As I mentioned prevously, my the email for my family's domain (teamjens.com) is hosted on Google Apps. Today, I've seen some e-mail trickling in quite late. As I examined the headers, it looks like there are problems with delivery through the Gmail backend.

Here is the section of the headers that show the e-mail getting delayed 2 hours and 10 minutes(read from bottom to top):
Received: by 10.65.231.14 with SMTP id i14cs557103qbr;
Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:14:19 -0700 (PDT)

Received: by 10.115.58.1 with SMTP id l1mr1220811wak.1187813058191;
Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:04:18 -0700 (PDT)

Received: from xxxxx.net (mailman.xxxxxx.net [xxx.xx.xx.xx])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id v37si1593312wah.2007.08.22.13.04.16;
Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:04:18 -0700 (PDT)

From the header, it shows that this email took ~2 hours and 10 minutes (from 13:04:18 PDT until 15:14:19 PDT) to be delivered from 10.115.58.1 to 10.65.231.14 (which are both hosts in google's network.)

I'm not paying for this service, but if I were, I'd be complaining to Google about it.

I came across this post today (Comcast Is Starting The Tiered Internet.. Whether We Like It or Not) and must admit that I have never had much trust for any ISP I've used (except for when I used the U of U for internet access as a student.)

I haven't downloaded/uploaded anything through bittorrent in over a year (it was legitimate traffic, a SuSE Linux installation disk.) But if Comcast starts limiting that kind of stuff, I don't think they're far from limiting other high bandwidth sites, such as video sites.

Recently, I was backing up some data over my internet connection (over 100GB) and feared I was going to get one of those dreaded phone calls from Comcast.

I wish I had alternatives like Utopia or Verizon FioS where I live. I can't even get DSL from Qwest at my house (I'm not sure that I would want it anyway.)

Sorry for the scattered post, I just wanted to share.

A link to this was posted to slashdot this morning. It's a pretty interesting/entertaining map to read. It shows allocations of IP addresses across the IPv4 internet with unallocated blocks illustrated as grassy areas. For example, this server's address (66.180.172.237) is in the "U.S.A" block, because it begins with a "66".

http://xkcd.com/c195.html

When I moused over the image, it says, "For the IPv6 map just imagine the XP default desktop picture." Which interpreted, means that much of the IPv6 address space is currently unclaimed.

On a more technical note, IPv4 uses 32 bit addresses, IPv6 uses 128 bit addresses. Here is an example of what each looks like, IPv4 - 192.168.1.101 (that address should probably look familiar), IPv6 - 30ac:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 (this looks scary to me!) The IPv4 address space contains 4,294,967,296 addresses but the IPv6 contains 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456.

I'm still pretty new to blogging (as you can tell from my sporadic posts here.) Recently, I've been setting up some blogs for friends and family and I came across this blog post that has a great summary of 4 popular blogging platforms.

I personally chose Wordpress because I wanted to host my own (duh, that's what I do....host stuff) and it has a lot of developer support. Nothing turns me off from an open source project like one that hasn't had any activity in months, or years. Wordpress has plenty of developer activity and was also easy to install. I'm still a newbie with it, but know that it has a ton of potential.

I have a Garmin eTrex that I use with a version of Topo! that I purchased a few years ago. Last week, I took a backpacking trip into the Uintas. Here are a few things I learned on this trip. I will focus mostly on things I'm going to do next time to make better use of my GPS.
In Topo!, it's easy to layout your planned trail. My eTrex has limited functionality (and memory) so I have to choose how I want waypoints layed out along the trail that works best.

First of all, add waypoints to your map in Topo! for landmarks, such as forks in the trail and peaks or lakes you may want to visit when you reach your destination. Second, use Topo!'s feature to create a track of waypoints that follow the trail. I recommend using a fixed distance between waypoints. My reason for this is it's much easier to track your progress and psychologically makes the trail easier to hike. You probably don't need the waypoints to be any closer than 1/4 mile. On my last hike, I used Topo!'s setting to create a waypoint track that most closely followed the trail. This was a mistake. I always knew I was on or very close to the trail, but the waypoint spacing varied so much that I had to look at the map to really see my progress.
Once you have all of the waypoints you want setup, you can download them and the track to your GPS. You should also print out a map with the points marked on it. Print out a copy of the same map for everyone in your group and if others will have GPSs too, download the same waypoints to their GPSs. Assuming you have radios and don't all hike together, this helps you to communicate more easily your position. Make sure your waypoints are correct. You won't want to be up in the mountains already when you find out that you've made a mistake!
Hopefully, this will help you to have a more enjoyable backpacking trip. I'm going to put these things I learned into practice the next time I hit the mountains.

Wow, what an ordeal. There went 4 hours of my life that I want back. Last night, I initially was on the phone for over an hour with Vonage trying to get an obscure bug with my Motorola device fixed. Whenever I dail a number that is busy, the call is immediately dropped w/o any sort of busy signal. This is pretty annoying and requires me to think way too much about whether I really dialed the right number when it happens.

Vonage's first line of support appears to be in India. The call quality was horrible with both static and very faint voices on the other end. Second tier support appears to be here in the U.S. The guy was very courteous and willing to assist. Unfortunately, I was transfered to some guy on their "Advanced Services Dept" (third tier support) that was more interested in filling his call quota than helping me. At one point in the conversation, he said that he made a change to my device and that I needed to reset my entire network. Due to my techno-curiosity, I asked him what he changed. He vaguely responded, "I changed settings." I probed further since he was dancing around giving me an answer by eventually asking, "What settings did you change on my device." He responded, "Are you calling me a liar? It sounds like you are calling me a liar." From there, I don't think he heard one word of what I said. I asked to speak to a supervisor and he flatly refused and hung up on me.

A little more progress was made when I called the second time. I had almost an identical experience with tiers 1 & 2 but when I hit tier 3, I was helped by a man named Ahlonko. He was very nice and patient. After a long time on the phone with him, he said he would investigate further and call me back today. He had me do a few more things on the Motorola VoIP adapter than anyone else did. He followed up today and we ran a few more tests. The final verdict is that the device is messed up. It will cost me about $80 for a new VoIP adapter. If this would have happened in the first year of service, the device would have been covered under warranty.
It seems that's the typical support you get from almost any company today; if you don't get someone willing to help you out, you can call back and get someone else. Eventually, you'll get someone that cares about helping you.

Overall, their phone service is good and you can't beat the features you get for the price. I'll stick with them for my VoIP provider. But I sure am thankful that I rarely have to call Vonage for support.