If you are like me, and don’t want to watch streaming video in a browser window, and would rather use VLC, you can find links such as http://cnn-cnnlive-2-primary.wm.llnwd.net/cnn_cnnlive_2_primary?MSWMExt=.asf by carefully tracking the browser path. Looks like they’re using Limelight for this. Interesting.
CNN live feed url
August 25th, 2008Biden + Obama
August 23rd, 2008Personally, I find the pick interesting because he has issues staying on message and can easily get himself in trouble with words, but it does provide balance to Obama who is well polished in his speaking and manners. Also, our current president isn’t exactly known for being a perfect orator. We’ll see if the Romney prediction is correct in the future.
cybercrime not prosecuted
August 14th, 2008Not shocking for those of us in the industry, but cybercrime (aside from trying to arrange underage sex and child pornography cases) get very little attention. There’s a report that was done by a few places, the report article is here with the Full PDF available for your perusal. Interesting to think about laws put on the books, but the lack of resources made available to prosecute new laws. Perhaps something like PayGo when it comes to these types of investigations. The assymetrical battle rages on. The internet brought you more than low-cost communications with family and friends, the cost is lower for the bad guys as well.
Comcast to be punished
July 25th, 2008So, the long wait is coming to a close. It is expected that next Friday there will be a ruling from the FCC that comcasts actions with regard to blocking file sharing software is outside of the scope of regular network managment tasks. This will be interesting as we may see an increase in the peer to peer traffic on networks as the DPI p2p mitigation devices get removed from a variety of networks. It may also mean the death of a few vendors or at least consolidation in the industry. Article link can be found here.
Apple TV Hatred
July 5th, 2008So, our Apple TV started having some problems, would be laggy when playing video across the network (we have the “Smart” sync enabled). So I decided to do a Factory Restore since I did not hear the sound of the drive clicking or anything else that would indiciate a hardware failure.
After that, it restored with the 1.1 software, not the 2.0.2 software. So we needed to do a ~20 minute download to get that back in sync, following some major hatred with the device off-and-on over the next 24 hours trying to get the TV shows to sync again. Turns out amongst the other problems, the Apple TV thought it was in Canada as well as I needed to reauthorize the iMac it syncs with with ITMS. It didn’t count against our block of authorized comptuers (we have several, including two macbooks – the 14″ dual usb type, two intel iMacs and one MacBook Pro).
I’m utterly frustrated that the factory restore did not do the 2.0.2 software and the upgrade did not propogate a new factory install/reset ala TiVo. Lets see what happens and if the device wishes to actually die in the next few weeks. It would make me very sad since we stopped paying for satellite service a few months ago to save on costs, and instead shifted that expenditure to ITMS money.
State of the internet
June 1st, 2008Akamai has posted their State of the Internet report. Some of you may find this a worthwhile read.
Two network security articles worth reading
May 30th, 2008I have come across two articles that have been well worth reading in the past 12 hours. The first is a general article on the possible security implications of international travel and your personal electronic devices. The second is related to two blackouts that may be related to network intrusion activity. Both are well worth the read.
comcast.net “hijacked”
May 29th, 2008Well, this isn’t exactly as bad as it sounds actually, but it’s worth noting that some people have not learned from the aol.com and other dns server redirections in the past. What happens is someone submits a web form or spoofs an email and it moves the dns for your domain to some other servers. In this case, the fallout will be felt for up to two days by some people. This can seriously hurt your reputation as folks may think that the security of your relationship with your registrar is congruent with your overall security strategy. Most (All?) registrars allow you to put your domain in some form of a locked mode. My domain (nether.net) has the following flag set: clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited, clientDeleteProhibited
It may be time to review what your settings are and make sure history does not repeat itself on your domains.
The internet is dangerous (this time it’s plug-ins)
May 28th, 2008I’m reminded the past two days why I always run my web browsers with plugins disabled by default. With the recent events of people getting malware into ad networks, and the revelation of at least one (if not two) flash vulnerabilities being exploited in the past 48 hours, the safety of my i-hate-flash policy is once again revealed. If you’re unaware, you should be disabling plugins except when you need them from your ‘trusted’ sources, or if you use a firefox derivative browser, check out flashblock.
Super Delegates to follow the will of the voters
February 14th, 2008Bloomberg is reporting that the super delegates at stake for the Democratic nomination will actually be swayed more by the popular vote than backroom deals. This combined with a growing anti-incumbent feeling that may be growing, we may be in for a significantly different Washington DC after the November election. It just could be this is a turning-point in our country that will drive us to record voter turnout and community participation. With Clinton and Obama calling for community service by young people to help offset the cost of attending that College/University, perhaps we will see a more-engaged society as a whole.