Flutterby™! : Extraneous crap

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Extraneous crap

2002-01-30 19:13:03+00 by Dan Lyke 14 comments

Doc Searles is having trouble with his Cox cablemodem switchover, the disk with all the stupid "upgrade" software (including IE with a different logo, oh boy) didn't work. Luckily my switchover with AT&T Broadband wasn't as bad, but I still get this crap occasionally where when it can't resolve DNS for a web request it gives some alternate address and a web page giving upgrade instructions. I don't know what the web browser is doing differently in DNS resolution that's triggering this.

But this leads to a wider question: What's with the extraneous crap? Why can't we trust that at some point users will be able to step through the facilities provided in the operating system, and so we've got to add three or four levels of awful complexity to make things "easier", thereby making it much tougher for anyone with more neurons than fingers to actually use a service? Is forcing a user's default home page to some crap portal really worth that much? But then I guess that's what @Home's business model was based on. Yeesh, it's almost enough to make me spring for iDSL, despite the lower speed, just so I can work with someone on the other end who knows I want a freakin IP address and working DNS, and then gets the hell out of my way.

[ related topics: broadband Software Engineering Work, productivity and environment ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:55+00 by: flushy

when I got my cable service, I told the guy, "give me a cable, I'll plug it into my laptop.. k.. I got an IP address.. this is cool, thanks for everything.. now leave."

I use an SSH tunnel to an small Apache Proxy server and I never have issues. A guy in the next apartment over, actually *let* the cable dude touch[Wiki] his computer, and now stuff don't work.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:55+00 by: petej

Unfortunately the business model for web connectivity is for content providers to also be bandwidth providers. We're in for more fun like this until someone decides that providing bandwidth and content are two different things, and should be done by different companies. This is an old argument, though -- the movie studios were once forced to divest themselves of movie theaters, only to find it happening again now that the industry has managed to move the ball under a different cup (there's a Sony theater around here somewhere showing Sony Pictures). I think David Isenberg got it right with the Stupid Network.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:55+00 by: meuon

And you may use: 63.83.131.4 if you need to.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:55+00 by: TheSHAD0W

I'd been having problems with DNS on Time Warner's Roadrunner, so I got the IPs of a few other DNS servers on the RR network and added them to my configuration. Haven't had any problems since.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:55+00 by: Dan Lyke

I tried using my colo server (on the same network Meuon proposed), and the latency difference was noticeable, but I'll probably end up switching back there. If nothing else, given that Comcast is getting all up-in-arms about NAT boxes, it'll keep multiple HTTP client strings from hitting the AT&T servers when links go bad.

Sigh. Anyone wanna hire someone to telecommute so I could move back to 'Nooga and 802.11 off the Virtual Building?

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:56+00 by: petej

Dan, are you running a Unix variant? If so, DNS may be different for the browser because Netscape (and maybe some Mozillae) use a separate DNS helper process for DNS requests (to overcome lack of multi-threadedness in standard resolver libraries). If you're running a Unix variant, you might benefit by running a copy of named in caching-only mode. You can configure it to forward all requests to the ISPs DNS server, so it's just caching, and not doing any resolution. If your problem is related to latency, this should cure it.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:56+00 by: Dan Lyke

This is with Opera on both Linux and Windows (and IE on Windows too, just for testing, but IE is so screwed up when it comes to accurately reporting network errors that I kinda discount that). I think pushing all the requests out to real servers (thanks for the offer, Meuon!) is probably the right way to go, even if the latentcy's a little higher.

#Comment made: 2002-01-31 15:59:19+00 by: Shawn [edit history]

Why can't we trust that at some point users will be able to step through the facilities provided in the operating system, and so we've got to add three or four levels of awful complexity to make things "easier", thereby making it much tougher for anyone with more neurons than fingers to actually use a service?

I've been complaining about this for years, and it's my primary beef with Microsoft products... :-/

it's almost enough to make me spring for iDSL

Unfortunately, that may not solve your problems. I don't know who your telcos are down in The Bay, but up here (Seattle) Qwest's DNS has been off-again/on-again foobared over the last month or so. And as for getting a competent/knowledgable person at the other end of the line? Puh-leeze!

Of course, the recent catfights among peered providers haven't helped the connection issues either. In the last few weeks:

Access to the cyberlandscape is becoming... interesting.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:56+00 by: flushy

Dan - about the latency: I know here in Sunny Florida (BTW, I'm still here.. I didn't get hit by any satellite pieces), that TWC Road Runner using some type of transparent Web Caching system which does some type of http header rewriting to force the browser to read from local cache if the cacheserver thinks the data hasn't changed.

Sony's website for their VAIO computers has like 40 small graphics. If I hit reload, I get MINIMAL network traffic, and the server doesn't actually transmit the pictures to me.. the result is the website loads really quick. If I use the Apache Proxy, the site loads significantly slower.

I was thinking of installing a squid server to see if it does similar header rewriting and will make the page load faster.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:56+00 by: Dan Lyke

Flushy, are you using https and ssl to an Apache server, or actually doing something with SSH? And care to share? There are a couple of situations where I'd rather not leave local network admins and users the option of sniffing my web surfing habits, and I've been too lazy to config this myself.

Shawn, one of the joys if iDSL is that it's a protocol over ISDN, so you can actually get it through a small ISP. Alas, it's slower than Xmas (or at least just the speed of bonded B channels), and a bit pricey (although it's gone down from about $120 last time I checked, to $80 now, albeit with about $600 in set-up fees).

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:56+00 by: meuon

I just watched two major players have to re-write their business plans because they were based on incredible pricing from Global Crossing that now looks like vaporware.. (GC is Chapt11 and announcing all deals are up for new pricing)

Survivability is proving to be the #1 asset. :)

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:57+00 by: flushy

I'm using an ssh tunnel and setting my proxy to localhost:8080.. same for pop3 and smtp. I'm a full believer in, "the less people know about me and what I do, the better." and "What they don't know, can't hurt me."

Now, before some people pipe up, yes, the encryption and compression used via the ssh tunnel will introduce latency (especially on compressed binaries and such - unless you disable the compression in ssh), but the latency I'm experiencing is due to the browser actually retrieving the graphics.

Under the transparent caching, the browser doesn't actually retrieve the graphics since the cache fools the browser into thinking the image hasn't changed.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:59+00 by: dws

I tunnel through ssh to do both pop3 and smtp. I have *never* sent a password in-the-clear to my ISP. Call me paranoid.

#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:34:59+00 by: Shawn

Shawn, one of the joys if iDSL is that it's a protocol over ISDN, so you can actually get it through a small ISP.

Yes, but that won't save you. All this upheaval is happening upstream of the small ISPs. Your connectivity to other sites still suffers :-(