January 2013 - Roundtable

Entropy on Android
by Adam Thompson 05 Jan '13

05 Jan '13

An oddly-coincidental topic related to the recent /dev/random discussion, as applied to Android. -Adam http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1987032&nocache=1

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Re: [RndTbl] My Shaw Broadband 50 turned into Dial-up; morph into VoIP discussion
by Hartmut W Sager 05 Jan '13

05 Jan '13

Interesting! I am primarily a Shaw Internet user, with MTS Internet as backup, and I don't experience any large variations at Shaw around the clock (and I'm on at all hours of day and night, unpredictably). My Shaw plan is 25 Mbps down / 2.5 Mbps up, and I usually clock about 24 Mbps down / 2.4 Mbps up. Moments ago I tested it, and got 17 Mbps down / 2.4 Mbps up. So, aside from any problem you may have had in your local computer and networking, Shaw does have high capacity for handling peak loads in at least some (many/most?) areas of Winnipeg - I'm around Watt & Munroe, but had similar stats around Henderson & McLeod in early 2011 before I moved. (For the record, my ping/latency to the Rainy Day server is typically 0-11 ms.) My Vonage VoIP is flawless here, just as good as Shaw phone, but interestingly, my Vonage VoIP is virtually perfect even on my MTS Internet, which is typically 5-6 Mbps down / 0.34 Mbps up / ping 57 ms. Both my Shaw and my MTS have very little jitter or packet losses (important parameters for VoIP in addition to up/down/latency). Hmmm, maybe we should morph this into a VoIP discussion. How many of you fellow MUUG members are using serious VoIP, and what are your results? I have extensive Vonage and Skype experience, Vonage being dead-serious VoIP and Skype less so, but itself superb in its Skype-to-Skype primary form (SkypeIn and SkypeOut are much weaker). OK, have I started the ball rolling? Hartmut Sager (a pretty quiet member, typically just reading our RoundTable) On 2 January 2013 20:46, Bradford C. Vokey <brad(a)fsi.ca> wrote: > Speeds went back to 45 Mbps at 2:30am. Worked great all morning until > prime time hit again, now this evening it's back to 2 Mbps. I got Shaw to > credit my bill and they gave me a free VOD pretty easily. I think they know > there is a 'problem' on my node. > > Don't you LOVE all us Netflix users? > > On 1/2/2013 8:12 PM, Trevor Cordes wrote: > >> On 2013-01-02 Bradford Vokey wrote: >> >>> Shaw techs are not available to come to my house until Sunday January >>> 6th!My download speeds are around 1.5 Mbps. >>> >> Try a different cable. Blow out the ends for dust. >> >> Power cycle the modem. >> >> Power cycle the computer. >> >> Do you have a different NIC to try for eth0? I'll probably have to >> help you change it without Fedora screwing up the other 2 NIC's >> numbering. >> >> I'd try all that before getting the Shaw guy out. >> >> And since when is 1.5Mbps dial-up? :-) How quickly you forget the >> 33.6kbps modem days... >> >> > ______________________________**_________________ > Roundtable mailing list > Roundtable(a)muug.mb.ca > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/**listinfo/roundtable<http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable> >

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Cisco 3550 rack-mount ears?
by Adam Thompson 04 Jan '13

04 Jan '13

Does anyone have a spare set of rack-mount ears for a Cisco 3550-12G? This is the odd-sized 1.5U unit, 2 5/8” tall, so I need Cisco part# RCKMNT-3550-1.5RU=. They only cost $5 to $25 on eBay, but I hate paying more in shipping than for the item itself… (Note that RCKMNT-REC-1.5U, as used for the Cisco 2970, won’t work, as the mounting and ventilation holes aren’t in the right place.) -Adam Thompson athompso(a)athompso.net (204) 291-7950 - direct (204) 489-6515 - fax

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MUUG Meeting, Jan 8, 7:30pm -- Raspberry Pi
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, January 8. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Life of Raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi is a fully functional motherboard that fits in the palm of your hand. It has a CPU (ARM11), Ethernet capability, 512MB ram, USB 2.0 ports and can run Xwindows. Storage is on an SD card. This presentation will be in two parts: the first will be a general introduction by Michael Doob, including installing Linux on the Raspberry Pi. The second part will feature Wyatt Zacharias, demonstrating the GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins included on the motherboard. The RTFM topic features Gilbert Detillieux discussing lsof(8) and ftop(1). The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ******************************************************************** Please note our *NEW* meeting location: Room 3D03, Duckworth Centre, University of Winnipeg, at the south-west corner of Ellice Ave. and Spence St. (Duckworth Centre is at the far north-west of the campus.) Parking is available on the surrounding streets and in the lots indicated on the map by the letter P. Look for signage once you're at the building, or ask a security guard. ******************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

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My Shaw Broadband 50 turned into Dial-up
by Bradford Vokey 03 Jan '13

03 Jan '13

Shaw techs are not available to come to my house until Sunday January 6th!My download speeds are around 1.5 Mbps. Is it possible the modem has gone? Should I just demand a new modem to see if it fixes the problem? From ifconfig eth0 (my nic to a Shaw Cisco DOCSIS 3.0 gateway modem)... eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:4B:2E:96:32 inet addr:24.78.229.87 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.252.0 inet6 addr: fe80::210:4bff:fe2e:9632/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:228132147 errors:10935 dropped:0 overruns:14571 frame:10935 TX packets:137992608 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:2606397745 (2.4 GiB) TX bytes:727274930 (693.5 MiB) Interrupt:19 Base address:0x20c0 In particular -> errors:10935 dropped:0 overruns:14571 frame:10935 Is this just a major node congestion problem or a faulty modem? -- ======================================= Bradford C. Vokey ======================================= 2942 Henderson Hwy | Home: (204) 654-1622 East St Paul, Manitoba, Canada R2E 0C6 | Cell: (204) 955-5691 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vokey | Work: (204) 231-3969 Email: brad(a)fsi.ca | FAX: (204) 233-1016 =======================================

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Off-topic: Convert a video signal
by Kevin McGregor 02 Jan '13

02 Jan '13

I have an old computer (still working!) which provides only a RCA coax A/V output. Is there a single device which could convert this in one step to separate RCA video/left/right out? I have a setup that works, but it's a little complicated.

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