[Hidden-tech] Please help--any network geeks out there? (X-Post)

[Robert Heller]

At Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:15:45 -0500 Shel Horowitz <shel at frugalfun.com> wrote:

> 
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> 
> It's been a few days of multiple yucky Internet problems and I am 
> hoping somebody out there can help me understand why this is 
> happening.
> 
> My configuration:
> 
> Main computer: iMac G4 running OS X 10.2.8, about four years old
> Secondary computer: low-end HP PC running Windows XP Home, about two years old
> Laptop: brand new Mac iBook running OS X 10.4 (Tiger), and prior to 
> that a five-year Mac laptop
> 
> The two desktop computers connect via Ethernet cables to a DLink DI 
> 524 wireless router (about six months old) that is in turn cabled to 
> a Surfboard SB4100 cable modem, I think about four years old. The Mac 
> has a short cable because it's right next to the modem and router; 
> the PC is on the second floor and uses a cable maybe 20 feet long.
> 
> There are two major and one minor problems we've been having:
> 
> 1. Internet access:
> The router is refusing to provide access to the Internet. I can get 
> the Internet on the desktop Mac by unplugging it from the router and 
> plugging it into the cable modem directly--*most* of the time. But 
> it's having more and more frequent outages even that way, sometimes 
> requiring restarting not only the modem but the computer.
> 
> For the first time that I can remember (we've had similar problems 
> with routers and hubs before, have burned out several of them over 
> the years), we cannot get Internet access upstairs even by plugging 
> that cable directly into the modem.
> 
> The laptop can recognize the wireless network but cannot access the 
> Internet over it. I have not tried cabling it in directly or taking 
> it to an Internet cafe.

It sounds like you have a problem with your cable modem or something
upstream -- you should check with your cable provider to make sure.

Can your desktop machines talk to each other and/or with the laptop?  If
so, your router is OK.

It is *possible* that your router is misconfigured.

> 
> 2. Spam deluge
> Until the other day, I was getting 200-300 spams in my spamfilter 
> (Spamfire 1.0) per day, and rescuing about 10 percent. Not all were 
> spam, but many were messages I didn't need from certain groups I 
> belong to (e.g., the programmer list for the community radio station 
> where I have a show). This week, it's been 600-800 a day, and I'm 
> still rescuing about 20 out of all that. It is high enough volume 
> that after every 100-200 that I delete, I quit the program and load 
> it again so that if it crashes, all the junk I got rid of doesn't 
> come back.
> 
> The only thing that's changed in my setup is that I've stopped 
> aliasing and forwarding all my email to my ISP address (charter.net) 
> and am using the bluehost server on the Frugalfun account, inbound 
> and outbound, and I set up my wife's email to alias through the 
> Charter account here she has her own screen name. PrincipledProfit 
> email has for some time been using its own server for inbound and the 
> charter server for outbound.

Sounds like you need a proper spam filter set up somewhere. 
SpamAssassin works pretty good.

> 
> 3. Shopping cart confirmation messages and order info are disappearing.
> 
> I use two different copies of the no-cost verison of mal's shopping 
> cart. When I get a cc order, it goes through one cart, and generates 
> an email message to me. When I get a paypal order (or a cc order for 
> an ebook), it goes to a different cart, that is supposed to send me 
> both the shopping cart confirmation and another confirmation from 
> paypal. But all of a sudden, the cart confirmation is not arriving, 
> and several of the paypal confirmations have a total that is not 
> represented by the product shown (invariably, AFAIC remember, they 
> have been for my forthcoming Grassroots Marketing for Authors and 
> Publishers, which has its own order page--so maybe that's where the 
> problem is). When i contact the customer, I discover that they have 
> ordered other prducts that aren't showing in the confirmation but do 
> show in the total.
> 
> Also, a minor thing: the filter I ahve to mark these orders as 
> prioirty so I don't miss them still shows up in Eudora but hasn't 
> been working for a while.
> 
> I don't know if these problems have anything to do with each other, 
> but I'd be very grateful for any guidance.
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Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
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