Cristian Bradiceanu

Internet in Qatar

admin — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:04:01 +0000

Starting this morning the Internet link is very slow, with 10-40% packet loss and 1.5 second RTT. This could be due to Qtel’s PCCWBTN link down starting after 8 a.m. AST. Traffic is routed via AS6453 (Teleglobe), which is heavily overloaded and oversubscribed. Of course, the FLAG Telecom link is not used for ADSL subscribers. So, the 2 MBPS ADSL link (largest residential package available in Qatar) real speed is around 200 kbps. This reminds me of home Internet access ten years ago.

2008 submarine cable disruption

admin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:33:25 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruption

Mediterranean Submarine Cables Cut

admin — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:09:14 +0000

Two separate oceanic cable systems in the far East were severed around 0800 hrs GMT on January 30 2008, greatly impacting both Internet and voice traffic to the region. A third cable was cut at 0559 hrs GMT on February 1 2008.

http://www.dailywireless.org/2008/01/30/oceanic-fiber-cut/

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: No AirTunes support in Front Row

admin — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:52:32 +0000

Just upgraded my Mac mini I use as a media center to find out that the new Front Row does not stream to remote AirTunes speakers as it did in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Front Row sound goes only to audio out, which is connected to the TV. One more thing: the music stops when leaving the Music menu in Front Row. Mac OS X 10.5.1 update does not fix these problems. Apple Support Discussions thread is here.

iPod touch YouTube proxy issue

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:01:42 +0000

“YouTube not available” error message is shown on the iPod touch display when a proxy server is configured.

I see a 404 error message for http://iphone-wu.apple.com/feeds/standardfeeds/ in squid logs.

Same problem reported on Apple Discussions.

Watch your home TV anywhere

admin — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:52:31 +0000

Thanks to Sling Media, I can watch all cable and Pay-TV stations in Qatar, streamed directly from my home over the Internet. I can even remote control the Set-Top Box.

Sling Box (classic) connections: analog antenna (tuner) - cable, Composite input - UPC STB. The setup will be complete with a DVD HDD recorder (connected to S-Video input and also to the STB).

The new Sling Box Pro is on the way from amazon.co.uk.

EU VPS wanted

admin — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:05:59 +0000

I am still searching a reasonable-priced Linux Xen VPS located in EU (256 MB RAM, few GB storage).

Thanks, eNom

admin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:06:58 +0000

Checkout on https://www.enomcentral.com/checkout.asp

We are unable to process this transaction because we are currently not accepting orders from this IP.

Incriminating IP was 86.125.5X.XX.

SIP phone issues with Belkin ADSL Wireless Router

admin — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:16:50 +0000

The old Linksys WAG54Gv2 died so I replaced it with a brand new Belkin F5D7633uk4A. Everything working fine except two SIP accounts on my Siemens Gigaset S450 IP (”Authentication error”). Also I got authentication errors and SIP 408 Timeout with X-Lite using the same SIP accounts.

Also, Belkin web interface can not manage static routes, which is bad.

Version info:
Runtime Code version F5D7633-4Av1_UK_1.00.17 Boot Code Version 1.0.37-5.15 Hardware Version V1.0J3 ADSL Modem Code Version A2pB018e.d16f

Looks like there’s a transparent SIP proxy running on the router. I could ssh with admin username and web interface password to the router. Finally found siproxd running!

How to disable siproxd:
siproxd disable save reboot

How to add a static route:
route add IP NETMASK GATEWAY save

All available commands:
? help logout reboot adsl atm brctl cat ledctrl df dumpcfg echo ifconfig kill arp defaultgateway dhcpserver dns lan passwd ppp remoteaccess restoredefault route save swversion wan ping ps pwd siproxd sntp sysinfo tftp wlctl

Google Checkout Error: Oops!

admin — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:19:45 +0000