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. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available URL: 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