Since the last post service got better until about 11:45am and then there was no getting past the first route outside my network. So the cable line from here to wherever that first router is was fine but beyond that nothing.

That continued until approximately 1:30pm and things have been relatively decent since then.

I see a bunch of Cable Control Systems trucks way down the street. Either they are stringing completely new fiber or replacing crap that was causing issues in this area.

There is also a Conelco (Fibercon) truck down at the network shack. Hopefully this means they are resolving issues but since things are working I hope they don't screw it back up.

Well, since about midnight the connection is looking rough again. Up to 25% packet loss over the last 3 hours and looks to be the same since about midnight.

Interesting that I just received an automated call from Rogers (a first) that they know my issue has not been resolved and that they are still working on it. The message also says that they will notify me when the problem is resolved. I've heard that more than 5 times before but have never been notified.

BTW, if one wants to subscribe just to these Rogers Cable Internet category posts then use this feed.

It is no surprise that the technician never showed up. Probably found something obvious out on the street somewhere, fixed it and then never bothered to let me know.

Down to 2% packet loss for the last 2 hours so things are definitely better but not good.

According to Microsoft, this is by design by morons:

When your Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1)-based Wireless Zero Configuration (WZC) client computer is in the proximity of two wireless access points, and one of the access points is broadcasting its Service Set Identifier (SSID) but the other is not, your computer always connects to the access point that is broadcasting its SSID. This occurs regardless of the preference order of the networks that are configured on the Preferred Networks list.

Additionally, when your computer is connected to an access point that is not broadcasting its SSID, and another access point that is broadcasting its SSID is enabled nearby, your computer automatically connects to the access point that is broadcasting its SSID.

I see no reason why this would be by design other than the fact that they don't want to admit that it is a bug. When I set my preferred wireless network order I expect Windows XP to adhere to that not select some other network just because its broadcasting its SSID.

They call this Wireless Zero Configuration. Go grab a clue.

This is what my Rogers Internet connection looked like over the past 3 hours.

A technician is supposed to show up before 5pm but all I expect from that is that he verifies that the noise on the line is brutal. It will turn out to be the same thing as the last 20 times this has happened. Some problem with their equipment generating noise on the line. Of course he'll have to send this off to yet another department which will take another 2-3 days to resolve it.

If anyone wants to compete with Rogers at all in this area you have my business. Any takers?? 

DHCP gave out an address finally at around 9:30pm. I suspect somebody kicked the DHCP server. We'll see how long this lasts. I'm certainly not holding my breath.

Well it seems the only time I get any sort of useful customer service is when I detail things on this blog. So I thought it would be a good idea to continue with my Rogers Cable Internet Updates here as they happen. Its a continuation of my thread here.

Since the last update service has been pretty good. Its had its usual ups and downs but nothing significant to really complain about.

However, about 2-3 weeks ago I noticed a significant degredation in service. I'd be down for 10-20 minutes a day. Sometime multiple times a day other times a longer outage spread over a couple days.

I also noticed an IP change for the first time in many many months which told me that they are probaby resegmenting or something.

Come this past Friday at about 2am I lost connectivity completely. Modem wouldn't connect at all except for a brief period yesterday when I thought perhaps things were resolved. Not so, it remained completely toast until today sometime when I noticed the modem was online. Of course now it won't obtain an IP address.

Even though I already have a tech booked for tomorrow I thought I'd call in and see if they can tell anything. At least the tech was smart enough to see that DHCP requests were going out but that nothing was responding. We both concluded that its likely the DHCP server needs looking at although he was also a bit hesitant because nobody else called in about this. But luckily he sent the request to the department responsible for the DHCP server.

So we'll see what happens. Ticket number is WSR01249639.

Look at this screen capture that was taken in Windows XP Home:

Notice anything extremely alarming?

It seems Simple File Sharing (read sharing for morons) is a really dumbed down version of sharing available in previous versions of Windows. It is the only method available in XP Home. XP Pro allows one to turn the Simple File Sharing off which allows finer security controls over sharing and access to files.

Even with the Guest account disabled anyone can connect to shares on XP Home. It seems not to matter what security one actually has set on the files either.

Be very weary about setting up any shares in XP Home.

Most of the popular security websites I found seem to think that anonymous file share access is disallowed if one disables the Guest account. This is simply not true. As you can see by the screen capture above, the user hacker (which doesn't exist as a user on this particular XP install) shows as a Guest user. Furthermore had full access to files.

Any better reason to upgrade to WinXP Pro??

I had to read this review when I saw the title. As expected the review (reposted below) by Justin Lloyd is not very favourable.   more »

Well, this patent (#6,732,157) certainly won't hold up. Too much prior art. We were doing this at SimpleFilter before they even filed their patent in 2002.

Network Associates is granted broad anti-spam patent Network Associates Inc. (NAI) has been granted a broad U.S. patent for technology covering "various computer program products, systems and methods" for filtering unwanted e-mail messages, it said Tuesday.

It is about as useful as patent #6,373,244 ("Apparatus for scraping a surface indicating elements located inwardly of the surface"). Or in laymans terms, transverse asswiping.