Technology Archives - Page 6 of 17

I’m not sure at what point, but some time over the past week or two, my 2Wire 3800 HGV-B router was upgraded to new firmware (by AT&T of course), version 6.1.9.24 or rather 6.1.9.23-enh.tm. I’m not positive this fixed it or if AT&T upgraded their firewall policy, but for whatever reason, my NAT loopback works now. This has been a major complaint by both tech-ey customers and AT&T tech’s on various forums I’ve read ever since U-Verse started it’s roll-out a couple of years ago. It’s a pain to work around if you’re doing any port-forwarding on the outside of the firewall and then attempt to access those open ports from the inside of the network outward. Well, if you get upgraded to the latest version or get the latest firewall rules from AT&T, you should be good now.

Public IP scanned from the internal network

U-Verse Install on Saturday!

By David Westerfield

On February 25, 2010

In Personal, Technology

Finally, the long wait is over for the Westerfunk network … U-Verse will allegedly be installed on Saturday between 1 and 3 pm. We’ll see how that turns out. Just want to make everyone aware now that all sites will be unavailable until I can bring them back up on the new service.

Also, one of these days I’ll start blogging again. Had a long run of difficulties and well, laziness to some degree, spiritual and otherwise. So, I’ll be returning soon.

Cap and Trade + Data Centers = Bad News for IT

By David Westerfield

On December 4, 2009

In Environment, Technology

Data Center Regulation Awareness Increasing, Prepare for CO2K

This is an excerpt from a blog entry by a speaker at the 2009 Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas, NV, named Michael Manos. He spoke about how Cap and Trade style legislation is already having a negative impact on the UK’s IT and data center industries. The proposals I’ve heard for regulating data centers, which the government has now declared centers of eco-terrorism due to their extreme carbon output, are startling and will inevitably result in reduced productivity, massive costs, and is all a massive waste of time, especially in light of UEA emails that have leaked about scientists manipulating core data at the center of these assumptions. People are starting to wake up to what this nonsense will entail I think:

My talk centered around the coming Carbon Cap and Trade Regulation and its specific impact on IT organizations and the data center industry. I started my talk with a joke about how excited I was to be addressing a room of tomorrow’s eco-terrorists. The joke went flat and the audience definitely had a fairly serious demeanor. This was reinforced when I asked how many people in the audience thought that regulation was a real and coming concern for IT organizations. Their response startled me.

I was surprised because nearly 85% of the audience had raised their hands. If I contrast that to the response to the exact same question asked three months earlier at the Tier One Research Data Center Conference where only about 5% of the audience raised their hands, its clear that this is a message that is beginning to resonate, especially in the larger organizations.

SharePoint Conference 2009 Live Blogging

By David Westerfield

On October 20, 2009

In Technology

We’ll see how this goes … Just giving it a try. Also, I’ll occasionally be streaming audio, but it’s spotty and sometimes the wireless signal isn’t strong so it drops … but if you want, you can attempt to listen here: http://www.westerfunk.net/radio/player/

AT&T Digging Up My Yard

By David Westerfield

On August 5, 2009

In Personal, Technology

Update 8.6.2009: Well, to give them credit, they did leave a note on my front door letting me know the day before. So, nevermind. It is AT&T and they are putting Uverse in the neighborhood. So, that’s pretty cool!

Okay. I know AT&T or the power company can come and dig up your yard as they please, since they basically own the right to that portion of your yard. But it would at least be a nice courtesy to call and let residents know their yard will be all torn up when they get home. They just came this morning and started digging with no advisory or note. Even a flier would have worked. Come on guys …

6 Years of AT&T DSL Connection Woes Resolved in 1 Second

By David Westerfield

On July 16, 2009

In Technology

Background: over the years, I have had a fluctuating issue with a weak DSL connection from my ADSL modem to AT&T’s CO (central office) in my area. This resulted in continual errors on my modem and at times the service would just drop off and then come back up. My speed would change often and was never consistent.

So recently, my DSL connection totally dropped for four days. Apparently an AT&T tech messed with things a little too much and knocked out my DSL service attempting to “fix” someone else’s phone line that another tech had messed up (a sort of domino effect). Of course this all happened right before the Fourth of July holiday weekend and so another tech finally came out the Monday after. He got me back online, but the connection speed was the most degraded it has ever been. But he made the decision to switch me over to a “digital line” (update – AT&T tech terminology, not mine, that is simply what he told me – A.K.A. an RT line, digital port, whatever) to get me a much more solid connection.

Anonymizing Squid Proxy Traffic

By David Westerfield

On July 14, 2009

In Technology

For anyone using the Squid proxy server, either on Linux or Windows, these parameters will anonymize enough traffic so that websites you attempt to access will still work (such as ajax-heavy sites like Facebook), but your source IP information will still be concealed.

via off
forwarded_for off

header_access Cache-Control deny all
header_access Forwarded-For deny all
header_access From deny all
header_access Keep-Alive deny all
header_access Link deny all
header_access Pragma deny all
header_access Proxy-Connection deny all
header_access Server deny all
header_access Via deny all
header_access WWW-Authenticate deny all
header_access X-Cache deny all
header_access X-Cache-Lookup deny all
header_access X-Forwarded-For deny all

Our Computing Environment is Already Compromised

By David Westerfield

On June 25, 2009

In News, Security, Technology, Terrorism

(Original): http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/single.php?id=8200
(Archived): http://www.westerfunk.net/ … common%20language/

“The former cybersecurity director at DHS had some sobering words last week about the battle for cybersecurity. ‘We lost,’ the former director, now chief executive officer of NetWitness Corp., said at the Symantec Government Symposium in Washington. ‘We lost the cyber war over the last 15 years. Our computing environment is already compromised,’ and things are likely to get worse going forward because we do not really understand security. ‘We lack any meaningful metrics or measures to say how secure a system is.’ It no longer is true that the best minds are on the side of the hackers. The dark side of cyberspace has been co-opted by organized crime, entrepreneurs of questionable integrity and, possibly, terrorists. Much of the process of illegal hacking has been mechanized to the point that it involves automation, not innovation. Part of the problem was identified by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team director. ‘We lack a common language for discussing many of the elements of security. We need to reinvent not only how we do incident response, but how we talk about events,’ the director said at the symposium.”

IOGear’s Must Have Toy

By David Westerfield

On June 24, 2009

In Technology

http://www.iogear.com/product/GUWAVKIT/

I just saw this today, sent to me by a co-worker. As much as I would spend on getting yet another HDMI cable and a VGA-to-DVI converter to hook up my laptop to my flat screen, I could pay a little more and go completely wireless while still broadcasting a solid HD signal to the screen. This is the first really cool product I’ve come across that utilizes the relatively new wireless USB standard, sure to blow the bluetooth standard out of the water in capability very soon. I haven’t investigated a whole lot at this point, but I’m sure there are more wireless USB products out there, besides the standard wireless keyboard or mouse. But this is the coolest toy I’ve seen so far. Check it out!