Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with networks

Use of The City as a metaphor for the Internet/Web

0bvious — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:19:31 -0800

I am looking for examinations of the Internet and World Wide Web that use the structure and/or history of the city as a metaphor. I'm afraid I have no original example of this phenomenon to kick things off. I have this image in my head of 'the city' that always goes back to Plato and his Republic. Plato's city was a physical, social construction, as well as a philosophical metaphor, at one and the same time. It feels that many have talked about the Internet in similar, overlapping, terms.

(It need not be 'the city as metaphor', rather any social, physical space that humans build and live in will suffice. Also, metonymy rather than metaphor would be great.)

Writings that explore the political history of the city, it's technological expansion, that consider the city as a nexus for theories of human civilisation, of emergence perhaps, of structure, social and political control and, perhaps most importantly, of space vs place - all as a way to think about similar phenomena taking place online. The Internet as emerging network with similarities to the city; the World Wide Web considered as spatio-social metaphor?

etc. etc.

Any ideas?

NO CARRIER

furtive — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:48:12 -0800

Let's say you have a global disaster where the traditional web is no longer available (all ISPs are down, or a virus/cyber-attack incapacitates the web for entire regions of the world). What are the data communication alternatives in this sort of context? Is anyone still running a BBS? Does anyone even have a dialup modem anymore? Is there something better than this? Is there an established alternative, much like Short Wave Radio is an established global emergency communication network? Are there ad hoc networks people can join given the right software and hardware?

What would the solution be, and what equipment would be required, POTS? BBS software? The Canadian military used IRC as an alternate communication channel in preparation for Y2K. Has anything evolved beyond that? Is anyone spearheading an alternative or planning for this?

Best network/graph theory software for non-techies?

escabeche — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:19:23 -0800

I'm teaching a minicourse about networks, graphs, and computation to a non-technical audience (mostly grad students in the humanities.) What's the right software platform? This is a "maker"-style event, where the goal is for students to mess around with data from their own work and to leave having made the first steps into being able to do the analysis on their own. So my criteria are

a) free or at least very cheap, since I'd like to ask participants to install this in advance;
b) easy to use for people who have no experience programming. GUI ideal, one-line-at-a-time command line interface probably OK, C or python-style programming not going to fly.
c) able to import and export in a variety of common formats. E.G. I wouldn't be surprised if participants have datasets they want to study which are currently in Excel.

Some current candidates are r (with the networks package) and Gephi.

Troubleshooting another computer over the internet filter: Best way to do this...

konig — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:34:35 -0800

What is the easiest, most affordable way to mac system troubleshooting and maintenance on another Mac over the internet? My brother has a full time business doing hard manual labor and depends on his computer at home for his business and pleasure. He lives in Florida and I live in Ohio. We both have newer Macs running Lion and Snow Leopard. I am pretty good with system troubleshooting/maintenance. He is not computer savvy, nor interested in being so; he just wants a functioning system after a hard day’s work.

He is currently experiencing some system issues that he does not know how to handle. It could be as simple as repairing permissions, which we can of course handle on the phone. On the other hand if it is something more complex, I would like to be able to troubleshoot over the internet to find a solution and solve this and future problems for him.

I would also like to be able to do an install of Cocktail for him over the internet, and set it up to do weekly/monthly maintenance.

I am certain that he will allow me the access necessary to do whatever is necessary to keep his system functional and updated. What is the simplest and most affordable way to do this online? We both have broadband access.

Help, please! VPN-enabled wireless router not working

thatgirl1985 — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:39:56 -0800

How do I connect my Witopia VPN wireless router to my ISP's wireless router? I have my basic wireless internet up and running great through my ISP's provided wireless router. I plugged my Witopia Cloakbox wireless router into the ISP wireless router using an Ethernet cable. The wifi is working through the Cloakbox, but the VPN is not working. My ip address is the same. I need my VPN working so I can access Netflix.

I cannot access Witopia's wiki page because it is blocked by my ISP. Stupid censorship. Argh.

How do I get this working? *confused*

How can I revolutionize the way I think about and organize my Facebook friends?

mrdexterous — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:11:58 -0800

How can I revolutionize the way I think about and organize my Facebook friends? I am not sure if this question will make any sense, but I'll begin with some quick background.

I am super OCD when it comes to keeping my life organized, and I always have a need to make sense of information. So naturally, I really want to find a perfect way to organize my Facebook friends. Sounds simple, right?

I wish. Unfortunately, I have struggled for years to make sense of my Facebook "friends" and to figure out a solution for organizing them (even with the newest lists feature). I realize that I may be overanalyzing and complicating how I should use Facebook, but the truth of the matter is that I am incredibly frustrated and overwhelmed by my "lack of control" on its information overload and I'm looking for a solution that makes sense for me.

During the past 5 years that I've used Facebook, I acquired over 1200 "friends," which include family, real friends and MANY MANY random people that I've crossed paths with at some point or another: childhood friends from other sides of the world who I haven't seen since age 12 (I moved a bunch growing up), old workers from temporary summer jobs, people I met on trips, classmates, roommates, friends of my parents, family friends, teachers, etc... and the list goes on and on.

Now, some people just say that I should erase people I'm not close with. However, I struggle with letting go. First, because I don't want to offend anyone. Second, I just don't know how to "define" my measures/criteria for choosing which friends to remove. But third, it is because I feel like I've invested so much time and energy tracking people and I like having the access to anyone from my past should I want to one day in the future. Also, I really enjoy tracking information in general - in this case connections I make with people throughout life - and I like seeing my "degree of separation" when I friend new people from different parts of the world and see that we have mutual friends.

Anyways, I realize that the best way would be to categorize all my friends into lists. However, I don't know how to come up with a system that truly "organizes" my friends. Facebook provides the following types of magic list ideas:

Close friends
Acquaintances
Current City
High School
College
Work

But I don't feel like these categories truly work - because I don't always know where to place people clearly. For example - where would I put the kids that I used to babysit? Or a really good childhood friend that I no longer keep in touch with? Or a teacher? Or my parents' friends? Or somebody that I met just once? I feel like I have endless categories in my mind, and I know that I can create many lists, but I need to find a way to simplify. One way would to that would be to create an "others" list. However, I want to craft specific categories so that I could have more control in sharing information with specific people.

I also thought about organizing people based on cities. But Facebook allows you to filter people based on their current city, so it seems inefficient.

Anyways, I know I just rambled like crazy. It is late and I really wanted to type this up before I fell asleep. I would sincerely appreciate any insight anyone might have about this.

What is the best way for someone with plenty of sysadmin and programming experience but no actual professional IT experience to begin a career in IT?

jpg15 — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:34:15 -0800

What is the best way for someone with plenty of sysadmin and programming experience but no actual professional IT experience to begin a career in IT? I'm in my mid-30's and I'm changing careers. I have many years of technical, managerial, but non-IT experience and a Master's degree in engineering. I'm considering IT, especially network administration or information security, but I don't have much professional IT-related experience to list on my resume.

I have several years of programming experience that can be listed as "professional" but no professional admin experience. What I do have is a lifetime of hobbyist experience with Linux & Windows administration with very small networks, strong familiarity with network security, and proficiency with lots of programming languages I can't list under "professional" experience.

Am I a good candidate for certifications? Which ones?

All of the reading I've done suggests that all IT careers begin at the Helpdesk or Technical Support. I feel well overqualified for such an entry-level position. Is it possible to step past that? What jobs should I be targeting?

This is related, but represents slightly different circumstances.

will windows 7 run a vcn

let444 — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:02:14 -0800

does windows 7 support vcn (virtual control network) ? I need to run a windows program on my mac book pro so I downloaded parallels. That program requires me to use a vcn. Will windows 7 support that?

Help me fix my home network - please!

sauril — Sun, 15 May 2011 15:02:31 -0800

Home Networking Help. For some strange reason my home network has stopped working properly. I have lost all connections between computers, can't print anymore, and some computers are having trouble getting IP addresses. I've been banging my head against the wall for a while on this and would appreciate some help. Here's my setup.

Router: Linksys Wrt160nl
Computers:
1 - Mac Mini running snow leopard
2 - Macbook running snow leopard
3 - iPad
4 - Macbook running tiger
5 - Samsung Wireless printer

So I used to be able to see my server (1) from my laptop without any issues. Then one day I couldn't see the shared drive, couldn't see the iTunes share, and now I can't connect the iPad to the network at all (getting the 169.254.x.x ip address error), so I can't control the server with the remote app anymore either. It happened at around the same time that the printer was connected to the network as well.

I'm using DHCP, but would consider moving over to a static IP, but am unsure of whether the setting on the 160nl is for Internet IP or internal.

I've tried rebooting all the computers, flushing DNS, rebooting the router, all to no effect. Any help would be extremely welcome.

Expertise Level: I used to be pretty knowledgeable back in the Win 95 days, but it's been a while

How can I benchmark and measure cloud computing latency?

conrad101 — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:40:17 -0800

I am looking to do a project on the effects of latency on cloud computing, specifically latency impacting on Amazon EC2 virtual machines and I am trying to get my head around it. EC2 is an Infrastructure As A Service cloud product. Unfortunately, I do not have much experience with it. I haven't found alot on the internet on this area; has anyone seen any information on this subject? Could anyone make suggestions about appropriate ways to do latency benchmarking in this area. What kind of things ought I be looking to include in any benchmark tests. How exactly do others go about measuring latency for Amazon EC2. Are there any software tools out there which will help.

Any recommendations for good articles and papers on cloud computing?

conrad101 — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:44:50 -0800

I am interested in cloud computing and I am looking for recommendations re interesting and worthy articles and papers on the subject of cloud computing. One area of interest is in how it will change the old-fashioned client-server network model - the status quo. Is outsourcing the network infrastructure really going to produce a dramatic transformation or is it somewhat over-hyped and exagerated.

So what social networks do (UK) kids use?

ozgirlabroad — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 13:10:10 -0800

I work in health communications and have spend a couple of years now engaging with adult patients and the public using Facebook and Twitter. Now I need to understand how to communicate with a much younger age group using social networks - but have no idea where to start... I work in health communications and have spend a couple of years now engaging with patients and the public using Facebook and Twitter.

I'm now working on a health program aimed at 10-13 year olds. My boss has asked me to put together a list of public, charity and commercial organisations that use social media to engage with this age group. Problem is, I've never worked with this age group before, and don't have kids, so have no idea where to look!

So, I have two questions for the hive mind:

- What social media networks do kids in that age group use? I am in the UK, so really interested in what happens here, but US information is also useful. I know of Bebo and that's it!
- Who do you think uses social media networks well to communicate to 10-13 year olds?

Is there a cheap way to use data on my iPhone in Spain?

ascullion — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:39:06 -0800

I'm going to Spain for a bit and want, if possible, to get a pay-as-you-go Spainish sim card for my (unlocked) iPhone that will allow me to use data at a reasonable price. Does anyone know if such a product exists in Spain? I don't speak Spanish so bonus points if it's possible to buy one over the internet and have it shipped to me in the UK (though I know that's unlikely)... For context, I've got a sim card like this for Ireland - a day's data use (500MB or something) costs just €0.98. It's the handiest thing I've ever bought...

How to play a game remotely?

inturnaround — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:46:54 -0800

I have two computers, a Mac and a PC. Can I set up my network so that I can play a game on the PC and view it on my Mac? I want to play Champions Online which is on my Windows 7 PC downstairs, but would like to be able to do it remotely through my iMac with OS 10.6. Is this something where screen sharing will work? Or will there be too much lag for a graphics intensive game?

The iMac is wired to my Airport Extreme Base Station. The PC is wirelessly connected using the D-Link DWA-160 Xtreme N adapter. There are other devices connected wirelessly that use G-speeds.

My roommate has been watching what I do online- help!

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:17:43 -0800

My roommate has been watching what I do online- help! We are (were?) pretty good friends despite only knowing each other about a year.

As part of an argument, he made an angry reference to my blog, and quoted it. I have never told ANYONE about my blog, NO identifying details are connected to it, and until he said that I didn't know anyone but me had ever looked at it (I mostly just write gibberish there, sometimes I rant about things but again, with NO identifying details).

I asked him how he knew about it and he said "I know everything that goes through my network."

I know he was telling the truth because I had made some of my posts from school, and he pointed out which ones I had made from home.

I know absolutely nothing about computers. I know how to turn it on and use Firefox, and that's it. As far as what kind of network we have, all I know is that it's wireless and he has his own server.

Now I'm completely freaked out. I have no idea as to exactly what he can see. Can he read every email I send? Can he see every website that I go to?

Is there any way to block him from seeing what I do? Is there any way *I* can see what *he* does?

Moving out is not an option for several months.

I'm not afraid of him and he's not usually this weird, I just hate the idea that someone can completely spy on me like this.

My servos are seizing

cabbages — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:14:37 -0800

Posting for a Roommate: His 802.11b USB adapter is unable to connect to our 801.11n network. According to him, this adapter worked for him previously but as soon as he moved into our house it stopped working. The adapter sees the network but when you try to connect it fails.

His laptop is on the other side of the house so I tried it on my laptop (which is in the same room as the router) and ran into the same issue so I'm thinking it might be a hardware problem but I have very little knowledge when it comes to networks.

Some more details:
Driver obtained from Windows Update (Current)
Adapter only recognizes the network as 801.11g
Network is encrypted with WPA-PSK

If he's going to need to buy a new adapter I'd appreciate suggestions as well. Currently he is running a Ethernet cord through our hallway and into my room which is kind of tacky.

Where to find MCAT and LSAT teachers?

Kattiara17 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:58:30 -0800

I'm trying to find communities/forums/social networks that would focus on MCAT and LSAT. The end goal is to find qualified teachers for these subjects (not help on taking the actual exams).. any ideas? My company provides prep classes and tutoring for students. One of the hardest parts is finding qualified instructors to teach these sessions. A teacher has to have a certain score in their subject test/area to qualify for our training (and subsequent certification) before they're able to actually get in front of students (for example, LSAT teachers must have scored at least a 172 before we accept them for training, etc.).

While it's not too hard to find good teacher applicants for the more general exams (SAT, GRE, etc.), what's consistantly a challenge is finding good LSAT and MCAT candidates -- even more specifically, MCAT Physics and Chem/Org Chem.

Are there any online communities or forums that might be good places to try reaching out to? I feel like with social networks for everything from knitting to wine, maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. Thanks for any suggestions!

So, when will we know who won this thing, eh?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:13:44 -0800

How does projecting the winner of the US presidential election work? And what is the earliest time at which the election may be called? To clarify, I'm asking about television networks -- let's define these as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, PBS for the sake of this question -- not other news sources such as the AP.

Now, let's break this down into several more specific questions:

(1) Is it possible that a network calls a state before all of its polls are closed, e.g. California for the Democratic candidate or Utah for the Republican, based on the assumption that it almost certainly will not break the other way? If not, is this a direct result of 2000 or has it always been this way?

(2) Extending the previous question, is it possible that a network calls the election before it has made 270 Electoral Votes worth of per-state calls for any candidate? For example, if at any given time the Democratic candidate has accumulated a projected 200 EV from states east of the Mississippi, will a network call the election based on the assumption that the West Coast's 73 EV will break for the Democrat? (A similar scenario could of course be constructed for the Republican candidate.)

(3) Are poll closing times this year identical to those in 2004?

(4) Based on the answers to (1), (2) and (3) and any other information, what is the earliest time the election could possibly be called?

I remember 2000 and 2004, and I understand that in close elections it can take a long time before a winner is projected. But I am too young to remember 1996 and earlier, and I can find very little convincing historical information online.

It logically follows that for this question I'm assuming a not-so-close election, or at least one that might allow for an earlier call than the last two times around. But I feel compelled to note that I am not necessarily assuming the 2008 election as it stands today. I'm asking about what is possible, not what's likely this time: in other words, this question should basically be equally applicable to 2012 or any hypothetical election, not specifically the 2008 election as it stands today.

Lastly, it goes without saying, but I would ask you to kindly refrain from political discussion -- this is about how election night calls work and what is possible, not about who you want to win or think might win.

-----------

Historical bonus questions:

(5) For past presidential elections during the television era, what time was the earliest network call (for the presidency) made?

(6) Can you point to any video of this online, or any text accounts?

-----------

Let's assume ET for the sake of clarity. And more general information on specific broadcasters' policies, historical examples etc. would also be very welcome.

I'm sorry if this seems convoluted or like multiple questions for the price of one, but since the answer to one question essentially determines the other, I felt I had to break it down like this.

Let me know if anything's unclear, and thank you ever so much for any insight you might have. Thanks!

Does Katie Couric get to pick which news item opens the broadcast?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:05:27 -0800

What kind of influence do US network anchors have on the news selection and editing process? My friend claims American network news anchors are effectively editors-in-chief; I'm willing to entertain the notion that they are in a position to exert influence over the process and carry more responsibilities than Dutch newsreaders (who are essentially mere presenters), but I don't buy that they can preside over every aspect of the process.

So which is it?

This Nightmare of Listening Freedom is Almost Over!

tmcw — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:09:16 -0800

So which P2P networks garner the most RIAA lawsuits? The lawsuits are, of course, a sort of cloak and dagger affair, but isn't there some data on this kind of thing? (disclosure: my school just got reamed by the supreme court. I #1 live off-campus, #2 don't download much)

Help me manage my people collection.

Naberius — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:38:22 -0800

I seem to have a very particular social skills deficit. Can you suggest software that might serve as a kind of brain prosthetic for me? I like people - I really do. But I'm an introvert. And, for lack of a better word, I just lose people if they don't get in my face on a regular basis. I want to maintain relationships, but I just lose track of people and before I know it months have gone by and the friendship has atrophied. A lot of my interactions with friends are sort of "yeah, sorry I haven't been in touch, how are things going with you? I'll try to be better about that." Over and over again.

Also I'm in a field where the ability to network is quite important and because of this particular issue, I really suck at it. Basically I seem to be able to keep up with only a very small inner circle of friends - smaller than most people's - and everyone else drops off into that outer circle of contacts or acquaintances, whether I want them to or not. Sometimes they are hurt. More often they just realize they're having to put in most of the work to keep the connection running, while I'm not really holding up my end, and they let things drift off.

Its occurred to me to wonder about contact management applications like ACT. I gather salespeople use them to manage social connections with more people than our primate brains could normally deal with. But I don't really know much about them. What do they actually do? Would they be useful for me? Or perhaps there's some other kind of application that could basically keep a database of people I know, track how long it's been since I did something to keep that particular plate spinning and prod me to give so and so a call or an email or something? What would you suggest?

wimax systems interfering with c-band satellite terminals

thewalrus — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:04:20 -0800

Telecom nerd filter (again): Documented instances of 802.16-2004 or 802.16e-2005 WiMax installations interfering with C-band satellite systems? 3.40 GHz to 6.425 GHz frequency range. Several months ago I came across a blog post from a VSAT service provider in Indonesia. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it again, but he was concerned the possibility of fixed WiMax (802.16) installations interfering with C-band satellite systems.

C-band VSATs receive in the 3.40 GHz to 4.20 GHz range, and transmit from 5.80 to 6.425 GHz. This overlaps with the spectrum used by some fixed WiMax setups, particularly first and second generation Motorola Canopy systems that are being deployed in many developing countries.

Does anyone know of a documented instance of a WiMax system partially or totally interfering with the operation of a C-band VSAT or earth station? How close was the offending WiMax setup to the VSAT dish? Was it a point-to-point LAN/MAN bridge link, or a sectorised city covering WiMax base station installed on a hilltop? Any information on the satellite terminal that was interfered with (size of dish, electronics and modem used by dish, configuration) would also be useful.

Virtualized Network Problems

nivekraz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:31:05 -0800

I'm having network problems with virtualized systems. I have Macs runnig OsX 10.4 with Parallels running XP. At random times, the network fails...kinda The network will stop working (cant get to Internet, internal hosts, email, pings, DHCP) but the network link never goes down. Link lights are on, switch says port is active and in proper vlan. Snoops on the interface and switch port the show computers trying to get a DHCP address. If someone has music streaming from the Internet, it will continue to function. Any new sessions will fail. I can fix it by pulling the network cable and plugging it back in. This only happens on systems with Parallels w/ XP but it can happen even when Parallels/XP is NOT running.

What can be causing this? What can I look at?

How do I make my WiFi network stop hiding from me?

logovisual — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:45:23 -0800

I cannot maintain a connection to my wireless network. I think it might have something to do with the EIGHTEEN other wireless networks available around me. What can I do? (And let's knock this one out early: I'm on a completely different channel from all the other networks). I just moved to a new apartment in Astoria, Queens, and was having trouble getting onto the new roommates' wireless network (and learned that one of the other roommates, a fellow Mac user, couldn't get on it either). So I bought a new Airport Extreme and set it up yesterday in place of the old Linksys router. This took HOURS, because I couldn't get a signal in the next room (where my computer is) strong enough to maintain a connection to the base station for long enough to go through the entire setup process. I eventually got it up and working, but ever since, I'm lucky to get 20 minutes of internet access before my iMac drops the connection to the network.

Here are the gory details: The network is on channel 1. The eighteen (no joke) networks around us are all on channels 6, 8, or 11. When I run MacStumbler, our network consistently has the strongest signal strength -- around 70, compared to the other networks in the 40s or 50s -- but it also appears very infrequently, only poking its head above the fray of competing networks once every couple of minutes. A couple of networks with weaker signal are much more consistent, almost never disappearing from MacStumbler's view. Ours, apparently, likes to play hide-and-seek.

The Airport Extreme (one of the brand new 802.11n ones) has to be set up in my roommate's bedroom, since he's on a paleocomputer without WiFi and must be jacked into it. The distance from the router to my computer is maybe fifteen to twenty feet total, with a closet and wall in between. The closet does have some metal fixtures (rods and hangers), but is mainly wood and fabric.

My computer is a 20" iMac G5. I have my doubts about its WiFi antenna to begin with, since I also have an Airport Express (which is not currently on the network, since I can't hold a signal long enough to get it rebooted and connected onto the network, otherwise I'd use it to improve my signal strength) which I tried plugging into the power outlet DIRECTLY BELOW my computer, and the iMac only registered a signal strength of about 80.

I also have a Powerbook G4 which I wandered around the house testing signal strength with; I tried setting the Powerbook literally on top of the Airport Extreme, and got the same problem wherein the signal was exceptionally good -- 116 -- but only when it appeared, which was once every couple of minutes. Then it vanished.

So: what are my options? Is there something I can do to make the network consistent, and not be playing this "I'm here, I'm not here" game? Is this likely to be a placement problem for the router, or more likely to be an antenna problem with my computer?

Online VPN/Network storage

frwagon — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:12:35 -0800

I'm looking for an online file share, but with some very specific, and apparently hard to find, features. So, right now, I do work on no less than 4 PC's (2 desktop, 2 laptop). I'm looking for a online file share that my computers can treat as a local drive. My current thoughts include a VPN and network drive mapping. Google-fu fails me. Are there any such services?I'd ideally like to point things like Outlook's database file and the My Documents folder out there.