Archive for February 13th, 2007

My dad and I have both been having pretty silly issues with the supposed High Speed Internet here where we are staying.
From having to re-login to their captive portal every 24 hours, even if your in the middle of something, drag ass slow access to my dad’s work VPN. OK, so I think the internet here is only fractionally better than dialup. It’s a stretch, but for the most part very true. I hate how companies can get away with saying Broadband is anything faster than 192kbps on average. Just because you can use the service with an ethernet cable or fancy USB connection doesn’t mean anything unless the bandwidth can make a dent in the size of it’s upstream pipe.

The internet here sucks, but at least it’s internet. (I couldn’t be writing this without it.) The connection is provided by a DSL modem/router which is in the room, which my guess goes to a wiring closet somewhere on the hotel premises next to some possibly ancient looking PBX that looks like HAL 9000. The Ethernet connection from the device works only on my dad’s laptop. Fortunately the Elastic DSL device has a USB port, which Linux happily recognizes as an Ethernet adapter.

[   31.976260] eth1: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-0000:00:03.0-1, CDC Ethernet Device, 00:30:52:05:c4:3c

Using the Ethernet on my dad’s laptop only links up at 10mbps Half-Duplex. The link from the DSL to where it goes, is very slow, both up and down stream.

[note: Thanks to the internet here, I just lost what I've written since my last draft save, bah. Hopefully broadband reports won't mind me redoing the tests.]

Their speed test comes in two flavors; Java Speed Test, and also in a Flash Speed Test. On the Java page, it notes. “Unlike FLASH based speed-tests, our upload payload cannot be compressed, so it gives the correct result even on satellite or wireless connections.” Basically do not trust it’s readings. So stick with the Java one for more correct numbers. I also forgot to copy some of the data I wanted from each speed test. Ohwell.

Palo Alto, California

Miami, Florida
Down/Up
178 / 692 (Kbps)
(21.7 / 84.5 KB/sec)

New Jersey, USA
21 / 521 (Kbps)
(2.6 / 63.6 KB/sec)

Ok, well since I mentioned it earlier, here is my results from the Flash based speed test.

Running a traceroute from my home machine to the public IP address I was assigned, is alright until it hits their firewall as it seems. Most likely blocking incoming traceroutes.

 $ traceroute 216.132.2.226
traceroute to 216.132.2.226 (216.132.2.226), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  XXm0n0wallXX (192.168.48.1)  0.250 ms  0.228 ms  0.217 ms
 2  10.241.64.1 (10.241.64.1)  10.712 ms  8.736 ms  11.765 ms
 3  ip68-0-128-141.tc.ph.cox.net (68.0.128.141)  11.967 ms  10.276 ms  7.982 ms
 4  68.2.13.154 (68.2.13.154)  10.062 ms  14.038 ms  11.619 ms
     MPLS Label=350896 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1
 5  68.2.13.134 (68.2.13.134)  14.493 ms  12.933 ms  16.501 ms
     MPLS Label=235032 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1
 6  * 68.2.13.26 (68.2.13.26)  14.571 ms  22.003 ms
     MPLS Label=173265 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1
 7  * * *
 8  chnddsrj02-ae2.rd.ph.cox.net (68.2.14.5)  15.999 ms  21.430 ms  27.875 ms
 9  68.1.0.232 (68.1.0.232)  29.104 ms  29.012 ms  30.435 ms
10  ge-6-3-0.mpr1.lax9.us.above.net (64.125.13.65)  30.232 ms  28.158 ms  29.797 ms
11  ge-1-0-0.core1.lax.megapath.net (209.249.11.149)  28.261 ms  29.489 ms  27.028 ms
12  155.229.123.208 (155.229.123.208)  54.352 ms  88.281 ms  136.522 ms
     MPLS Label=3066 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1
13  giga0-0-0.sna-e100.gw.epoch.net (155.229.101.130)  46.077 ms  43.008 ms  43.916 ms
     MPLS Label=3583 CoS=0 TTL=1 S=1
14  206-135-10-18.sna-e100.cust.gw.epoch.net (206.135.10.18)  79.464 ms  65.763 ms  50.747 ms
15  * * *

After attempting to traceroute to my machine from this SlowSpeed, we can see it truly is blocking them. What a crock.

$ traceroute px.ns1.net
traceroute to ip68-225-53-142.tc.ph.cox.net (68.225.53.142), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  198.18.0.1 (198.18.0.1)  726.732 ms  239.889 ms  57.909 ms
 2  * * *
 3  * *

Ohwell, that’s enough of this. I’m tired, and should start thinking about trying to sleep.

[tags]internet, speed tests, costa mesa, California, Marriott, residence inn, DSL, broadband, narrowband, traceroutes, boredom, hotel[/tags]

I’ve been in California since Saturday night. Had the opportunity to see and hangout with some friends I haven’t seen in a while.
The doctors appointment I had on Monday went great. He wrote a STAT(not status) report, and I picked it up today, for my Valentines (Court) Date. His report was very good.
I went to bed last night feeling slightly under the weather, and this morning, woke up feeling like death.
That said this trip is going well so far. I have another appointment next month with the good Doctor, and treatment is in my future.
I would probably be more ecstatic about all this if I didnt have a cold/sinus thing going on. But I generally am susceptible to getting colds. I was hoping to hangout more with people, but I don’t feel that possibly getting anyone sick is a good thing.

I’ve also had my fill of sushi, and Vietnamese food. I went to this sushi place with my father, and an old work friend of his called Kura, in Costa Mesa, it was pretty neat environment, it has a rotating sushi bar, which revolves around the entire restaurant. I’ve also eaten a couple times at one of my favorite Pho places in Costa Mesa, Pho 99, that I eat at whenever I’m in town because one of the people who work there recognizes me each time, which you do not see very often in employees working in the food industry.

ok, why does a “quickie” update, usually turn into a longer post? I had just a few thoughts I wanted to jot down, but felt compelled to write a little bit more.

2 nights, and ~1 day left in California, then the trek back home. Maybe another post or two before I leave…

[tags]travel, California, orange county, doctors, workers compensation, treatment, sick, cold, sinus, food, Vietnamese, sushi, pho 99, kura, Costa Mesa[/tags]