Category: Modern problems

Posted on

Well that seems to have cured the problem…

workinglaptop

Unfortunately, It means that now I have to get back to work, looking for work.

My network is once again happy and stable. Backups are being made in minutes instead of hours and surprise surprise surprise, my access to the internet is once again solid.

It’s amazing what a few bad components (all of whom report they’re happy and functional) can do to screw your world up.

It’s going to take me a few more days to stop being twitchy about my network, but I’m sure that in no time I’ll take it for granted like I’ve done for the past 5 or 6 years.

We’ve got bandwidth, we’ve got gigabit, we’ve got connection!

I’m happy!

computer idiot

Oh and I discovered another little bit of interesting information.

Those of you that are not Time Capsule or Mac users might want to stop reading here.

I think I’ve found an answer to a problem that I’ve been seeing over the past month or so. The internet has been almost completely useless in resolving the issue in part because of one guy who apparently posted the exact same question on every message board ON THE PLANET! Hey dumbass, that kind fucks up any useful search results for the rest of us.

Anyway…

I think I’ve found the solution for one of the discoveryd problems. This may work for you, it may not. Apple’s discoveryd service has been, and is being documented as having serious issues. Some of these issues appear to be associated with Apple’s “handoff” and automatic hotspot functions.

IPv6addresslayout

I haven’t figured out that stuff yet. But I have managed to put a stop to my logs being overrun with one particular error.

Here’s the deal,

I’ve been seeing this error all over my logs.

5/15/15 10:31:05.057 PM discoveryd[75]: Basic Sockets Couldn’t set IP_BOUND_IF on socket fd[63] scopeID[4] errno[22] result[-1]

This error happened so frequently and hit my computer so hard that it would suck the battery down in just a few hours, my computer would heat up because it was running the CPU at near 100% and all the while it’s silent except for the traces in the log.

internetrainbow

I thought this was an artifact of the dying routers and drives, but that assumption was wrong.

Last night after I’d become mostly convinced that the network was stable, I noticed my computer was running warm again. I wasn’t doing anything to account for the system being run hard enough to be that warm. I had safari open in the background but I was actually doing some word processing.

I checked the logs and found that this error was literally zipping past. The console application was posting this message 50 times a second.

So I went to google. There I found the dumbass person’s question all over the place but few possible explanations and no answers.

Then I decided to look at IP_BOUND_IF to find out if it was an Apple only function or if it was a general UNIX function. Turns out, it was discussed on a general UNIX board.

From there I started investigating. I noticed by navigating to some web sites I could increase the frequency of the messages and by going to other web sites I could stop the message all together.

switches

This suggested that the problem wasn’t actually in my computer or even in my network, but that the problem was externally induced.

There were some websites that wouldn’t render any page, but those same sites would make this IP_BOUND_IF error post faster.

Then I stumbled across some sites talking about IPv6 having been enabled on some ISPs. This reminded me that I’d seen an IPV6 DNS entry when I was setting up the new router and that entry had been automatically populated.

I was curious if my new ISP had in fact turned on IPv6, so I went to the router control interface. Sure enough, there was an IPv6 DNS entry. Oh Cool! I thought, then I noticed there was no IPv6 address being provided to the router via the WAN.

DHCP is providing my IPv4 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address and an appropriate DNS address to the router. But the only IPv6 information is a WAN supplied DNS address.

I wondered if my web requests were trying to go out to the IPv6 DNS address for lookup and results were supposed to come back to an IPv6 Client address that wasn’t assigned. That might explain why IP_BOUND_IF was failing. I know next to nothing about IPv6 standards. I’ve tried reading about it but have found that the specification makes a much better sleeping aid than educational one.

logos

I figured, “Awww what the hell,” I told the router, do local link IPv6 only. That means that my machines that support it inside my network will get IPv6, but that it will not be routed to the internet at large.

The IP_BOUND_IF errors went away, my internet surfing got faster and all pages now rendered properly. I don’t know if I guessed right, but my logs aren’t sucking up 100% of my CPU resources anymore.

Obviously, my ISP is working on IPv6 and they’ll probably implement it sometime in the future. When they do turn is on I’ll tell my router to use it. For the time being though, I’ll keep the IPv6 internal and rely on the good old IPv4 standard to surf the web.

For what it’s worth, I hope this helps. I make no warranty or guarantee.

Posted on

Sometimes being cheap is more expensive.

AppleTimeCapsule

After fiddling around with backups, networks, dropping WiFi connections, and a myriad of other tiny annoying issues I came to the conclusion that I’d have quite enough of death by a thousand cuts!

I just yanked out two 7 year old Apple time capsules and the NetGear router that was freaking awesome when I bought it, but which became a complete POS with subsequent firmware upgrades.

With each “Upgrade” the machine got slower. Now its to the point that the device is now almost completely useless. (Before you ask, I’ve downgraded the unit to previous versions of the firmware. It doesn’t help. At some point, there must have been a hardware module that was reprogrammed, but is not being flashed to its original state. Or theres something really wrong with the device itself.)

The Time Capsules were very reliable over their lifespans. The larger of the two units WiFi had become unreliable and that’s what prompted me to purchase the NetGear. I was trying to save money by replacing the WiFi and continuing to use the hard drives in the Time Capsules.

Recently the drives were becoming increasingly unreliable and the NetGear device had become way too SLOW to do any kind of WiFi to disk transfer. In fact the NetGear unit was slowing data transfers down on wired connections too. 

IMG 0472

Although the NetGear bought me a year, I should have done what I did yesterday instead of going cheap…

Yesterday, I bought a new 3TB Apple Time Capsule. If this one lasts 7 years like the previous units it’s replacing, I’ll have gotten my money out of it.

Best Buy is running a $50 off special on the unit so there is that.

This also simplified the network cabinet considerably, I was able to remove 2 devices completely.

This little cabinet is where all the communications in the house is accessible. Phone line, cables for TVs in whatever rooms and of course al the networking. I do wish that when the installation people for the Satellite TV and the Satellite internet had been a bit more frugal with the lengths of the cable they were running. It’s a pain in the butt fighting with 8 or 10 RG58 & RG56 cables that run along the back of the top shelf. 

In a fit of annoyance yesterday, I mounted a spitter and some kind of power unit from DirecTV to the top and rear wall of the cabinet. I shouldn’t have had to do that, the installation guy should have done it. I didn’t notice until after the installation guy split, that he’d not mounted these things, having them rattling around in the top of the cabinet was a royal pain in the ass anytime I needed to do something up there.

IMG 0474

I still need to purchase a set of CAT6 patch cables of the correct length to connect the switch to all the wall sockets and peripherals. But the cabinet is once again clean and in general orderly.

I can provide Gigabit speed ethernet throughout the house. Once I pick up the patch cables all but one of the ports on the switch will be connected (Yes, I have 13 sockets in the house. Hey I wanted to be prepared for whatever! You never know when you might have to supplement NORAD…)  

Currently, not all the devices in the house can take advantage of gigabit due to their age, but the potential is there as equipment is updated.

Success! I’ve moved the salvageable data from the older drives onto the new Time Capsule. I haven’t flushed those units quite yet. I’ll wait until the new TC is past its infant mortality period. Then its low level format time and reset to factory defaults for everything I’ve yanked out of the network. (Quite a pile now.) Then it is away to E-Recycling for all of it, I hate trashing this stuff, I wish to heck it was repairable. 

Its not a sentimental attachment, its hating the thought of adding to the e-waste problem. I’d really appreciate Apple or whoever making products that could be retrofitted with the latest technology.  

Macbook Air

Take my MacBook Air for example. It’s a fantastic machine. Because I purchased the full boat machine with all the upgrades available at the time, it still beats many of the new Apple Machines including the new Macbook, and all of the Macbook Airs.

There are two areas that are starting to become dated. 1) WiFi and 2) The display is not a retina display.

As of this writing new Macbook Airs aren’t available with a retina display anyway.

It would be very cool to hand Apple my Air, plunk some cash on the table and have them upgrade the WiFi, the display and hell, why not throw a 1TB SSD in the machine while they’re at it.

Because… I am sentimentally attached to my Macbook.

I suppose it would cut into their sales a bit but they’d be SUPER Green if they offered that option.

I can swap out the current 512 SSD drive for a 1TB SSD through Other World Computing. It only costs about $500 or so. I’m not that slammed for disk space yet but when I get there, I’ll go for it. Hopefully It’ll extend the life of my Air for another 4 years.

Oh Cool! Thus far, I’m seeing major speed improvements on data being moved to the network drives and my backups are now taking only 6 minutes instead of a projected 8 hours.

I’m such a dumbass, I saved $150 bucks last year only to subject myself annoyances and troublshooting that cost far more in terms of my time, lost data, and general frustration, than the savings.

OH well… Live and freaking learn!

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Um… hey Banks, you need to work with default browsers

banklogos

Just got off the phone with one of the banks I do business with. Turns out the bank whose online banking used to work just fine with my Mac OS X supplied Safari, or the default Windows 7 browser Internet Explorer now is broken on both.

Say What?

The very nice gentleman suggested that I use FireFox or Chrome. Uhhh NO! 

I was nice about it, I told him that neither of these were viable options because of all the wonderful “Malware” these browsers ship with.

I have no need to have my system infested with tracking software, crappy antivirus solutions, new tool bars, switching my default search engine to AskJeeves, or any of the other shenanigans that these 3rd party solutions are often loaded with.

Oh I can say No to loading this crap, I can even remove it if one of these “solutions” sneaks past me. 

But I shouldn’t have to.

If your product is good and clearly a better solution than the default, then prove it to me and by that I mean make the product FOR SALE. If during a free trial I decide that your product is in fact better than the default, then I’ll pay for it and continue to enjoy an ad free existence.

Bundling your product with crap that installs all over my computer is not likely to endear you to me.

When I explained my reasoning, the 2nd level support guy was laughing. He understood exactly what I meant and was good with it. He reminded me that the IOS version of the bank’s software might provide me with the functionality I needed.

I hadn’t thought of that, so I thanked him and ended the call.

The thing that blows my mind, is that the bank rolled out customer facing software that didn’t work with the default web browsers supplied with the two leading computer operating systems.

Who’s brilliant decision was that? What kind of testing did they do, and what the HELL kind of Software QA department are these people running?

I guess it touches home for me since A) I’m pretty much a career Software QA guy, and B) I’m looking for a job in my field.

Clearly the bank needs my freaking services!

I can tell you that the version of software these guys rolled out would NEVER have seen the light of day on my watch.

You always start your testing with the DEFAULT browsers unless you specifically check the OS and browser versions and then politely inform the client, “We don’t work with your browser / OS combination.”

At least then you’re not annoying the hell out of your customers who are using the same computer, browser, OS, etc they used last week.  Only now, not only can’t they log on, your web site is actively telling them incorrectly that their password and user id is incorrect. “Was I hacked??” 

Folks, it’s time to clean house.

h-1b visa

Fire all the offshore QA companies and hire Americans.  You know, the folks you made homeless by importing H-1B visa holders, then forced to train the H-1B’s under threat of layoff,  which you did anyway. 

Oh and by the way corporate America most of us will work pretty darn cheap these days.

Posted on

God is Great… But apparently his “Warriors” leave much to be desired!

geertwilders

So did ya hear this one?

Two guys get all dressed up in body armor, with so called “Assault Rifles” (Probably some variant of an AR-15) go to Texas…

TEXAS!?!?!

…Hop out of their car at a cartoon conference and start shooting up the place. 

They’re taken out within 15 seconds by a traffic cop armed with a Glock .45.

One officer is slightly injured, treated and released.

PamelaGeller

It reads like a bad three stooges script. Kinda what happens when Curly and Schemp have contract issues.

TEXAS! ????

With the possible exceptions of a Neo-Nazi rave, or a KKK Rally, I couldn’t imagine a worse place to do what these two geniuses attempted.

Well the moron count for the weekend is -2 and the virgin ass count for the demonic goats of hell is +2.

ThreeStooges

Oh, didn’t you hear? Satan is far too busy to personally fuck every ISIS martyr, so the goats that these guys fucked in life, are now getting sweet revenge in Hell.

“Whos your Daaaaadddyy now? BITCH!”

The media is tying themselves up in knots trying to blame Pamela Geller for this “outrage.” I guess they’re pissed off that Geller planned for the possibility of violence and that the police did their job. Perhaps the police did their job too well, the media would probably be happier if there were a bunch of innocent folks dead inside the venue. 

deadjihadis

Two dead Jihadis on hard Texas pavement normally wouldn’t even cause my news radar to twitch, what caught my attention is the media attempting to blame the would-be victims.

You know, the innocent folks inside the building? The folks enjoying their first amendment right to free speech? If I have to listen to CAIR mouth off on the news about how abused they are, then they sure as hell can AVOID a place where a bunch of folks are looking at cartoons, or Art, or listening to an anti-islamic point of view.

Based on the islamic behavior we’ve seen in France, England, Germany, Italy, and other areas of Europe, I find myself asking if Pamela Geller and Geert Wilders are absolutely right in pointing out the elephant in the room.

Lookfamiliar

That’s going some distance for me. Not because i believe Geller and Wilders are wrong, but because Wilders creeps me the hell out.

Has anyone else noticed that he looks like one of the kids from Village of the Damned, only he’s all grown up? I keep expecting his eyes to start glowing.

As long as he’s on our side I guess it’s ok… Its still creepy.

Anyway, I’m sure the great state of Texas has told Pamela Geller’s organization “Y’all come back now, ya hear?”

Posted on

As it turns out I’m not alone in my disdain for headhunters

I’ve been trying to find gainful employment in my field on a contract or more permanent basis.

The results of my efforts have been uniformly bad. 

In utter frustration, due to a recent interaction with a headhunter, I posed this query to Google,

Has anyone ever gotten a job through CyberCoders?

Apparently the answer is a resounding “NO!”

There are a number of listings on Complaintsboard.com and Ripoffreport.com. All of these listings recount experiences exactly like mine.

Apply for a position through DICE, Monster, or Careerbuilder, where you match the posted requirements, then you’re forwarded to a CyberCoders website, or you’re contacted directly about the position by a CyberCoders Lead Recruiter, who says they need your resume in Word format.

Cybercoder1

In my case even though I’d sent a current copy of the resume with the application I just filled out, I got an email asking for resume and salary info again.

I figured, “Sure, the guy didn’t get the doc yet, Its processing through the company databases,” and I sent him the data again.

That was last Wednesday.  Which coincidently was also the last time that I heard from this asshole.

cybercoders2

Follow-up email was ignored. As of today May 1, I still haven’t heard anything for this so-called “lead recruiter”.

According to Complaintsboard & ripoffreport, this is the way these folks operate and have been operating like this for years. To what end, commenters on the sites only speculate.

What amazes and astounds me is that with all the government employment regulations we have, these cockroaches and others like them are still in business.

Here’s a link to the RipoffReport article

Did you notice that in the CyberCoders logo they say they’re a subsidiary of On Assignment? Going to their website isn’t very helpful either since the site is all about selling themselves to investors. But one thing that was interesting is that briefly there is a reference to another domain called Taleo.

200px Taleo Symbol

Turns out, that Taleo is owned now by Oracle. It is a Human Resource Management System, provided to clients via the net. Not terribly interesting until you think about it this way.

Putting your resume into ANY CyberCoder application means that your information is available to ALL CyberCoder recruiters everywhere. So why do the CyberCoder reps to keep asking for copies of your resume in Word format again and again?  Moreover why isn’t the resume popping up on recruiter desktops the moment that they enter a new job posting requiring a person with the right qualifications?

The answer may be that CyberCoders is EXACTLY what the ripoffreport article suggests.

They’re a “resume farming” company and they collect then sell resumes in bulk to recruiting firms or individuals.

immigrationstamp

To Recruiters, for the purposes of spamming companies that recruiting firms are attempting to do business with. To individuals from other countries that are trying to create credible job histories. I would guess that many of this latter group are H1B1 visa holders or seekers.

The most annoying thing is there is no way to validate an ad. Which means that anyone seeking a position is left jumping through hoops that are simply a complete waste of time.

The question then becomes in a shitty economy…

HOW THE HELL DO YOU FIND A NEW JOB?