Internet – Page 7 – Spinor Info

Gotta love Rogers

Jan 302012

Rogers is supposed to be one of Canada’s leading telecommunication companies. I guess bigger does not necessarily mean better.

Back in August, I upgraded my cable Internet service to a small business package. This itself turned into a comedy of errors: to effect the upgrade, I had to order separately the small business service on the one hand, and cancel my residential service on the other. Sure enough, Rogers managed to cancel the freshly ordered small business service instead, and I spent an hour and a half (!) on the phone with them before it got sorted out. But, I digress.

Presently, I’ve been trying to access this small business account online. Ever since my residential service was canceled, when I logged on to Rogers.com, I saw my wireless and cable TV accounts, but not the Internet account. Cool, I have the option to add a new account, and I certainly have all necessary information. So let’s give it a try. I did so last week… and the service still isn’t shown in the interface. But just today, I received a postal (!) letter from Rogers, confirming that I registered this account.

There is also the option to view small business services on Rogers.com. There, I can again try to add my account. But it isn’t happening… instead, I get an error indicating that the service is unavailable.

OK, let’s try to call Rogers. The letter they sent had an 877-number, which I tried to call, only to get an automated message telling me that they now have online chat support and for all other inquiries, I should call their main number… click, dial tone. There is another number, for small business support… but when I call it, all the announcements are in French, with no option to choose English.

OK, let’s try live chat. The link, helpfully, is right there on the main page of Rogers.com. Click on it and… 404 error, page not found.

Oh really. Come on guys, I don’t necessarily expect perfection, but this is downright amateurish.

Blackouts and blackouts

Computer Security, Intellectual Property, Internet, Politics No Responses »

Jan 182012

Here is Google’s way of protesting proposed copyright legislation: black out the company logo and direct users who click on it to a protest page.

And then here is Wikipedia’s form of protest: black out the entire site. Never mind that the people you are most likely to hurt are your friends, and the people who are the least affected are your opponents. Why not be vindictive about it, if you can?

Indeed, while you are at it, why not black out Wikipedia even for non-US users, just for good measure, despite the fact that there is very little they can do that would affect the decisions of the US Congress.

Fortunately, the blackout is easily circumvented.

Nonetheless, doing what Google did would have been just as effective, and far less harmful both to Wikipedia’s reputation and to users who rely on its services every day. Unfortunately, radical activism prevailed over common sense: the difference between public protest and sabotage was forgotten. This is what dooms revolutions: they may be started by idealists and poets but ultimately, it is characters like Boris Pasternak’s Strelnikov in Doctor Zhivago, who set the tone.

Wikipedia’s disingenuous blackout decision

Intellectual Property, Internet, Personal, Society No Responses »

Jan 172012

I just wrote a comment, registering my objection to Wikipedia’s decision to protest a proposed US legislation with a total blackout of its English-language site.

In a letter titled “Summary and conclusion”, those behind this decision state that “over 1800 Wikipedians […] is by far the largest level of participation […], which illustrates the level of concern”. I was one of the 1800+. But, my concern was not about SOPA (I am concerned about it, but that’s another matter) but about the proposed radical action and its possible negative consequences for Wikipedia.

I also pointed out that given the way the vote was organized, it is clear that the decision was not a result of a majority (50%+) vote. It was merely the option (one out of many) picked by the most vocal minority. Taking such radical action without a clear majority mandate is a badly misguided step, to say the least.

There were also calls to make the blackout more thorough: block attempts to view cached versions of Wikipedia pages on Google, or attempts to bypass the JavaScript code that redirects the user to the blackout page. This is childish and vindictive, and also kind of pointless: the stated goal (raising awareness of the proposed legislation and its negative consequences) is easily accomplished without such thoroughness.

Lastly, I pointed out that with the legislation effectively dead (in the unlikely event that both houses of Congress pass the legislation, the White House all but promised a veto) proceeding with the blackout makes little sense. It is as if we threatened nuclear war, our opponent backed down, and then we went ahead and nuked the hell out of them anyway, just for good measure.

Try banning a meme, morons!

Hungary, Internet, Politics, Television 1 Response »

Jan 042012

The word “meme” is a relatively new one, originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene as the cultural analog of a gene. A meme is a concept or an idea that spreads to person to person within a culture. By their very nature, good memes survive even in harsh environments, despite official sanctions, bans, or attempts at censorship.

Two days ago, a massive demonstration took place in Budapest, Hungary, triggered by the country’s new constitution and the increasingly authoritarian behavior of the ruling Fidesz party. The country’s public television channel tried to downplay the significance of these demonstrations in its evening newscast, strategically placing its reporter on a quiet street, away from the crowds.

In protest, Hungary’s pre-eminent frivolous political party, the Two-tailed Dog Party published a satire of the evening newscast. This was too much for the humor-deficient political elite of (no longer The Republic Of) Hungary: the Web site was banned. (For now, the youtube version of the video is still available.)

But it’s a tad harder to ban a meme. Since the ban, a new form of art is spreading on Hungarian Web sites: the image of the same television reporter pasted in front of varying historical backgrounds, with humorous captions. Here is my favorite:

There was little public interest as members of his immediate family joined Jesus C. (33), a felon with multiple convictions known for his anti-regime speeches, on his final voyage.

In English, the on-screen captions read: “Golgota; Live; In three days, no one will remember the storyteller”.

Try banning this, clowns.

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Dec 212011

I just added a WordPress plugin that will tweet all my blog posts.

CMS

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Nov 292011

I finally completed the task of moving my personal Web site to a content management system (Joomla!). It turned out to be a much bigger task than I anticipated; a lot of stuff accumulated on my site over the years, and some of it, like my Seas of Mars Java applet, is interactive content and it was a bit of a struggle to make these pages compatible with the CMS code. Still, I’m glad it’s done… my site is my way of introducing myself to the world, and it looks like I’ll be in need of doing some introducing, as some of my long-term clients are slowly leaving the picture.

And now we’re truly screwed

Economy, Internet, Politics No Responses »

Nov 012011

Well, if I thought Halloween was bad enough already, I quickly learned the error of my ways this morning, when I found out about the Greek referendum thing. How does a world order unravel? In 1914, all it took was a bullet to pull the first thread. Perhaps in 2011, it’s a boneheaded move by an embattled prime minister of a minor economy within the Eurozone. I have a very, very bad feeling about this.

And Facebook still hates me, not picking up my blog posts unless I reset the link manually every time.

Does Facebook still hate me?

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Oct 302011

Once again I am noticing that Facebook fails to pick up my blog entries. If I reset the link, it collects all recent posts (and displays the last one twice, for some reason, on my “Wall”) but then it stops collecting them again. Weird. Of course it’s probably nothing personal, just an uncorrected bug in Facebook’s RSS harvesting code.

WordPress problem

Computers, Internet No Responses »

Oct 222011

I’ve been using WordPress for this blog for the last several years. Lately, I noticed a problem: every new post I add appears in the “Uncategorized” post category, and it is impossible to remove a post from a category.

I’m sure the good folks at WordPress will fix this problem soon, but until then, here are the SQL statements I need to remove all posts from the “Uncategorized” category:

 DELETE vttoth_term_relationships FROM vttoth_term_relationships, vttoth_posts
  WHERE term_taxonomy_id=1 AND object_id=ID AND post_type='post';
 UPDATE vttoth_term_taxonomy SET count=0 WHERE term_taxonomy_id=1;

My WordPress database is called ‘vttoth’; for a WordPress database that uses a different name, the above instructions must be altered accordingly.

Does Facebook hate my blog?

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Oct 142011

Recently, Facebook stopped importing entries from my blog again. I can set up the import, Facebook imports all fresh entries (and for some reason, shows the most recent one in duplicate) but then it never imports anything again. I don’t think it’s anything wrong on my end, but it sure is annoying.

IT products

Computer Security, Internet No Responses »

Aug 172011

I am not usually in the business of recommending software or hardware products, and it’s certainly not something anyone pays me to do… but recently, I began using two products, both of which have exceptional value, even though one came free of charge and the other cost only 150 dollars.

The free product is Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI), a software application that turned from something I never heard about into something I cannot live without virtually overnight. It is an application that keeps tabs on all the software installed on your computer and lets you know if any of them are out of date and require updates. Like antivirus software, PSI sits quietly in the background most of the time, but it pops up an unobtrusive warning whenever a new update becomes available, and even offers a direct link to the manufacturer’s download site. It is nice, incredibly useful, it recognizes hundreds of installed applications, and, well, it works as it is supposed to and doesn’t cost a penny.

The product I paid money for is a Cisco RV042 small business router. It does what small business routers do, connects your internal network to an external (DSL, cable, etc.) Internet connection. What makes it special is that it allows your internal network to be connected to two external connections at the same time, and it performs dynamic load balancing and failover functions between the two. I now set up my network architecture to take full advantage of it… and in the coming days, it will be working overtime, as I am planning a major change to my DSL service which will likely involve some unpredictable downtime. The router has other useful functions, too, not the least of which is that it can act as a VPN server, allowing a remote computer to connect to the internal network. The best part is that, like Secunia’s software, it simply works as advertised.

Down

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Aug 012011

First the first time in seven years (!), my main Internet connection is down, and will likely stay down until at least Tuesday. This being a long weekend, no telco technician is available until then, and they determined that the fault is likely a partial short in the physical circuit. Bloody hell.

Now I am scrambling to reroute everything to a backup server, provided courtesy of a good friend of mine. I asked him to only move around on tiptoes until Tuesday, and I am begging Murphy not to strike again until then…

Internet in China

Economy, Internet, Politics No Responses »

Jul 292011

Using the Internet in China just got a little harder. Not content with operating one of the most heavy-handed Internet censorship regimes in the world, Chinese authorities decided that free Wi-Fi makes it just too easy for all sorts of unsavory electronic communication to take place without appropriate supervision by Big Brother… so they ordered public Wi-Fi access providers to install costly software to record the identities and monitor the Web activities of users.

This is why I am not really afraid that the 21st century will belong to China. Sure, they became an economic giant, but this kind of institutional paranoia is ultimately self-limiting. Now if one day, they suddenly kicked out the Chinese Communist Party and replaced its one-party rule with a pluralist society… but then again, if that were to happen and China became the world’s most populous liberal democracy, why would I need to feel worried about their economic prosperity?

Getting lost on Wikipedia

Computers, History, Internet 1 Response »

Jul 122011

I was trying to resolve a tricky problem today with the domain name system on one of my servers. One possibility was that a broken root server might have been responsible for the faulty behavior. So I began reading about broken root servers. Reading up on this topic, I happened upon an article published a few years ago discussing the pros and cons of internationalizing the Internet’s numbering authority. So I went to Wikipedia to read up about the current status of ICANN. This led me to another article about the proposed Interplanetary Internet, and about delay-tolerant networking in general. Soon I found myself reading a variety of articles on the history of computing, including the legendary decline of once famous companies like Data General and Digital… and eventually, after reading about early computer architectures and calculators, I was staring at an article discussing the early inventions of Hero of Alexandria, who indeed had a steam reaction engine and another invention that used expanding hot air to displace water which then opened church doors, two inventions that are often confused these days, leading many to believe that Hero’s engine was capable of useful work.

Unfortunately, I am not capable of useful work when I get lost like this on Wikipedia. My problem with DNS remains unsolved.

Leaving the Internet

Internet, Politics, Society No Responses »

Jan 292011

Earlier this week Egypt, a country of 80 million, collectively left the Internet.

I think this, more than anything, demonstrates that the days (if not the hours) of Mubarak’s regime are numbered. The damage this step causes to the Egyptian economy are likely quite considerable. And a number of other countries are worried: it appears that a significant share of the data traffic between Europe and Gulf oil states, as well as Asia, passes through Egypt. This connections aren’t yet affected, but who knows what happens next?

We live in interesting times.

Assange vs. Zuckerberg

Internet, Television No Responses »

Dec 222010

Here’s a wonderful quote from Saturday Night Live’s impersonation of Julian Assange talking about Mark Zuckerberg: “What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? Let’s take a look. I give you private information about corporations for free. And I’m a villain. Mark Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.”

SNL’s Assange also praised Time magazine for being on top of things, discovering Facebook “only weeks after your grandmother”.

Wikispin

Internet, Politics No Responses »

Dec 082010

Conspiracy theorists, rejoice: Paypal apparently admitted that the decision to freeze the Paypal account of Wikileaks was due to US government pressure. Long live freedom and democracy. No wonder some folks are comparing our treatment of Assange to China’s treatment of Nobel laureate Xiaobo. We are, after all, doing the same thing China is doing: we are trying to suppress information, and we threaten and intimidate those who release it. I find myself in strong agreement with the writer of an article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun: we are forced to ask questions (about torture, detentions, intimidation, death threats and worse) that ten years ago none of us thought we’d be asking.

There is, though, a silver lining. Perhaps all this evil has always been part of our “civilized” society, and it’s only now, in the era of the Internet, that we can so easily find out.

There, I’ve done it

Internet, Politics No Responses »

Dec 072010

I’ve done it: I donated to Wikileaks. While I still could, at least using a credit card, now that the Paypal option is gone.

Does this mean that I am now on somebody’s list as a supporter of Mr. “rapist, worse than a terrorist” Assange and that I can expect to be sexually assaulted, er, I mean, strip searched when I next go through an airport?

And isn’t this something that only denizens of evil police states should have to be worrying about?

Hipocrisy

Internet, Politics No Responses »

Dec 042010

News flash: Paypal blocks Wikileaks.

But no, we’re not like the evil Chinese. We don’t do censorship. It’s strictly for legal reasons, you see.

I wanted to send money to Wikileaks yesterday. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t, because for all I know, monies in Wikileaks’ account may be frozen by Paypal. I’m sure there will be other ways. Hopefully I won’t be charged one day as a supporter of terrorism because of a $20 contribution.

Yes, I’ll continue to use Paypal and buy books from Amazon. I just have a worse opinion than ever about our commitment to our cherished Western values.

Censorship

Internet, Politics No Responses »

Dec 032010

No, we don’t do censorship. This is the West, after all. We are civilized, democratic, and we deplore evil regimes that prevent their citizens from prying into the secrets of the almighty State.

Except…

Except when said secrets are a little too inconvenient. We then stop pretending and issue an international arrest warrant against the founder of a Web site for a crime that, even if it was really committed, was likely little more than an unwarranted sexual advance; we “convince” a large hosting provider to stop hosting the unpleasant content; and we convince the DNS provider to stop servicing the name of the domain in question. This is so much more civilized than running a state censorship establishment!

My arse.

For the record, Wikileaks mirrors can be located by looking them up at http://wikileaks.info/. As of this morning, the following information was provided there:

Wikileaks Mirrors

Find all the current Wikileaks Mirrors here. Helpful, if the main site – wikileaks.org – is down.

wikileaks.org – Official Wikileaks Page [46.51.171.90, 184.72.37.90]
cablegate.wikileaks.org – Secret US Embassy Cables [91.194.60.90, 91.194.60.112, 204.236.131.131]
chat.wikileaks.org – Secure SSL Chat Page [88.80.13.160]
sunshinepress.org – Secure Document Submission Page [88.80.2.32]
wikileaks.com – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.net – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.biz – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.de – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.eu – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.fi – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.mobi – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.nl – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.pl – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
wikileaks.us – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]
ljsf.org – Points to Official Site [88.80.13.160]

Real mirrors on different IP Addresses

wikileaks.info – Mirror hosted in Switzerland [62.2.16.94]
wikileaks.se – Mirror hosted in Sweden [88.80.6.179]
nyud.net – Mirror hosted in the United States [129.170.214.192]

Important Wikileaks Links

twitter.com/wikileaks – Official Wikileaks Twitter Page
facebook.com/wikileaks – Official Wikileaks Facebook Page

Contrary to what is being said above, the wikileaks.de domain name works this morning; it points to 213.251.145.96, which seems up to date, including the “cablegate” releases.

Bleeping hypocrisy. At least the Chinese are honest about what they are doing.

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