Archive for the 'Routers & networks' category

RAID storage is a good way to ensure a good security for your data: Two or more discs are used to give some redundancy and be sure that in case of a single drive failure you can still access your files (it will not protect you against deleting the files, though). However, the problem is often that RAID storage is very expensive or very complex (buying an expensive appliance, setting up a complex PC configuration). So much so that a normal user (a photographer willing to protect her zillions of digital images, a student willing to give reliability to his MP3 and DivX files, etc.) will not do it.

Now, Iomega is proposing a solution for an external RAID at a bargain price (It’s available in a 500 GB model with street pricing as low as $240). Tom’s Hardware’s SmallNetBuilder is giving it a run and tells us all about it: Tiny Terabyte RAID: Iomega 1 TB StorCenter Network Hard Drive Review.

Google announced, soon after its buying of YouTube, that it wouold add some advertisment on the amateur video web site. This is now what they did. But it did not leave the software developers insensitive: TubeStop is a FireFox plug-in that hides or closes that ads in YouTube to keep the same pleasure without the ads…

It has been quite some time that I did not write about the P2P news. They start popping up everywhere and it is time to talk about the wonderful things happening right under our eyes.

First, the Internet users start to find again -in Europe- some protection since a decision from the European Justice Court: the ISPs will not be obligated to deliver the name of Internet users associated to an IP address when merely requested by copyright owners like we see in the US of A (the case was opened when Telefonica denied this right to deliver the name and address of some of its subscribers accused by a Spanish copyright owner of using Kazaa to exchange MP3 files). It means that the legal actions to attack indelicate Internet users copying songs, music or videos will be limited far below the level reached in North America where tens of thousands of such actions have been started. There will be the need to open not only a civil case, but a criminal action.

Furthermore, BitTorrent, the most easily recognized software program running on the BitTorrent network, will no longer be free. This is most probably a consequence of the intent of its developers to entter a new phase where they want to reap benefits from more commercial activities (including less risks of legal actions, too). Nothing new under the sun, since many Internet users already prefered BitComet, Azureus or uTorrent.

You may also remember that AllOfMp3, a Russian web site distributing MP3 files without any trace of DRM protection, had to stop its activities a few months ago after police action and the beginnning of legal procedure. It appears that Denis Kvasov, founder of AllOfMp3, has been cleared by the Russian justice (he was insisting on the fact that his sales were including author’s right compensation even if some Euopean and American companies were after him for selling at low prices and without DRM).

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Add to it that PirateBay (BitTorrent files search site) have been authorized a few months ago by the Sweedish justice to restart their activity and that they now want to give a new life to the SuperNova web site that closed a couple of years ago, I would try to say that the pendulum is swinging back toward the side most favorable to the Internet users. During months, it seemed that the media producers would be able to force anything they wanted into our throats under the pretense of protecting artists rights. Now, they start experimenting with low-cost without-DRM legal alternatives for music download (even in always-easily-scared France, Neuf-Cegetel intends to start an ISP offer including that kind of possibility: unlimited music and triple-play (Internet+TV+telephone) for 29.90€). Even better, the development of Video on Demand should help film producers and distributors to think in a parallel line.

There is only to find a way to balance the ease of use (requested by Internet users) and artist earnings (naturally expected by the authors). We should find this middle way for the best of consumers and artists, even if it measn suffering for some producers and distributors.

Finally, Cisco people are saying that the Linksys brand would not be abandonned immediately and that it would only be done when it makes sense for the customers (if and when these changes add value to our customers’ decision making processes). Some reaction to the customers reaction?

John Chambers, CEO of CISCO, the company that bought Linksys in 2003, informed us that the Linksys brand will soon be abandonned in favor of a new line of routers all named CISCO.

The Linksys brand had been around since 1988, it had been kept because it had a higher recognition factor in the small router market and public. But it must no longer be the case and Cisco is pushing for a convergence between all Cisco-branded products.

FreeMeter is a small Windows utility displaying a graph showing your network/Internet usage. Simply, tidy, you can try it.

The #1 problm of WiFi networks (well before the speed of data transfers)? Merely, the network range. There is always a corner of the office or of the house that is not reachable (or nearly not reachable) with your WiFi-enabled laptop: in the master’s room upstairs when the router is installed in the office downstairs, for example.

Solution #1: buy a range extender or a repeater. But this is usually very expensive (several hundred dollars).

Solution #2: reconfigure a 60-80$ router to transform it into a nice cheap WiFi repeater (a device that takes the WiFi signal, amplifies it, and re-broadcast it at full power to extend the available range).

I was thinking about this when I found the two interesting explanations describing how to install a new “DD-WRT” firmware on a consumer wireless network router (like a Linksys WRT54GL) and to configure it as a repeater:

• Turn your $60 router into a $600 router (LifeHacker)
• Universal Wireless Repeater (DD-WRT)

And it works even with a WiFi network that was correctly configured for security.

OK, I know that I don’t have TV because I don’t want to be continuously force-fed with mindless junk. However, plenty of people would like to be able to have their TV on the Internet. Up to now, you were mostly depending on your ISP and possibly some subscription additional to your basic broadband Internet package.

Here come FreeTube, ChannelChooser, Hiveproductions, Tape it Off The Internet, Streamick, TV-links, PPStream, ABC, Sintonizate.tv, PeekVid, PPlive, TV-Video, TVU Player, allowing you to watch TV online for free without the need for any special software, hardware or subscription service. Better than cable televison.

You simply need the (quite usual) Apple QuickTime plugin on your web browser.

Even more freely available TV channels on:

• wwiTV
• BeelineTV

The recent news lead me to talk again about digital music and its cohabitation (or lack of) with network technology. As a matter of fact, we learn this week that our new French President is in favor of a strong action against pirated music and downloads. This is not very new, indeed, but the confirmation came from Nicolas Sarkozy quite early after his election. Nearly simultaneously (I see nothing more than a coincidence), Amazon just announced that they would start a new service of online digital music sales that would do completely without copy-protection system (DRM or Digital Rights Management) and would go 100% MP3-only. This is supported by EMI that decided to provide tens of thousands of music titles out of its international catalog.

I admit easily that I am not surprised to see a politician posturing as is expected from his image and adopt an attitude that is based on perceptions but ignoring technical and commercial realities. Nicolas Sarkozy is playing his part in the show as a right wing leader decided to fight all kinds of illegal activities. Nobody should be surprised here. But I contend that this is already an echo from the past and he is missing the light of the future.

Exactly on the opposite, Amazon recognized the commercial reality: Customers do not want those technical anti-copy measures. They go against the legal user (the illegal one does not even see this in the illegal but free MP3 files, of course); They do not stop industrial copy and intense distribution on the P2P networks for example, but they stop the buyer from playing the music title on a player that is nto pre-aprpoved or on the PC of the son’s bedroom, or on the CD-player of Mom’s car, etc.

Amazon, understanding this reality -and certainly also aware that online stores without DRM have better sales/user figures than the others- decided to go and fight directly the current leader of eMusic, Apple iTunes.

Wish them luck! If there will always be poor teenagers ready to sacrifice quality, ease of use, ease of purchase, elegance of the package, etc. (didn’t we copy LPs on dirt cheap tapes when we were young?), a good product will always be a hit.

And if some people insist on telling that the competition of a free product (illegal downloads) can only kill paying products (online music stores), I invite them to consider the tough/relentless competition between a product with a (very very high) price as bottled water and a product (nearly) free like tap water available in nearly all homes (at least in the developed countries). As far as I know, Perrier, Dasani, San Pellegrino, Vittel, Volvic et al. do not petition for a law prohibiting tap water. Those companies and brands offer a product with very notables advantages and make a nice profit out of it.

More and more often, accessing the Internet becomes limited by the presence of censoring tools and methods (and I am not speaking of those countries where this has been institutionalized like China, Iran or Tunisia). It may be to avoid your spending too much time idling instead of working or it may be to ensure that you do not access to “questionable material”. But the Internet is highly flexible in nature and there may be good solutions to avoid this censorship.

10 – Go to the IP addresss

Instead of connecting through the domain name (example.com), you could connect directly to the IP address (192.168.0.15). It the network stops you at the DNS level, this will allow you to reach the site.

9 – Go to the Google cache

As you certainly know, the Google search engine offers “cached” links after most of its results. Since those are copies of the original web site located on Google servers, it is convenient.

8 – Go to Google mobile search

Google mobile search is made for mobile phone users, but it can be used by countless others.

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As you certainly know, continental/communist China is one of those countries that have an institutionalized censorship system to protect its citizens. It starts with a very strong management of Internet cafés, but it is also based upon a stringent filtering of many web sites out of the country and judged as undesirable. Very efficient, but what are the filtered web sites? You only have to test on GreatFireWallOfChina.

I am happy to report that roumazeilles.net is not censored there and can be read from China.

A little bit of information I collected from the uTorrent FAQ.

The default firmware for Linksys (and all replacement firmwares except for the latest DD-WRT and HyperWRT Thibor) have a severe problem where they track old connections for FIVE days, which causes the router to hang when using P2P apps, or any software that generates a lot of connections. DHT only aggravates the situation because of the number of connections it generates.

You should upgrade the firmware of your router, if it has this kind of problem, using one of these:

• HyperWRT Thibor (14+) (54G/GL/GS only, excluding hardware revision V5 of 54G/GS)
• DD-WRT (v23+)(54G/GL/GS excluding hardware revision V5 of 54G)

But be sure to follow the instructions:

• Do not modify the firmware over the WiFi link (it may stop in the middle killing your router)
• Check what version should be used
• Follow the additional steps for the HyperWRT upgrade
• Follow the additional steps for the DD-WRT upgrade

On the 1st of January 2000, some people were expecting to see the world crumble because old software applications had been written using dates coded on 2 digits. At the turn of the century (or rather at the change from 99 to 00), there was a need for upgrading/patching applications to support 4-digit years in order to avoid the end of civilisation.

The nightmare did not happen for the world, but there was a boom for the IT industry around the correction of the Y2K bug. Today, we are reaching a point where we could see another similar drama: The Y2K7 bug.

In 2005, the US Congress decided, as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, that the date used to switch for Winter times to Summer times and back (in application of Daylight Saving Time) would be changed. Instead of being the usual 1st Sunday of April and the last Sunday of October, these dates would be moved by 3 weeks for the US and a few followers like Australia. This becomes applicable in March 2007.

It wouldn’t be much of a problem if that did not have to be hard-coded in the many software applications using time information. Most of them need to be patched to behave correctly.

Most certainly, any unpatched pre-2005 application is doomed to behave incorrectly next March when time comes to change times. Did you notice that Windows 2000 is still counting as 10-15% of installed Windows PC? Did you notice that Windows XP was launched in 2001? Maybe your calendar application or some airlines reservations software has not yet been updated… As for the Y2K bug, the Y2K7 bug may have influence on more hidden systems: routers, photocopiers, PDA, cell phones, room/conference reservation services, energy metering systems and -of course- the blinking digital clock of our VCR (OK! This last one should first be set to the right time once).

The patch dance should be started by now.

For those really worried about it, Windows XP has already been patched by Windows Update. No need to rush and buy Vista just for this.

In the world of P2P, Bittorrent is clearly the protocol of choice for big file transfers. This is true for videos (pirated or not), for GNU/Linux dsitribution CD-ROMs, for collections of photographic images, etc.

Among the Bittorrent-compatible P2P software applications, Azureus is clearly the one that receives the favors of the greatest public. It is proved by the participation to the networks. It quite certainly comes from the Azureus versatility, but also from its flexibility allowing it to be present on many different computing platforms (written in Java, it was ported to almost anything including a microprocessor: Apple, Linux, Windows PC, Unix workstations, etc.). But it comes with one hidden cost: Configuration nightmares, hundreds of options, some of them nearly impossible to understand at first. Azureus makes it a bit easier by breaking the configuration in several expertise levels, but it still is very complex.

When I wanted to install Azureus, even with my own computer experience, sometimes I was a little lost when lokoing for the best options to configure my machine. So, I decided to share this recently hard-earned expertise, with some of my own comments.

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As I described in another post, I wanted to test RAID technology on my GNU/Linux OpenSUSE configuration. In the previous post, I have shown how to create/install the RAID array.

Now my intent is to see what happens when a hard drive fails, as it is supposed to protect me against it. But I prefer to test rather than believe the hype. Just after that I will need to observe what happens when we plug a new drive to replace the failed one. And I will suppose that once again it’s a different drive (after a few years of operation and a failure, there is no reasonable chance of finding an identical drive).

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I am currently in the middle of a string of problems quite annoying on one of my home PCs. Apparently randomly, and more and more often, it stops, locks down or reboots without warning. If I don’t use the PC, it may take a long time; But when I am trying to work (with OpenOffice, Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Photoshop, Corel Draw! or any other useful software application) it will take anything between a few minutes and half an hour. Rather annoying. More than merely annoying…

Very first tests

After a few initial checks because I noticed that the first symptoms seemed to appear near the recent upgrades to Opera v9.10 and to a newer Flash plug-in, I now think that it may come from ageing hardware and some related failure. But this leads to very difficult sleuthing.

First things, first: check the RAM memory. I started by stopping the computer, removing the memory boards, then setting them again into their slots (in case of bad contacts or small corrosion issues). Nothing very conclusive since it did not change anything. But I wanted to dig deeper there and, for this, I needed a more conclusive tool.

Tests with UBCD

I remembered the existence of a PC memory test utility tool, named Memtest-86. Not difficult to find on the Internet. Nevertheless, I found even better: A Live-CD containing this utility and dozens of others, UBCD or Ultimate Boot CD. Advantage: No big effort need; I boot on the CD, all the tools are immediately available from a DOS menu. Ten seconds, two key presses and Memtest-86 confirms that there is nothing obviously at fault with my RAM memory.

UBCD has the enormous advantage of including only free software tools, easy to start without any installation. Many of them run from a mini GNU/Linux install; The others use their own pseudo-MS-DOS.

The main categories of software tools foudn there are:

• Mother board tools (This also takes into account memory and CPU; Here is where you will find Memtest-86 and Memtest-86+).
• Hard disk tools.
• File system tools.
• Other tools (including anti-virus).
• Some boot disquettes (e.g. FreeDOS, OpenDOS, Netware Boot Disk, BasicLinux or Trinux).

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Tests

There are quite many checks available. Some are long to run (some are very long). My own tests and trials went through:

• Memtest-86 during a few minutes: No problem detected on the 1-GB RAM
• DocMem RAM diagnostic V1.45a: Immediate lock down in the first test loop
• CPU Burn-in v1.00: 200,000 loops without any problem (very short test)
• Memtest-86+ v1.65: One full test pass (about 30 minutes)
• Lucifer burn-in v1.0
• CPU Burn-in v1.00: 5,000,000+ loops without any problem (about 30 minutes)
• Testmem4: 2 hours without glitch

With or without the solution to my PC configuration problem, the Ultimate Boot CD is clearly a critical tool to keep on a CD-ROM ready for emergencies. It is a the kind of jack-of-all-trades tool box. If your approach to PC maintenance and repair does not stop to Windows re-install from scratch and new PC purchase, you must have Ultimate Boot CD wainting on a shelf. A kind of cross-breeding between life insurance and ER team…

I have always be willing to test-run RAID technology for the storage of the files on my personal LAN. This technology has the advantage of being far more secure than the usual hard disc storage. By using more than one disc drive, RAID allows to gain additional security. In short, if a disc drive fails (it happens!), the RAID array (that’s its name) will keep working with no data loss [more about it on the wikipedia encyclopedia].

However, using such a technology was not for everybody up to now. You had to be a computer guy to know about it, you had to be a real computer guru to use it. It all changed with two things:

• Some RAID appliances start appearing on the market. You buy them and you get it.
• GNU/Linux now includes the needed tools to allow building of a RAID array if you are willing to connect enough drives to your GNU/Linux box.

I wanted to test the later. So here is a summary of my experiences with RAID technologies just using a couple of hard drives (two drives in RAID-1 redundant mode) and OpenSUSE 10 that I had recently installed on this machine.

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