DNS is a mystery. However, in Windows IT Pro this month there is an introductory article that explains DNS, and DNS troubleshooting. Deconstructing DNS by Douglas Toombs,(subscription required) contains an accessible discussion of the theory of DNS, how DNS applies to Active Directory, and Windows-based tools for troubleshooting DNS.
Some of the tools are already present on any Windows workstation; IPCONFIG, and NSLOOKUP.
I don’t know what it is about January, but everything seems to come together in a perfect financial storm. A ton of services and things expire and need to be renewed. It is just amazing even though I’m not sold on “software as a service” (at least as a consumer…) we’ve constructed a list on ongoing subscriptions to print and online services that need to be re-examined on at least a yearly basis. Here is some of the list, both personal and corporate:
Visual Mind upgrade $89.00 Creating mind-maps
Microsoft’s Action Pack: Every microsoft server and desktop application available for developers and consultants to use to run their business as they familiarize themselves with the Microsoft offerings. $299/year. Microsoft also has a developer program that provides for a low-cost Univeral subscription (all the developer tools and servers) for a year, for any developer who intends to offer a shrink-wrap product written using Microsoft tools within an 18 month time frame.
LogMeIn subscriptions. I mentioned this remote-access program last month and ended up buying two “Reach” licenses, each for a year, and one “desktop support” license for a month. I’ll probably buy more as I need them, just like they planned.
QuickBooks update for payroll. I’m sticking with QB 2004 Basic.
I had a note the other day from the crucial memory folks. They have an on-line memory evaluation tool which will check the current chips installed in your machine, and recommend upgrades. I was interested to see that both my desktop and laptop had about half of what I would have guessed, 1 megabyte and 512Kb respectively, and it would cost about $140.00 to bring my desktop machine up to 2 gigs, and $185 to bring my laptop up to 1 gig.
A Platform for Understanding Research into the Technology’s Effectiveness and Value
This is a white paper provided by Polycom, and written by Alan Greenberg of Wainhouse Research. I suppose under most circumstances you might look at this as biased, but since it points to a series of studies and literature searches, which presumably have stood up to peer review, the paper is worth a look. Not surprisingly, they think V.C.B.D.E is terrific. 🙂
For delivering instruction, video conferencing
likely is neither more nor less effective than
its counterpart, the “traditional” classroom.
- Interactivity is king — video conferencing supports far greater interaction than is otherwise possible from many asynchronous technologies,
and effective video conferencing-based instruction must be designed to take advantage of this capability.- A number of other, related instructional strategies have been identified to maximize the success of a video conferencing-based learning situation.
- When used appropriately, video conferencing is a cost-effective way for educational institutions to deliver successful educational experiences to an expanded student population.
This is one of a host of white papers provided by Polycom which cover all kinds of topics related to videoconferencing. The resource list is located here.
Yet another workstation setup checklist.
The above is a PDF. The original Visio version is located here.
eRider Starter Kit. by Teresa Crawford & the Tactical Technology Collective Lots of information about developing a technology plan, and managing IT projects.
Asterisk: The Future of Telephony Jared Smith et. al.
Also available as an open source .pdf book as a free download. I don’t know if this is what the Asterisk Documentation Project was supposed to become, but this is an outstanding book providing both a general overview of Asterisk and VoIP generally, and specifics related to hardware issues and the “dial plan”…argueably the most confusing and least documented aspect of Asterisk. Highly Recommended. Don’t just download it, buy the book.
The Boston Globe has an article about how the old telephone companies are lobbying Congress and the FCC to allow a multi-tier internet that would prioritize packet delivery, for a price.
The prospect of a tiered Internet with ”regular” and ”premium” broadband services is spawning fierce debate as Congress takes up a major overhaul of telecom regulations. The House of Representatives last month held hearings on a preliminary draft by two GOP congressmen, Joe Barton of Texas and Fred Upton of Michigan, that would give the telecom companies the freedom to establish premium broadband services. The telecom bill is due for action early next year.
A change along these lines would be different from the way the Internet has operated. ”The Internet model has been that carriers cannot interfere with the choices that consumers make,” said Alan Davidson, Google’s Washington policy counsel.
This is the old slice and dice game that they have tried to play since the bottom fell out of the long-distance market. The competitive local carrriers are basically dead, after exhausting themselves waiting around for the FCC to enforce interconnection rules with the old Bell system. The telcos and incumbent cable companies have been successful in banning municipal broadband or fiber schemes in several states. In other words, “if we don’t do it…nobody else can either”.
Now comes an announcement from Adelphia Cable today in the mail, that residential broadband (which goes for about $58/month) is now going to cost $78.00/month (for a 12 month contract) for “businesses” that are home-based. Hmm. No value-added. Half the present upload speed (384K instead of 768). No fixed IP address, still asymetrical speeds, and a 40% price increase. A fixed IP is another $20.00 per month. They include a “web site”…and 7 eMail addresses. “Business Class” indeed.
If Verizon residential DSL is available for $30.00/month that basically allows for the same or better speeds, will Adelphia be able to compete in the same market, with a product that has the same or lower speeds, for more than two-and-a-half times the price? And Verizon does offer a “business DSL” which includes a fixed IP address, for about $80.00/month. We have a client running a 12-seat computer classroom, and another 10 administration workers off of one of these Verizon connections.
Rates to connect to conventional telephones in the U.S. have been dropped to 1 cent per minute by SipPhone, the Gizmo folks. The 1 cent rate is for their CallOut service.
I’ve been using the service for several weeks with good results. At home I use it for most domestic personal and business long distance calls. I also tried it on Sunday to Germany, with good results, although with some delay/echo. Still at 2.9 cents/minute the cost can’t be beat.
I have it the software loaded on my laptop, which is kept up and running next to my desktop workstation. I put on the headset, and with a few mouse clicks, call my victim.
Ironically, I have never had a Gizmo to Gizmo (pure internet) call, only calls to to people’s telephones.
The service also works well when providing desktop support for users via logmein.
Over at Jane Galt’s blog, is a detailed account of attempting to purchase a new computer from Dell.
As one who has specified or purchased over a million dollars of Dell gear over the years, this is not a happy development.
I think it is interesting, that these problems are not just on the back end of the sale, now, (after purchase) but it is actually right at the point of sale. I described a similar experience last March.
I will never understand organizations that make it difficult for me to give them my money. Whether it is non-profits who make it hard to donate, or commercial firms who make you jump through a dozen hoops before you are allowed to give them your credit card information, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
In a VarBusiness article about Dell this week, there are similar complaints:
[P]erhaps most pressing for Dell are concerns that its vaunted customer service and support has declined in quality. While (CFO Jim) Schneider said Dell is “working on some issues,” he brushed off analysts and surveys that suggest customer satisfaction has dropped significantly this year.
The biggest mistake for any company to make is to give loyal customers a reason to look elsewhere.
Users are having problems with eMail. A typical problem is that a single user from a single domain is having trouble sending to another single user in another domain. Others within the domain can merrily send eMail to each other, as well as the affected users. Go figure.
You can learn a lot about how smtp mail works by using telnet to manually create the messages. A simple example is illustrated here. A more complex example, when your smtp server requires that you log in to send mail, so that it doesn’t perform an unauthorized ‘relay’ of mail, is located here. In this latter case you need to submit your login name and password encoded in Base64. So, a handy-dandy Base64 encoder decoder is located here.
Two other resources:
tfnp 