high-tech professionals. Most of us were part of hastily
organized, ad hoc efforts, with little or nothing in the way of
pre-event planning, training, and preparation. You can read about my
own experiences at
http://www.greatcircle.com/blog/2005/10/10/just_returned_f.html
I'm now proud to be part of a new organization that is in the process
of forming, called TechReach International (http://www.techri.org/).
TechReach's goal is to deploy no-cost telecommunications services
into humanitarian relief efforts (both domestic disaster relief
operations, and international humanitarian operations), using
trained/certified volunteer communications specialists and state of
the art technology.
TechReach will be hosting a "Simulation Day" in Mountain View (on the
Intuit campus) on Tuesday, 19 Sep 2006, 12:30pm-6:00pm. We invite
you to stop by, meet us, learn about the organization, see demos of
various disaster relief communication and networking technologies,
hear a variety of interesting speakers, and contemplate joining or
supporting us. Full details are on the web site at
http://www.techri.org/
I hope to see you there!
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc.
Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989
For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/
Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog
From sigje at sigje.org Mon Aug 21 11:27:21 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 11:27:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: BayLISA special meeting - August 30, 7pm
Message-ID:
More details to follow, but I wanted to get the word out that there will
be a special BayLISA meeting next week. Luke Kanies who created puppet
will be in town, and he has agreed to present on Wednesday, August 30.
Luke gave the impromptu talk last December that won the "Best talk of the
night".
If you don't know what puppet is, please check out the website at
http://reductivelabs.com/projects/puppet/
Snagged from the faq:
What is Puppet?
Puppet is an open-source next-generation server automation tool. It is
composed of a declarative language for expressing system configuration, a
client and server for distributing it, and a library for realizing the
configuration.
The primary design goal of Puppet is that it have an expressive enough
language backed by a powerful enough library that you can write your own
server automation applications in just a few lines of code. With Puppet,
you can express the configuration of your entire network in one program
capable of realizing the configuration. The fact that Puppet has open
source combined with how easily it can be extended means that you can add
whatever functionality you think is missing and then contribute it back to
the main project if you desire.
From baylisa at t-n-e.com Mon Aug 21 13:14:20 2006
From: baylisa at t-n-e.com (Phil Hunter)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:14:20 -0700
Subject: Disaster relief technical volunteer opportunity
Message-ID: <1156191260.21153@bear.he.net>
I'm curious how this is different/better/needed vs. Amateur
Radio?
Training, Field/Sim Day, International, VoIP, what's different?
Basically a duplication of effort as far as I can tell.
rgds,
phil
ke6zmx
From Brent at greatcircle.com Mon Aug 21 17:09:53 2006
From: Brent at greatcircle.com (Brent Chapman)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:09:53 -0700
Subject: Disaster relief technical volunteer opportunity
In-Reply-To: <1156191260.21153@bear.he.net>
References: <1156191260.21153@bear.he.net>
Message-ID:
At 1:14 PM -0700 8/21/06, Phil Hunter wrote:
>I'm curious how this is different/better/needed vs. Amateur
>Radio?
>
>Training, Field/Sim Day, International, VoIP, what's different?
>Basically a duplication of effort as far as I can tell.
Not at all. I am an Amateur Radio operator myself, and Amateur Radio
serves very different needs in very different ways from what we
envision.
In simplest terms, Amateur Radio is very good at setting up systems
that _they_ can use to pass messages _for_ other parties. Because of
licensing restrictions and technical factors, though, an Amateur
Radio operator has to be involved with every message at each station.
There are also restrictions on what sort of messages can be passed;
nothing for commercial gain or in support of a commercial business,
for example.
What several different groups built in Mississippi and Louisiana, on
the other hand, were community WiFi Internet access networks that
anybody (sometimes victims, but more often other relief workers from
other agencies) could tap into and use. This enabled these other
groups to far more effectively communicate with and mobilize
resources from outside the disaster area, such as their own backing
organizations, yielding a much more effective response; furthermore,
they could do it on a "self-serve" basis with IT equipment that
they're already more or less familiar with, and without needing a
specially-licensed operator, enabling far more "customers" to be
served.
I'm proud to be an Amateur Radio operator. Amateur Radio is probably
always going to be up and running first, within hours of a major
disaster, providing vital communications links during the first hours
and days after a disaster. But it's foolish not to recognize its
limitations (some regulatory, some technical, and some practical),
and pretend that it can be everything for everybody and that there's
no role for any other mechanism.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman -- Great Circle Associates, Inc.
Specializing in network infrastructure for Silicon Valley since 1989
For info about us and our services, please see http://www.greatcircle.com/
Great Circle Waypoints Blog: http://www.greatcircle.com/blog
From scott at ponzo.net Mon Aug 21 16:51:35 2006
From: scott at ponzo.net (Scott Doty)
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:51:35 -0700
Subject: Disaster relief technical volunteer opportunity
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <20060821235135.GA28906@ponzo.net>
On Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 10:40:18AM -0700, Brent Chapman wrote:
> TechReach will be hosting a "Simulation Day" in Mountain View (on the
> Intuit campus) on Tuesday, 19 Sep 2006, 12:30pm-6:00pm. We invite
> you to stop by, meet us, learn about the organization, see demos of
> various disaster relief communication and networking technologies,
> hear a variety of interesting speakers, and contemplate joining or
> supporting us. Full details are on the web site at
> http://www.techri.org/
It sounds like a very good idea -- I would strongly urge, however,
coordination with existing telecommunications plans, esp. FEMA.
For the gentleman who brought up the ARRL -- what kind of telecommunications
do they bring to disaster sites?
-Scott
From ahorn at deorth.org Thu Aug 24 23:59:54 2006
From: ahorn at deorth.org (Alan Horn)
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:59:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A question for the membership
Message-ID:
Hi,
If you're a member, and you don't make it to a lot of general meetings,
would the ability to vote remotely for board elections mean that you are
more likely to vote ?
The idea of remote voting is something we're floating around for this
November's board elections. We're not sure yet what form it would take,
and I need to assess the need before we dig deeper into this.
So, please drop me an email and let me know if its something that matters
to you ? The more feedback I get the better a decision can be made.
Cheers,
Al
From pcubbage at opencountry.com Fri Aug 25 10:38:51 2006
From: pcubbage at opencountry.com (Paul Cubbage)
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:38:51 -0700
Subject: A question for the membership
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <44EF35AB.8070105@opencountry.com>
Hmmm. A lot more effort than counting hands or paper ballots at a meeting.
It sounds good but how will people who don't attend meetings know for whom to vote?
Open Country has a subscription to surveymonkey if you want to use that.
Alan Horn wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> If you're a member, and you don't make it to a lot of general meetings,
> would the ability to vote remotely for board elections mean that you are
> more likely to vote ?
>
> The idea of remote voting is something we're floating around for this
> November's board elections. We're not sure yet what form it would take,
> and I need to assess the need before we dig deeper into this.
>
> So, please drop me an email and let me know if its something that
> matters to you ? The more feedback I get the better a decision can be made.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Al
>
>
>
From michael at halligan.org Mon Aug 28 15:21:31 2006
From: michael at halligan.org (Michael T. Halligan)
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 15:21:31 -0700
Subject: A question for the membership
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <44F36C6B.9040308@halligan.org>
Alan Horn wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> If you're a member, and you don't make it to a lot of general
> meetings, would the ability to vote remotely for board elections mean
> that you are more likely to vote ?
>
> The idea of remote voting is something we're floating around for this
> November's board elections. We're not sure yet what form it would
> take, and I need to assess the need before we dig deeper into this.
>
> So, please drop me an email and let me know if its something that
> matters to you ? The more feedback I get the better a decision can be
> made.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Al
>
>
Alan,
I think this would make sense for those amongst us who don't attend
meetings. However, should those people even bother voting, since they don't
take an active enough interest? That aside, you should check out
www.wufoo.com they've got a great interface for building forms, and
would be pretty helpful
for this type of voting.
Michael
From sigje at sigje.org Tue Aug 29 15:40:49 2006
From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis)
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:40:49 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: August Special Meeting - TOMORROW - Luke Kanies, Puppet
Message-ID:
Drinks and Pizza provided by BayLISA!
Puppet
The August Special BayLISA meeting will be taking place at the Yahoo
Campus.
Address: 700 First Avenue Sunnyvale, CA. Building E Room 9
Puppet
Puppet is a cross-platform open-source configuration management framework
written in Ruby. Puppet can be used for simple one-off administration
tasks, but its primary focus is on providing centralized, automated server
management. Its development is based on years of experience with existing
tools like Cfengine and provides significant functional enhances over
previous generations, and it is already in production use around the
world. This talk will discuss what you can do with Puppet and why you
should use it, along with some discussion of future plans.
About the Speaker:
Luke Kanies has been a Unix sysadmin for 10 years and has published many
articles and tutorials, and for the last five years has focused on the
development of open-source automation tools. He is the founder of
Reductive Labs, a software company devoted to building the next generation
of configuration management tools; their flagship product is Puppet, an
open-source automation framework written in Ruby.
Directions to Yahoo :
Directions to campus are available at
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/address.cfm
Ignore the last two steps in the directions, instead of turning first
right into Yahoo, turn first *left* into Bldg E. parking lot. A security
guard will be available to let you into the Bldg. at the main door.
RSVP: Mail rsvp at baylisa.org