[ILUG] Naive ADSL/WiFi questions (long (sorry!))?

[paul at clubi.ie]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Ian O'Connell wrote:

>> > what world do you live in? last time i talked with an engineer 
>> > in one of the larger isp's here after getting elevated from a 
>> > support desk to a network engineer i was informed that ping 
>> > times and latency are entirely unrelated....
>> 
>> Guess what, they were right.

> So ping isn't a tool for determining network latency then?

Nope.

It measures something else, something which does not have a direct 
correspondence to network latency. Maybe that network support dept 
weren't as stupid as you thought...

> If you've only one machine, then you could ghost the xp partition 
> or create a bart bootable xp environment. But for most senarios 1 - 
> 10 gigs is trivial.

10GiB would be 1/6th of the disk space on my laptop.. (the slimline 
laptops tend to use tiny disks, which tend not be quite as big as 
disks you're used to. You're falling victim to one-size-fits-all 
thinking; thinking that your experience applies globally).

BTW, the /latest/ revisions of my laptop are now available with 
*SMALLER* "disks" - the flash-drive D420s.

> So your view is that if you do have an engineer on site you 
> shouldn't let him test the setup? Or at least if it causes you some 
> amount of inconvenience you'd send him away even though its 
> possible there is a hardware/fault outside your control?

No, I'd let him use my browser or open ssh/telnet if he needed access 
to some external network kit.

To setup my own laptop, well it's trivial these days with NWAM and 
NetworkManager. You dont need an engineer, you just need a very few 
basic settings.

> Sorry but if we had an engineer on site to do something and i told 
> my boss i didn't want to sully one of my machines with an os so he 
> could do the testing then it broke.... i think i'd quickly find 
> myself in a lot of bother....

You do what you want, I'll do what I want. I don't have to conform to 
your world-view, you shouldn't /expect/ me to.

(Course, that makes me a "zealot".. sigh)

> Have i not specified plenty of times that it only applies if 
> windows did indeed come with the machine? and explictatly state 
> that i wouldn't advocate buying it?

So how then would I keep it around for engineers and firmware 
updates?

>> Again, you're presuming your world is the same as everyone elses 
>> here.
>
> Last time i checked we do all live on the same planet.

We don't all experience or even perceive it in the same way though. 
Some greek guy made that point a long time ago...

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
Peterson's Admonition:
 	When you think you're going down for the third time --
 	just remember that you may have counted wrong.