David L. Farquhar, computer security professional, train hobbyist, and landlord
Compuserve was an online service for dialup modems from the 1970s to the 1990s. It was a way of getting online and communicating with others before the Internet was generally available to individuals. Later, it became a primary way for individuals to connect to the Internet, turning itself into an Internet Service Provider. But over time, it faded away into history. Here’s what happened to Compuserve.
In some ways, 1985 was a really pivotal year for computing. The industry was changing fast, but in 1985, many relics from the past were still present even as we had an eye for the future. Here’s a look back at computers in 1985 and what made that year so interesting.
I think 1985 was interesting in and of itself, but it also made the succeeding years a lot more interesting. A surprising amount of the technology that first appeared in 1985 still has an impact today.
Was Time Warner Cable or Charter Spectrum bought by AT&T? No it wasn’t, but I understand why some people are thinking that right now. It now turns out that both Charter Communications and AT&T have a history with Time Warner, but it’s complicated.
That said, there is a rumor now that AT&T’s arch rival Verizon is considering buying Charter Communications, the company behind Spectrum. Meanwhile, AT&T is trying to buy Time Warner. Time Warner differs from Time Warner Cable.
“I know this will sound crazy,” my boss said. “But I miss the sound of a modem connecting.”
I don’t think it’s crazy at all. That chirping was the sound of a hard-won victory, at least if you’re of a certain age.
Rob O’Hara stumbled across a stash of Y2K survivalist magazines and wrote about it. I wasn’t going to be surprised if there were some minor glitches, but I wasn’t expecting the apocalypse. I withdrew a couple hundred bucks from the bank a few days in advance and filled my bathtub with water the night before, so I would have a supply of money and water to tide me over if some glitch interrupted either of them for a day or two.
In late 1999, a lot of people said I was being reckless. Today, people think I was being excessively paranoid. It’s funny how perspectives change. Read more
I saw this on Slashdot today: In Lawrence, Kan., about 40 miles west of Kansas City, Kan., a local ISP is building an affordable fiber network. Pricing is a little higher than Google, at $70/month for 100 megabit and $100/month for gigabit, but that’s still better than what you typically see from the local cable/phone duopoly.
The cable/phone duopoly won’t build this, so it’s going to have to be upstarts who do it. Meet the new revolution: Same as the old revolution. Read more
I met up Monday night with some other security professionals for some emergency networking of the professional kind. One of the attendees, a penetration tester, had a little incident where he took down a production system when he conducted his penetration test. The system owners were a bit arrogant, and, well, they paid for it.
I’ve taken down a network too, but in my case it wasn’t something security-related. No, in my case, I was a 20-year-old desktop support technician working in a college computer lab, making an honest mistake.
The plugin I was using, FT Facepress II, decided to quit working, so now I’m trying to get the official Facebook WordPress plugin working.
If it does all it says it does, Facebook comments about blog posts will also show up here (and not just on Facebook), which would be nice.
Update: It appears to have worked, but it also appears to have replaced the comments engine. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. That option is easy enough to disable; I’ll give it a trial period and see. The new engine can authenticate against Facebook, AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail, so it does give some options for those who don’t have Facebook accounts.
The upside is that this may significantly reduce the spam comments. I have a good anti-spam engine, but the comments still clutter up my database.
I saw a story on Slashdot this weekend writing Silicon Valley’s obituary at the hands of the Facebook IPO. The logic is that since social networking is an easier path to riches than traditional science, people will choose social networking.
In the short term, he may be right. But in the long term? The Facebook IPO looks more like Dotcom 2.0 to me. Read more