A while back, we purchased an all-in-one remote to simplify the use of our TV/VCR/DVD/PVR/Sound system. I thought it was great. Yesterday, I was greeted by this paper on our stove with instructions for our babysitter.

So it turns out instead of reducing the complexity of our system, I now have a vessel of concentrated complexity in the form of a remote. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to simplify such a system for the non-geek?

It’s about time. I mentioned previously about Comcast messing with your internet traffic.
The news stories are available here and here.

Well, not really. But let me explain. I hoard data…a lot of data. I have a hard time deleting anything if there’s the slightest chance that I might want it later (downloads, docs, scripts, etc…)
I’ve done a pretty good job keeping a copy of things on my home server. In fact, I usually have a few copies of things on that server and quite often, duplicate files. Anyway, a while ago, I came across a tool called fslint.
fslint is a Linux utility that will search through your drive and help you clean up files. In my case, I wanted to remove all duplicate files in one of my directories on this server. It has a ton of options, the ones I use most are: 1) delete duplicate files and 2) hard-link duplicate files. I’m not going to go into details on the differences between the two, but they both free up space used by duplicate files.
The last time I ran it on one of the directories I wanted to clean out, the disk use of that directory decreased from 2.3GB to 578MB. That’s less than 1/4th the amount of space I was using before!
If you have a Linux system that’s starting to run out of space, lint may be a tool that can help you!

This is interesting timing for this article to come out about Comcast blocking traffic.

Comcast is messing with TCP handshakes

Just yesterday, one of my clients contacting me saying that everyone in their office couldn’t get email. I manage the server which hosts their email. I quickly checked my email to see if it worked for me (it did.)
Eventually in the troubleshooting process, I had them hit the website which resides on the same server. No dice. I have quick access to 2 other systems which use Comcast, so I logged in and tried connecting. One worked, one didn’t. I also got reports of some sites not working from other people on Comcast connections yesterday.

In analyzing the problem, I found that connections weren’t being established from these “problem” locations. The filtering was happening with the handshake. A 3 step handshake goes like this:

1. Computer1: “Hello, Computer2 are you there?”
2. Computer2: “I’m here. Computer1 are you there?”
3. Computer1: “I’m here.”

Then things start to run over the connection. Here is a more technical description of TCP connections. Yesterday I watched the network traffic coming and going from my server and found that Comcast was filtering step 2 so that the first reply never got back. What a bunch of jerks.

I’m guessing that the cause of this is that their peer-to-peer filtering monster that went out of control and started blocking legitimate traffic (I don’t run any P2P software on any of my networks.)

I signed up for an Internet connection, not a Comcast-filtered Internet connection. I wish I had other options where I live. I’m rooting for Utopia and will research my ISP options thoroughly if we ever move to a different house.

My wife has been complaining that our phones don’t show all of the caller ID information since switching from Vonage to Packet8. It only shows the phone number, no names.
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