Internet

Back to mail woes

webmaster — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:09:42 +0200

Matzo is baaaaccck

I think she donated a dozen gremlins. Somebody at the zoo forgot, and fed them after midnight.

Anyway, we have a problem. The mail server account and addresses are correct in the mailto.pl script. Rather, they are declared correctly in config.pl and read into mailto.pl script variables.

In an unfortunate turn of events, the auction site is not sending email after the web-site pointer was corrected. I may be bald in a couple of days, but Matzo has a history of paying well.

I love the barter system.

Better Wyrlds

3D Chat

DeepGeek — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:37:58 +0200

For the most part, I have no curiosity to the Internet "toy" factor. Strangely, I am curious to the 3D chat rage. There is something attractive about 3D chat; that attractiveness troubles me.

My introduction to 3D chat came from Josh — a charter customer of the My^DLLURTH service community. Josh could not get display on his father's LCD monitor while it rested on a computer chassis. With son and computer equipment in tow, Josh came for a system evaluation. Josh and his son were healthy; neither did the computer equipment give any indication of failures. The video failure was attributed to power conditions at home. That was the beginning of … intellectual trouble.

Josh is a social creature. All too frequently, that social character complicates Josh's computer resources. Josh does visit questionable Internet sites; he self-inflicts much Trojan and virus misery. To his credit, Josh accepts his own responsibility and seeks professional help for all facets of his afflictions. In the meantime, he continues affected by social aspects of the Internet. This time, however, I am also affected.

Josh hoped for guidance in enhancing his 3D chat avatar; the chat application is IMVU. The usefulness of IMVU, for my participation, is approximately what IRC provides. I cannot justify the animated avatar. In fact, I cannot use IMVU for my lack of a Microsoft Windows installation. My lack of access did not mitigate Josh's insistence; Josh was single-minded to learn the "tricks" of programming avatar attributes.

Specifically, Josh wanted to alter the apparel for his avatar. There are several articles of virtual clothing available for purchase; the available purchase items do not satisfy Josh. Unfortunately, I haven't desired instruction to impart. Can someone else educate the community?

Senior Shack

Pictures not showing up

DeepGeek — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:27:23 +0200

Matz, as I like to call her, is an animal rehabilitator and you should visit her sites. Start by going to Matzo's Net. From there, you should find many interesting tangents. I am most fond of Dory & the Orphans.

Okay, I realize the title of this post mentions pictures not showing up. There are plenty of pictures at the pages linked above. No … those are not the pages this post is about. I promoted a another website. Hey! So fire me! This is about community.

I was clearing my SPAM filter the other day and came across an email from a member urthling. That member, Matzo, is a long-time association from the days of Dear YaWho and I have missed her outspoken activism. Needless to say I was pleased to find her communication. At the same time, I was annoyed that the email of a friend was in my SPAM queue.

A call for help

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:55:34 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Matzo --> Woody can you help?
From: "Matzo" _PROTECTED_EMAIL

Hey Woody.

I need help. I am trying to convert my old auction site _OLD_SITE_HIDDEN over to a new pet project that's taken on a life of it's own. The project was a joke Mariah made and has turned into the rehab community reuniting so citizens are not afraid to get help with the illegal wild ones they live with or around.

It's called Law Breakers Anonymous
We refer to it as 'the LBA'. We have a 12 steps program and everything. I have several rehabbers in the auction part of it trying to post auctions to test all the settings. It will not send the registration email nor will it send the forgot password email. It did the other night. My server trouble ticket response said:

Ticket Ref : 4956-QWLN-2002
Ticket Subject : email not functioning properly

Reply:

Hello,

Earlier, we experienced some issues with the mail server hosting your domain's mail. The issue has since been resolved and mail is not being processed by the server without issues. If you are still experiencing trouble, feel free to contact us at any time and we will be more than happy to look into it. Sorry about the inconvenience this might have caused you.

Regards,
--
=======================
Boubacar
Technical Support Team

It still isn't working Woody. I've been trying to figure this out for nearly a week. A tech has a folder called 'ner' in the files for the things he had to do to get it working last week. Please Woody. Help me.

ftp is
_AUTHENTICATION_REMOVED_************************************************
user _AUTHENTICATION_REMOVED_*******************************************
pw _AUTHENTICATION_REMOVED_*********************************************

Miss you guys btw -- I will love you forever -- but then again I already did ...

cgi-bin/auction/config.pl & yourphoto.pl have the stuff I worked on

Matzo
Licensed Wisconsin Wildlife Rehabber
---

http://www.doryandtheorphans.com {Help our Native Wildlife!}
http://www.doryandtheorphans.com/cam.html {Live CoonCam}
Visit Dory & the Orphans Blog at http://www.doryandtheorphans.blogspot.com
we are born free, now live to serve, we are the LBA, so mums the word

Better late than never

Okay. I forgive the SPAM filter. Google's likely culpability in the "false positive" was only that almost 6000 Joe Job bounce messages reached webmaster's inbox over one 24-hour period — the same period when Matzo's email arrived. Matzo's e-mail may have swept into the SPAM folder during aftermath cleanup of that flood. Regardless, it would be a week before I found and replied to the e-mail.

Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:13:21 -0400
From: Web Master _PROTECTED_EMAIL
Subject: Re: Matzo --> Woody can you help?

Matzo! Hi. :)

I apologize for the delay. Your email was caught up in a flurry of SPAM and went undetected. There were over 25,000 Joe Job emails last week at the same time your mail came in. I think yours accidentally got moved to my SPAM folder in a bulk move of filter failures. I wonder *who* could have done that? (I'm trying to look innocent. Is it working?)

I registered at your auction site and got the registration email. I requested my "lost password" and got that email too. I guess your problem is resolved?

If you're still having trouble, perhaps *your* SPAM filter is recalcitrant as was mine. I'll do whatever I can for the friend you are.

I would post my banner, but I can't afford the advertising subscription.

-- Woody

Sure … here we are two e-mails and several hundred words after my first apology and still NOTHING about pictures. Stick with me; relevance improves but the plot remains less than riveting.

Obviously, Matzo's SPAM filters pass useful communications better than I. In a very short time, Web Master had Matzo's reply.

Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:36:45 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Matzo --> Woody can you help?
From: "Matzo" _PROTECTED_EMAIL

Hi Woody.

Yes. You look as innocent as always. :^)

I got the email functioning since I mailed you but now the problem is that photos won't upload for the auctions. It goes to the screen for the browse and upload, but when you click next you get the generic contact webmaster page. The pictures are, in fact, uploading to the correct folder.

Other thing is the stupid thing is running on both sites and won't stay on the right one. That's something my server did that I can't figure out and theye won't help anymore. They said it's my problem with the program.

One other thing is in the places where you post, there are no spaces when you hit enter - it all runs together in one paragraph. Where would I correct that?

If you registered, you also have a mypage and mystore -- feel free to play with yours. One person's link pointed to the wrong spot -- pointed to the auction site instead of their site so I had to manually adjust that.

I would love your banner on the site. I'll set it up so your account isn't charged. I don't have payment processors figured out anyway. Need to figure out the code for AlertPay and 2co -- I don't use PayPal anymore. They decided to randomly limit my account from time to time for no legitimate reasons.

I told my groups I was "calling in the DeepGeek from MyDllUrth" to help resolve our problem so you may have experienced a bit of traffic from curious members over the past week.

Give my love to the family. Yip's gonna love the t-shirts I've almost finished for this LBA project. Still working on the main site that the auction is just a part of.

My # is _PROTECTED_PHONE if you want to call. I have unlimited long distance so could call you if needed.

I've tried posting in mydllurth's forum but it won't let me post anything anywhere. I have been enjoying reading but have to remain silent. Pretty difficult with such an opinionated person. lol

Thanks for getting back to me! I'll go set it so you can just post your banner and not charge your account.

Matzo
Licensed Wisconsin Wildlife Rehabber
---

http://www.doryandtheorphans.com {Help our Native Wildlife!}
http://www.doryandtheorphans.com/cam.html {Live CoonCam}
Visit Dory & the Orphans Blog at http://www.doryandtheorphans.blogspot.com
we are born free, now live to serve, we are the LBA, so mums the word

An excellent adventure

Okay! The e-mails are a bit much here. I'll tone them down now.

Yes! We have no pictures (and much more). Suddenly, life's purpose revives. D^Geek jumps in with both feet to a seething cauldron of Perl scripts. I immediately found and corrected some confusion between path and URL. Using the MyStore interface, I created a store with a simple description and version 2 of the My^DLLURTH logo. That worked well, but the store image was a reference to a foriegn hosted image. More testing was needed; I added a banner advertisement.

Still, the banner advertisement did not require an image upload. All that remained was to pollute Matzo's LBA auction with some geeky auction product. What could I auction?

AH HAH!

Why not auction an URTH system consultation? Surely some energy-conscious tree hugger would like a solar-powered surveillance system to protect their patch of endangered wildlife habitat from an encroaching suburbia. Surely the class of people in Matzo's circuit can appreciate such an offer. This is, after all, a test offering. Okay, maybe the test might be a real purchase. We will certainly honor the 95% discount if one buyer takes the auction at minimum bid. Perhaps auction is better advertisement value than banners?

You are bidding on the specification and assembly of a computer by a profesional computer engineer. Hardware, software and shipping are additional costs. We will find the best price/value location for your hardware purchase. We can purchase your hardware and software at our cost plus 10% for warranty documentation processing.

Keep in mind that very capable, standard computers may be purchased from many manufacturers for under $500. If you dont need heavy graphic, audio, processing, visual effects or special cooling … you probably dont want to bid on this. If, however, you want a computer that is right at home on a museum pedestal, or a computer with all the software for your needs, you owe yourself a bid on a professional consultation and equipment certification from My^DLLURTH.

If you have any questions, call us at 877.871.8784 or send your email via the My^DLLURTH contact form.

And thus … the adventure begins.

Better Wyrlds

I can't get Internet

DeepGeek — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:39:54 +0100

I can't get Internet!

More than a dozen years of providing Internet technical support fails to show DaGeek a more abused trouble report. Qualified technical support agents are quite aware of Internet access procedure, but remote descriptions of symptoms are often ambiguous. The afflicted user, however, describes an untechnical but quite personal understanding of their problem. Most resolutions require clear understandings by both parties.

The agent must assume the role of an expert interviewer. Ask insightful questions. Provoke illuminating answers. Define ambiguous vocabulary. A more successsful approach places "Internet" problems in layers by the OSI model. Using the OSI model will quickly determine where effective remedy to Internet dysfunction is applied.

Significant science is developed for the OSI model, and technical discussion may glaze uninitiated eyes. For the more shallowly interested readers, a quick guide to determining which layer is failing will be more useful. Truly sick readers might read through details of all seven layers and become effective technical support agents. Each layer will eventually link to more detail as this guide evolves. To help readers understand technical details of the extended guide, complimentary controls are planned for each section — just click "Simplify" when science is not needed or "Detail" when science is missing.

This guide evolves with time. Feel free to comment and question. Technical support agents solve many "can't get Internet" problems in a day … but you might have a previously unencountered problem. This guide serves both sides of the solution.

First, guidance for determining layers of failure is most helpful. Knowing points of failure is knowing what must change. Ask the question, "How is Internet not available?"

First, this article comes from the Internet. Perhaps you had to use an alternate computer. Perhaps you found a printed archive. What you have is better called Internet access limitation. Let's compile a list of limitations.

Workstation: Is the limitation on a single computer?
Does the same limitation happen on computers in other buildings?
Knowing, precisely, the scope of affected workstations is very useful to resolution. Connection problems may be for a single computer, a LAN, an ISP or even a peering point.
Routing: Do you have an IP address and netmask?
Do you have a default route?
Can you ping your gateway?
Can you trace a route beyond your gateway?
Routing is essential to Internet access. Find your IP address and default gateway. If you have an IP address, different from 127.0.0.1 (localhost), see if you can ping other addresses. If you can ping your gateway address, you have a connection on the Internet and could be able to reach other Internet locations. Try a traceroute for 12.122.81.97 and see if you reach that (very reliable) peering point.
Hosts: Does 12.122.81.97 respond to a ping request — what about ggr2.attga.ip.att.net?
Does google.com respond to a ping request — what about 64.233.167.99 and 64.233.187.99 and 72.14.207.99?
There is more than one way to connect two Internet hosts. Most people use named hosts (like google.com and youtube.com and amazon.com) but Internet hosts also use IP addresses. Check the local host files and named server configurations.
Application: Can you explore with a browser?
Can you look at e-mail?
Can you chat with messenger or IRC applications?
Does your VoIP telephone work?
Many applications depend on Internet connection. Browsers and e-mail clients are only the more recognized Internet applications. Messengers like ICQ and AIM use the Internet. VoIP uses the Internet. If some part of your Internet function is missing, it is possible that a firewall is misconfigured. Some ISP do not allow using port 25 (sending mail) except by their specified mail server. Peer to peer services like BearShare and Limewire and Kazaa are often blocked. Some workstations are disallowed connection to some websites; other workstations are only allowed a few specific web sites.
Detail: Can you access a web site, but your account services aren't available?
Are some web pages showing red "x" images?
These are signs of software configurations and forgotten passwords. Confirm settings and user credentials.

The physical layer
- Cables
- modem
- router
- switch
- NIC
Data Link Layer
The Data Link Layer includes the Logical Link Control Sublayer and the Media Access Control Sublayer.
- error correction
- network flow control
- device driver
Network Layer
- connectionless service
- address
- accounting
- routing
- forwarding
- firewall
Transport Layer
- connection-oriented service
- input-output port management
- NetBIOS
- reliability
- sequencing
- terminal flow control
Session Layer
- authentication
- authorization
Presentation Layer
The Presentation Layer includes the Common Application Service Element and the Specific Application Service Element sublayers.
- encryption>
- compression>
Application Layer
- web browser
- messaging
  - AOL Instant Messenger
  - ICQ
  - mIRC
  - Trillian
  - YAHOO! Instant Messenger
- e-mail client
- peer-to-peer
  - BitTorrent
  - eDonkey
  - Napster
  - KaZaA
  - Gnutella
- networked file system
  - NFS
  - SMB
  - FTP
- VoIP

Senior Shack

Senior Shack

DeepGeek — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:21:44 +0200