Qbans - Slashdot User

Submission + - Major problems withSprintlink backbone in chicago

Submitted by on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: It seems that sprint's backbone in Chicago has been causing havoc for ISPs all over the region today, with packet loss currently at 50%-80% and average ping times at 1700ms. We noticed a problem with this backbone last week, for a short time with pings taking over 2000ms. We awoke this morning to an internet connection that was able to open Google and CNN but little else. A quick trace route and call to our ISP confirmed our thoughts that sprint's Chicago backone was having major issues. The problems seemed to be correcting themselves this afternoon, as packet loss what down and ping times were closer to noral. However again this evening packet loss has sky rocketed and service over the backbone is again degraded. Below is an portion of the output from mtr for anyone in doubt of where the issue lies.

3. sl-gw18-chi-6-1-0.sprintlink.net 0.0% 11.2 11.5 10.6 13.7 1.0
4. sl-bb22-chi-1-0.sprintlink.net 66.7% 1761. 1692. 1624. 1761. 96.9
5. sl-st21-chi-13-0.sprintlink.net 66.7% 2705. 2592. 2478. 2705. 160.5
6. ggr3-p330.cgcil.ip.att.net 83.3% 2752. 2752. 2752. 2752. 0.0

Adventuresome or "Hands On" Careers in Tech? 72

Posted by Cliff on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:59PM from the escape-from-the-cube-farm dept.

omission9 asks: "For about 10 years I have worked mostly behind a desk in a cubicle and am starting to feel that this environment is making me miserable. The cheap fluorescent lights, the stuffy air, and the restless feeling I get from just sitting so long are starting to really annoy me. My background is mainly as a programmer but I started my career as a network engineer/network administrator. I am also a member of the US Naval Reserve and am cleared as high as Top Secret. Are there any jobs out there that match this sort of skill set (more or less programmer but generally excellent tech skills) that don't require being stuck behind a desk? Paying relatively well would be a major plus as would something that provides a solid career (20+ years of work). Is there anyone out there, from anywhere other than a cube farm, that may have some advice?"

Submission + - How FairPlay Works: Apple's iTunes DRM Dilemma

Submitted by on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:44PM

An anonymous reader writes: Understanding how Apple's FairPlay DRM works helps to answer a lot of questions: why it hasn't been replaced with an open, interoperable DRM that anyone can use, why Apple isn't broadly licensing FairPlay, and why the company hasn't jumped to add DRM-free content from indie artists to iTunes.

Submission + - Microsoft to Buy Health Info Search Engine

Submitted by

petralynn

on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:53PM

petralynn writes: "Microsoft's drive into the health care market is just getting under way, but the company signaled on Monday that one important ingredient in its plan will be a specialized search engine tailored to deliver useful medical information to consumers. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/technology/27sof t.html"

Submission + - The ghost of the Newton haunts Apple's iPhone

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:28PM

PetManimal writes: "David Haskin has looked back at why the Newton failed to succeed in the early PDA market, and warns that Apple may be setting itself up for a similar failure with the iPhone. The iPhone appears to have a revolutionary interface, and the product has generated tons of interest from the Mac community — just like the Newton did, back in the 1990s. But the iPhone also shares with the Newton a hefty starting price — $500 for the iPhone, vs. $700 (in 1993 dollars) for the Newton. And Joe Public may not be so keen on the cost, as recent survey data suggests (see Slashdot discussion). Moreover, Haskin notes that the iPhone will have to deal with two additional factors that were not issues for the Newton: Competition, and wireless service providers: 'Besides overcharging for iPhone, Apple faces significant competition, something it didn't face in 1993 when it launched Newton. And you can bet that competition from the likes of Samsung and LG will both be good (although probably not as good as iPhone) and most assuredly cheaper. It's also becoming clear that Apple may be suffering from excessive hubris. That is evident by its strong demands on its partner in the U.S., Cingular/AT&T. The demands, including a slice of the cellular revenues and control of the sales channel, were so strong that Verizon Wireless turned the deal down. I'm more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular. If Apple doesn't respond quickly by lowering the price and making nice to AT&T, which surely will be ticked off, iPhone may well become Apple's next Newton. Remember that two years after Newton was introduced, a smaller, cheaper PDA appeared — the Palm Pilot — which truly did rock the world.'"

Submission + - Visual Studio: Industry Leading IDE, but in what?

Submitted by

Yoooder

on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:17PM

Yoooder writes: "I've used Visual Studio 2005 for some time, but the longer I use it the more frustrated I get with it. Amid all it's wonderful features there's something smelly, something that oozes from the cracks and lets me know that underneath me there is something disturbing and wrong. Random crashes, out of control memory usage, a finicky designer, and a lack of updates all plague this IDE — and the grand-daddy of them all is a Service Pack that runs umpteen times, requiring user interaction the whole way through and lacking proof of any real fixes.

Does anyone else have the feeling that Microsoft's flagship programming tool is a victim of Too Much Too Fast? What are your horror stories within the unpredictable vessel of vs2005?"

Submission + - New Job Board Has Really Cool & Unique Technol

Submitted by

Carl Williams

on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:14PM

Carl Williams writes: "I recently discovered a new IT job board called Odinjobs. It is for IT professionals, but what is different about it is the technology. They claim to have an in-house developed technology that "reads" your resumes for context much more accurately than keywords. This technology allows job seekers to save valuable time by prioritizing relevant job opportunities. There is also a RSS feed available that will only bring the most relevant jobs to job seekers."

Submission + - A justification for better IT

Submitted by

Thede

on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:12PM

Thede writes: "Computerworld has an article about productivity research by Marshall Van Allstyne, Sinan Aral, and Erik Brynjolfssonto that ought to be a boon IT. From the article: "In the past decade, studies have shown that IT leads to increased corporate productivity, but until recently, no one had measured how it affects work at the individual desktop level." (Until now)

They actually measured the flow of email from individuals then analyzed each person's activity relative to the network. "Among the surprises, IT didn't necessarily make projects faster but it did dramatically increase productivity by facilitating multitasking. They also found that IT-supported social networks predicted productivity better than experience. Now you can tell your boss the project's late but your productivity is up, and beers with the buddies really matter!"

The data (including 125,000 email messages) was collected over 5 years in several professional services firms.

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command =viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=14&articleId=281734&i ntsrc=hm_topic

The original papers are online:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=887406
http://ssrn.com/abstract=942310"

Submission + - Welcome to garage door opener hell

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Monday February 26, 2007 @05:39PM

coondoggie writes: "The Washington Post has an interesting story of military abuse today: abuse of garage door openers. Seems a large number of folks living near the Quantico Marine base in eastern Virginia have found their garage door openers being rendered useless by a wireless signal coming from the base. And they aren't the first, the story says. Garage door openers have been zapped in other towns near military operations for a couple years now experts say. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1184 7"

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