This is the third post in a series on networking. If you are joining late, please read the first and second posts before going forward. Today’s post is going to build on the previous two posts, and we are going to discuss the protection of your network. I’d like to start by saying that network [...]

In my last post, I talked about the underpinnings of networking at the lower layers. This post is going to talk about NAT: network address translation. NAT is almost as universal as IPv4 networking, and is used nearly universally on home and small-and-medium-sized business networks—with good reason, too: Having more than one IPv4 address carries [...]

There are a number of things that I did not address in my post yesterday. My only goal in that post was to illustrate a (rather simple) network that had four subnets. I probably should have posted this article first, but I did not really think about that. This post is going to be somewhat long [...]

I have been trying to help someone understand a bit more about IPv6 networking and how it would pertain to their network. However, I have had a bit of a problem in the explaining, and I think it is possibly because we have forgotten what the basic components are to an IP stack, insofar as [...]

So, I am still trying to work out some issues with my home network, and I needed a better way to look at the data. I learned a bit of awk, and came up with this: #!/usr/bin/awk -f # # Generate a CSV from the output of ping-report # BEGIN { OFS=”,” print “Downtime Start”,”Downtime [...]

If you can’t see the flash, then head to YouTube to watch it. Reminds me why I missing watching the Simpsons on a regular basis. On a serious note: When you cast your vote on Election Day, make damn sure the machine is working right and calibrated, if you’re voting on a machine. Make sure [...]

So, as has already been reported elsewhere on the Internets, Comcast (of which I am a current customer) is going to assess a 250 GB limitation on transfer for its residential customers. This is more than a little disturbing, being that I signed up for unlimited use Internet. Disclaimer: The math in this post is [...]

An article over at “Works With U” has an interesting thing that I have run into a few times before: And here’s another ironic twist: Consumers may actually prefer to pay for Ubuntu — rather than get it for free. No joke: Many consumers don’t like free software. They fear it. My brother in law [...]

I was going to post this last night, but I wanted some time to think about what I’d just finished reading before I decided to write about it here. Yesterday, I read Little Brother. It was an awesome, amazing read. It is also the only book that I have ever read entirely on my computer [...]

Because Microsoft is stupid. ’nuff said. The cool thing about open things is that nobody in particular controls them. And with IM protocols like Jabber, which enable you to have accounts on just about any server (even your own) and communicate with the rest of the world, well, who needs Microsoft’s messenger, then? It appears [...]