Dave's Workshop - Workbench July 8th

Workbench

Week of July 8^th - 14^th 2001

Sunday

Well, I posted 3 days last week, half a day shy of my goal. It's frustrating, I was all ready to post Friday until I had to work late, five and a half-hours late that is. When I finally got home I just wanted to go to bed. I don't know why I didn't post yesterday, I just never got around to it.

I finally got a section done in the Hobbies area, Books. I've only got one entry up, you'll have got check it out to find what. Don't expect more then one or two updates a month, I'm not a fast reader.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

I spent last night surfing the web. Every few weeks I find myself sitting like a zombie in front of the computer, knowing I should get up, but always wanting to check out one more link. It's sad really. Oh, and I'm thinking about getting a cable modem.

It all started when I wanted to see some prices for the new computer I might one day buy. An AMD 1.1GHz for $106... 1.2 in the $130's, 1.3 the $160's. Not too bad. The motherboard's the problem. Do I go for DDR SDRAM or not? Price difference on the RAM isn't much (if any). Problem is you don't see much improvement either. Let's face it, for all the RAMBUS/DDR debate, memory bandwidth in a computer usually isn't the bottleneck, so raising it won't make the machine run much faster.

That's about as far as I got checking out computer prices. We currently use a modem dial-up to access the Internet. This can be painfully slow at times, especially compared to my access at work (T3 or better?). That's one reason I don't surf much at home. Anyway, while I was waiting for pages to load, I decided to check out cable/dsl routers. Kara and I have been talking about getting broadband access for a while. In fact we probably would have dsl if it were available where we live. I've always been weary of cable modems because of the shared line to your provider. The biggest problem seems to be how much your speed fluctuates depending on how many people are actively using it at any given time. At present though, it's our only option, and I've also heard it can be fast, very fast. So I think we'll give it a try. At the very least, it'll give me something to talk about.

Back to the cable/dsl routers. Usually when you get cable or dsl you get a "modem" which connects to your computer using Ethernet. A cable/dsl router takes the Ethernet connection from the modem and makes it available to a network of computers instead of just one. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some include a hub or switch to directly hook up multiple computers. Others just provide NAT (native address translation) which shares the IP address you get so multiple computers can access the Internet at once through a single IP. In the last year or so these devices have become quite popular. Unfortunately, while their price seems quite reasonable (from under $100 to the $200 range), they seem to give mixed results. I found a pretty good site that reviews them, Practically Networked. While there are obviously a great many people using and satisfied with these products, reading the feedback it seems apparent that a couple of drawbacks definately exist. An alarmingly high number of people seem to have experienced DOA of defective units. I remember one comment that said something like "that if the unit works out of the box you're probably fine, if not return it until you get one that does". These are low-end products, and the quality doesn't seem to be consistent. Another issue is performance. The general consensus seemed to be if all you were doing is having a couple computers surf the web though them they were fine. If you wanted to use them to really transfer data they had problems. Again, this is common of many low cost products, when you push their limits, they don't stand up to the test. None of this really came as much of a shock, but did leave me not sure of what to do.

I could probably pick one of these up and if I got lucky, never have a problem with it. It's quite possible I would never stress it out or push its performance. However, I don't think I'm going to do that. It just reminds me of all the people who bought Packard Bell computers. They were cheap, piece of junk machines that made your life miserable if you tried to do any real work with them. Millions of people bought them and were quite happy because they didn't know any better and never really did anything with them. I don't want to be one of those people.

So I'm going to build my own. I've been wanting to get into *nix in a big way and this seems like a perfect opportunity. I've got a couple of old 486s laying around. Both Linux and FreeBSD have single disk router distributions, Freesco and PicoBSD come to mind. I only wish I had a P75 or something with a PCI bus so I didn't have to mess with ISA NICs...

Thursday

A mac friend of mine showed me a funny joke/rumor on a mac site yesterday. It said Microsoft was going to release a version of Windows for the PowerPC (PPC) architecture. The PPC is of course what Apple uses in its computers. One might remember that originally Microsoft designed Windows NT to run on more then just the x86 (Intel) architecture. It also had versions of NT for MIPS, Alpha and PPC. None of them are in the cards anymore, Alpha support being the last to go. However, the post alluded this move was aimed at killing Apple. This is pretty funny. The idea people who went out of their way to by a mac over wintel (Windows-Intel), and paid more money to do it, would suddenly decide to spend even more money to buy a version of Windows is ludicrous. After all, if they wanted Windows, they could have just done that in the first place and saved a lot of money. It gets better though. It goes on to say how this new version of WinPPC, as it's refereed to, will be based on a UNIX kernel. This is funny. And it works on so many levels, whether intentional or not. For the mac lover, it makes fun of Microsoft constantly copying whatever Apple does (Apple's new OS X is UNIX based and runs on the PPC). If you know your Microsoft history you think of Xenix, Microsoft's attempt to port AT&T Unix to the PC twenty or so years ago. Interestingly, SCO UNIX is the descendent of Xenix and was recently bought by Caldera, a leading Linux distribution player. Finally you have the play between UNIX and VMS. Where did VMS get involved you say. Well Windows NT could be looked at as a descendent of DEC's venerable OS. I don't know if it would be considered a holy war, but there was definitely some competition between UNIX and VMS. The guy who Microsoft brought in to design Windows NT was a big VMS guy. I wouldn't be surprised to find out one of the main reasons Microsoft is so anti Linux is that UNIX vs. VMS mentality. How close is VMS to Windows NT? Like HAL from 2001, move the letters down one in the alphabet (H A L... I B M), V M S gets you... I'll let you figure it out.

In real news, Microsoft agreed to loosen its licensing agreements with OEM's over the "Out of Box Experience" of Windows. It will now allow the removal of the Internet Explorer Icon from the desktop and it's place in the Start menu. Additionally, you will be able to remove IE from your computer though the Add/Remove Software applet in the control panel, pretty much ending their claim the browser and OS were so tightly integrated they couldn't be separated. Competitors software will also be freely allowed access to the desktop should OEMs want. It's a little late for Netscape, but oh well. The key for Microsoft is to head off any legal action trying to block the introduction of Windows XP this fall. We'll have to wait and see how the Justice Department reacts to the action. Is this the beginning of a settlement? Sure sounds like one to me.

Friday

We finally decided to get a cable modem. Comcast, our local cable TV, provider is running a special. Free installation and $9.99 a month for the first three months. What's more we can cancel anytime, so if it turns out to be a dog we're only out a few bucks. They give you the option of buying or renting the cable modem. I think we'll opt for renting. I don't have the exact figures, but it looks like we can rent it for one and a half to two years before it saves money to buy. In that time frame a lot can happen. Even if we still have the same service I wouldn't be surprised if something is upgraded and an equipment change necessary.

In preparation, I've been looking up different things about cable modems. One thing you have to consider with an always on Internet connection is security. I downloaded ZoneAlarm, which seems to be one of the better personal firewall programs. It's free too, for non-commercial use, which is nice. I also found a good site, Navas Cable Modem/DSL Tuning Guide, for general broadband info. It's got a little bit of everything. To start I'll probably just hook it directly to my main system. Eventually I plan on getting PicoBSD running on an old 486 I have lying around some where. That should be interesting. I found a good FAQ for PicoBSD. Briefly, it's a version of FreeBSD that is loads from a single floppy disk. It can be configured for different uses, including a router, which is what I have in mind. With a bit of luck I should have a good bit to share with you. With no luck I'll have a lot...

Saturday

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Week of July 8th - 14th 2001

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Week of July 8^th - 14^th 2001