Those following me on Twitter have had the joy of seeing random messages about the ongoing issues I’ve had getting my ADSL2+ connected.

Since the last post on this (on the 13th of Feb) I basicly gave up on calling iiNet - I’d already spent a fortune in mobile costs listening to their hold music, and was just waiting for them to get back to my support-enquiry email. (I never did get a response to that)

However, last Friday (22nd) as I was going to bed at about 1:30am (Okay, so technically Saturday morning) I noticed that my DSL Router was saying it had sync. I normally check the router panel when I get home, so I must’ve missed it that night. I stayed up about an hour setting up a bunch of tests to see how fast/stable the connection was. I left these tests to continue running whilst I slept. When I left home on Saturday at about 9AM it was still running, and I was feeling somewhat optimistic that it might continue to work. Of course, Murphy was listening, and when I got home at around 5pm, I had lost line sync once again.

Sunday I called iiNet again, this time because their Toolbox said there should only be about a 7min wait. The tech guy tried a few things from their end, but once again no success - and said he’d put the request through to their Fault Manager who would try to get VisionStream to narrow down the timeframe.

Come Monday morning, I get a call from Christy at Vision Stream, “Is Wednesday suitable for you?”. Grr. Same situation as last time Christy called me! Looking at the iiNet Toolbox - what do you know, a 45min or so wait on hold, again. Instead of doing that, I try another tact - go straight to the top.

So, I write a pleading email to Michael Malone, the Managing Director of iiNet. He’s quite active on Whirlpool’s forums, and makes his email available there. I give a bunch of possible ways we could try and work together, such as asking for the first/last timeslot on the day, getting a call an hour or two beforehand, and even offering to pay for a Saturday callout if necessary.

Tuesday I get a call from Rebecca at iiNet regarding the email, she’s called VisionStrem and tried getting them to go with any of the options I presented - no luck. I think up one last option - asking the Tech to call me as he’s starting the job before mine. Rebecca thinks it might work, and goes back to VisionStream.

Today, (Wednesday) Rebecca calls back - VisionStream won’t go for it, despite having escalated it up the chain of management there. Apparently VisionStream started quoting sections of the Telecommunications Act to her, and stating that “we treat all customers equally”. However, the VisionStream manager has agreed to commit to a particular timeslot (9AM-12:30PM or 12PM to 6PM), AND to get the Tech to call an hour beforehand.

I ask Rebecca what the chances are of switching to a regular ADSL2 service (and having the line connected as a standard phone again) - apparently it can be done, but I’d be the first to have tried it. And the time it would take would probably be somewhere up around a month, assuming everything went according to play.

So, for now Rebecca is sending the case back to VisionStream, and getting them to commit to providing a 9AM-12:30PM timeslot for this job plus the hour-before call.

Here’s hoping that VisionStream can come through on this!

Side Rant:
VisionStream’s comment to Rebecca that they treat all customers equally, is rather stupid. Yes, they treat all customers equally poorly. VisionStream’s view is apparently that All customers’ time is worth nothing, and they obviously have nothing better to do.

Surely someone at VisionStream can see that doing this just gives them a really poor reputation.

We killed Twitter, again.

This time it was from an excess of Love - Of the less-than-three (”<3") variety.

My screen was filled with hundreds of messages like these two:

For the non-Twitter’ers out there, the Twitter folks added a way to send a special type of tweet. By entering “@username <3" - it would transform the ordinary tweet, into this special type of message.

It also results in that person getting a "Do you love (sender)?" prompt, with a button to quickly reply.

This novelty, combined with the easy reply, lead to a major increase in the number of Tweets for valentines day, and thus Twitter slowing down / refusing to respond for many people (including me).

Edit: Here's a better screenshot of what was/is going on (read from bottom up)

Someone asked me recently what my opinion of Dreamhost was. They knew I use Dreamhost for a variety of sites, and were looking to sign up.

The short answer is that Dreamhost are “variable”.

I’ve been a Dreamhost customer for about 3 years now, and I’ve seen some pretty wild thing happen.

They’ve had several major power outages which took down their entire datacentre. They’ve had significant network issues for a period of months. They had a major data security breach where someone managed to get several thousand usernames and passwords. And, to top it all off - they recently overcharged about half of their customers by several million US peso dollars. (It would have been up around 10 million, if it wern’t for a bug in their software).

Oh, and it’s probably worth mentioning that as I write this, all my sites are down, because the servers they’re on are being driven from one side of LA to the other.

Given all of the above, most ordinary, sane people would probably be shouting “run for the hills!” at the top of their lungs. And, in many cases people would be  quite justified to run as far as they could from Dreamhost.

Here’s the thing, however - apart from the power issues (and the scheduled cluster move mentioned) my sites have worked just fine for the most part. 

Yeah, there’s been times when a server has been down, or when some sort of glitch has slowed things down - but lets look at the big picture here for a second.

Dreamhost’s business is to sell reasonable quality webhosting, with large gobs of disk space and bandwidth, at a very cheap rate.  I pay something like USD$20/month (on the old plans) for my Dreamhost service. 

What do I get for that USD$20/month?  I get to host 30-something sites, occupying 20GB of disk space, and transferring about 150GB per month. No, that’s not the limit, that’s what I’m actually using. This month. Dreamhost have absolutely no issue with me using a lot more than that - even if I went to TWENTY times that, I’d still be well under the limits of my account.

I also get the security that someone else will take care of the servers, and keep them patched and secure. In the event that something goes wrong, I can lodge a ticket and have someone else fix it at 3am.

So, does that mean I’d recommend Dreamhost to everyone? Heck no - there’s heaps of situations where I wouldn’t recommend Dreamhost.

Any time you answer “yes” or even “maybe” to the question “Will this being unavailable impact my business?”, you need to be looking at a managed hosting solution with a proper contract/service level agreement.  Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200, and definitely don’t try reselling this to your customers.

Dreamhost are also not suitable for a variety of “big” applications/sites - despite the label saying you can get 5TB of bandwidth and 500GB of disk space, actually using all of it is possible only under very specific conditions. Most of the time, anyone running a site that is that popular is going to be using so much of the resources on their server that they’re going to be causing issues for other users on the same server.

It’s like the speedo on your car, if you’re actually hitting 240KPH or 30,000RPM, something is going very very wrong, or is about to.

So, with that out of the way - I am actually starting to look for some dedicated server options - not because I don’t like Dreamhost (I do) - but simply because I want to do other things that I simply can’t do with Dreamhost.

My options are limited, because I want to be able to manage the server myself, I need a reasonably large amount of disk space and bandwidth quota, and I need to run Windows.

What are your experiences with Dreamhost, and/or dedicated hosting?

I’ve been frustrated for a while trying to use various products and services. I thought I’d compress all of them into a single post.

Click through to read this collection of rantings…

(more…)

For over five years, I’ve held a bit of an open secret: I’m an alien from fluidic space.

Err, wait, let me start that again.

For over five years, I’ve been working for Telstra. I started off “on the phones”, working in a service call centre. Due to me being a smart-ass (and critical of some very inefficient systems) I was taken off the phones after about two weeks, to write some reporting tools.

From that first app in Excel 97 using VBA to generate charts, I converted to a full-time employee, and went on to bigger and better things. When I wrote that there’s a reasonably good chance of my code having touched your life in some subtle way, I wasn’t joking. The software I wrote helps people in Telstra do their jobs: Routing messages, generating reports, storing data, and keeping an eye on other applications.
I’m proud of the work I’ve done, despite it not being world changing or highly visible. Sure there’s some icky bits (VBA, Oracle, MS Access, Classic ASP), but overall I hope that it’s made people’s lives better, and/or their jobs easier, in some small way.

Today, I resigned from my position at Telstra. It’s not something I did lightly, but, after consideration I’ve decided I need to move on.

For those that are curious, I’m not going to be unemployed - Today I’ve also accepted a contract role to a digital media company in Sydney. I won’t say who, yet, until I’ve had a chance to speak with them some more, but suffice to say it looks like a great company to work for, doing interesting things and meeting interesting people.

Oh, and yes, this means that I’ll be moving from Newcastle / Toronto. I’m still at Telstra until the 26th of October and then I’ll be off to Sydney and new things.

I’d also like to throw a quick shout-out to Nick Hodge for putting in a good word for me, and listening to me rant a little about work; Jack Greenrich for plenty of coding advice and guidance; Ian Ward for getting me hired at Telstra and started down the software development path; and both Markus Hafner and Greg Dwyer of Happener Recruitment for helping me to get this new position.

Exciting times ahead, for sure…

Last weekend I installed Windows Mobile Device Centre, and it asked me if I’d like to download some additional updates/applications.  I said yes, and was asked to create an account and fill in a survey about where and when I got my Windows Mobile powered device. 

Obviously Microsoft’s improved their user tracking technology, and know I’m actually a time-lord in human form (Those Chameleon Arches are really something!).  

For those wondering why Microsoft chose to stop at 2015? Well, lets just say that after the great Mobile Device Wars between the Googlites and Microsoftians, many lives and OSs were lost.

PS: WTB, 1x [ TARDIS ]  Pref. with Chameleon Circuit active. You know where to contact me.

I’m currently working away on improving Smitter R3, and part of that is improving the way proxies are handled.

Currently, there’s four situations it supports quite fine:

- No Proxy
- Proxy, without Authentication
- Proxy, with BASIC Authentication (using specified username/password)
- Proxy, with NTLM Authentication using your current Windows Account (aka Windows Integrated Authentication).

The problem comes you’re in this fifth situation:
- Proxy, with NTLM Authentication using a specified username, password and domain.

Initially, I was using code like:

WebClient client = new WebClient(url);
client.Proxy = new WebProxy(proxyurl, true);
// if proxy-auth required:
client.Proxy.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(proxyusername, proxypassword, domain);
// ...etc


But, this fails with “407 Proxy Authentication Required”
The crazy part is that it actually is doing NTLM authentication, but it appears to be attached in the headers for twitter.com (!?).

So, I tried using WebRequest, and also HttpWebRequest and specifying proxy-keep-alive.
I also tried setting the .NET Default proxy to my specified proxy or just adding authentication credentials.
But, still nothing appears to be working.

Almost all the solutions online are using the DefaultCredentialCache - but that really doesn’t help (I tried), because I’m not logged in as the user that I want to authenticate as. Cretaing a new CredentialCache and adding the details to that - still no help.

All in all, very frustrated!

If you want to have a crack at solving it - download the SmitterR2 source and check out Smitter.Core.TwitterService.GetStatuses (in SmitterClasses\SmitterCore.cs).

There’s currently a line like:
using (WebClient client = BuildWebClient())
Ignore/remove it and create your own WebClient/WebRequest/etc to test on. That’s the first (network) function called when Smitter starts up, and is pretty quick to return a result one way or another.

Just make sure you’re using a proxy which requires NTLM / Kerberos Auth, and isn’t on the same domain as your current account. Any other situation seems to work A-OK.

If you can solve this, I’d be much in your debt.

Smitter, Release 2  is out now.

Changes

• Better error handling (please report any bugs)
• Proxy Support
  (NB: ClickOnce deployment may not work with Proxies requiring authentication!)
• More efficient posting (no refresh necessary)

Requirements

• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

Installation

• ClickOnce (See “ClickOnce Notes” below), or
• Download it and install yourself. 
  Note: Download the zip file, and extract it to a new directory. Then run “Smitter.exe”.

ClickOnce Notes (updated!)

• By Default, only works with Internet Explorer 6 and above, with the .NET Framework 2.0 installed
• Does not work correctly if you have Internet Explorer configured to use a proxy requiring Authentication (eg: Corporate Firewalls)
• Firefox users can run ClickOnce applications by installing the FFClickOnce addon, and then going to the normal installation page.

Upgrades

• ClickOnce automatically updates next time you run it.
• Manual Install: Download the zip file and replace the existing files.

Source Code:

• Smitter R2 Source.

Application and Source Code Licence

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License

Please give your feedback in the comments, or add me on Twitter.

Features Confirmed for R3 (updated)

• Minimise to Notification Icon (”System Tray”)
• Balloon Notifications (optional)
  If Smitter is minimised or not visible, and your @Username is mentioned in a new tweet. 
   
  Note:  To deploy the above two features, I need an icon for Smitter.  On the screen-shot above, I am using an icon borrowed from Iconfactory’s Twitterific client icon in the   Litho Extras Volume 5 collection.   Due to licensing rules, I can’t distribute this icon, so it’ll remain for internal testing at the moment
• Minor bug fixing (removal of the “Loading” messages if it errors, and fixing of the hammer-prevention so that it allows you to refresh)
• More?

Smitter R2 is out, go to the announcement.

What is Smitter?
It’s a Small Twitter client, for Windows.  It’s also an excuse/reason for me to start writing software in C#, since I’m used to writing in VB.NET. (Boo, hiss, etc).

What’s with the “Battleship Grey”?
I’m not a designer, and fiddling with Windows Presentation Framework / etc wasn’t in my list of things I needed to learn right at the moment. 

What’s cool about it?
Nothing particularly, it’s pretty much all functional. But it’s the only windows twitter client I know of that shows you the source of messages.

How do I install it?
If you’re using Internet Explorer, just click here, and then click Install.
This is the recommended method as it will enable automatic updating when I release a new version. 

Alternatively, You can download the zip file. Just extract all the files to a new directory, and run Smitter.exe

I’m behind a proxy - it doesn’t work for me.
I’m adding proxy support shortly, but I wanted to get this out there as a first release.

This broke my system, who do I sue?
This application is provided on an ‘as-is’ basis, and at your own risk. Do not use this on “production” or important PCs if you’re particularly nervous.

Can I look at the Source Code?
Yep, that’s available too.  Download the source code here.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

Can you add feature x?
Maybe - Add a comment here, or send an email. Alternatively, if you’re good with C# - you can have a crack at it yourself.

You do realise you did {giant, list, of, things} wrong, and the structure is crap?
The structure is crap because I went with the Twitteroo .NET API at first, but that doesn’t support certain functionality (like for example seeing if a message is private, what the source was, and being able to specify a proxy server). 

There are probably a whole number of violations of best coding practices here too. Again, this was primarily created so that I can learn the C# syntax and slightly different event modeling, etc. When I start off with a proper project spec, and don’t shift around on your a whole bunch, things work out a lot nicer.

Credits, Mentions, etc

FAMFAMFAM  - For the Silk Icons used within the GUI. (Creative Commons License)

Karsten Januszewski for this great pointer on how to generate classes from well-formed XML using XSD.   (nb: On Step 2, you need to use the ‘/classes’ switch.)

Paul Jenkins, for making me feel guilty for not actually knowing C# when he asks for advice/pointers about .NET stuff.

Last night, Nick Hodge had a rant about slow broadband, a lack of competition and government interference in the whole mess.

The broadband debate is something that I find simultaneously very interesting, and very frustrating.   It’s interesting, because I love the technology involved, and the idea of having a faster internet connection instantly has me thinking of ways to utilise it.  It’s also incredibly frustrating because I know that without major changes to the pricing and regulatory structures - the current debate is merely an expensive waste of everyone’s time.

To understand why I think it’s a big waste of time, you have to understand what is involved in providing you and me with an internet connection over a technology such as ADSL.

Just for the physical network components, you’re paying for:

• A copper phone line (probably pre-existing network, since you needed to have a valid phone service), back to:
• An ADSL DSLAM (at the the exchange typically), which is connected to:
• A private fibre optic data network, which is connected to:
• Your capital city’s data centre for the DSLAM Operator, which is connected to:
• Your ISP’s Point of Presence (routers) in that data centre, which are connected to:
• Fibre optic connections to Your ISP’s data centre(s), or wherever they host their core network, which is connected to:
• Your ISP’s core routers, which are connected to
• Fibre connections to your ISP’s network peers and/or ‘upstream provider’ (aka: Your ISP’s ISP)
• The servers required to do the Accounting, Authentication, and Authorization

Note, the points in italic are not applicable if the DSLAM Operator is also the same as your ISP.

Then, of course there’s the non-network components - which comes down to basically two things: Staff to run all the above, and transit data costs.

What is transit data? Wikipedia describes it best on this article on Internet Peering:

[I]n order for [data from your ISP] to reach any specific other network on the Internet, it must either:

• Sell transit (or Internet access) service to that network (making them a ‘customer’),
• Peer directly with that network, or with a network who sells transit service to that network, or
• Pay another network for transit service, where that other network must in turn also sell, peer, or pay for access.

It’s this last one, that costs the majority of ISPs significant amounts of money. It’s also one of reasons why your ISP will generally limit you to transferring a certain amount of data per month. 

This is because most Australian ISPs are either Tier 3 or Tier 2.  Again, Wikipedia gives a great simple definition of what the different tier levels are.

• Tier 1 - A network that peers with every other network [at this level] to reach the Internet. [This network will also charge Tier 2/3 customers for access to their network.]
• Tier 2 - A network that peers with some networks, but still purchases IP transit to reach at least some portion of the Internet.
• Tier 3 - A network that solely purchases transit from other networks to reach the Internet.

Both Telstra and Optus (amongst others) are considered Tier 1 within Australia, even though on a world-scale they still pay for connectivity to other ISPs. The reasoning behind Telstra and Optus being classified as so is simple: They peer with each other, but sell transit to many other ISPs in Australia.

This massive imbalance in the local market is why I think that the whole debate about who’s proposal is the best, is a giant waste of time.  At least, I think it will be for those who choose not to use Optus or Telstra. 

It is also not a new occurrence. Almost exactly 10 years ago, Bill St. Arnaud wrote a paper about this subject.  Bill’s paper is demonstrates that in all these years, we apparently haven’t figured out how to solve the issue of imbalance in cost sharing. 

In Short: You simply won’t be able to afford to use any really high speed connection as intended for any length of time, because data costs are atrociously high.  I can’t really see the point of having a 100Mbit connection to your house, if you still have to pay the equivalent of $0.15/MB for the data you download.

What do you think? Is there some solution that I haven’t heard of for fixing these problems? Should be just concentrate on getting faster connections, and worry about the data costs later? Should I be banned from writing and publishing long blog posts at 2:30am?