Matt Croydon::Postneo

Day: January 5, 2003

  • Web Hosts and ISPs

    Kenneth Hunt uses pair Networks for his web hosting and likes them.  I used them for a few years before I started weblogging.  I never had any downtime, their email tech support was responsive, it felt like a mom and pop shop from when I signed up until I cancelled my service.  My account was on ando.pair.com, machine #45.  I had a hard time justifying the bills when I was only working a few hours a week during school, so I had to leave pair.  When it came time to put up shop on the ‘net again, Westhost was cheaper and several people recommended it.

    I miss pair though.  It was nice to see the company grow, to move to a bigger facility, and expand.  I felt the same way with CAIS (Capital Area Internet Service).  When I started using them as my ISP (shell + PPP, baby!) they were owned and operated almost entirely by women.  I think eventually they got bought by Verio and service went downhill, but for several of the early Internet years, they were great.

    Remember Trumpet Winsock?  Heh.

  • The Disruptive Web

    Jon Udell:

    If you’re creating a Web service that you hope will have a disruptive impact, the lessons are clear. Support HTTP GET-style URLs. Design them carefully, matching de facto standards where they exist. Keep the URLs short, so people can easily understand, modify, and trade them. Establish a blog reputation. Use the blog network to promote the service and enable users of the service to self-organize. It all adds up to a recipe for recombinant growth. [Full story at InfoWorld.com]

  • Cqure AP

    Along the same lines as “Herbix”, Cqure AP is a single floppy wireless access point distro.  It supports Prism 2-based 802.11b cards and most standard 10/100 NICs.  I’m a little obblivious on the wireless side, but this looks like a cool way to save a hundred bucks or so, or whatever a wireless access point costs nowadays.

    Of course if you use Cqure AP, you’ve got to plug in the biggest antenna you can find, cause you’re so that guy.

  • Pre-Bedtime Linkage

    Pre-bedtime news bits:

    • The Inquirer: Apple/AMD rumors continue.
    • OpenBSD Journal: NTP Basics.
    • Kerneltrap: NetBSD/Darwin binary compatability layer updates.
    • Use Perl; points to the latest Perl Review [pdf], which contains bits about parsing RSS with XSLT and other yummie nuggets.
    • Shelley doesn’t like the social implications of blogrolls.  I have seen similar things happen with Livejournal friends lists.
    • I’m going to hit a local computer show tomorrow in search of cheap stuff.