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From: Adam on 14 Sep 2007 20:52 Moe Trin wrote: >> My two main issues in creating a web page are, one, what can I do that >> would be genuinely informative or at least entertaining > > Why? Eighty-five percent of the personal web pages I encounter don't meet > either criteria ;-) I know! I want to make a web page that's worth looking at, and might even be recommended by others. I don't really know what to put on it, as I'm not an expert on anything. The one thing I have is about a thousand bookmarks, most pointing to sites that /I/ feel are worth looking at. There are too many web sites about any given topic, but maybe my page(s) could be links to sites that I think are genuinely informative or entertaining. >> how can I keep my URL from giving away my email address to spammers? > > Look for a second provider, or enquire of your ISP about blind accounts. That one was easy to solve. Verizon lets me create 6 or 8 sub-accounts, with their own username, password, and my decision on how much web space (I have 10 MB to split up any way I want, or more if I pay) and whether email and newsgroups are allowed. As a test, I created one that's mostly boilerplate but has a few original touches, at http://mysite.verizon.net/resx1qxk/krazyskomputerkitchen/ . I'm not totally fond of the URL, but it works, and as far as I can tell, that site doesn't disclose anything about me beyond the fact that I'm using Verizon. Anyone wanna check that? :-) >> However, the 512M DIMM that I've been using without a problem for three >> years now seems to get flaky when it heats up enough > > To me, that suggests that your cooling is inadequate for some reason. > What's it like in there? Does the RAM have adequate air flowing around? > This specifically applies to ribbon cables blocking the airflow, cards, > and what not. Thanks! I opened the case, and used most of a can of compressed air, and reseated the cables. It's been a while. I couldn't find my wire ties, so I used the floppy drive cable to keep the other cables away from the RAM. Since then it's been fine with 1G + 512M of RAM. I even ran memtest86+ v1.70 all night with no errors. I'm considering the problem solved, at least for now. Remember when we were discussing telephone cables (and other equipment) wired either straight through or crossover? Out of curiosity I checked everything I had, and ALL the flat cables connecting two RJ-11 plugs were wired crossover, as was my surge protector. Only the round cables were wired straight through -- the one that came with my DSL modem/router to connect it to the wall, and a custom-made cat5e cable. All the other devices that had an RJ-11 jack for output were also wired straight through. And one of my two phone jacks (not the one the computer's connected to) has reversed polarity. Is there maybe some reason that all those cables are wired crossover? Or is that just what happens when you take modular cable and crimp an RJ-11 plug onto each end? Adam
From: Robert M. Riches Jr. on 14 Sep 2007 22:54 On 2007-09-15, Adam <look(a)bottom.for.address> wrote: > > Remember when we were discussing telephone cables (and other equipment) > wired either straight through or crossover? Out of curiosity I checked > everything I had, and ALL the flat cables connecting two RJ-11 plugs > were wired crossover, as was my surge protector. Only the round cables > were wired straight through -- the one that came with my DSL > modem/router to connect it to the wall, and a custom-made cat5e cable. > All the other devices that had an RJ-11 jack for output were also wired > straight through. And one of my two phone jacks (not the one the > computer's connected to) has reversed polarity. Is there maybe some > reason that all those cables are wired crossover? Or is that just what > happens when you take modular cable and crimp an RJ-11 plug onto each end? If I understand correctly, RJ-11 cables for telephone use are _supposed_ to be wired as crossover. I don't know the reason for the apparent decision, though. One negative side effect of the crossover design, if I am doing the logic correctly, is if you take a single cable and plug both ends into the two jacks of a 2:1 adapter, that results in a short. on the open plug side. -- Robert Riches spamtrap42(a)verizon.net (Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
From: Moe Trin on 15 Sep 2007 19:35 On Sat, 15 Sep 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article <L1GGi.57$603.16(a)trndny02>, Adam wrote: >Moe Trin wrote: > >>> My two main issues in creating a web page are, one, what can I do that >>> would be genuinely informative or at least entertaining >> >> Why? Eighty-five percent of the personal web pages I encounter don't >> meet either criteria ;-) > >I know! I want to make a web page that's worth looking at, and might >even be recommended by others. What you want is some thing you have expertise in. For many, it's a few pictures of their pet doing something stupid, maybe a recipe for Breaded Stuffed Hamsters, or similar. Luckily, these only only occupy someone's diskspace, and rarely use bandwidth. About the only one to visit is the google spider, and even that gives up after the second or third pass. >I don't really know what to put on it, as I'm not an expert on anything. [When has that stopped anyone? ;-) ] I suspect you may have some things that would be useful - most everyone does. I've lost the URL now, but I stumbled across a site earlier this year that had a relatively complete vacuum tube cross-reference listing. >The one thing I have is about a thousand bookmarks, most pointing to >sites that /I/ feel are worth looking at. There are too many web >sites about any given topic, but maybe my page(s) could be links to >sites that I think are genuinely informative or entertaining. Those kinds of pages are also fairly common - how do you think google ranks the informative answers to search engine queries? >>> how can I keep my URL from giving away my email address to spammers? >> >> Look for a second provider, or enquire of your ISP about blind >> accounts. > >That one was easy to solve. Verizon lets me create 6 or 8 >sub-accounts, with their own username, password, and my decision on >how much web space (I have 10 MB to split up any way I want, or more >if I pay) and whether email and newsgroups are allowed. Easy solution. >As a test, I created one that's mostly boilerplate but has a few >original touches, at >http://mysite.verizon.net/resx1qxk/krazyskomputerkitchen/ . >I'm not totally fond of the URL, but it works, and as far as I can >tell, that site doesn't disclose anything about me beyond the fact >that I'm using Verizon. Anyone wanna check that? :-) 594 Sep 15 11:40 krazyskomputerkitchen.txt 10256 Sep 15 11:41 krazyskomputerkitchen.html Sheesh. Looking at it with lynx >> To me, that suggests that your cooling is inadequate for some >> reason. What's it like in there? Does the RAM have adequate air >> flowing around? This specifically applies to ribbon cables blocking >> the airflow, cards, and what not. > >Thanks! I opened the case, and used most of a can of compressed air, Dust bunnies? >and reseated the cables. It's been a while. I couldn't find my wire >ties, so I used the floppy drive cable to keep the other cables away >from the RAM. Lacking cable ties, I've used lengths of plastic baggies sliced into something like one inch wide bands, and used them to tie things out of the way. >Since then it's been fine with 1G + 512M of RAM. I even ran memtest86+ >v1.70 all night with no errors. I'm considering the problem solved, >at least for now. Most computer setups give little to no thought about cooling air. The original IBM PC desktops had vents on the front, and exhausted out through the power supply (which caused it to run warmer), and was OK as far as they went. But people have added disk drives, and lots of extra cards which tend to obstruct the flow of air. The CPUs were getting hotter and hotter - partially because of the exponential growth in CPU power dissipation (the 8088 worst case was 1.7 Watts - early Pentiums were ten times that), but also because of the additional "stuff" that gets installed. The original PC had a 65 Watt power supply. The latest box that arrived on my desk at work has dual 400 Watt supplies. Huh??? I think one of the most telling mechanical designs for a desktop computer was the Sun Ultra Sparc which is roughly the size of the original PC-AT. It has the RAM in a tunnel, sticking out horizontally from the vertical walls, much like fins on a heat sink. At one end of the tunnel, there is a 4.7 inch muffin fan set to blow cooling air through it. The box also has more 4.7 inch fans sucking air through the hard drive bays, another for the CPU, and one for "general" blowing about - then there is another in the power supply. When I first saw the Ultra, I wondered what kept it from blowing itself off the table (then I picked it up - all became clear at once). You can also hear the darn thing across the room. >Remember when we were discussing telephone cables (and other equipment) >wired either straight through or crossover? Out of curiosity I checked >everything I had, and ALL the flat cables connecting two RJ-11 plugs >were wired crossover, as was my surge protector. Only the round cables >were wired straight through -- the one that came with my DSL >modem/router to connect it to the wall, and a custom-made cat5e cable. Cat5 isn't often used for phone - Ethernet is an 8 pin connector, not 6. I just checked several cords that I have - including two that came with GenUWine AT&T phones, and they're all pin-to-pin. Like I said, modern phones allow for reversed wiring because no one seems to be following any standards any more. >All the other devices that had an RJ-11 jack for output were also >wired straight through. And one of my two phone jacks (not the one >the computer's connected to) has reversed polarity. Is there maybe >some reason that all those cables are wired crossover? There is little reason to wire them correctly any more, given the polarity insensitivity of the devices you plug in, and thus most cable manufacturers seem not to care. Heck, we're lucky they are wiring the pairs properly. (I have seen some really slipshod work on phone cables, and even found one where 'pair 1' and 'pair 2' were crossed - which provided some interesting troubleshooting.) >Or is that just what happens when you take modular cable and crimp >an RJ-11 plug onto each end? Only when the assembler has no reason to care. Obviously this isn't true for all cases. We had a sales-droid try to sell us premade Ethernet cables some time ago, and when I was inspecting his samples I realized that half of them had the pairs wired with the colors reversed (given a pair of color and color/stripe, the striped wire goes on the 'odd' pin number). Now this doesn't effect the operation of the cable, but that really gave a clue of this klown's quality assurance and worker training programs. Old guy
From: Adam on 16 Sep 2007 21:45 Moe Trin wrote: >> I want to make a web page that's worth looking at [...] >> I don't really know what to put on it, as I'm not an expert on anything. > > [When has that stopped anyone? ;-) ] I suspect you may have some > things that would be useful - most everyone does. I'll really have to think about that one. In some cases, what I know about a subject comes directly from someone else's web page, so there's no point in duplicating it. There are several things I know a medium amount about, but for each there seems to be sites by a person who knows a whole lot about that one thing. Does anybody out there have any suggestions for a genuinely useful web page I could create? >> maybe my page(s) could be links to >> sites that I think are genuinely informative or entertaining. > > Those kinds of pages are also fairly common - how do you think google > ranks the informative answers to search engine queries? I guess so; many of the better web pages have links to other sites that deal with the same or a related topic. > About the only one to visit is the google spider, and even > that gives up after the second or third pass. But Google wouldn't find any web page until someone else puts a link to it in their page, right? And what do you mean that it "gives up"? >> http://mysite.verizon.net/resx1qxk/krazyskomputerkitchen/ . >> I'm not totally fond of the URL, but it works, and as far as I can >> tell, that site doesn't disclose anything about me beyond the fact >> that I'm using Verizon. Anyone wanna check that? :-) > > 594 Sep 15 11:40 krazyskomputerkitchen.txt > 10256 Sep 15 11:41 krazyskomputerkitchen.html > > Sheesh. Looking at it with lynx Okay, so it's somewhat (or maybe completely) lacking in worthwhile content, but that wasn't the purpose. My first question was whether others can get to that page, and the answer apparently is yes. My second question was how much does it disclose about me, and I realized that the "random" string ("resx1qxk") is the "official" name of the sub-account that created that page, which gives away the email address of that subaccount, though not my main account or other subaccounts. (Of course, I refer to that subaccount by a short, snappy alias.) So if I created a web page that way, it would give away the email address of that page's subaccount, but not any of the ones I use for real work. I think that would be okay with me. >> I opened the case, and used most of a can of compressed air, > > Dust bunnies? Not quite that bad, but a bit of dust had settled in there. >> Since then it's been fine with 1G + 512M of RAM. I even ran memtest86+ >> v1.70 all night with no errors. I'm considering the problem solved, >> at least for now. > > Most computer setups give little to no thought about cooling air. My "white box" computer had one side of the case drilled for, and motherboard connectors for, an 80 mm fan, so I bought one (my one purchase on my one trip to a Fry's). After experiments and measurements I had it blowing out. > original IBM PC desktops had vents on the front, and exhausted out > through the power supply (which caused it to run warmer) My TRS-80's external hard drive (about the size of the system unit nowadays in a low-end desktop system) doubled as a space heater. > You can also hear the darn thing across the room. I made a small effort to reduce the noise of my current box. The case fan and hard drives are mounted with nylon bolts and nuts and rubber washers and grommets. The problem of the flaky RAM when hot resurfaced. I discovered that with the flaky 512MB DIMM in slot 2, the errors started at address: total RAM installed - RAM used for video - 44M so with 1G + 512M installed and 64M of that used for video, the errors started at 1428M. I decided to take the easy route and added "mem=1428M" to /boot/grub/menu.lst . I'm only "losing" 44M that way and it seems to run okay. >> ALL the flat cables connecting two RJ-11 plugs >> were wired crossover, as was my surge protector. Only the round cables >> were wired straight through -- the one that came with my DSL >> modem/router to connect it to the wall, and a custom-made cat5e cable. > > Cat5 isn't often used for phone - Ethernet is an 8 pin connector, not > 6. I know; that cable was custom-made for me by a LUG member on the theory that it might be an improvement over my dollar-store phone extension cord. >> Is there maybe some reason that all those cables are wired crossover? > > There is little reason to wire them correctly any more, given the > polarity insensitivity of the devices you plug in, and thus most > cable manufacturers seem not to care. See my message to Robert, where I show that the simplest way to connect two RJ-11 plugs results in a crossover cable. Adam
From: Moe Trin on 17 Sep 2007 16:03
On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandrake, in article <o%kHi.2924$Ap2.784(a)trndny05>, Adam wrote: >Moe Trin wrote: >> About the only one to visit is the google spider, and even >> that gives up after the second or third pass. > >But Google wouldn't find any web page until someone else puts a link to >it in their page, right? And what do you mean that it "gives up"? Depends - I've heard reports of "scans" (which tells you whoever made reported this were clueless windoze users) some time ago from 216.239.46.0/24 which was their googlebot block. What they were showing in their firewall logs was a TCP connection attempt to port 80. I've seen more than one report, and the "attacked" (gotta love the choice of words of the windoze firewall applications) IPs were in domestic cable ranges with longer term DHCP leases. >My second question was how much does it disclose about me, and I realized >that the "random" string ("resx1qxk") is the "official" name of the >sub-account that created that page, which gives away the email address >of that subaccount, though not my main account or other subaccounts. >(Of course, I refer to that subaccount by a short, snappy alias.) So if >I created a web page that way, it would give away the email address of >that page's subaccount, but not any of the ones I use for real work. I >think that would be okay with me. Does the account have a separate _non-forwarding_ mailbox? If so, just ignore any mail sent there (even if it's forwarded to your "real" account, you should be able to use procmail to forward the mail to Dave Null). >>> I opened the case, and used most of a can of compressed air, >> >> Dust bunnies? > >Not quite that bad, but a bit of dust had settled in there. Maid not keeping the rooms clean? ;-) Actually, the dust has to be noticeable before I'd expect a significant effect. If minor dust levels is doing it, I'd suspect some other problem is contributing. >> Most computer setups give little to no thought about cooling air. > >My "white box" computer had one side of the case drilled for, and >motherboard connectors for, an 80 mm fan, so I bought one (my one >purchase on my one trip to a Fry's). After experiments and >measurements I had it blowing out. Where does the air come in from? How does the air flow from where it's entering to the fans blowing out (the one you added as well as the one in the power supply)? (Did you notice I didn't make a comment about Fry's? Actually, that took considerable effort.) >My TRS-80's external hard drive (about the size of the system unit >nowadays in a low-end desktop system) doubled as a space heater. I had some "eight inch" (roughly 8 x 4 x 16 inch) Maxtor 5 Meg drives that ran like that, but they were cold compared to the external (with removable platter holding 1.2 Megs) rack mounted HP that weighed in at 110 pounds/50 KG, and drew 6 Amps of 120 VAC. >I made a small effort to reduce the noise of my current box. The case >fan and hard drives are mounted with nylon bolts and nuts and rubber >washers and grommets. I've got the extra fans on the home systems making more noise, even though they are inside a cage made from the furnace air filters. I did use rubber spacers to try to isolate the fan, but most of the noise was from the fan blades. >The problem of the flaky RAM when hot resurfaced. I discovered that >with the flaky 512MB DIMM in slot 2, the errors started at address: > > total RAM installed - RAM used for video - 44M 44 Megs isn't a binary number, so that's not likely to be an external lead problem (I was thinking of that as a possibility). >so with 1G + 512M installed and 64M of that used for video, the errors >started at 1428M. I decided to take the easy route and added >"mem=1428M" to /boot/grub/menu.lst . I'm only "losing" 44M that way >and it seems to run okay. Sounds like time to replace it. >> There is little reason to wire them correctly any more, given the >> polarity insensitivity of the devices you plug in, and thus most >> cable manufacturers seem not to care. > >See my message to Robert, where I show that the simplest way to >connect two RJ-11 plugs results in a crossover cable. That's not a cross-over cable. That's a manufacturering failure. Cross over cables should reverse the wires of the individual pair, not swap the pairs themselves. As for the simplest way to make the cable, why not turn over one of the connectors - you mention orientation by which way the metal blades fit, so try looking what results when one is "up" and the other is "down". You should get pin-to-pin. Look at the way a disk-drive ribbon cable is fabricated with IDC (Insulation Displacement Connector) connectors - where you lay the cable on the connector which has a bunch of blades spaced 0.050 inch apart. The two connectors on the end are identical (think also about the one that may be in the middle of the ribbon connector. The difference is that the cable comes in on the left on one connector, and on the right on the other. Old guy |