Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with networks

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.

What's a good Vista-supported alternative to Network Stumbler?

nitsuj — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:50:22 -0800

What's a good alternative to Network Stumbler that supports Vista? I really enjoy Network Stumbler (especially the audio alerts), but sadly it doesn't work on my Vista machine, either due to OS incompatibility (Vista is officially unsupported, but it works for some people) or an unsupported network card -- mine is a Broadcom. Under Vista, NS gives the error, "No wireless adapter found."

The NS user forums are useless, because all Vista-based questions are swiftly closed because it's unsupported, officially.

What's a good alternative piece of software that works with Vista? Or, in the off chance that someone has been able to get Vista + a Broadcom adapter to work with NS, how'd you do it?

The nitty gritty of my setup:

-Dell 640m (e1405)
-Vista Home Basic
-Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller; 802.11g Network Adapter

Why won't this site load for only one computer on the network?

Tuwa — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:33:13 -0800

One certain site always times out for me. It does not for other computers on the same network. What (if anything) can I do to get it to work? I have a wireless network set up at my place, and ever since it's been set up (the last week and a half or so) I haven't been able to access elbo.ws/vanilla/ . At first I thought the site was down but last night I noticed it had a recent date in Google's search results for the front page.

So I tried going there through a proxy--in fact, through a half-dozen proxies in three different browsers--and none of them reported the "timed out" message; they all pulled the site up quickly.

My roommate can access the site directly on a Mac. I'm on a PC and can't access any part of the site in any way at all except through a proxy.

We've both tracerouted to it; the packets go through the router to the modem to the ISP and then to Verizon, where they stall at either static-72-88-198-27.nwrknj.fios.verizon.net (72.88.198.27) or static-72-88-198-28.nwrknj.fios.verizon.net. I don't know why they stall there since the IP for elbo.ws is actually 72.88.198.28. My roommate always gets the one ending in .27 and can always pull up the site. I always get .28 and can't. I've tried typing in the .27 IP and still can't.

Even though the route stalls there, for him the site loads and is fully interactive but for me the site doesn't load at all.

I haven't denied cookies from the site and it's not set up to time out if cookies are off anyway.

Neither elbo.ws nor 72.88.198.28 are in my HOSTS file.

There's no sort of internet filtering on the computer, at least not intentionally.

AVG reports the computer as clean; Spybot S&D complains about a remnant of the Alexa toolbar, a potential DSO exploit due to having IE 6.0 (which I use only for CSS compatibility testing), a Doubleclick cookie, and an atdmt cookie.

elbo.ws/vanilla isn't set up to be denied from the router (and it would be surprising indeed if it were, since my roommate's computer can access it).

This is the only site I visit that consistently does not work.

I've already talked to the site administrator and he's stumped. Short of contacting my generally unhelpful customer service, how do I go about troubleshooting the problem?

Advice for newbie systems administrator?

erpava — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:23:09 -0800

I will be starting a new job this Monday as a systems admin for a small company, and I was wondering, what are some good resources that might be helpful for someone like me? Company background: This is a small place of only about 10 people that does the majority of its business online. From what I learned in the interview, they use an Exchange server for email and contact information. They have all relatively new Dell desktops running XP.

Responsibilities: Keep the systems running smoothly. Make updates and changes to the website.

My background: I'm a college student who is happy to have found what appears to be a stable job with flexible hours and decent pay. I don't plan on working at this place for more than two years, just until I finish school. I don't have a ton of experience working with networks, but I know my way around a computer and I have some PHP and SQL proficiency, which was mentioned as a prerequisite in the original job description.

My question: What are some good resources that might help me learn more about regular sysadmin duties and help me get through problems that I might encounter? I'm looking for anything, here; forums, blogs, articles, books, or even just some advice. The person who currently holds my position is leaving soon, but he will be training me for at least a week.

Keep in mind that this is not a very high paying job so I don't expect to have to do anything too crazy or difficult.

Suggested resource for coding neural networks in Java from scratch?

zzztimbo — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 21:53:59 -0800

I would like to know what a good resource would be to help me code neural networks in Java from scratch. The best I could find was this resource: http://www.mathtools.net/Java/Neural_Networks/ I have Neural Networks by Haykin as well as Simulating Neural Networks with Mathematica.

Please share resources to learn about routing protocols and LAN/WAN setup.

odinsdream — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 07:01:55 -0800

Please share resources for learning about routing protocols, WAN/LAN setup, etc. I can set up a basic network using private IPs. I can understand how larger networks are, in principle, operating, but I need a much better technical understanding of these larger networks and "best practices" for setting them up. I would love to hear what resources you use.

I took a Cisco class a couple years ago, and I learn other things as I go using internet resources like Wikipedia and HOWTOs. I understand basic routing, but don't understand routing protocols. I understand IP address spaces and subnets, but don't fully grasp how you actually dole out subnets or connect them to each other.

Can you share some good resources, books, websites, so on, to better my understanding of how to set up large networks that use a mix of public and private address space? Resources that cover multiple "what-ifs" are extra helpful, as I'll be working with pre-existing networks that are definitely not set up in the ideal fashions.

The software being used is Linux, and the hardware varies dramatically from location to location, if that matters.

Two Computers-One Internet

quercus — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 10:45:24 -0800

Computer simpleton here with a simple computer networking question (I think) regarding shared internet access. Thanks for your help. My searches get me bogged down in the wealth of detail and options and you have to account for me being a mechanical moron. So: I have a windows PC with a DSL connection. I just got a Mac desktop for Christmas. These computers are at opposite ends of the house. I don't want to network the computers.

I just want the Mac to be able to use the DSL connection for internet access. What's the simplest way to do this?

Thank you very much for your help.

Why do I still see our old website even though the DNS should have had plenty of time to propagate?

bcwinters — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:03:21 -0800

DNS and Small Business Server and Caches, oh my: We switched web hosts at work (and waited a few days for things to propagate), but from the office network I still see the site on the old host. Can anyone help me understand DNS caching, Active Directory, and all the other bits and bobs that go along with the mysterious world of Windows networks? I work for a nonprofit. We don't have an IT guy; just me, a talentedish amateur who's now trying to troubleshoot DNS caching. I am the quote-unquote administrator of the network, which means I know how to add users to Active Directory, restart the server when it's acting flakey, and Google the right search terms when things go awry.

We switched web hosts on Monday night and a rudimentary check tells me that the DNS changes propagated all over creation within a day or three. But when I'm at work, I still see the old site no matter how many times I flush browser caches or DNS caches on our workstations. I've tried multiple browsers and even brought in a laptop that has never been on the network before, just to make sure it wasn't a problem with the workstations caching something.

Having ruled that out, I checked our router, a Sonicwall TZ 170. I'm normally pretty confident with routers (I always seem to be the friend who gets the phone calls in the middle of the night when somebody's net connection has crapped out) although I don't know much about the setup of our VPN, etc. I noticed that the first DNS server was set to point internally to our server (192.168.1.2), which seemed odd to me. The other two DNS servers were 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.1, which seemed normal enough.

Some Googling turned up this tangentially-related question, where a commenter noted that "All DC's should have the primary DNS entry pointing to themselves. A lot of the functionality of Active Directory is based on DNS..." so I figured, OK, it's not an error, let me take a look at the server.

At this point my knowledge peters out. We use Small Business Server 2003, and I got as far as looking at the properties of the server in dnsmgmt. "Interfaces" is set to "Only the following IP addresses: 192.168.1.2"; Forwarders is set to "All other DNS domains" and 4.2.2.2 & 192.168.1.1. I don't really understand why it would be set to try an outside nameserver and then try the router second; wouldn't the router just tell it to circle back around to the server? Does this even have anything to do with anything??

Sorry if this is very wordy. I wanted to try and cover all the bases and show y'all what I've tried (as well as expose how rudimentary my actually skills are on the topic!). One last thing; I've got a text file of some tracert results from my laptop that's connected to the office network via the VPN:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms c-24-62-154-34.hsd1.nh.comcast.net [24.62.154.34]
2 26 ms 21 ms 7 ms c-3-0-ubr01.concord.nh.boston.comcast.net [73.165.206.1]
3 10 ms 9 ms 13 ms ge-2-37-ur01.concord.nh.boston.comcast.net [68.87.148.193]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 10g-8-1-ur01.deering.nh.boston.comcast.net [68.87.145.69]
5 10 ms 23 ms 10 ms 10g-9-4-ur01.manchester.nh.boston.comcast.net [68.87.145.81]
6 11 ms 11 ms 13 ms 10g-9-1-ur01.nashua.nh.boston.comcast.net [68.87.145.117]
7 10 ms 14 ms 11 ms te-9-2-ur01.lowell.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.144.161]
8 10 ms 12 ms 11 ms 10g-9-4-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.144.157]
9 12 ms 12 ms 14 ms 12.116.130.173
10 20 ms 25 ms 22 ms br2-a350s3.cb1ma.ip.att.net [12.127.5.26]
11 23 ms 19 ms 19 ms tbr2-cl16.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.10.22]
12 19 ms 17 ms 19 ms ggr1-p320.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.123.0.85]
13 20 ms 18 ms 20 ms p14-0.ir1.nyc-ny.us.xo.net [206.111.13.33]
14 19 ms 20 ms 19 ms p5-0-0.RAR2.NYC-NY.us.xo.net [65.106.3.41]
15 25 ms 23 ms 26 ms p6-0-0.RAR1.Washington-DC.us.xo.net [65.106.0.2]
16 92 ms 93 ms 106 ms p1-0-0.RAR1.SanJose-CA.us.xo.net [65.106.0.38]
17 91 ms 91 ms 93 ms p0-0-0d0.RAR2.SanJose-CA.us.xo.net [65.106.1.62]
18 96 ms 94 ms 94 ms p15-0.DCR1.DC-Fremont-CA.us.xo.net [65.106.2.154]
19 123 ms 99 ms 94 ms 205.158.60.166.ptr.us.xo.net [205.158.60.166]
20 91 ms 91 ms 95 ms dsr1.dc-fremont-ca.us.xo.net [205.158.60.229]
21 leander.cnchost.com [207.155.252.112] reports: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.

Anyway, that's all I've got. Any advice appreciated. I understand that DNS changes take a while to propagate, but five days seems a bit excessive--plus I'll probably be in trouble at work on Monday if the bosses are still seeing our old website!

As a final add-on to my question: anybody got any advice on good books/resources to learn about the workings of Small Business Server, Active Directory and the merry world of Windows networking that are good for laypeople who need to do more than have their hands held while using a Wizard?

Extending the tubes one cabin at a time

Smegoid — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 16:10:19 -0800

Looking for some tips on how to extend a wireless network in a rural area. Computer savvy but getting lost in the technicalities of repeaters and access points and tin cans. I'm from a metropolitain city but am now living in rural NH while attending gradschool. Gone from dozens of overlapping wireless networks to being too far from the pole to recieve cable high speed! I have some friends who live about 150-200 feet away who could recieved high speed cable if they wanted.

I have a Linksys WRT54G, not sure if it can be flashed with thirdparty firmware (they stopped that "feature" right?). I'm hopping to propose to my friends that I'll pay for their broadband access if they let me somehow beam their signal to my cabin.

I've spent the last 2 hours trying to figure out what's needed. Firstly they'll need a wireless router attached to the cable modem, then... A directional cantenna pointed at my cabin? The line of sight isn't very good. There's another cabin in between us and a few trees as well. If I bring the middle cabin in on this, and setup a repeater and another cantenna could I possibly get in buisness?

Assuming I can get that signal into my cabin, how do I go about getting my WRT54G router to distribute it to my 3 computers? And would I still get decent speed at that distance?

Any other ideas (roof antennas? Bending the signal around the middle cabin and back to me?)

Wireless print servers - simple for the stupid?

543DoublePlay — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:37:39 -0800

Wireless Network Filter: Wireless print servers - simple for a networking neophyte to set up? We have two laptops at home accessing the interweb-thingy over a DSL powered wireless network. We have one USB color printer (HP) that currently we have to take the laptops to and plug it in so we can print anything. I am thinking of getting a USB-wireless print server (I’ve seen them by Belkin, Dell and D-Link for around $100) that the printer USB cord plugs into so we can then print to it wirelessly from anywhere in the house. My question is, are these fairly simple and idiot-proof to set up? Any known issues or problems with them?

Emerging Storage and Networking Technologies for the Enterprise

mischief — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 09:49:30 -0800

Which emerging enterprise-level storage and networking technologies are likely to become commercially viable by 2010?

Are hackers infesting O'Hare and LAX?

soulbarn — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:35:50 -0800

This happened to me last week at O'Hare - and now, today, in LAX. I opened my laptop in the terminal and checked for wireless networks. I noticed that there was a "computer-to-computer" network called "Free Public Wifi" available. I didn't try to connect, because I know that such networks generally can't provide internet access if there's no other connection available. Does this mean there are folks trying to socially engineer gullible wireless users? What could they gain? Would Windows be more vulnerable than Macs? AND how would a curious samaritan figure out who, amongst the dozen or more folks with open laptops in the vicinity, the culprit is?

Can I make a Mac work on my office network?

kdern — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 08:56:38 -0800

Another Mac/PC question. I want to switch back to Mac, but my office is all PC. Help me figure out if a Mac will be compatible, and if it's worth the trouble. (I know it's been asked before, but I have specific questions.) I want to buy a mac powerbook and am concerned about it working on my office network of PCs. Here are the details:

In the office I use a docking station to connect to an existing monitor, keyboard and mouse. I connect to the office server and share hundreds of documents with my coworkers. All the documents are in Word and Excel, and we may each open and/or edit the same documents many times each day. I need to be sure that when I open and save documents, none of the formatting is going to be changed. I can't screw up the documents for everyone else in the office.

We use outlook in the office, but do not use any shared calendars, etc.

Out of the office, I connect to the company server using Citrix, which I don't know much about. I think there's a Citrix client application, but I don't know anything else about it.

If I could just buy Citrix and Office for Mac and be sure that everything else would work flawlessly, that would be great. But I'm worried that in reality, it will be a nightmare getting to everything to work.

I'm also concerned about the cost - is it really worth having to buy all this software just to make the switch? If I use a PC we already have the software and licenses in the office.

My only other hesistation about switching back to Mac is that TivoToGo does not allow transfer of TV shows to a mac, and this is something I use about once a month when I travel.

So - have you done this? Will the monitor, keyboard, server, network, printers, Word, Excel and Citrix work OK on the Mac? Advice?

How Can I Run An Open Access Point Without Jeopardizing My Computer's Security?

optimuscrime — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 16:07:34 -0800

I owe a great debt of gratitude to all the noobs in my neighbourhood who keep open, unsecured wireless networks. It's because of them that we can blog from the laundromat, blog from the waterfront park, blog from... well, you get the idea. How can I make my network 'open' to others without compromising the security of my computers? I've heard a million times that unsecured open wifi networks are asking for trouble. But my ISP doesn't cap my bandwidth usage, and I want to share my signal. I love that the student area I live in is dotted with so many wireless networks as to make access almost pervasive.

So, is there a way to offer an open access point that doesn't put the computers on my network at risk? Some caveats: I don't want to have to spend much on additional hardware (I have one wifi router), I don't really want to have to run a machine 24/7 to act as a server, and the solution's gotta be easy enough for a relative idiot (ie me) to figure out.

Ipod Video

danielpcummings — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 13:04:03 -0800

Are all P2P file sharting networks evil and infect your computer with wiruses and spyware? Also, does anyone know how to copy DVDs (that I have legally purchased and copy them to my video iPod?