From david at catwhisker.org Mon May 3 10:55:24 2010 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 10:55:24 -0700 Subject: In search of >1.544Mb/s bandwidth & a static IPv4 address for home Message-ID: <20100503175524.GA49209@bunrab.catwhisker.org> I inquired about folks' perceptions about 16 months ago, and the concensus seemed to be that Sonic.net was a clueful provider that could meet my requirements. Unfortunately, it turned out that they were unable to provide what I sought, as they use AT&T's copper, and AT&T was unwilling to provide the requisite connectivity. (AT&T has what looks suspiciously like a cabinet housing a DSLAM at 832 Canyon Rd; I live at 751 Canyon Rd. (Redwood City). Apparently the DSLAM is for the folks further up the hill than I am, as they would be out-of-range for DSL without a nearby DSLAM -- it's just a little over 10Kft from the CO by ground; I'm pretty sure the wire distance is not less than that, and probably isn't a great deal more.) Does anyone have: * Reason to believe that Sonic's options have changed for the better? * Other suggestions for an ISP? Despite some early "turbulence," I've been relatively happy with the level of service from AT&T: the connection stays up for months at a time; when outages do occur, they tend to be short (<2.5 minutes) -- though that is undoubtedly in large part because I have some automation to monitor, log, and take evasive action. It would, in theory, be possible to augment the existing connectivity with (say) an additional connection (e.g., from Comcast), but while that might well be an interesting learning experience, it's a complication I don't really need -- and the existing connection (to AT&T) has a price ($50/month) that is not really competitive with recent offerings. (Yes, I undertsand that I have a static /32, while the "recent offerings" are not static. I'm also disinclined to destabilize the status quo unless & until I have a viable alternative: at present, were AT&T to tell me I have 30 days to cope with an impending transition to DHCP-assigned address, I'd be under a fair amount of stress.) Thanks. Peace, david -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil. 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 tony at usenix.org Mon May 3 11:50:20 2010 From: tony at usenix.org (Tony Del Porto) Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 11:50:20 -0700 Subject: In search of >1.544Mb/s bandwidth & a static IPv4 address for home In-Reply-To: <20100503175524.GA49209@bunrab.catwhisker.org> References: <20100503175524.GA49209@bunrab.catwhisker.org> Message-ID: <639FB021-6EFD-4393-BE35-8A96FB7AB3D0@usenix.org> On May 3, 2010, at 10:55 AM, David Wolfskill wrote: > I inquired about folks' perceptions about 16 months ago, and the > concensus seemed to be that Sonic.net was a clueful provider that could > meet my requirements. I've had good luck with Unwired LTD (unwiredltd.net), though I doubt you are in their service area; their southern border is San Leandro in the East Bay and some parts of Daly City. Coverage map: http://www.unwiredltd.net/map4.php /29 on request, no filtering, run servers if you like, 3Mbps or 6Mbps symmetric, WISP. Tony From jxh at jxh.com Mon May 3 13:20:50 2010 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Mon, 03 May 2010 15:20:50 -0500 Subject: In search of >1.544Mb/s bandwidth & a static IPv4 address for home In-Reply-To: <20100503175524.GA49209@bunrab.catwhisker.org> References: <20100503175524.GA49209@bunrab.catwhisker.org> Message-ID: <4BDF3022.4090601@jxh.com> After some struggle with Comcast, ILEC SDSL, then an actual T1, I'm back to Comcast and fairly satisfied with their business offering. /29 and 6Mbits (down, not symmetric) for $69.95/mo. It's the same gorillas at the pole who once summarily disconnected my entire neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon but, importantly, with the "business" bit set they answer the phone and will dispatch 7x24. A "recreational user" doesn't get a dispatch, or even the ability to talk to a human being, before Monday morning. This is in STPLMNEM (so to speak). YMMV. From nicole at unixgirl.com Wed May 5 10:37:00 2010 From: nicole at unixgirl.com (Nicole) Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 10:37:00 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? Message-ID: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Hello I work for a company where there really is no office. Everyone works at home and we have many people in various countries. We have been communicating via skype chat, a bug tracker like custom ticketing system, and email. However doing this makes it hard to create a way for people working on the same projects but in different areas to stay on top of what is being done at the moment.(bill chats with bob about what they are doing but henry and jane who also work on the same project have no idea unless then everything is then sent to them) We have used IRC in the past as an instant publishing system of what people are working on etc. As long as you stayed logged into the channel, you could scroll back and see what people were talking about. Everyone could stay connected to what was going on. However, management was not a fan of having things like this out on IRC, even if it's a private channel. So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would prefer something open sourced we would install or some free service. (does Google maybe have anything like that,. they seem to have everything) Thanks! Nicole From rowan at hovenweep.org Wed May 5 11:04:05 2010 From: rowan at hovenweep.org (Rowan Littell) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 11:04:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Message-ID: I suspect Google has something along those lines; I have not really checked. Where I work, we use jabber (specifically Openfire - www.igniterealtime.org), and while the default mode for that is one-to-one instant messaging, you can very easily create chat rooms for multiple people to hang out in (and you can set room permissions, history, etc.). Openfire in particular is very easy to install and set up, and other servers are also pretty straightforward. --rowan On Wed, 5 May 2010, Nicole wrote: > Hello > I work for a company where there really is no office. Everyone works at home > and we have many people in various countries. > We have been communicating via skype chat, a bug tracker like custom > ticketing system, and email. However doing this makes it hard to create a way > for people working on the same projects but in different areas to stay on top > of what is being done at the moment.(bill chats with bob about what they are > doing but henry and jane who also work on the same project have no idea > unless then everything is then sent to them) We have used IRC in the past as > an instant publishing system of what people are working on etc. As long as > you stayed logged into the channel, you could scroll back and see what people > were talking about. Everyone could stay connected to what was going on. > However, management was not a fan of having things like this out on IRC, even > if it's a private channel. > > So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of system > where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we cannot use > skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would prefer something open > sourced we would install or some free service. (does Google maybe have > anything like that,. they seem to have everything) > > > > Thanks! > > Nicole > > > > > > > From hso at nosneros.net Wed May 5 11:09:40 2010 From: hso at nosneros.net (Holt Sorenson) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 18:09:40 +0000 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Message-ID: <20100505180940.GA12346@nosneros.net> On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 10:37:00AM -0700, Nicole wrote: >So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of >system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we >cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would >prefer something open sourced we would install or some free service. >(does Google maybe have anything like that,. they seem to have >everything) We use Jabber with TLS/SSL: http://www.jabber.org/ -- Holt Sorenson hso at nosneros.net www.nosneros.net/hso From deirdre at deirdre.net Wed May 5 11:12:22 2010 From: deirdre at deirdre.net (Deirdre Saoirse Moen) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 11:12:22 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Message-ID: <0593152B-2239-437C-B2B1-463E8CD1ABF9@deirdre.net> On May 5, 2010, at 10:37 AM, Nicole wrote: > Hello > I work for a company where there really is no office. Everyone works at home and we have many people in various countries. > We have been communicating via skype chat, a bug tracker like custom ticketing system, and email. However doing this makes it hard to create a way for people working on the same projects but in different areas to stay on top of what is being done at the moment.(bill chats with bob about what they are doing but henry and jane who also work on the same project have no idea unless then everything is then sent to them) We have used IRC in the past as an instant publishing system of what people are working on etc. As long as you stayed logged into the channel, you could scroll back and see what people were talking about. Everyone could stay connected to what was going on. However, management was not a fan of having things like this out on IRC, even if it's a private channel. > > So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would prefer something open sourced we would install or some free service. (does Google maybe have anything like that,. they seem to have everything) It's not free (in either sense), but 37 Signals's CampFire does exactly what you need. http://campfirenow.com/ Deirdre From tony at usenix.org Wed May 5 11:23:21 2010 From: tony at usenix.org (Tony Del Porto) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 11:23:21 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Message-ID: <9A0FB79A-9EEE-4958-80B0-78FC899FF8C0@usenix.org> On May 5, 2010, at 10:37 AM, Nicole wrote: > So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would prefer something open sourced we would install or some free service. (does Google maybe have anything like that,. they seem to have everything) Google Wave? This talk isn't the best, but gives a good overview: http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa09/stream1/berlin.html Tony From drich at employees.org Wed May 5 11:27:08 2010 From: drich at employees.org (Daniel Rich) Date: Wed, 05 May 2010 11:27:08 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Message-ID: <4BE1B87C.6030202@employees.org> Is there still an objection to IRC if you run your own server instead of using something like freenet? You can authenticate the connection and run the session over SSL if there are security concerns at that level. We have been using IRC on our own private servers at work for quite some time. With authentication (in our case against the same LDAP servers as e-mail and logins) and a channel server you can control who has access to which channels as well as control what is logged. We ended up with inspircd and anope after a bit of research, but you can do this with most of the servers currently available. Nicole wrote: > Hello > I work for a company where there really is no office. Everyone works > at home and we have many people in various countries. > We have been communicating via skype chat, a bug tracker like custom > ticketing system, and email. However doing this makes it hard to > create a way for people working on the same projects but in different > areas to stay on top of what is being done at the moment.(bill chats > with bob about what they are doing but henry and jane who also work on > the same project have no idea unless then everything is then sent to > them) We have used IRC in the past as an instant publishing system of > what people are working on etc. As long as you stayed logged into the > channel, you could scroll back and see what people were talking about. > Everyone could stay connected to what was going on. However, > management was not a fan of having things like this out on IRC, even > if it's a private channel. > > So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of > system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we > cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would > prefer something open sourced we would install or some free service. > (does Google maybe have anything like that,. they seem to have > everything) > > > > Thanks! > > Nicole > > > > > -- Dan Rich | http://www.employees.org/~drich/ | "Step up to red alert!" "Are you sure, sir? | It means changing the bulb in the sign..." | - Red Dwarf (BBC) From bigmac at invisibleit.com Wed May 5 11:25:58 2010 From: bigmac at invisibleit.com (Bryan McDonald) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 11:25:58 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <20100505180940.GA12346@nosneros.net> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> <20100505180940.GA12346@nosneros.net> Message-ID: <2240C1CC16974C44B53CA0F0708705D80170532ED4@MAIL3.invisibleit.com> Google Wave sounds perfect for this. Getting in is the tricky part. --- Bryan McDonald (510) 360-5180 Invisible IT is now Milestone - Learn More -----Original Message----- From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org] On Behalf Of Holt Sorenson Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 11:10 AM To: BayLISA Subject: Re: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 10:37:00AM -0700, Nicole wrote: >So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type of >system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for instance we >cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited in) Would >prefer something open sourced we would install or some free service. >(does Google maybe have anything like that,. they seem to have >everything) We use Jabber with TLS/SSL: http://www.jabber.org/ -- Holt Sorenson hso at nosneros.net www.nosneros.net/hso -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rob.markovic at gmail.com Wed May 5 11:52:41 2010 From: rob.markovic at gmail.com (Rob Markovic) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 11:52:41 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <4BE1B87C.6030202@employees.org> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> <4BE1B87C.6030202@employees.org> Message-ID: Since Google Wave took out EtherPad, they at least made is OSS, so places like PiratePad.net can now use it for free. You can roll your own or see if anyone made a secured version. Running your own IRCd within the intranet where folks can VPN in is also an option as mentioned. In combination with a good wiki and perhaps a twitter like thought stream service you have your bases covered. There are also several start-ups offering product suites for collab. and file sharing so you don't have to roll your own. One I recall is egnyte.com, but take a look at a few. -- Rob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rob.markovic at gmail.com Wed May 5 13:48:21 2010 From: rob.markovic at gmail.com (Rob Markovic) Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 13:48:21 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: <2240C1CC16974C44B53CA0F0708705D80170532ED4@MAIL3.invisibleit.com> References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> <20100505180940.GA12346@nosneros.net> <2240C1CC16974C44B53CA0F0708705D80170532ED4@MAIL3.invisibleit.com> Message-ID: Google Wave still needs to work out some issues. It didn't take off like everyone thought the idea of it would. Now Google Buzz is exploding and could serve nicely. -- Rob On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Bryan McDonald wrote: > Google Wave sounds perfect for this. Getting in is the tricky part. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nicole at unixgirl.com Fri May 7 10:38:45 2010 From: nicole at unixgirl.com (Nicole) Date: Fri, 07 May 2010 10:38:45 -0700 Subject: Non IRC based live chat for collaboration? In-Reply-To: References: <4BE1ACBC.4020301@unixgirl.com> Message-ID: <4BE45025.9000709@unixgirl.com> Thanks everyone for the great options! IRC was frowned on for security but also its pain to teach to semi-technical folks like graphics designers etc.. But I'm going to pitch using jabber anyway. Will also look into Openfire. Google wave also seems interesting. However I need to investigate more the statement "Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process." Whether someone can at least just knock to be let in or if they have to contact using another means to ask to be added. Be most well. Nicole Jim Dennis wrote: > > Nicole, > > You can run your own IRC server on your own hardware and accessible > only via VPN or ssh (tunnels). > Then your internal communications aren't "out there." The advantage, > of course, is that there are a > wealth of clients, 'bots and tools for working with IRC. Using > existing tools it's almost trivial to write > your own 'bot and other event handlers for IRC. > > For example at my employer we have bots that auto-detect long URLs > and render them as short > URLs through an internal tinyURL service, others that automatically > log channels and provide > URLs for viewing the log (handy when you create an incident handling > channel, invite stakeholders > and they each ask the 'bot for the URL so they can catch up on the > conversation), and so on. > I have a simple tail -f script that watches my own logs of a > particular "alerts" channel so that I can > respond to some things automatically. Years ago I wrote a simple > system to forward excerpts of > whispers from a particular colleague via SMS to my cell phone if I > was "away" and so on. > > The fact that many of the available IRC clients are curses makes it > easy to run them under GNU > screen (which makes it easy to keep them running on any > desktop/server and repeatedly reconnect > to that session from your laptop, over your VPN etc. > > Your other obvious choices are SILC (http://silcnet.org/) and Jabber > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Messaging_and_Presence_Protocol). > > In any of these cases you can run the service on a local Linux or > other UNIX system and clients > are available for most platforms. Any of these provides interfaces > for creating 'bots (for example > for SILC there are: PySilc (http://www.liquidx.net/pysilc/) and Samadhi > (http://juraj.bednar.sk/work/software/samadhi/) packages). > > I'd suggest that the easiest way to set any of these up would be to > start with a Debian or Ubuntu > server (or pair of servers or even pair of VMs). Then you can easily > use aptitude to fetch and > install whichever daemons you like (there are a number of IRC and > Jabber daemon alternatives > and the one standard silcd already in APT main). > > For redundancy you might consider Google Ganeti > (http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/) as a simple > clustered VM system (also supported by Debian APT packages). This > could allow you to have > a pair of VM instances running over a cluster of 3 or more systems > with quick migration of either > VM to any of the nodes in the cluster (quick recovery from hardware > issues and easy handling > of planned downtime for any hardware node). Naturally it would also > allow you to host other > applications/services over the cluster in the likely case that the > chat service doesn't required > all the horsepower of a dedicated server. > > As for Google (having "everything"). I think Google "Wave" > (http://wave.google.com/) is > intended to fulfill the sort of needs you're talking about. I don't > know if its security model > would meet your requirements (or sit will with your management). So > far as I know using > Google Wave would be "out there" in the same sense that IRC in a > "private" channel on > any of the public IRC networks is "out there." (Depending on how > much trust your willing > to place in Google, Inc vs. the amorphous bands of people behind > Freenode/DALnet/etc). > > > > On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Nicole > wrote: > > Hello > I work for a company where there really is no office. Everyone > works at home and we have many people in various countries. > We have been communicating via skype chat, a bug tracker like > custom ticketing system, and email. However doing this makes it > hard to create a way for people working on the same projects but > in different areas to stay on top of what is being done at the > moment.(bill chats with bob about what they are doing but henry > and jane who also work on the same project have no idea unless > then everything is then sent to them) We have used IRC in the > past as an instant publishing system of what people are working on > etc. As long as you stayed logged into the channel, you could > scroll back and see what people were talking about. Everyone could > stay connected to what was going on. However, management was not a > fan of having things like this out on IRC, even if it's a private > channel. > > So might anyone be able to recommend an alternative live chat type > of system where people can freely sign in and out of. (for > instance we cannot use skype conference as they have to be invited > in) Would prefer something open sourced we would install or some > free service. (does Google maybe have anything like that,. they > seem to have everything) > > Thanks! > Nicole > > -- "Fundamental Christianity: the idea that there is an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, universe-spanning entity that for some inexplicable reason is deeply interested in my sex life." -- DM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From guy at extragalactic.net Tue May 18 11:17:26 2010 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 11:17:26 -0700 Subject: 2010 May BayLISA meeting Message-ID: Hi All, The May meeting will be held *this Thursday* 2010 May 20 at 19:30 on the LinkedIn campus. The topic for this month is Desktop Virtualization, presented by AppSense, and sponsored by Taos! Check out the details on our website . In addition to sponsoring, Taos will provide pizza, so please RSVP to give us an idea of how many they should prepare for--thanks! -Guy From guy at extragalactic.net Thu May 20 08:16:39 2010 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 08:16:39 -0700 Subject: BayLISA meeting reminder Message-ID: Remember everyone--the meeting is *tonight* 19:30 at LinkedIn; speaker is Simon Rust, VP of technology at AppSense, who will be talking about desktop virtualization. Meeting & pizza sponsored by Taos! Details on the website . Hope to see y'all there! -Guy From guy at extragalactic.net Thu May 20 22:31:19 2010 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 22:31:19 -0700 Subject: AppSense (tonight's) talk Message-ID: <3DFBA2DA-1660-4302-92D1-6945A748F4FA@extragalactic.net> Sorry all for the Windows-only talk: I didn't get that from my quick glance at their site. It won't happen again :^) On the plus side, he *was* a good speaker, completely understand--right away--that he wasn't in Kansas anymore, and his product really does seem to do some cool stuff--if you're stuck in such an environment. Maybe *not* having such control (and the administrative capabilities for it on such a truly massive scale) is actually hurting our non-MS-OSes-of-choice, keeping them from being able to infiltrate further than they have. Interesting thought ;^) -Guy From harker at harker.com Fri May 21 11:04:25 2010 From: harker at harker.com (Robert Harker) Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 11:04:25 -0700 Subject: AppSense (tonight's) talk In-Reply-To: <3DFBA2DA-1660-4302-92D1-6945A748F4FA@extragalactic.net> References: <3DFBA2DA-1660-4302-92D1-6945A748F4FA@extragalactic.net> Message-ID: <4BF6CB29.2050501@harker.com> It was a good talk even though it was market speak and widoze. They take an interesting approach to virtualization by storing the users environment on a per application basis and restoring it when the app is started again by the user. X windows and window managers do something similar with dot files. So you could get similar functionality with NFS mounting home directories. I got the feeling though that their tools did a better job of it. And as Guy mentioned at the talk the centralized administration tools allowed it to scale to much larger environment. Their reporting tools looked useful. I would be slick to have a tool that could show you how much cpu time an app was using across a group of hosts. I know the information is there with mrtg, cacti, top, etc. But not with a simple to use interface. RLH