ADSL In Jordan
I’ve heard various complaints from a few friends of mine about the status of Internet connectivity in Jordan, especially ADSL. So I’m writing this article to explain what is going on and why ADSL the way it is, but first, some history.
Back in pre-broadband times, people used dial-up modems to connect to the Internet. The name “modem” came from the fact that data was being modulated (Turned from digital to analog form) to be sent over the phone lines, and demodulated (Turned from analog to digital form) at the other end. This utilized the same frequencies used for regular phone conversations, this is why you could hear the weird sounds if you picked the phone up while being connected to the Internet. Given the relatively narrow frequency range used by phones this technology was limited to about 56Kbps, the best speed I got was back in 2003 which was about 5KB/s for my downloads, and that was considered fast at the time.
First Thoughts of @ZainJo's HSPA+ Service
Lately ISPs have been bombarding us with all sorts of Internet related ads, promising “high speeds” or “unlimited downloads”. Osama Hajjaj said it best with this comic:
Ubuntu 10.04
When Ubuntu 9.10 came out I was very eager to try it, but sadly I was very disappointed. So when I was downloading 10.04 I wasn’t really expecting anything. I’m glad I was wrong.
Delete All Messages From A POP3 Account
Here at the office, we host a few domains with Verio. Not my choice, and I’m not happy with it. We also host some mailboxes for one of those domains with Verio. I got a message from Verio support saying the mailboxes for that domain are occupying around 1GB of space, and that we need to delete some of them.
My Experience With The Motorola CPEo 400 Wimax CPE
Where I live we have no proper DSL (512Kbps max), GSM signals are weak. Sometimes I have to stick my head out of the window just to be able to make a call. Even when I got my Wimax account the indoor CPE kept disconnecting every few minutes. I finally managed to get my hands on an outdoor CPE which made things much better. Typical for someone living at the edge of the world (West Amman).
The Motorola CPEs act as network gateways, they connect to the Wimax network and do NATing for you. That’s nice for a home network, less stuff to configure and less clutter.
VMware Remote Console Firefox Plug-in And Arrow Keys
VMware remote console was working properly for me when I was using Ubuntu Hardy. After upgrading to Jaunty the arrow keys stopped working inside the remote console. Seems some people face this problem even under windows.
Lighttpd, Joomla, And Clean URLs
So I’m working on a new web server but I don’t want to use Apache since it’s a virtual machine. Had some trouble with the rewirte rules but I think I got them
Google Chrome On Ubuntu
Slow Browsing Under Ubuntu
EDIT: This post only covers IPv6, please check the update post which covers IPv6 and Firefox
Today when I rebooted to my Windows installation which I very rarely do, I noticed that browsing under Windows feels much faster than under Ubuntu. After booting back to Ubuntu I noticed the “looking up domain.tld” part was taking a lot of time, which seemed a little odd.
Microsoft Keyboard Function Key Fix
I’ve owned a Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard 1.0A for years now. It’s a well belt keyboard to say the least. Only one problem though, the “F Lock” key. As a Linux user I have no use for the “Special” keys Microsoft added to the keyboard, and the button always starts turned off, no way to fix it.
