Marc Perkel Rantz

Bridge Collapse - Something doesn't add up

I am confused about the bridge collapse in Minnesota because it just doesn't make sense to me that the whole thing just fell down instead of just one section. For the whole thing to just fall down like that makes the thing that the whole thing was rotten or rusted out or something. Logically if there were a single failure then just a section of the bridge would have fallen. For it all to go down just doesn't make sense to me.

Disadvantages of some Open Source Software Projects

Asking a question on some open source support forums is sort of like this example where I will substitute asking directions to make a point. Although I support open source software, generally when you get a commercial product you don't get the kind of attitude that you get in some free software discussion lists. This is often similar to what it's like.

Q. Excuse me, can you give me directions to the Tech Museum in San Jose?

A. You don't want to go there. The Exploratorium in San Francisco is much better.

Q. But I'm meeting a group of people and we already have tickets to go there. Can you give me directions?

A. Well, that was a mistake. You all would have had a much better time at the Exploratorium instead. Maybe you all can sell your tickets and go to the Exploratorium?

Q. Maybe that would have been better but we have Tech Museum tickets and the rest of the group is waiting there for me and I just need directions to get there.

A. Well, did you look it up on Google maps?

Q. No - perhaps I should have, but I didn't. I just need to know how to get there. Can you give me directions?

A. Well if you had looked it up on Google maps you wouldn't need to be here asking for directions.

Q. I know that. But I didn't look it up, I don't have a computer with me, and I just need directions about how to get there.

A. You know if you had a Palm cell phone you can download Google Maps and then you would know how to get there without having to burden people like me with your questions about asking directions. You have a responsibility to at least try to figure it out on your own before you pull over to ask directions. And if you had decided to go to the Exploratoruim in the first place you wouldn't need to know how to get to the Tech Museum. It's people like you who go to the wrong museums and don't look up where you are going on Google maps, and don't have a PDA cell phone that ruin life for everyone else. I have deemed you unworthy of an answer.

Q. Thanks for NOTHING! All I wanted was an answer about how to get somewhere and all I get is a lecture.

A. Hey, I'm just trying to help! It seems to me that the "burden of humility" should be on the person asking for assistance, not the person providing it. I think that your response above is actually more arrogant than what you are complaining about. I've been to both places and I don't think it's wise to go to the Tech Museum. You should get offended when someone who has been down that road before tries to tell you that the premise behind your question is ill founded. If it's not, can't you simply ignore the response instead of arguing with it? If you don't want my help you shouldn't have asked for it.

AT&T might hurt Apple IPhone saes in the long run

Everyone knows that when the IPhone comes out that it will sell faster than they can be supplied. However in the long run being tied to AT&T exclusively is going to hurt Apple because AT&T's service sucks.

A friend of mine from Missouri came to visit me here in the San Francisco area a few weeks ago. He has AT&T and I have Verizon. I used to have AT&T in 2003 but I switched because the service sucked. But I had wondered if 4 years later if it was as bad as it was then. it was.

Everywhere we went I had signal and Phil didn't I remember that I used to have trouble getting calls in my apartment and he had the exact same problem. I can drive from san Francisco to San Jose down 280 and not lose the call. He can't. We even hiked in Yosemite and for 2/3rds of the hike I has signal. He only had signal when he was at Yosemite Lodge. Town after town I could make calls and he couldn't.

So even if the IPhone is great it's only going to be as great as AT&T. If they can't get signal then they can't make calls or surf the web. IPhone users migh find that all they have is a fat calculator. It will be interesting to see if people are actually happy with it once they buy it.

Fedora 7 is a flop

Every time Fedora comes out with a new version the usual suspects all write about how wonderful it is. I'm not one of those people. I'm the kind of guy who puts the DVD in and install it on a real computer and see if it works. If it doesn't, I slam it.

So I get it downloaded and try to install it on an Asus motherboard that's about 2 years old. It has a dual core Athlon processor (939 pip) so it's at the sweet spot of what Linux likes to run on. I ran the install and it came up in 800x600 mode. Not smart enough to figure out I'm running a 1024x768 screen, but what really bothered me was that the cursor was invisible. In order to get the cursor back I had to get rid of the graphical boot. (I didn't like the graphical boot anyhow but it should have worked).

After getting it to come up I tried to get it into 1024x768 mode. I'm running an older LCD generic monitor. It's a Samsung 570V. Every time I tried to set the configuration to 1024x768 it would change it so bizzare settings like 1300xsomething. I spent 2 hours screwing with it and failed to make it work. Nothing I did worked and if it doesn't work when I do the ordinary right thing then who's fault is that? Not mine. FC6 works.

The next thing I did was download the Live CD. I chose the x86_64 version with KDE because I like KDE. So when I go to burn the CD the ISO image is too big. The image is about 900 megs which is too big for the CD. So - I report it on Bugzilla and here's the response:

Please do not reply directly to this email. All additional comments should be made in the comments box of this bug report.

Summary: 64 bit KDE live CD too big to fit on CD

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=242185

jkeating@redhat.com changed:

What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status|NEW |CLOSED
Resolution| |NOTABUG

------- Additional Comments From jkeating@redhat.com 2007-06-01 21:49 EST -------
It is not labeled or advertised as a "LiveCD". It is a Live Image, this particular image is for DVDs or usb sticks of appropriate size. We cannot fit it on a CD without sacrificing a bunch of applications. x86_64 hardware is far more likely to have a DVD reader in it.

------------------

Clearly they don't give a damn if it works so I'm not going to report any more bugs. The comment that assumes all 64 bit CPUs have DVD drives is beyond rediculous. Most of my servers neither have CDs or DVDs because servers don't need them. Why waste valuable power for equipment you don't need unless something is broken.

It also didn't work when trying to burn it on a DVD and it didn't work installing it to a USB stick. So I downloaded the 686 version which was smaller and it burned onto a CD. I booted it up. There are a lot of error message on the screen but it did come up. One of the things I wanted to do was get a good USB boot so I don't have to haul around a CD drive to boot from when I want to fix my servers. So after booting up I saw there was an option to install the Live CD on a hard disk. So I put my USB stick in, wiped out the partitions, and tried to do an install.

The install looked a lot like the regular Redhat installs. I chose to let the system choose the partitions automatically. It did, but after a few more dialog boxes it decided that the root partiton wasn't big enough to install. So instead of a 1 gig flash drive I tried a 4 gig drive. I got the same error, not enough space.

Then I tried out the CD to see how I liked it. Tried to run Firefox but it wasn't there. As far as being useful it have very little. It's definitely not a Knoppix. Even basic tools lik fdisk were missing. As far as I was concerned it wasn't as good as the rescue CD.

My conclusion, the folks are Fedora should at least test the release to see if it works. I say that they should show up at a Linux users group and pass out copies to see if real people can make the software work as it's supposed to. If they had tested this before they released it they would have known it was seriously broken.

Just because a product is free doesn't mean that if it's sucks that no one should complain. Being free doesn't lower the bar. The bottom like is that Fedora 7 doesn't yet work and it should be unrealeased and then rereleased when it passes the install test. F7 isn't done yet. Send it back to the kitchen and cook it some more.

Am I on Microsoft's Enemies List?

A blast from the past. It appears that in February of 1992 I was on Microsoft's enemies list. Apparently Microsoft was trying to keep information about MsDOS and Windows 3.1 out of my hands. Someone emailed me this document from the Comes v. Microsoft trial. Trying to figure out what this means and get more information about it.

Here's the Document.

Back in 1992 I was involved in a number of interesting projects. I had a software company called Computer Tyme Software and I was looking hard for undocumented API calls to that I could control more aspects of the operating system through the ment language I had developed. I had also met with Novell's Ray Noorda and had written a proposal that Novell get into the desktop operating system market with a 32 bit Unix like DOS and I wrote a partial specification for this operating system and sent it to Novell.

Here's the story on that.

Novell however, instead of working with me to develop this idea decided to screw me and went off and bought out Digital Research and bought Unix from AT&T and Wordperfect and managed to screw it all up and started Novell's decline. Had Novell worked with me and taken a different course history would have been significantly different.

Little then I know then that my name appeared on secret confidential Microsoft documents as a person who should be denied information about DOS and Windows beta programs. I think this could turn out to be interesting. Love to find out more about this.

Linuxworld - no Redhat?

Went to Linuxwork in San Francisco and Redhat wasn't there? What's up with that?

Making Linuxconf work with Fedora Core 5

If you are like me and loyal Linuxcong user you might have noticed that the web interface (http) stops working on FC5. I figured out the problem. The pam modules with Linuxconf are not compatible with Fedora Core 5. The fix is simple.

cd /etc/pam.d
rm linuxconf*
ln -s login linuxconf
ln -s login linuxconf-pair

This makes the code in login run for linuxconf. In theory it makes Linuxconf even stronger because it gives it LDAP compatibility. And it will help Linuxconf stay current with future changes.

Open Source Software Quality Problems

I love open source software and have contributed to the development of several projects. But open source has a down side in that there are no customers to answer to - and that creates an environment where bugs go unfixed and necessary features go un added. After all, how much can you pressure someone who is programming for free?

Case in point. I love Firefox but I'm finding myself having to use IE more because Firefox is broken. It's been broken ever since Version 1.5 and now 5 releases later - still broken. The problem - it stopped recognizing the URL refresh tag in the header that allows web pages to redirect you to other web pages. So when I go to my online bank account I have to use IE to log in. I've left bug reports as well as seeing those of others with the same problem - but the issue isn't getting fixed.

Second case, the Apache web server - the most powerful and widely used web server on the planet. I just upgraded to version 2.2 from 2.0 and mod speling no longer works. It used to make URLs case insensitive but if the path doesn't match then the URL breaks. It used to work but now it doesn't.

You would think that the Apache and Linux community would finally figure out how to make a file system case insensitive but after 15 years Linux has yet to catch up with DOS/Windows who have had case insensitivity working since 1981.

The problem is what I call VI conscientiousness. It's a mindset caused by brain damage as a result of using the Unix vi editor. Vi is an editor that is so bad that I refuse to learn it. It causes permanent brain damage and makes people think that a files named "moron" and "Moron" should be two different files. And it's the same mindset that makes programmers not give a damn about software quality. And thats why Firefox and Apache are broken and Linux is still stuck in the case sensitive file system mode.

Firefox Getting Worse and Worse

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm liking Firefox less and less as it seem to be foing down hill. There's two bugs in particular that are really making me want to run something else.

First, there must me some kind of memory leak issue. I'm running XP and have a gig of ram. I keep a lot of windows open and everything runs fine for a while but after three days of work, and I do work it hard, it gets slower, and sllooowweerr, and sssssllllloooooowwwwweeeeerrr, until it finally chashes. Usually I have to shut it down when itstarts taking 15 seconds to close a window. Once I shut it all down I can start Firefox again and it's good for 3 more days.

Then - for some reason Firefox stoped responding to refresh tags that allow sites to redirect the page to another page. So it will sit that with a blank page and I have to view source and cut and paste the URL to go to the page that I was supposed to be redirected to.

I'm finding I'm having to use Explorer more and more just to be able to get work done. If Firefox wants to overtake explorer they are going to have to make their product better, not worse.

Adding Freedom to Email Message Headers

I've reconfigured my email servers to add a header to all the email I process.:

warn message = X-Online-Freedom: http://www.eff.org, http://www.dearaol.com
condition = ${if def:h_X-Online-Freedom:}

If you're running Exim - this can work for you too.

Vonage Sucks - Won't Release my number for Transfer

I used to be a Vonage fan but no more. I'm trying to transfer a phone number away from Vonage. I had intended to keep the service under a different number but now I'm not going to.

I got my number originally from SBC and transferred it to Vonage. But I never thought at the time I transferred it that they would attempt to keep it and keep me from transferring it to anyone else. What they are doing is highly illegal and I'm not going to put up with it. I'm still figuring out how to proceed but the normal processes aren't working. So I need to do something extreme.

In the mean time - DON'T USE VONAGE - they are just a bunch of fucking theives.

I am my own phone company

I am in the process of becoming my own phone company. Using Voice over IP technology like Vonage and Packet 8 but doing it muself. Basically it's just open source software called Asterisk that I have running on one of my email servers. Not only is it incredibly cheap, but I can do a lot over very cool stuff. I have total control over my inbound and outbound call routing.

I'm considering offering it as a service for friends and such. Still exploring what it's capable of. I need a name for the business and web site (other than Perkel Telephone). Looking for ideas.

One of the things I can do is break Caller ID blocking. I'd like to test this further. So - I'm looking for someone who has a problem with a stalker who is calling you all the time harrasing you with caller ID blocked. Looking for someone who is being harrased a lot so I don't have to wait very long to see how this works. So if you are someone who has a stalker and you want to bust them then email me and let's set something up. You must have a telephone feature that will forward your number if you don't answer. (no answer forwarding). I've tested this on Verizon cell phones and it works.

Sony Rootkit another reason to avoid using Windows

I'm a Windows user and it's a hard habit to break. But Sony's new rootkit installs is even more reason to move to Linux rather than use proprietary operating systems like Wondows and Macs.

Sony decided to out secret software on its music CDs that installed into the kernel of Windows so it can track and control what is copied. This software installs without your permission and without your knowledge. In fact, like a virus program it does everything it can to hide itself.

Sony seems to think it owns your computer and has the right to secretly install software on it to modify your operating system without you knowing about it. That's pretty brazen if you ask me. I can tell you that Sony isn't a brand that I will be buying anymore. From now on I'm going to avoid doing anything that make Sony money. It's my computer and you don't screw with it.

Here's the EFF story about it.

* Are You Infected with Sony-BMG's Rootkit?

EFF Confirms Secret Software on 19 CDs

San Francisco - News that some Sony-BMG music CDs install
secret rootkit software on their owners' computers has
shocked and angered thousands of music fans in recent days.
Among the cause for concern is Sony's refusal to publicly
list which CDs contain the infectious software and to
provide a way for music fans to remove it. Now, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has confirmed that the
stealth program is deployed on at least 19 CDs in a variety
of genres.

The software, created by First 4 Internet and known as
XCP2, ostensibly "protects" the music from illegal copying.
But in fact, it blocks a number of legal uses--like
listening to songs on your iPod. The software also
reportedly slows down your computer and makes it more
susceptible to crashes and third-party attacks. And since
the program is designed to hide itself, users may have
trouble diagnosing the problem.

"Entertainment companies often complain that fans refuse to
respect their intellectual property rights. Yet tools like
this refuse to respect our own personal property rights,"
said EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz. "Sony's tactics here
are hypocritical, in addition to being a security threat."

If you listened to a CD with the XCP software on your
Windows PC, your computer is likely already infected. An
EFF investigation confirmed XCP software on 19 titles, but
it's far from a complete list. Sony-BMG continues to refuse
to make such a list available to consumers.

Consumers can spot CDs with XCP by inspecting a CD closely,
checking the left transparent spine on the front of the
case for a label that says "CONTENT PROTECTED." The back of
these CDs also mention XCP in fine print. You can find
pictures of these and other telltale labeling at
.

"Music fans should protect themselves from this stealth
attack on their computer system," said EFF Senior Staff
Attorney Fred von Lohmann.

For EFF's list of CDs with XCP:

The "legalese rootkit" - Sony-BMG's EULA:

For this release:

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Sony-BMG Rootkit: EFF Collecting Stories, Considering
Litigation

EFF is collecting stories from EFF members and supporters who
have purchased Sony-BMG CDs that contained the rootkit copy
protection software. We're considering whether the effect on
the public, or on EFF members, is sufficiently serious to
merit EFF filing a lawsuit.

If you satisfy the following criteria, we would like to hear
from you:

1. You have a Windows computer;
2. First 4 Internet's XCP copy protection has been installed
on your computer from a Sony CD (for more details, see our
blog post referenced above or the SysInternals blog,
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-
digital-rights.html);
3. You reside in either California or New York; and
4. You are willing to participate in litigation.

We have not made a final decision about filing any legal
action, but we would like to hear from music fans who have
been harmed by the Sony-BMG rootkit copy protection
technology. Please contact allison@eff.org for more
information.

Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation ( http://www.eff.org ) receintly turned 15 years old has been a steadfast friend in keeping the internet free and protecting our online rights. If not for the EFF we wouldn't be enjoying the liberties and freedoms we have today. Over the last 15 years EFF has done an extraordinary job with a small staff and a tight budget.

In these days of multiple hurricanes and disasters I am concerned that people might forget organizations like EFF and donate all their money to other causes that are getting more attention. However - EFF is extremely important and that in the long run our online freedom is something we dare not put at risk because we are focusing on other issues.

So although I care about a lot of things, I'm going to donate to EFF and make sure that they don't get forgotten in a world of overlaping disasters. I would like to help do the things that EFF does, but they do it so much better. So by donating to them I feel like I am hiring them to support the causes and issues that are important to me. So as we approach the end of the year I'd like others to join me and support EFF so that we can continue to keep the Internet in the hands of the people.

Beating Blog Comment Spam

This works for me. Here's the movable type example:

Location /mt/mtcomments.cgi
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^.*marc.perkel.com/.*
RewriteRule ^.*http://www.ctyme.com/comment-spam.html
/Location

And for Wordpress Blogs:

Location /blog/wp-comments-newpost.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^.*dvorak.org/.*
RewriteRule ^.* http://www.ctyme.com/comment-spam.html
/Location

The way it works is - if the referring link isn't local - you don't ge to leave a comment. Am I the first one who thought of this?

Athlon X2 vs. Dual Xeon - Final Results

So - after starting two other threads on the subject I have now made the conversion to the Athlon X2 server. The bottom line is - it works!

Basically running about 300 web sites of all kinds from a few static pages to PHP/MySQL. The system includes email and is running spam assassin.

This box replaces two servers merging them into one. One of the older servers was a 2.4 mhs Dual Xeon 32 bit with 4 gigs of ram and 2 WD 250 gig drives with 8M buffer. The second server was a 2.6 ghz Pentuin 4 that was running high volume static pages. (Well, 10mb average - high volume to me).

The new server is an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ also with 4 gigs of ram and 2 300gb Maxtor Maxline III drives with 16MB buffer.

The Results:
----------------

The technology is still rather new and bleeding adge. I had more problems with getting 4 gigs to work than getting the dual core athlons to work. That's because the VGA and much of the hardware needs to be below the 4gb barrier. If I were running 2 gigs I wouldn't have had a problem. You need to make sure if you are running a full 4 gigs that the board actually supports it and it's all usable. I used an Asus and it did - but it wasn't pretty.

To get it to work I needed the 2.6.13 kernel. With 2 gigs of ram it was fine with the stock kernel in FC4. But with 4 gigs the SATA drives crashed the system until I compiled my own kernel.

But - once I got it all working ....

The load levels on the new server are running about 1/2 of the dual xoen server and that's with the combined load of both servers. The second old server however wasn't running much of a load.

I am comparing however an older Xeon to a new dual core Athlon. But guessing that new Xeons are faster than the older ones I would say that the single processor dual core Athlon would probably still beat or be about the same speed at 2 single core Xeon systems.

But - the cost is like 1/2 of a dual xeon - power consumption is less than 1/2 and the motherboards are much smaller. So it looks to me like this is a really good deal.

So - as compared to what I expected and predicted I was about right on. Except that I ran into more problems than I thought I was going to. But in the coming months this isn't going to be quite as bleeding edge.

Oh - and ----

Here's a picture of it.

Yes - too kool for a data center - but I like to build a computer that looks hot.

ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard - Not what I expected

I tried posting this on NewEgg's review forum and it censored me. Apparently it doesn't let you post honest reviews, so I'm posting it here.

I was very disapointed with this product. maybe it's the state of the technology but I had expectations this board would actually work. BEWARE - As of right now 09/04/2005 there are no ram combinations listed that will get you to 4 gigs of ram. I need 4 gigs and struggling to find a solution. I AM NOT HAPPY!!!

I first ordered it with Rosewill ram figuring that if the system needs DDR-400 that it will take DDR-400 memory. Silly me. I don't yet know if the memory is bad or just incompatible.

Then I went to Fry's and bought some high powered Kingston KHX3200/1GR gamer's memory and it does seem to work, sort of. That is - works with 2 gigs installed. There seems to be issues with 4 gigs that I have yet to resolve. Running Fedora Core 4 Linux 64 bit version.

The CPU - Athlon 4400+ X2 dual core and memory access speeds are lower that my Pentium 2.8 ghz extreme edition. L2 cache data transfer rate is 1/4th that of the P4 and main memory bandwidth is 1/4 of the 6.4 GHZ that AMD advertizes.

When you buy a 64 bit CPU you expect it to be able to at least address 4 gigs of ram. If this were a 32 bit processor I could understan that this would be an issue.

Bottom line is - I spent $1000 on memory alone and I don't see light at the end of the tunnel.

-------

UPDATE - I did get this working. I got the Kingstom ram to work by recompiling the Kernel. Actually I unstalled the 2.6.13 kernel and I don't know if it was different options or if they fixed something in the new kernel - but - it's working and it's fast. So I am now happy.

Apparently this is more bleading edge than I thought. Probably 6 months from now it will be more mainstream and stable. This 4 gig barrier reminds me of the old 640k PC days with upper memory and the 1 meg barrier. It is similar in that as of now certian things need to live below the 4 gig line so if you have 4 gigs you have to remap ram to open up a hole for PCI stuff, roms, and video ram. That means you have to move memory and when you do - the operating system has to understand that. Fortunately Linux does. If you're running Windows - lots of luck! It's going to be a while before Windows deals with the 4 gig barrier.

So - this sucker seems to be seriously fast. Comparing it to benchmarks posted on Webhostingtalk it is running at around the same speed as 2 AMD Opterons. It's going to be interesting to see how it runs as my new server.

Tech Writers should train on Open Source projects

Here's an idea that I think would work out well. Why don't we get colleges who are training tech writers together with the open source community and have them work together?

The problem as you know is that a lot of open source software is great - but the documentation and user interfaces suck. That's because people are doing this work for free and the documentation and program polishing isn't as much fun as new features are.

These writers in training can be assigned open source projects and work with the developers to create good documentation. It would be part of their training requirements to take the project to documentation perfection. This would not only involve writing the docs - but also working with the developers to request better screen prompts and features that make sense. Often the developers don't understand what the end user needs. And the developer never had to actually learn the software.

Additionally the student(s) could conduct software usability tests where they round up a bunch of new users and sit them down in front of computers and watch them learn the software, encouraging them to verbalize their struggles and frustrations as they work. Additionally students would also moderate tech support message boards and interact with end users who are struggling for answers so that they can fully understand the problems people are having implementing the software. This feedback is then used to correct the documentation and polish the software till it gets to the point that new users say, "This is great - it just works!"

After a student takes a project to the "It just works!" stage they are ready for the job market with the open source project as part of their resume and a reputation already developed. These people would be instantly employable having real world experiences and accomplishments to show. And - they would be developing a broader skill set than just a writing class would teach. They would learn how to interact with developers and end users on a personal level and develop the real world skills needed for getting real work done in the real world.

And of course - the developers get a big boost too in that someone else - a professional writer - does the documentation and assists the developers in ways that they might otherwise miss. This frees the developers to develop and to be creative knowing that the grunt work is taken care of. Their software will be more accepted and more widely used because it just works which will attract donations, other developers, and a community around their project. And good free open source software saves many hours of time which benefits everyone in the long run.

Even proprietary software vendors get a boost in that they can hire these writers right out of school and they are ready to be productive from day one. This makes them more profitable because good writers who can work with developers to get the product perfected allows support staff to be cut. If the software "Just Works" then you don't need a lot of people to support it.

This is an idea where everyone wins and it makes me wonder what someone has to do to make it happen.

Testing out new Content Management Program - Mambo

I've been testing out a new piece of software called Mambo. it's a very highly rated content management system allowing you to crate a whole web site from a web based user interface. I'm still learning it and it looks great but like most open source applications ikt's far harder to learn than it needs to be. I left the following message on their support board and wanted to publish it here so it wouldn't get lost. There are actually at least 3 official web sites for this project. One is in australia who invented it and has a commercial version, and then there's an free open source version, and yet another site for developers.

I am a new user and I want to write this before I forget it and while I am still in the learning process.

Like I said - this is a great product and it would be much more widely accepted if you fixed what I consider to be the weakest part - the admin interface. Please take this feedback to the right folks and looking forward to this software growing and becoming better in the future.

Unimpressed with Mozilla Thunderbird

I've yet to figure out what all the hype is about Mozilla Thunderbird. I'm an old Netscape user and been using the old swiss army knife Mozilla all in one package for years. Mozilla is deviding it up into separate applications and is phasing out the original Mozilla. And I ask myself - why?

Additionally - the new versions of the software - Firefox and Thunderbird don't have all the features of the original Mozilla. After trying Thunderbird for about a month I decided to switch back. Thunderbird left me wanting.

It may sound trivial but you would think that if they are creating Thunderbird of of Mozilla code that it would have all the features of the original - but is doesn't. Little things like in the pannel that shows the folders - Thunderbirs doesn't allow you to see the total number of messages in each folder. That's something I want to see.

And - with Mozilla - when you get new email in your inbox - you can see the new message appearing at the bottom of the list without having to scroll down. Thunderbird doesn't have that.

The only advantages of Thunderbird that I noticed are:

1. I like the name better.
   
2. I looks better.
   
3. When something crashes - the browser and the email crash separately.
   

Other than that - I'm not impressed. I think they shouldn't phase out the old until the new one is as good.

My 2 cents ...

Unix File Permissions Suck

I love Unix. I have several Linux servers and when it comes down to it - there is no other OS to use for Web and Email servers. (BSD, Macs and other Unix OS's are of course included) But in many was the Unix community is hopelessly stuck in the past. And one of many examples of this is the Unix file permissions. Hopelessly primitive - and so entrenched in the minds of the Unix community that you can't even get then to comprehend anything beyond the limitations they are used to.

My networking experience started with Novell servers and DOS workstations. Novell Netware - as of version 3 - had a rich set of file permissions that allowed for fine grained access permissions. Over the years I started working with Windows which had far less permissions. This was a big step down from Netware - but the real step down was going form Windows down to Linux.

Linux permission are so primitive that it amazes me that they can be of much use at all. Creating security to protect one user from another is nearly impossible. The rules are so primative as to verge on insanity - yet - when discussion this with Unix heads - they just don't get it.

Unix is built on the concept of one owner and one group for each file or directory. In fact a directory or folder is like a file that contains a list of other files and directories. So permissions to read or write files have no relationship to creating and deleting files because the creating and deleting are controlled by permissions on the folder.

In Unix - there can be a file that I have no permission to either read or write - yet I can delete the file. That is insanity. But if a Unix head is confronted with this - they just don't get it that it's insane. They are brainwashed into thinking that this is somehow normal the same way that primitive religions believe throwing virgins into a volcano is normal.

In contrast - on a netware server if you have no read or write access to a file at all, then you certianly can not delete it. In fact under Netware if you can't write to a file, you can't delete the file. Now that makes sense! And - if you have no rights to the file, you can't even see it in a directory listing. If you have no rights under Netware - it's as if the file isn't there.

Fine Grained Permissions

Netware also allows for fine grained permissions. I can say - I want these three users and these three groups to have this set of permissions and it works. I can add as many individual permission sets to any file or folder I want. Unix has no such control and it makes it difficult to restrict users for security reasons while giving them enough permissions to do useful work.

Inherited Permissions

Unix has no mechanism for permission inheritence within the file system. Under netware when a user or group is given permissions to a folder - those permission apply by default to all files and directories under that folder. And one can control what is inherited through setting inherited rights masks. Unix has nothing like this. In Unix - if I create a file in someone else's directories I have to run chown on it to give that person permission to access it. Under Netware - or Windows - they already have those permissions.

Case Sensitive File Names

Another example of unix cult thinking - case sensitive file names suck - are user unfriendly - and create problems maintaining the system It puts the burden on the user to get the case exactly right. Windows is supperior in that you can store file names in mixed case but you don't have to get it exactly right to match the file. But Unix heads will never agree with you because it requires change and inspite of the fact that they are geniuses - they are among the most resistent to change of any group of people I've ever met.

Unix could be Fixed

You can get Netware and Windows like permissions under Linux. What you can do is run Samba and then mount samba shares locally in order to get windows like access. There is also a netware emulator that runs under Linux that gove linux the ability to pretend to be a netware server. So Linux could do the job if the developers would get out of the cult mind and start thinking outside the box.

Conclusion

Linux needs to be forked in a way that creates a Unix like OS with the ease of use of Windows. In order to do that there needs to be fundamental changes in the design concepts where ease of use is one of the most imporant factors. Unix comes from a time where ever byte and every CPU cycle was important and small and simple for the programmer was most important. But we live in a different world now where delivering power to the end user is most important and we have lots of processing power and lots of memory.

What needs to be done is - let the computer be smarter so that the users can move on to higher level work. File permissions need to be fine grained and easy to use. Right now the Linux community is as boxed in by acient code as Windows is processor bound. It's time for Linux to awaken and get a new vision for the future and make a break with the past.

Not trying to be a bash Unix guy here - but to ignore the problem is to ignore reality. And Linux isn't a religion for me. It's a tool that I want to see improve.

Free Spam Filtering for Progressive Nonprofit Organizations

I have been working with nonprofit organizations for years. I have what may be the best spam filter on the planet and it costs me very little to run it. I'm not rich - but I can afford to give this service away.

Nonprofit orgs waste a lot of time and money every year deleting spam and viruses.Most solutions are expensive and just plain don't work. The way I see it - I'd rather nonprofit employees spend their time doing good work rather than spending hours every week deleting unwanted email. And - I have a system that solves the problem.

The way it works is that your email comes from the internet into my servers. I process it - and send the good email onto your existing email server. So - nothing on your end has to change. Once this is set up - everything is the same - except the spam and viruses are gone.

The setup is simple. Once you decide to do it all I do is make an entry in a table on my servers telling the system what domains get forwarded to what servers. Then - you change your MX record from pointing to your email server to pointing to my server network. The email comes to me - I clean it - and then you get it. It really is that easy.

What does it cost you? Nothing! All I ask is a thank you on your thank you page and a link to my service. That's all I want - and that you spend your time accomplishing great things. To me - this is a way that I can donate what is equivalent of millions of dollars in your savings at a cost to me of almost nothing. It's an extremely efficient form of giving to me.

What is a "progressive" nonprofit? As the name progressive implies - progress. The word progressive to me means that the stated purpose of your organization is something that advances the good of humanity in the real world. And although this is a fuzzy line some example of what I consider progressive would be organizations that feed hungry children, provide medical assistance, legal aid, human rights, peace, freedom, and things like that.

As to what is not "progressive" in relation to this free offer are most religions in general, front organization for cults, organizations that are harmful to the good of society, organizations that are mostly self serving or hobby related. Not that all these things are bad - just not in the class that I'm offering free service to.

Been Busy - Church of Reality - Spam Filtering

Trying to get back into blogging. Still working on Church of Reality web pages and deploying a network of spam filtering computers. I registered a new domain:

http://www.junkemailfilter.com

I have what is probably the best spam filter on the planet. And I'm hosting over 100 domains as well as being a front end filter for many others. But it's interesting trying to get people to use it because giving up a small amount of control of your email to someone else is difficult to do. I've had many people have a hard time crossing that barrier. But once they do - they are hooked and surprized that it was easy and just works.

Lately I've been testing a number of new features of Exim that is going to allow me to make yet another increase in accuracy. It fixes a problem where I couldn't receive email from some severely misconfigured email servers.

I also have this idea of providing free spam and virus filtering for nonprofit organizations. I've been gearing up the servers to be massivle parallel so that I can deploy any number of these servers in a variety of geographic locations and take on an unlimited amount of load levels by adding more computers to the network. And - I think it's going to be fairly inexpensive to do especially as I find people willing to donate servers in datacenters for the job.

All these computers will be running the same software and running off the same routing lists. If any server goes down the remaining server will transparently reroute the email traffic with no interruption in the service. These front end servers will also be able to buffer and store email in case the nonprofit's email server goes down and then transfer all pending messages when it comes back up.

Most nonprofit orgs do good work and are wasting a lot of time and money dealing with spam and viruses. I think I can provide this service at no cost to them and very little cost to me and recover that timeand money so they can be doing other things besides hitting the delete key all day.

Redhat Fedora Core 3 - Definitely worth skipping - Review

Fedora Core 3 is not a pretty release for Redhat. The original distribution is very buggy and if you install everything - you are looking at hundreds of megs of new downloads to fix it.

Once you get it working and download all the fixes it seems to work fine. If you are already running FC2 - I'd skip this version unless there's something in it you really want - and I can't find anything that justifies the pain.

The most painfull part of the process is the broken UDEV which is now part of the bootup process. UDEV somehow dynamically creates and deletes devices as they are hotplugged in - a good idea in theory - but only when it actually works. So your /dev directory is no longer under your control. Once they get the bugs out of UDEV I'm sure it will be nice. But FC3 is definitely out there on the bleeding edge as compared to FC2 which I considered to be a stable install.

UDEV is inserted into yor initrd by mkinitrd and if the system fails to work you end up with premission denied errors on devices like /dev/null causing services to fail to load. The UDEV shipping on the CD is a very buggy version and it needs to be upgraded immediately if not sooner.

If you install KDE without GNOME it will still set the desktop to GNOME and you end up in some bizzare default graphics shell hell. If this happens you need to edit the /etc/sysconfig/desktop file and change GNOME to KDE.

Fedora Core 3 still barely supports the reiser file system and treats it like a bastard stepchild. It also deletes my linuxconf install and changes my xinetd setting to disable it. I like linuxconf and for some reason RedHat is actively supressing it. It's almost as bad as if Microsoft upgrades were to remove Netscape.

On the up side - yum is improved - and xosview is now fixed. There's a bunch of new SELinux stuff but I'm still too chicken to even go there. Linux will probably never have the security of what Novell Netware had 15 years ago - Netware was done right. The new lean graphics shell is interesting but I have a big computer so KDE is just fine for me.

My suggestion to the Fedora Core team is to release a Fedora Core 3a version that has the fixes in it. That would save people from installing a broken version of Fedora and then having to fix it. If you want to upgrade anyway - expect some pain and suffering.

Virus Alert

Dear Readers,

There's a new virus spreading - I don't know what it is yet and it hasn't made the news. But I have observed several making it through the virus filter. The virus is an email attachment that clains to be a password file and has an attached document inside of a ZIP file.

If you are running windows you will see an attached file with a DOC.zip extension. Depending on tour windows settings you might not see the .zip on the end. So ......

Unless you are expecting the document and you look to see if its suspicious in any way - DO NOT OPEN THE FILE. If you are in doubt you can forward it to me.

Soon the virus definitions will update and the problem will be blocked.

Pass this warning on to as many of your friends as possible. Feel free to include it in your newsletter. And - you might want to do a special mailing about it.

Add this blog to my Yahoo

If you notice there's a new button at the top of this blog. It lets you add this blog to your My Yahoo page just like any other news feeds. I'm just testing it out and it looks pretty kool so far.

I was worried ...

... that the Democrats would wimp out at the convention. But they are doing REALLY well - MUCH better than I expected.

Voice over IP Telephone Calls (VoIP)

I got a cool new technology toy. It's a new way to make telephone calls without having a telephone line. You use the Internet to make phone calls. It's called Voice over IP (VoIP) and I just got one and I love it. I can now make phone calls over my cable modem and get rid of my phone line. I'm only paying $30/month for telephone with unlimited long distance in the US and Canada and International calling rates are about 4 cents a minute. It eliminates my real phone which was costing me $55 a month with unlimited US long distance and less features. So I have a better phone and saving money.

The plan I got was from a company called Vonage. After a lot of research it looks like they have the best deal. Here's how it works. They send you this unit that is the Internet to telephone adapter. You plug it into your DSL or Cable Modem and then plug your phone into it. On my home network it lives happily behind my firewall router.

The install was simple. I plugged it in and it worked. There was absolutely nothing to configure. It powered up and the first thing it did was phone home and download an upgrade and configured itself. That takes about 5 minutes. It has one green blinky light on it and when it stops blinking - it's ready to work. I plugged my phone in and made a call.

The voice quality was BETTER than a real phone. It's all digital which is why the quality is higher. And - it comes with a lot of features that real phone lines don't have. For example - it comes with voice mail that can email you the voice mail message as an attached WAV file. You can also add extra "virtual numbers" in any area code you want for $5/month per number. So - if you have a friend in another state you can have another virtual number which allows your friends in that area to call you by calling a local number.

One very cool feature is that if I go on a trip I can take the phone with me and plug it into the Internet whereever I go. So if I went to Australia I can plug it in and get my calls as if I were home. With an IP phone location doesn't matter. The phone is where the adapter box is.

For those who want privacy - this phone isn't easilly tapable like line phones are. The box created a vpn back to the home network and encrypts the data. The perfect phone for the paranoid, people who support civil liberties, computer geeks, and drug dealers. I've always assumed Ashcroft is listening to me. But now he's going to have to work a little harder.

The terminal adapter supports 2 lines so for another $10/month you can get a second line to use as a fax line or make two phone callse at once from to different phones.

Another cool feature is that you can set it to automatically forward the phone line in case the network phone fails. So if my internet connection goes down incoming calls are forwarded to my cell phone. And if I want that to happen I just unplug the adapter and the forwarding instantly kicks in.

Voicemail is very cool. I get an email alert when I get a message recorded. I can set it to forward me the message as an attached WAV file - or - I can just go to the web site and listen to it. Or - I cal dial *123 from my phone and put in my passcode and listen to my voice mail. It also gives me the choice of reading me the caller ID number and the time stamp of the call.

If you have a laptop and a USB headset you can get a "software phone" that turns your laptop into a telephone with all the same calling power as the terminal adapter.

One of the reasons it's so much cheaper is that they don't load you up with all those taxes that you get on phone lines. You know how the government is - they hate people who have phones and drive cars. So - this is one of those middle class taxes that I don't have to pay anymore. (Except for my cell phone). I say - screw the government. They are already getting too much of my money.

I moved my existing phone number over to the new service. Because I was moving my number - which isn't instant - they gave me a temporary number until the move occurs. However - since I have call forwarding on the old number I forwarded the old line to the new temporary number and thus managed to get everything working instantly.

Web Server for Sale

I just upgraded my web server and selling my old one. This computer was in perfect working order when I took it offline on 02-12-2003. Its 14 months old - homemade by me - and was serving 1.5 million hits a day (Running Linux) when it needed to be upgraded.

Like selling an old friend.

It's a 2U box - Pentuim 4 processor at 2.4ghz. Has one gig of ram. ntel motherboard. Gig Ethernet. and a pair of Western Digital 7200 RPM 8mb buffer drives. CD and Floppy built in.

Its a good strong computer. It was running Radhat Fedora Linux with a custom 2.6.2 kernel. You can install anything you want.

I'm located in San Bruno and can deliver it anywhere in the bay area. If you need to I can - for a fee - set it up for you and install it in a server farm somewhere. This is what I do for a living so a home made server built by me is built right. 30 day warranty.

I'm in the San Francisco area and prefer to sell it locally.

Spam Free Email Hosting

I'm in the process of developing my Spam Free Email Hosting site. As many of you know - I have a small hosting company called Computer Tyme Hosting. I've developed on of the most advanced spam filters on the planet and I'm ready to start making a few bucks off of it.

My new web server is ONLINE!

My new web server is now online. The old server was just barely keeping up as I am now pulling 2 million hits a day. The new box is kick ass! Its a Dual Xeon system with 4 gigs of ram - and a pair of 250 gig Serial ATA Hard Drives - Western Digital 7200rpm with 8mb buffer. 500 watt power supply is driving this baby! It has 2 ethernet ports. One is a gigabit port. Using a Supermocro motherboard.

I'm running Radhat Linux Fedora on it and a custom built Linux 2.6 Kernel. Large buffers allocated to MySQL and plenty of Apache servers waiting for requests that sometime run 40 per second during the peak times.

This new server is especially designed to GET RID OF BUSH! Its part of my "No Anti-Bush site left behind" policy. If you know of any anti-bush sites that are having trouble paying their hosting costs, send them my way and I'll make sure they stay online. More pics of this server can be found at This Location.

My old server is for sale if anyone wants it. Its in real good shape. Its a 2U box with a 2.4 ghz Pentium 4, 1gb ram, and a pair of Western Digital 160gb drives. Its got plenty of horsepower if you're running under a million hits a day. $1200 takes it. marc@perkel.com

Serious Microsoft Security Flaw

Virus Warning for Windows Users - Very Serious

Microsoft has yet another very serious security flaw that gives anyone with the right know how total access to your computer. I don't know all the details - but it might be the biggest one yet. If you remember the SoBig and Code Red viruses last fall - this one will similar in that it doesn't require you to get email for you to be attacked or hacked. Your computer can be hacked into and viruses installed without you doing anything to cause it to happen.

I say "will be" because right now there is no virus - yet. But the flaw is there and it will be a matter of days before someone writes a virus to take advantage of the flaw. And - your anti-virus software will have no effect. Microsoft has posted a patch and that is how you protect yourself - download and install that patch.

Here's the link to Microsoft's Windows Update:

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

You must use Microsort Explorer to install it.

I am also asking that those of you who have blogs and newsletters and high traffic web sites post this warning on your front page and include it in your newsletters. The best defense to this virus is to stop it before it begins. As you all know - this virus will affect non-windows users in that the new viruses turn windows computer into spam robots and we are still getting the bounce messages from the last virus. Let's see if we can stop this before it starts by first - patch your computer now - then - tell everyone to patch theirs. You can cut and paste this warning into your blog or newsletter.

Novell should GPL Unix

I think Novell - who claims to have a copyright on Unix - should set Unix free and GPL it's copyright.

Novell is currently perceived as the "good guys" in the battle aghainst SCO's copyright claims against Linux. They now own SUSE and they appear to have a focus on Linux in their future. But - it would be a big step forward if Novell were to declate it's Unix copyrights public domain - specifically GPL - and set Unix free.

What concerns me is - what if Novell changes it's mind or some other Unix vendor does? I say to Novell - and hope other say the same thing - set Unix free. The future is in Linux - the battle is won - and it's time for Unix to die. Or rather retire = to join DOS and CP/M in the history of computer operating systems.

Bush Says - Whoopie! we're all going to Mars!

Letter to NASA

Dear NASA,

As a government agency controlled by the Bush Administration I understand that you are obligated to put the Bush Ad up on your web site. However - the reality is - we are not going to Mars. Bush has absolutely no intension of going there. This is nothing more than a political ploy to win the votes of NASA supporters so that Bush can get reelected and gut the space program.

Surely you people aren't stupid enought to believe this - are you?

Thanks for listening - please pass this email around.

Marc Perkel
First One
Church of Reality
"If its real - we believe in it!"

New Spam Discussion Forum

I've started a new spam discussion forum for people who are interesting in spam - or specifically - getting rid of spam. it's a BBS style forum allowing you to participate in the discussion. To praticipate Click Here.

My First Audio Blog

I'm trying something new. An audio blog. I don't know how many people are doing this - or - if they are doing it the way I'm doing it. But I can speak a lot faster than I can type - and - it only used a little over 1/2 meg for 4 1/2 minutes worth of rant.

It explains itself. All you have to do is Click Here and listen to what I have to say. The voice speaks for itself.

So - that having gone well I made a second recording where I describe the Digital Voice Recorder in more detail.

Although you not have to have it, I found some audio software called Goldwave. Here's another mp3 audio file where I Tell you About It. the Glodwave software can be found at goldwave.com.

Just as an experiment here's a little audio Using the Internal Microphone that is built into the voice recorder. It doesn't sound to bad - the audio levels are lower - but that's not a surprise. Not as good as the external mic - but it is usable. But - I used the Goldwave software on the file and created this Enhanced Version that sounds every bit as good as my $9.95 external mic. I just brought the audio levels up about 12 db and added a little bass and treble.

I've done yet another experiment I just did another rant this time using the clip on mic that came with the recorder. Additionally I spent some time editing it with the Goldwave software where I removed about 30 seconds of a bad joke and a few "ya knows". I did mess with the audio a little too much so there is a little clipping - but I'm getting better at that.

So - I called up my friend Bartcop to tell him about it and tried it out recording the phone conversation. I had to do a little digital compression and expansion to get our voices to the same level - but I think it sounds pretty good considering I'm on a $20 900mhz cordless phone.

Feel free to hit the comment link and leave me a message letting me know what you think of this.

My AT&T Complaint to the Attorney General

To the Attorney General of California

I have a problem with AT&T wireless cell phones in the San Francisco area. I am an electronic and computer professional and communications specialist and I know what I'm talking about here.

I own 2 AT&T cell phones and they both have the same problems.

The audio is very choppy even with good signal strength and the calls drop all the time. Knowing what I know about electronics the type of distortion sounds like digital packet loss - in short - AT&T is oversold and running in excess of their capacity.

Additionally - my cell phone turns off by itself even with a full battery. I seems as though AT&T is turning off phones to save bandwidth. And this results in missed calls. When it comes down to it - I'm not getting what I'm paying for.

There are several issues here. I am not just one customer who is and isolated incident. AT&T is oversold in the bay area and doesn't have the network capacity to handle the number of subscribers it has. This results in packet loss distortions, disconnected calls, and I believe the they are remotely turning off my cell phone to conserve bandwidth.

To explain this in simple terms - it would be like a hotel who was renting more rooms than it actually had to the point where when people showed up - there were no rooms. AT&T does not have the ability to provide service to the number of phones it has sold in the Bay Area.

Because the service is oversold, during busy times I get what is known as packet loss distortion where words or parts of words are dropped. When it gets more overloaded it becomes unintelligible, then - they will drop the call. Sort of like kicking people off an over crowded bus to take on more passengers. Calls that should have been received are not received - phone never rings - but have voice mail.

The system works fine on off hours. If I make calls in the middle of the night I don't have these problems. And - if this were happening for short periods of time I could understand that. But - this is happening throughout most of the day to the extent that the service is unusable. I am not getting the service I am paying for. I am paying for cell phone service - and I am not getting it.

I have made numerous calls to their customer support department and I just get the run around. I have had them do tests on my phones and according to their tests - the phones are fine. Yet they can not solve the problem. It seem to me that they actually want me to go away so they can collect $350 in termination fees and reduce the load on their overloaded system.

What needs to happen is that AT&T should be required to install enough equipment and capacity to handle the load. And - until they do - they should be prohibited from accepting new customers in the Bay Area.

Furthermore - because their service is unusable - they should not be allowed to collect and additional $175 per line for me to move to a different cell phone service.

This is not something that is happening only to me. I have talked about this with other AT&T users and it's happening to a lot of people. It would be appropriate for the Attorney General to step in and take serious steps to correct this.

Sincerely,

Marc Perkel

Here's what communicating with AT&T customer Service is like

Dear Mr. Perkel:

Thank you for contacting AT&T Wireless regarding our previous response. We apologize that you were not completely satisfied with the information offered regarding your current situation. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer any different options or information than have already been presented. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

We value your business and are always looking for ways to improve our service to you! Let us know your thoughts by taking a short survey about your AT&T Wireless email Customer Care experience. Please click on the link below to begin. If you are unable to click on the link, simply copy the link and paste it into your browser where you enter web addresses, and press "ENTER".

http://66.162.6.220/idce/start.asp?SID=AWS2323

If you need to respond to this message, we suggest you reply directly to this email for the best service. Please remember to leave all documents attached for reference. A complete listing of options for contacting AT&T Wireless can be located on our web site at:
attwireless.com/ocs/contactus/ContactUs.jhtml

Thanks for choosing AT&T Wireless. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
David D.
AT&T Wireless
email Customer Care
attwireless.com

TRACKING NUMBER: A00000009319-00000049527

-----Original Message-----

From: marc@perkel.com
Sent: 28 Oct 03 09:48:18
To:
Cc:
Subject: Re: BW0009319

I am unsatisfied. I was however satisfied for the first 30 days when
things were working properly. Now your service is oversold and it is no
longer working properly.

Under the contract you are obligated to provide me with service of a
reasonable quality and you are not doing so. Because you have failed to
provide reasonable quality of service - you are in breach of the terms
of the contract. You service is so oversold that it is all but useless.
I am therefore giving you notice that you are in breach.

customer_service@attws.com wrote:

> Dear Mr. Perkel:
>
> Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding the AT&T Wireless
> cancellation policy on service. When you activate new service with
> AT&T Wireless, we are confident that you will be pleased with your
> purchase. However, if you are not, and you purchased your phone
> directly from AT&T Wireless, your phone and accessories can be
> returned to the original place of purchase within 30 days. Because
> your service is over the 30 day trial period, we cannot waive the
> cancellation fee. Your other option may be to switch back to digital
> service if you still have your old digital phone and use your service
> until the end of the current contract.
>
> We hope this information resolves your request to your satisfaction!
> We value your business and are always looking for ways to improve our
> service to you! Let us know your thoughts by taking a short survey
> about your AT&T Wireless email Customer Care experience. Please click
> on the link below to begin. If you are unable to click on the link,
> simply copy the link and paste it into your browser where you enter
> web addresses, and press "ENTER".
>
> http://66.162.6.220/idce/start.asp?SID=AWS2323
>
> If you need to respond to this message, we suggest you reply directly
> to this email for the best service. Please remember to leave all
> documents attached for reference. A complete listing of options for
> contacting AT&T Wireless can be located on our web site at:
> attwireless.com/ocs/contactus/ContactUs.jhtml
>
> Thanks for choosing AT&T Wireless. We appreciate your business.
>
> Sincerely,
> Elaine
> AT&T Wireless
> email Customer Care
> attwireless.com
>
>
>
>
> TRACKING NUMBER: A00000009319-00000042930
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>
> From: marc@perkel.com
> Sent: 27 Oct 03 21:11:19
> To:
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: BW0009319
>
> I've already conacted your customer service and your service determined
> that my equipment was fine. The problem is that your network is
> overloaded and you are not providing the service we contracted for.
> Because you seem to be unable to resolve the network congestion issue -
> I have to declare you in breach of the contract and unless yu resolve
> your network congestion issues in the next 30 days I will move my cell
> phone service to a new provider.
>
> customer_service@attws.com wrote:
>
> > Dear Mr. Perkel:
> >
> > Thank you for contacting AT&T Wireless regarding coverage reception.
> > Wireless service is normally available to your telephone, when it is
> > within the operating range of our system and it may be available
> > outside of that area in other carrier service areas. However, the
> > quality of your service is subject to transmission limitation or
> > interruption caused by natural conditions such as atmosphere and
> > topography. Also, there may be other limitations such as capacity
> > limitations, system repairs/modifications, and/or other conditions.
> >
> > Please note that coverage concerns or equipment related inquires are
> > not currently supported via e-mail inquiry due to the number of
> > factors that can affect your service. We apologize for any
> > inconvenience this may cause.
> >
> > In order to troubleshoot the issues you are experiencing with your
> > equipment and/or service in the most effective manner possible, we
> > will need to have you contact one of our Customer Care representatives
> > by calling 1-800-888-7600 between the hours of 6:00AM and 1:00AM CST,
> > 7 days a week.
> >
> > We hope this information resolves your request to your satisfaction!
> > We value your business and are always looking for ways to improve our
> > service to you! Let us know your thoughts by taking a short survey
> > about your AT&T Wireless email Customer Care experience. Please click
> > on the link below to begin. If you are unable to click on the link,
> > simply copy the link and paste it into your browser where you enter
> > web addresses, and press "ENTER".
> >
> > http://66.162.6.220/idce/start.asp?SID=AWS2323
> >
> > If you need to respond to this message, we suggest you reply directly
> > to this email for the best service. Please remember to leave all
> > documents attached for reference. A complete listing of options for
> > contacting AT&T Wireless can be located on our web site at:
> > attwireless.com/ocs/contactus/ContactUs.jhtml
> >
> > Thanks for choosing AT&T Wireless. We appreciate your business.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Daniel M.
> > AT&T Wireless
> > email Customer Care
> > attwireless.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > TRACKING NUMBER: A00000009319-00000034887
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> >
> > From: marc@perkel.com
> > Sent: 27 Oct 03 10:42:18
> > To:
> > Cc:
> > Subject: OCS25G Application Response - Next Generation Wireless - Next
> > Generation Wireless
> >
> > Message From: Marc Perkel
> > Account Number:
> > Contact Number:
> > SSN Last Four Numbers:
> > Message:
> > Add this to my record. I am hereby giving you notice that I intend to
> > move my service in the next two months to anyone else who can provide
> > me clear cell phone service in the San Francisco / San Bruno area. I
> > have complained numerous times about the quality of service and
> > nothing has been done. I have 2 cell phones and both of them are in
> > proler working order. The problem is that you have oversold your
> > services in this area and it is causing packey loss - choppy audio to
> > the point of being unusable - and connections continously dropped. The
> > service is so bad that I can not use it. I am an electronic tech and I
> > know what packet loss from an overloaded system sounds like. In our
> > agreement I agreed to a plan and you agreed to provide me with cell
> > phone service. You have failed to uphold your end of the bargain. I am
> > therefore giving you notification that you are in breah of our service
> > agreement and that I intend to terminate the plan within 60 days based
> > on the breach. Please enter this email as part of your record on my
> > account. And - pass this on to your customer support managers. Marc
> > Perkel

AT&T Cell Phone Service in San Fran Sucks

I used to really like AT&T but in the last several months their service has really gone to hell. The audio is very choppy even with good signal strength and the calls drop all the time. Knowing what I know about electronics the type of distortion souns like digital packet loss - in short - AT&T is oversold and running in excess of their capacity.

Additionally - my cell phone turns off by itself even with a full battery. I seems as though AT&T is turning off phones to save bandwidth. And this results in missed calls. When it comes down to it - I'm not getting what I'm paying for.

I'm thinking about switching. Verizon is on my short list. Definitely not going with Sprint because they have a bad habit of fraudulently billing customers and I'm not going there.

But - I'm sure I'll have a fight with AT&T over the commitment thing - but the way I see it - they committed to providing me with cell phone service and they aren't keeping their end of the bargain. So - I will at least get even by publicly documenting my experiences on the net for all to see.

Apache 2.0 a lot faster than Apache 1.3

I just upgraded my web server last week to the new Redhat Fedora Linux from Redhat 7.3. It was a very interesting upgrade. I had at first devised a way to do the upgrade without shutting the server down and it almost worked. If not for Python and PHP getting screwed up it would have been amazing.

I download an upgrade package called Yum and managed to change operating systems without rebooting and without shuttiing the server down. And all this from remote! Try that with Windows!

But because these two applications failed to work I ended up wiping the drive and reinstalling from scratch. Fortunately I keep two drives in the server so I have the ability to undo what I screw up.

The server is far faster than it used to be. I'm hosting about 75 sites and the load was climbing up there during some parts of the day. Now it's running about 1/10 the load levels it used to. I give the credit to Apache 2.0.

Apache 2.0 is great once you get it working - but - getting it working isn't real easy. There are a lot of differences - especially with the directive and it's enough to drive you nuts. Basically you have to specify the IP address and the Port on each entry. But - it was worth it.

I'm also looking forward to installing the 2.6 kernel. I had it running for a while - but it breaks a couple of apps so I'm going to wait a while on that one.

Advanced Spam Filtering using Spamassassin and Exim

I have the most advanced spam filtering system on the planet. I feel like I've actually beaten the spam problem. More details can be found on Computer Tyme Hosting.

How do I do it? What is the magig? Well - there is no magic. I'm using a combination of the Exim MTA and Spamassassing with a bunch of my own custom rules and tricks.

Two Spam Piles

Spamassassin is very good by itself - but not good enough. one thing that the Spamassassin folks haven't quite grasped is sorting Spam into 2 piles - high scoring spam and low scoring spam.

The high spam is almost surely spam. The low spam is probably spam - but if there is a false positive - it will be low scoring. Thus the false positive is easy to find. By using this system the high spam can be ignored or trashed without losing anything. I get about 300-400 spams a day. Most all are caught as high spam.

Direct IMAP folder delivery

Once the spam is tagged - if the user is using IMAP and has folders named spam-high and spam-low - the Exim MTA delivers the spam directly into those folders rather than the Inbox. In this way the inbox is spam free and can be downloaded without downloading spam that is left on the server side. This makes downloading much quicker.

The spam folders are still accessable - so you can look at the spam you are missing. You can check the spam-low for false positives. And - IMAP allows you to create more server side folders for other important information. With a Squirrelmail interface, you can access your email from any browser.

Making the Spam Filter Smarter

Spamassassin uses a Bayesian filter that allows it to learn from spam and nonspam and get sparter. Very high scoring spam (+15 points) and very low scoring spam (-2 points) are autolearned. But - I provide two other imap folders to train the filter on missed spam. Just drag spam-low and missed spam into the spam-missed folder and - every 15 minutes - the learn bot comes along and learns it. Next time that spam comes in it is caught.

Exim Rules for Blacklisting

One of the major advances I made over Spamassassin is adding blacklisting lists to Exim. These lists - just text files - add headers if there is a match. One of the things I list are things that spam links to. Spam wants you to do something and often that means click on a link. I have a list of about 400 sites that if spam links to it - I flag it. I add spamassassin rules to score there extra headers. This trich proves to be extremely effective.

I have other lists too. I blacklist based on received strings so that sending hosts are blocked. I have a list of misspelled words like p0rn that spammers user to get around spam filters. I have a blacklist of dead email targets that no one is really mailing to. If the spam CCs and of these nonexistent people - it gets flagged.

I also have whitelists that whitelist various hosts, newsgroups, words, etc. Whitelisting creates a negative score bringing the spam score below 0. This creates a good stream for non-spam for the autolearning system so that it knows what spam and nonspam look like.

Taking out the Trash

The spam does not accululate on the server forever. Once a week the trash bot come along and empties out old messages from the spam and trash folders. Anything over 15 days is gone. So - you don't have to even delete your spam. Just leave it on the server and the trash bot will cleran it up for you.

Summary of Enhancements:

• Two levels of Spam Tagging
  
• Direct Delivery to IMAP Folders
  
• Learning System for User Feedback
  
• Multiple Exim Blacklist Front end
  
• Server side Trash Collection
  

When I started spam filtering I though that 75% would be real good and that 80% was a theoretical maximum. I am now running about 99% accurate, so of the 300-400 spams I get every day - only 3 or 4 get through. This saves me a hell of a lot of time. If not for this spam filtering - I wouldn't be able to get nearly as much done. I don't have a lot of hours to devote to deleting spam. This save me a ton of time.

Where can I get this?

Well - I do email hosting as well as web hosting. So - if you have a domain and you want this - I can fix you up. If I like your cause - I might even host it for free.

Microsoft is SCO's silent partner in Linux Lawsuit

SCO's war against Linux and the public domain is being funded by Microsoft who is using these bogus lawsuits to undermine an operating system that they can't compete with. Lets look at some facts I gleaned off of an Article from Linux Universe

From SCO's quarterly 10-Q report:

1. Revenue for products is down

2. Revenue for services is down

3. During the three months ended July 31, 2003, Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) accounted for approximately 25 percent of total revenue and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (‘Sun”) accounted for approximately 12 percent of total revenue.

4. MS also "exercised their option" to give SCO *more* money on July 31, 2003. So next quarter they will have another chunk of cash from MS to put on the books.
   

Microsoft isn't giving SCO money to develop their highly outdated Unix software. This is abll about supporting lawsuits and attempting to steal the work of those who have given their software freely to the common good. The bottom line is - Microsoft is subsidizing this lawsuit. It seems to me that those who are suing SCO or being sued by SCO could bring Micorsoft into the suit as a party.

Also - in the debate over "which operating system is better" I think it's fair to say that Microsoft - by cheating - has admitted through their conduct that they can not beat Linux on the merits. Microsoft knows that in the long run - Linux will prevail.

The long term problem with Windows is that it is processor and archetrure bound. So is Apple's OS-X for that matter. Linux runs on anything. If they cane out with a new processor tomorrow someone would have a Linux kernel for it within a week. Linux runs on the big iron machines like IBM mainframes and with the new 2.6 kernel about to be released Linux leaps way past Windows on scalability. So - Microsoft has reason to be afraid.

Linux on the other hand is hardly user friendly. Getting applications to work is not trivial as it is for Windows. Security in Linux is almost laughable as compared to Windows or Netware from the perspective of fine grain access control - but - access control lists are finally making their way into the Linux model. So Windows isn't going to go away any ime soon.

X-10 Lighting Controller Modification

This is a link on how to modify an X-10 wall switch to give you dimming control from the button. Why they don't build it this way is a mystery.

X-10 Modification link.

Computer Viruses Can be Stopped

Article I sent to my Newspaper List

Computer Viruses can be stopped and it isn't be very hard to do it. Most all computer viruses are spread as executable email attachments that the victim is tricked into opening and running. Often users of Microsoft Outlook don't even have to run the attachment if they have their setting wrong. But - there are three things that Wibdows users can do to protect themselves from viruses.

First - go to Microsoft Windows Update service (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) and install all the latest security patches.

Second - avoid opening email attachments unless you are very sure you know what it is.

And Third - ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to block all messages containing Windows attachments that are executable. By blocking all executable attachment your anti-virus software doesn't have to figure out if the attachment is or is not a virus.And - anti-virus software rarely catches the very latest viruses that are going around.

If you do these three thing you should be virus free. And it's a lot easier to prevent a virus than it is to remove one after your computer is already infected.

About the Author:
Marc Perkel is a small internet service provider and contract systems administrator with 23 years of experience in computers and 31 years of experience in electronic systems repair.

Check out the extended section for a letter I sent to a prominent Microsoft official.

This is a letter I emailed to an important executive at Microsoft

This latest virus does not seem to be just going away. It has created a launch platform for the next attack. With a launch platform of millions of computers and attacker would be able to take down the internet. And - any 15 year old super geek could set it off. Or - it can be miltiple viruses from multiple authors all taking advantage of this network of infected computers at the same time.

I want to also point put that all anti-virus software will be useless against this new virus because anti-virus is always at least 2 days behind current viruses and in two days it's to late.

What I'm saying is - in 3 weeks email as we know it may cease to exist. And - we (by "we" I mean "you") should take action to prevent this immediately. You have till 9-11, interesting enough, to act.

The attack can be prevented or at least contained if steps are taken immediately. There are two means that viruses and works spread - by infected email attackments - or directy port to port communication through a vulnerability or - in this case - a back door in already infected computers.

Step 1
---------

As to executable email attachments - Microsoft should issue a worldwide warning encouraging ISPs to block all email with executable attachments. This will stop the spread of all viruses that spread through email - so even if the virus mutates as expected on Sept 10th - there's no way for it to spread. This alert should go out immediately. No later than tomorrow. Step 1 is likely all you will need to do if you can really rally ISPs to join in.

Step 2
---------

Issue a world wide alert encouragimg people to download and install the latest patches for Windows. This should include a television campaign with 30 second commercials showing people how to run Windows Update. If you need to use Windows Update to deploy a fix for this upcoming threat - you want the public to be ready to cooperate. If the public had been educated - the msblaster virus would have had no effect.

Step 3
----------

The risk of direct port to port spreading is less likely but still real. If it's real it would spread like the "msblaster" worm did and that is a far more serious problem. Microsoft need to immediately decompile this virus and determine what it is capable of. Also keep in mind that if the virus can update itself that you have to assume that the update might have this capability. You need to meet with your sharpest people and assess risk and determine countermeasures and put an infastructure in place to deploy the countermeasures should they become necessary.

The problem here is that we are dealing with an unknown threat. So - it's time to look at what can be done with windows update in case of different kinds of threats. I would also encourage you to develop a plan that a work could be cured by attempting to infect a cured computer - the anti-virus virus idea - in case extreme measures are necessary.

Go with what works
------------------------

In the last two weeks millions of computers were compromized by this virus. But - of the computers under my control - not one was infected - and there's a reason for this. Here's what I did:

1) Updates - I went to every windows computer and personally made sure they were updated a few weeks back when the security hole was announced because I anticipated a virus would quickly be developed to exploit this flaw.

2) Firewall - We use a simple NAT firewall. Had there been computers in the office that had been missed - the NAT protected them from the Blaster worm.

3) Executable Attachments - All email messages containing executable attachments are blocked. Besides educating the users not to open executables - showing extentions of well know file types - prohibiting the use of Microsoft Outlook as an email client - my users never had the opportunity to get the virus onto their computer in the first place. Although tens of thousands of virus infected messages were recieved - the users never got a single one of them.

I also had anti virus software on all windows computers - but that had not effect at all on these latest two worms. Point being - anti-virus software can not be relied upon for protection.

The Bottom Line
---------------------

How likely will this happen? My guess is that I will be surprized if it doesn't happen. The opportunity if there - millions of currently infected computers waiting to be exploited by anyone who figures out how to do it first. The temtation is irresistable.

There's only one issue to decised. Does Microsoft want to get the blame for it happening or the credit for preventing it. You have 17 more days. Tick, Tick, Tick ......

Choose wisely.

Marc Perkel

The Next Computer Virus could Kill the Internet

Letter to the Editor

As bad as the current crop of this weeks computer viruses are - they are nothing compared to what might follow. The next generation of computer viruses that are likely to come soon as three weeks from now might actually take the Internet down and cause massive data losses on a scale never been seen before.

The current virus named "SoBig" installs a back door into the victims computer allowing these millions of infected computers to be in an open state waiting to be exploited in the future. It has been speculated in press reports that the virus author plans to use it as a launch pad for a massive spam attack - but it could be far worse.

With millions of computers vulnerable - any programmer on the planet could figure out how this virus works and use it to launch their own attack. It could be used - for example - to instantly spread not only to currently infected computers - but new computers as well and instantly destroy all your data - or email your sensitive documents to random people. And your virus protection software will have no effect in stopping this because virus software rarely protects computers from the lastest newest virus.

These viruses are a result of flaws in the Microsoft Windows operating system and it's time for the world to demand that Microsoft take affirmative steps to deal with this issue. Millions of computers are open and vulnerable and if a terrorist were to combine the technologies of SoBig with last weeks MsBlaster - they could take the Internet down worldwide. We all need to act now to prevent this from happening.

Marc Perkel
San Francisco, CA.

Sorry for the longer than usual letter, but this takes more words to describe. I have 25 years of computing experience. I have a one man one server dot com company and lots of sys admin experience. This threat is EXTREMELY real as you probably know by how clogged your email is now. I invite you to run this by your tech people and see what they think.

I write to the president of Microsoft

To: Steve Balmer

Here's an interesting solution to the blaster worm problem. An anti-virus virus.

Every computer that is infected has the virus - and it still has the secutiry hole. You could write a virus of your own that took advavtage of this security hole to remove the virus and to patch the security hole. You could make it part of the windows update upgrade.

What would happen is when the attaking virus tries to infect a machine with the anti-virus the attacked computer detects this and identifies the IP address of the attacking computer. It then would use the same security hole to upload a program to the attacking computer that would remove the virus and patch the hole. It would also turn the attacking computer into an anti-virus computer and the patch would spread as fast as the virus did - fixing all the systems.

Something to think about .....

Marc Perkel

Another IBM Hard Drive Bites the Dust

IBM Deathstar Drive

My roommate Rojean lost her hard drive yesterday. Every time I oull a dead hard drive out of a system it's usually an IBM. The call it a "Deskstar" but I call the "Deathstar". I had about 6 of them fail at EFF and I get replacements and they fail too.

I have some laying around but why bother sending them back? IBM will just send me another defective drive. Last time I called them and asked if they would swap it for another model that works and they refused.

The bottom line is - IBM doesn't give a fuck about my data or if I ever get a good drive. They are more than willing to deny they have a design problem and to conceal their flaws - they are willing to put my data at risk. Not to mention the time it takes to replace the drive and restore the data.

So - you won't see me buying another IBM driive again!

Hard Drive Space vs. Paper

I was just thinking today about how cheap hard drive space is compared to what it used to be. In 1981 a 5 megabyte Pertec drive cost about $9500 or almost $2000 per megabyte. I just bought a 200 gigabye (200,000 megabytes) yesterday for $129 (after rebate) at Fry's. That's .0645 cents per meg. A little over 6/100 of a cent!

Now - a good piece of HP Bright white inkjet paper costs 2 cents a sheet which is the same cost as 31 megabytes of data. Who would have ever thought that a sheet of paper was worth as much as the storage of six of those old 5 meg drives.