Tag: sucks

Categories
computer

Netgear FVS114 – Worst POS SOHO Router Ever

Some of the worst infrastructural issues OpenRain has had since inception has been border hardware. We’ve been through all typical COTS models you’d find at Best Buy, but all have had issues with at least one of..

  • Dropping inbound traffic due to some stupid “DDoS Protection” feature we couldn’t disable.
  • Not passing VPN traffic though to an internal server.
  • Crashing.

But this latest POS–the Netgear FVS114–really takes the cake. Check it..

  1. Log in to http://www.workingwithrails.com
  2. Visit http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/new
  3. Listen for the sound of everyone simultaneously screaming “WTF!? The ‘net’s down!”

We’ve reproduced this issue with FireFox and Safari from multiple machines inside the network. Way to go, Netgear! (Might want to get on this one.) I’ll be buying some real hardware online in about 15 minutes.

 

 

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Uncategorized

Leopard Server: Bonjour-Based DNS A Performance No-No

Prior to moving into the new OpenRain office (announcement coming in June), we used OS X’s magical .local addressing to find all our servers. This allowed us to keep almost everything on DHCP, which is trivial to set up and administer. Little did we know, however, that this was being the root cause of many internal issues.

  • General network I/O performance (file server access, OpenLDAP-based logins etc.) sucked. Simply using Server Admin or Workgroup Manager across the network would often take 5+ seconds to log in.
  • Portable Home Directory (PHD) syncing, VPN and firewall services never seemed to work right, possibly due to nonequivalences between “server.example.com” and “server.local” in SSL and SSH. I’m not completely sure, but stuff broke in more ways than one.

Case in point: do not use bonjour-based DNS for your core network services. Use a proper DNS server from the start. DNS is a cornerstone dependency of all the other services provided by your Leopard server, so any performance issues you introduce at this level will carry through to your entire infrastructure.

Categories
computer personal

Welcomed To The RRoD Club

I powered on the ol’ Xbox 360 this weekend to finish Mass Effect, a feat which I was especially pumped about since I’ve been told I’m extremely close. Much to my surprise, Microsoft had left a super special, albeit slightly belated Christmas surprise up in my tubes.Xbox 360 RRoDAwesome!! Thanks, Redmond!!

Categories
computer

What's Better Than Windows Balloon Help?…

Twice as much balloon help!

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My current testing environment for JumpBox development uses two Windows XP virtual machines on OS X under Parallels coherence mode: one with IE6 (gold taskbar on the bottom), the other IE7 (blue taskbar on the right). While they perform sufficiently with 4GB physical RAM, the constant nurturing required to keep these retards up to date and complaint free is ridiculous, given I only boot them once every couple weeks. Dyslexia also arises when each instance periodically “forgets” I’m using a Dvorak layout and reverts to QWERTY, even when sitting idle.

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It’s the little things that drive one nuts. Office 2004 for OS X, for example, sets the bar really low for usability, quality and elegance. Full-screen mode?

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..I guess not. And I won’t be inserting any cells into this table, either…

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Given a choice between A and A, I think I’ll choose A.

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Waaaaay too much of this stupidity plagues Office. Not that Microsoft has much motivation to fix it, but it’s still sad to see such crappy software in wide-spread use.

preston.rant_mode = false