Monthly Archives: December 2005

Stupid hackers

Posted on by
Reply

I periodically check on statistics on my server and noticed that for the last 1.5 hours, my bandwidth was constant even though I wasn’t doing anything. I started checking the traffic on my network and saw that some Chinese hacker (or script kiddy) was trying to get into my machine via SSH. I’ve seen a number of hack attempts into my server and normally write them off, but this was chewing up bandwidth, so I blocked the IP address of the attacker. I realize it is kind of pointless as hackers will use different IP addresses and there will be more later.

Why do people waste their time? My server is not very interesting. I wish people had better things to do than try to hack my server. I read yesterday that someone got convicted of a denial of service attack (DOS) last year. Maybe that will teach someone a lesson; probably not.

English speaking customer service reps

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday I called my cable company to switch the IP address of my cable modem as I now have a block of 5 addresses and in order to use them, a change had to be made. I called support, negotiated the phone tree, and spoke to a woman with a heavy accent. I explained what I wanted done (my sales rep told me to call support to get the change made) and after explaining it a few times, I thought that she got it. She said she had to transfer me to a modem person and then when the modem person got on the line, he said “I understand you are having problems connecting to the Internet.” I told him that there was a communications issue and my connection was fine. So I got my cable modem reconfigured and things were fine.

I’m a bit tired of call centers that are either outsourced overseas or have people that aren’t native speakers. I have nothing against people speaking different languages; however, when I’m trying to explain a technical issue or get a problem solved, the language barrier makes it harder to get things done.

Ground loop isolator

Posted on by
Reply

I searched for the part to eliminate the hum from my stereo, but all I could find online was one for $10 + $7 shipping. So, I called my cable company to see if they’d come install one for me. They told me to Radio Shack and get a Ground Loop Isolator. I did, hooked it up, and the hum is mostly gone. It’s still there when the volume is cranked up real loud, but that could be something else. Very nice.

Poor timing of Macworld

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve come to the conclusion that having Macworld Expo in January is a poor decision. Here I am at the end of the year looking to see what else I can buy for my small business to get the tax deduction. I was thinking about getting a Mac Mini to run as another server and learn about Mac OS X server, but rumors say an Intel based Mac Mini is coming at MacWorld which is in a few weeks. I don’t know if I believe the rumors, but I don’t want to take the chance. So, I lose out on getting it as a deduction for this year. If the expo was say in October/November, companies could get in purchases before the end of the year and consumers could get their gifts for the holiday season. I understand that products may not be ready that early, but shifting the development to have them ready would make a lot more sense to me.

Audio hum

Posted on by
Reply

My wife and I have noticed a hum in our whole house audio system and today I finally decided to do a web search and see what came up for fixing it. I found an article which indicated that any component hooked up to cable TV could cause the problem. This sounded far fetched to me, but what do I know about audio and intereference? So, I disconnected all but the MP3 player and the hum went away. I plugged in each source until I got to the TiVo/TV. When I got to the TiVo/TV (it’s on a switch), the hum came back. So, I disconnected the cable and what do you know? The hum was almost eliminated! Now I’m off to the store to look for an isolator to fix the problem. I learn something new everyday.