On Wednesday 26 December 2007, Tim wrote: >Tim: >>> I'd ditch the notion of using an ISP's crappy mail system when you >>> can easily use a much better server, elsewhere. > >Gene Heskett: >> Yeah, I'm seeing hour plus outages here. And you can't tell whats >> going on cuz they have the ping response and traceroute responders >> disabled, security ya know. vz, being in bed with M$, has to do all >> that. Dumb... > >To be honest, pinging is a less than adequate test. It only tests one >aspect of networking. It certainly doesn't test anything to do with a >mail server (the server software, that part that actually relates to >"mail" serving). > >I wouldn't be all that surprised if they'd turned off too much (like the >hapless users who'll foolishly block *all* ICMP traffic). > >> Ask an email related question on the tech support line (now there is >> an oxymoron for you, "tech support") and mention kmail, then you have >> to tell them its linux & they say "whazzat, we don't support anything >> but winderz and macs." About that time I get pi$$y and point out that >> a std protocol is a std protocol. And that they aren't following it. > >For larger ISPs, I recommend lying. Pretend you're using Outlook. The >usual webmonkeys can't access logs (they just read a prepared script at >you, or make a fault log entry for someone else to fix) or wouldn't know >how to interpret them. And at that point they want to start a remote session so they can walk around in your computer. I should tell them to go ahead and try & see how far they get when the first box connected to their modem is running a recent DD-WRT. But I usually tell them sorry, its linux and your little virii has never worked and if I have anything to do with it, it never will. Why is it that while there is supposed to be one rectum per mouth, it seems like such a lopsided ratio in favor of a surplus of them? >I prefer the smaller ISPs, ones that own themselves. You've more chance >of actually talking to a tech that maintains their gear. And even more >chance that they use Linux, either because they're an enthusiast or they >use Linux servers. All they have is dialup around here, darnit. And they contract out the maintenance/config duties. >I find it amusing that it seems the smaller ISPs *need* less technical >support staff. I can only imagine it's because they actually keep their >gear working. ;-) Yup, and if it takes too much time to keep a winderz box doing a job, next thing you know its a linux box doing that job. Country boy dumb maybe, doesn't mean stupid. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) You will be the last person to buy a Chrysler.
