Posted on December 19th, 2011 by Dennis Little
I have been using Comcast Business Class internet for going on two years now at my home office and am quite pleased with the service. Up until now, I have been paying a flat $59.95 per month for internet that is usually quite fast and has been very reliable. It has been even more gratifying that my past bills have never had a tax line item.
One thing that has always annoyed me about Business Class is that Comcast provides an SMC “gateway” device that essentially forces double-NAT, even if you just want a modem. There is no true bridge mode with the SMC device. A few months ago, I did some research and settled on a Zoom 5341 DOCSIS3 modem from Comcast’s approved modems list, but never go the chance to swap it in.
Fast forward to today: I received my latest Comcast bill and an “equipment charge” of $7.00 plus $0.42 in tax has shown up on my bill. Suspecting that I already knew what was behind the 12% increase in my bill, I called customer support and verified that indeed, I am now being billed for a leased modem. Apparently, Comcast just increased prices for some services and audited accounts; they are now charging me for the modem I have been using for almost two years.
No big deal, I will just swap in the modem I bought months ago, I thought. Since I do not have a static IP (requires the SMC gateway) or digital voice, I just need a modem and this swap should be easy.
After 45 minutes with tech support and speaking with a supervisor, it is confirmed that Comcast Business Class will not allow a business subscriber to “bring your own device” (a.k.a. BYOD) because they quote “can’t support it”; the only exception is the Motorola SurfBoard 6120 and it is said to be semi-supported, whatever that means. Nevermind the fact that I am an I.T. engineer and can support my own connection, thanks. Or that Comcast Residential has an extensive list of devices that you can use with the service, which happens to included my device. Or that I know and agree that “unsupported” means I will pay a service charge if I can’t figure out how to plug in the device I provided and get an internet connection.
Let’s get real, there is no technical difference between Residential and Business Class service and this is all semantics.
Thanks for being a hard-ass Comcast; you have once against reaffirmed the terrible customer service reputation that everyone associates with the name “Comcast”.
Filed under: Business, Technology | 10 Comments »
Posted on October 5th, 2011 by Dennis Little
Posted on June 7th, 2011 by Dennis Little
The top Government IT / Security Conference & Expo, FOSE 2011, is returning to Washington, D.C., July 19-21 with featured speaker Steve Wozniak. In past years, the vendor floor has been very good and I enjoy getting hands-on with the newest tech.
The 400+ vendor expo is free, and if you plan to attend the conference, you can get a 20% Discount Link here.
Filed under: Business, Linux, SIP, Technology, VMware, VoIP / Telephone, Windows | No Comments »
Posted on May 12th, 2011 by Dennis Little
I have to say that I am pretty disgusted with Hitachi GST. A client of mine ordered 10 hard drives for an integration, 30% of which failed within the first few hours of life. Hitachi’s RMA department has been sitting on them for 40 business days and still have not shipped a return. Did I mention that advanced warranty exchange is not an option?
Filed under: Business, Technology | No Comments »
Posted on March 15th, 2011 by Dennis Little
I recently bought an HP DL385 G7 server without hard drives. HP will not sell drive carriers by themselves, neither will they give you a part number to locate the drive caddies by themselves (ie: not loaded with hard drives). If you want to use your own drives, you are forced to buy HP drives in carriers at a premium or figure out the part number for yourself. Through some research and luck, I located hot plug drive trays that work with the DL385 G7. Near as I can tell from my research, these 2.5″ SAS/SATA drive carriers work across the line of late-model HP servers that use 2.5″ drives.
The part number that works in my DL385 G7 is 378343-002
You can find the carriers through a variety of suppliers. I bought mine here: Buy.com
I also found in my research that there is a newer model drive caddy without the metal bottom cage, but I have not been able to locate the part number for these newer trays; HP’s site has a product update bulletin, but of course no part number. If you know the part number, please feel free to share with the rest of us in the comments.
For those who wonder, like I, about the conductivity of the metal tray bottom… they appear to be coated with some sort of non-conductive coating to prevent shorting out your drive PCBs.
According to what I have found, these carriers are “compatible with the following Compaq Proliant systems BL20p G4 – BL25p G2 – DL360 G4p – DL360 G5 – DL380 G4 – DL380 G5 – DL385 G2 – DL580 G3 – DL580 G4 – DL585 G2 – ML330 G6 – ML350 G5 – ML370 G4 – ML370 G5 – ML370 G6 – ML570 G3 – ML570 G4 This list is not inclusive – may fit other HP servers as well”
Filed under: Business, Technology | 3 Comments »
Posted on June 16th, 2010 by Dennis Little
If you or your business use Open Source Software, please consider becoming a sponsor of the Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference 2010: http://www.cposc.org/sponsorship
The Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference (CPOSC) is seeking sponsors. Years past have proven that this is a progressive event, bringing together bright and influential minds in technology from all over the United States to further improve adoption and usage of Open Source Software. To learn more about the sessions from 2008 and 2009, you can visit the wikis:
Filed under: Asterisk / Trixbox / Telephony, Business, Linux, Marketing, Targeted Advertising, Technology, Ubuntu, VoIP / Telephone | No Comments »
Posted on March 27th, 2010 by Dennis Little
A client of mine likes to use GoToMyPC to access her office computers and I ran into a couple snags getting GoToMyPC installed remotely. The solutions and problems I was having do not appear to be documented anywhere, so hopefully others will find the following tips helpful.
Internet Explorer – Data Execution Prevention Error
My first problem was that I received a Windows / IE8 DEP error when trying to load the GoToMyPC software from the Citrix web site. Trying to disable DEP, adding exceptions, etc. did not seem to help. According to Citrix support, GoToMyPC will throw a DEP error in Internet Explorer 8 if you do not have Java installed. That was my case.
Installing GoToMyPC over Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
Having had no luck installing GoToMyPC using IE8, I installed Firefox and tried a manual download and install. Everything appeared to install correctly, but I never saw the system tray icon, nor did the Citrix web site seem to think that I had any computers registered with the service.
Apparently, Citrix blocks installation of GoToMyPC (and GoToAssist Express, also) over a Remote Desktop Protocol connection. You must have a physical console connection (or perhaps use something like VNC instead) to fully install and activate the service on the host PC. Once I switched to this particular virtual machine’s remote console instead of using RDP, the installation completed without a hitch.
I can certainly understand why Citrix puts this restriction in the programs mentioned, but it is annoying nonetheless. Hopefully if you are having the same issue, these tips will resolve the problem for you.
Filed under: Technology, Windows | 3 Comments »
Posted on January 27th, 2010 by Dennis Little
Last year, I had the pleasure of attending FOSE/GOVSEC 2009 in D.C. and I look forward to attending again this year. Last year’s exhibit floors were packed with some very nice gear and it was exciting to see emerging trends and get hands-on with some of the latest and greatest gadgets relating to gov’t information technology.
Simply put, FOSE is the largest gov’t IT trade show in the United States. GOVSEC focuses on government security and has an exhibit floor, as well as a series of conferences that may be limited to security-cleared persons. Last year’s show floors exhibited everything from high speed data capture devices, to mobile device security, armored vehicles, mobile computing and power generation, as well as high-tech weaponry.
So, what can we expect from FOSE 2010 and GOVSEC 2010? Here are a few highlights:
- 3 days of exhibits for thousands of products
- 2 full conference days aimed at educating attendees on emerging tech, trends and new improvements in the industry
- Focus on: Digital Forensics, Cybersecurity and Terrorism, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, DNSSEC and more
The show is free to attend for government, government contractors and military and $50 for others.
You can also follow FOSE and GOVSEC online:
I lhad a great time last year and I ook forward to seeing you there this time around!
Filed under: Business, Linux, SIP, Technology, Ubuntu, VMware, VoIP / Telephone, Windows | No Comments »
Posted on January 16th, 2010 by Dennis Little
If you are thinking of switching wireless carriers and wonder what their coverage is like in your area OR if you are having issues and wonder if it is just your phone, you might want check out these helpful web sites. These sites do not seem to have a lot of data for rural areas like mine, but perhaps that is because you need to sign up and start helping your fellow cell phone users! 
Thanks for LifeHacker.com where I picked this info up. If you don’t read LifeHacker.com already, check it out!
Filed under: Technology, VoIP / Telephone | No Comments »
Posted on November 10th, 2009 by Dennis Little
I will be giving a short talk this evening for CPLUG on VoIP and Asterisk: “Taking Back Your Phone System with VoIP & Asterisk: an overview”. John will be talking about Dropbox and John Place will be giving us an overview of Rackspace Cloud. I hear that Ubuntu One will be discussed too.
It should be a fun time and if you are able, you ought to come out. Directions and information is available at the CPLUG web site.
Download my OpenOffice.org slides here
Filed under: Asterisk / Trixbox / Telephony, Business, Linux, SIP, Superb Reading, Technology, VoIP / Telephone | No Comments »
