boyko.at.netqos - Slashdot User

Submission + - The right amount of 'challenge' in IT & Gaming (networkperformancedaily.com)

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Monday August 10, 2009 @05:49PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "In an essay entitled "An Epiphany I Had While Playing Pac-Man," NetworkPerformanceDaily.com talks about how smart people have a need to find a certain amount of challenge from day to day. If they don't find it in their workplace, they'll end up playing complex, smart games, like Civilization IV or Chess — and if they do find it in their workplace, they're more likely to sit down with a nice game of Pac-Man, Katamari Damacy, or Peggle. FTA:
"When I look back on my life, and I compare the times in my life when I was playing simple games compared to the times in my life when I was playing complex ones... a pattern emerges. The more complexity and mental stimulation I was getting from other activities — usually my day job at the time — the less I needed mental stimulation in my free time. Conversely, in times in my life when I was working boring jobs, I'd be playing games that required a lot of thinking and mental gymnastics."

The author then goes on to speculate that some IT workers might unconsciously be giving themselves more challenges by choosing to deal with difficult problems than perform simple (but boring) preventative maintenance and proactive network management.

NetworkPerformanceDaily.com published a similar column in 2007 on the relationship of gaming and IT, with an examination of why "IT geeks" are drawn to games like D&D."

Submission + - Network Neutrality without regulation? (cato.org)

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Thursday November 20, 2008 @01:10PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Timothy B. Lee (no relation to Tim Berners-Lee), a frequent contributor to Ars Technica and Techdirt, has recently written "The Durable Internet," a paper published by the libertarian-leaning CATO institute. In it, Lee argues that because a neutral network works better than a non-neutral one, the Internet's open-ended architecture is not likely to vanish, despite the fears of net neutrality proponents, (and despite the wishes of net neutrality opponents.) For that reason, perhaps network neutrality legislation isn't necessary — or even desirable — from an open-networks perspective.

In addition to the paper, Network Performance Daily has an interview and podcast with Tim Lee, and Lee addresses counter-arguments with a blog posting for Technology Liberation Front."

Submission + - In-Depth Followup on Texas PI law for PC techs (networkperformancedaily.com)

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Wednesday July 09, 2008 @05:05PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Network Performance Daily has put out an in-depth series on the Texas law that requires private investigator licenses for computer repair techs, network analysts, and other IT professionals. It includes an interview with the author of the law, Texas Rep. Joe Driver, the captain of the Texas Private Security Bureau, RenEarl Bowie, and Matt Miller at the Institute for Justice, which is suing the state over the law. Finally, there's a series "summary and editorial.""

Submission + - Can VoIP provide the solution to rural broadband? (networkperformancedaily.com)

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Thursday May 22, 2008 @06:03PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "With a recent reports that up to 30% of households do not have a landline telephone, prefering a VoIP or cell-phone based solution, what to do with the miles of last-mile phone line infrastructure already in place in almost all the homes across the country? Maybe there's a solution to rural broadband by using the high-reliability frequencies reserved for voice purely for data — and using VoIP to make phone calls. From the article:

Repurposing the broadband of 0-25kHz would result in... speeds of around 14.4kBytes/s (or 115.9kbits/s) upload and 28.8kBytes/s (231.3kbits/s) download. That's not much of a speed boost. Still, if you've been plodding along on a "56.6k" modem, at speeds of 7.2kBytes/s, this would be like an oasis in the desert. And what about those phone calls? Well, if you make the same phone calls with VoIP that you were with the standard 0-4kHz landline, it would only take about 20.8kbits/s using the G.723.1 codec — that still leaves you with 80% of your broadband capacity when on the phone — and 100% of your broadband when you're off it.
"

Submission + - HardOCP spends 30 days with MacOSX (hardocp.com)

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @09:42AM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Hardocp.com has published "30 days with MacOSX" — with the same author from "30 days with Linux" and "30 days with Vista" doing the evaluation. Ultimately he likes the stability and security but other concerns keep him from recommending it.

From the article: "The hardware lock-in and lack of quality freeware makes owning and maintaining a Macintosh an expensive endeavor....Apple has historically been criticized for its use of proprietary, non-upgradeable components in its systems, but in the early-to-mid-2000s, Macs started to once again "play well with others" and made computers whose lives could be extended through consumer or third-party upgrades. A move to the Intel architecture may have caused some to anticipate that Apple would move further in this direction, but it seems to have moved further away from it....In my earlier evaluation of Ubuntu Linux, I wrote: "Linux has some glaring flaws, but it also has some amazing capabilities that can't be found anywhere else — at least without spending a lot of money. It would be accurate here to say: "Mac OS X has some amazing capabilities, but you spend a lot of money." Indeed, it seems the preferred method for solving Mac computer problems is to buy your way out of it. Slow computer? Buy a new one. Want to convert a file? Buy a utility. Want to do simple tasks? Buy a commercial program. Peripherals don't work? Buy replacements.""

Submission + - Vista vs. XP Game Stability and Performance

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Monday May 07, 2007 @10:45AM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "HardOCP does a side-by side comparison with a battery of games to check stability and framerates in Windows XP and Windows Vista. In addition to the lowered framerates in Vista, they had stability issues in Need for Speed: Carbon and Prey. From the article:

As you can see, some games fared better than others with the new OS. For some titles, especially Company of Heroes and Need for Speed, we saw dramatic framerate discrepancies. What's more, both of these titles have recently released patches! Other titles showed a slight, but essentially negligible difference, such as BF2142, World of Warcraft, and Prey. Really, there was only one instance where Vista was able to pick up a few more frames than XP — World of Warcraft at greater than 90fps, where the human eye can't even see the difference. To see this overall trend against Vista is very interesting and makes us wonder as to the cause."

Submission + - HardOCP spends 30 days with Vista

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @11:50AM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Hardocp.com has published "30 days with Vista" — with the same author from "30 days with Linux" doing the evaluation. And he doesn't like it.

From the article: Based on my personal experiences with Vista over a 30 day period, I found it to be a dangerously unstable operating system, which has caused me to lose data.... Any consideration of the fine details comes in second to that one inescapable conclusion. This is an unstable operating system."

Submission + - Dungons & Dragons & IT - Why we crave boun

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Wednesday March 21, 2007 @04:14PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "An editorial in Network Performance Daily tries to take a (1d6) stab at explaining why geeky engineering types are also typically the types that enjoy a rousing game of D&D. "The greatest barrier to creativity is a lack of boundaries. Counter-intuitive — almost zen-like — but we've found it to be true. And this is why people play Dungeons & Dragons (and similar games), and why network engineers often spend time putting out fires when they could be improving the network... Have you ever noticed that, in your job as a network engineer, you spend quite a lot of it putting out fires, as opposed to starting new initiatives? Those network emergencies are obstacles. You have defined parameters and you must overcome the obstacle. Engineers trained to find the best solutions to problems usually feel most in their element when solving a problem!"

Submission + - 10 years of pushing for Linux - and giving up.

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Wednesday January 31, 2007 @07:06PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Jim Sampson at Network Performance Daily writes about his attempts to get Linux working in a business/enterprise environment, but each time, he says, something critical just didn't work, and eventually, he just gave up.

"For the next ten years, I would go off and on back to this thought: I wanted to support the Open Source community, and to use Linux, but every time, the reality was that Linux just was not ready... Over the last six years, I've tried periodically to get Linux working in the enterprise, thinking, logically, that things must have improved. But every time, something — sometimes something very basic — prevented me from doing what I needed to do in Linux."

The article caps with his attempts to use Ubuntu Edgy Eft — only to find a bug that still prevented him from doing work."

Submission + - Prof. Christpher Yoo: A case for Non-Neutrality

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Friday January 05, 2007 @04:24PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Network Performance Daily has an in-depth interview with Professor Christopher Yoo from Vanderbilt University Law School on his opposition to Net-Neutrality policies; while most Slashdotters will disagree with his opinions, he lays out the case for non-neutrality in an informed way, and you know what they say about understanding your enemy's arguments. From the interview: "Akamai is able to provide service with lower latency and higher quality service, because they distribute the content. This provides greater protection against DoS attacks. It's a local storage solution instead of creating additional bandwidth, and it's a really interesting solution. Here's the rub... Akamai is a commercial service and is only available to people who are willing to pay for it. If CNN.com pays for it, and MSNBC.com does not, CNN.com will get better service.""

Submission + - Vista's TCP/IP Promises and Perils

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Tuesday December 12, 2006 @07:17PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "More information on Vista's TCP/IP stack from Network Performance Daily, this time from Robert Maercklein and Zach Belcher: "...security policy will come from a centralized source. When you get your DHCP lease, your computer will report to the stack what OS you're using, what version level, what patches, what anti-virus software that's active — all that kind of stuff. It will have the ability to restrict your network access if you have a down-level machine... We could see a lot of our customers with much higher WAN network utilization because of this new TCP/IP stack... CTCP can be enabled/disabled from the command prompt but there has been no mention of tuning parameters which leads us to ask the question: How are you supposed to configure this setting in Vista?... What worries us... is that Microsoft is basing this on packet round trip time. The round-trip time from the client-side will have the server processing time in it; but the clients aren't likely going to be the running the CTCP at first. If you have a server-to-server backup running, for example, CTCP may think its part of the round-trip time and it'll throw the delay window through the roof...""

Submission + - Vista's "Next Gen" TCP/IP Stack and the En

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Thursday December 07, 2006 @07:45PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Microsoft's new Vista TCP/IP stack might be beneficial to businesses looking to increase use of their IT infrastructure... if they did it right. Ted Romer at Network Performance Daily writes: "Changes to the network are a certainty, as traffic patterns change. More aggressive utilization of the links means there will certainly be changes in the way traffic flows on the network; hopefully Microsoft has fully factored in delay, otherwise this could cause traffic congestion.""

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