The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

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[Links] Asus RT-N66U (N900) dual-band router

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/06/08

Just came accross an interesting ethernet router: The Asus RT-N66U (N900) dual-band WiFi router.

It has quite a bit of horsepower, is passively cooled, might handle dual-WAN from the stock firmware, and it it doesn’t: it is supposed to run custom firmwares like Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, etc.

Interesting…

–jeroen

Dual / Triple WAN How To – InfoDepot Wiki.

Posted in ASUS RT-N66U, Internet, Network-and-equipment, Power User, TomatoUSB | 2 Comments »

15 years of xs4all internet provider membership

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/01/15

Today it is the 15th anniversary of my xs4all membership.
Even though (see some history below) xs4all was not my first provider, it has been the provider of choice ever since:

  • Technically very knowledgeable
  • Very stable connection
  • Highly much aware of privacy

Back in December 1998, when xs4all was sold sold to the Dutch Telcom (KPN), lots of people were afraid that xs4all would start scoring less points one ore more of the above points.
They didn’t, and that is the main reason I’m still client with them.

This despite the  fact that I can get faster internet where I live.
My ADSL connection is quite a long distance from the telco DSLAM, so I can’t get a very high ADSL speed.
As some of the ADSL versus distance speed graphs show, your ADSL connection needs to be close to the telco’s DSLAM.
I’m not, so my maximum ADSL1 speed is slightly less than 8 megabit, and my current ADSL2+ speed is less than 16 megabit, so xs4all light is the best I can get.

BTW: If you live in The Netherlands, here you can calculate that distance (which is called “afstand tot de centrale” in Dutch).
I wish they ran the telco cables under the canal to the neighboring village: I’m about 500 meter away from their DSLAM, in stead of the 2700 meters I’m from my own DSLAM.
Oh well :-)

For high speed things, I now also have a cable connection.
Even though they are deregulating that part of the broadband market, currently cable internet is bound to your cable TV provider.
In my case, that is UPC, and their high speed internet is marketed as Fiber Power.
I started with a 60 over 6 megabit service, that they increased to 120 over 10 megabit about a year ago while reducing the price (because they were merging their packages and wanted to increase their competetiveness).

While writing this, I’m still searching for a good dual gigabit WAN router to combine the two connections in one.

Over time, xs4all increased the ADSL bandwidth from a meager 1 megabit over 256 kilobit to 8 megabit over 1 megabit.
They increased mailbox and storage sizes too.
And finally, they were among the first to support IPv6.

So all in all, I’m still very happy for staying with xs4all.

A bit of history

xs4all was not where the internet started for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in About, BBS, FidoNet, History, Internet, ISP, Personal, Power User, SpeedTest, xs4all, Ziggo/UPC/A2000 | 18 Comments »

UPC Speedtest – direct link

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/09/19

The direct UPC Speedtest link does not load all the fuzz the normal UCP speedtest page has.

Some tests I ran

At a client.

My Cable connection.

My ADSL connection.

Note the Cable connection is early in the morning. In the afternoon/evening it is much slower.
The ADSL connection is slower, but more reliable, has IPv6, and XS4ALL is way better at security and privacy than UPC.

–jeroen

Posted in Internet, ISP, Power User, SpeedTest, Ziggo/UPC/A2000 | Leave a Comment »

#KOMED internet experience: getting it to work is hard, but it is FAST

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/09/10

Highspeed internet at KOMED is quite a different experience from Swisscom hotel internet at the NH Köln hotel yesterday:

  1. Following the PayPal link at their [Wayback] datenwelt.de redirection site does not work: it times out.
  2. After twisting some peoples arms, I was allowed to get a “Konferenzpass”.
    That one works at once, and is blindingly fast compared to yesterday; see the screenshot below.

When trying to find my way towards the KOMED conference rooms, I had a weird experience: rooms 1..5 (called RAUM EINZ, ZWEI, DREI, VIER und FÜNF in German), you could see room 1, 2, 4 and 5 from the ground floor as they were marked with large friendly letters on the same wall as their doors, very well visible from the ground floor.

Not so with room 3 (where I had to be): that marking was on the wall 90 degrees off the door, not visible from the floor. Actually, it was only visible when you were actually standing next to the door. From the ground floor, the door looks like a fire door continuing the curved corridor in front of rooms 1 and 2.

Someone should put “RAUM DREI” above the door to Room 3 there.

Back to the internet at KOMED: the speed is a pleasant experience compared to what Swisscom provided yesterday.This was the attained speed:

–jeroen

Via: [Wayback] UPC Speedtest.

Posted in Internet, ISP, Power User, SpeedTest, Ziggo/UPC/A2000 | 1 Comment »

#swisscom hotel #internet #fail: breaks Google Mail, lousy internet rates, for EUR 18 per day!

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/09/09

See the images below.

This is what Swisscom hotel internet gets you when you pay them EUR 18 per day.

Swisscom internet has a transparent http proxy that is not so transparent: it breaks Google Mail.

Actually it is low-speed internet; for like EUR 40 a month, I get way more speed at home, with the plus that it always works and always is “high” speed.
Swisscom hotel internet could reach 6 megabit downstream (but it doesn’t), also the upstream is lousy:

What you actually obtain is more like 2 megabit, not 6 megabit.
That download at home takes like 20 minutes at 10 megabit ADSL speed.

This is what they promise (click on the image to enlarge):

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Internet, Power User | 2 Comments »

intoDNS: checks DNS and mail servers health

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/06/06

In the past, I used checkdns.net for testing of a domain was configured correctly (including DNS and MX settings).

However, checkdns.net seems to be down or dead.

Luckily, intoVPS (with VPS servers in Amsterdam (Netherlands), Atlanta (USA), Cluj-Napoca (Romania) and Fremont (USA)) started lauched intoDNS a few years ago, and it works at least as good as checkdns.net used to work.

–jeroen

via: intoDNS: checks DNS and mail servers health.

Posted in DNS, Internet, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Blacklist Check

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/03/04

To check if/why an IP is on a blacklist: Blacklist Check.

–jeroen

Posted in Internet, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Visit the Rijksmuseum or van Gogh Museum via het web with full 360 degree view

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/02/02

GoogleArtProject.com via AT5:

Dutch:

Kunstliefhebbers kunnen voortaan het Rijksmuseum of het Van Gogh Museum online bezoeken via googleartproject.com. http://at5.nl/s/eKG

English:

Art lovers can now visit the Rijksmuseum and van Gogh Museum online for a full 360 degree view on GoogleArtProject.com

–jeroen

via Twitter / @AT5: Kunstliefhebbers kunnen vo ….

Posted in Internet, Power User | Leave a Comment »

APNIC – Two /8s allocated to APNIC from IANA

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/02/01

The primary IANA allocation pool of IPv4 addresses has been exhausted as of februari 1st, 2011: then they allocated the final 2 blocks to APNIC:

the final allocation made by IANA under the current (ed.: IPv4) framework

The final 5 blocks will be allocated over the RIRs soon.

As of then, only regional allocations can be done.

So: Now is really the time to move on to IPv6.

–jeroen

via APNIC – Two /8s allocated to APNIC from IANA.

Posted in Internet, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Spoken @ CodeRage III, December 1-5, 2008 on Delphi, database and XML related topics

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/04/24

At the CodeRage III on-line virtual conference, I have done 4 sessions. CodeRage III logo
For me, it was the first time speaking at conference done this way.
A few things were different:

  • Sessions were 45 minutes presenting in stead of the normal 60 minutes
  • The main body of the session was pre-recorded, the 15 minute Q&A was live
  • I had to learn Camtasia
  • The broadcasts were done through LiveMeeting

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Audacity, Audio, Conferences, Development, Event, Internet, InternetArchive, Media, Power User, Software Development, WayBack machine, XML/XSD | 3 Comments »

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