About MarkJFine

I run an ethernet connection and can still get metered. ... View more

More QA on the apps than the developers themselves. The apps go through rigorous testing before they're posted. this is true for the macOS app store as well as the iOS app store. Though I'm pretty sure some developers could get their hands slapped for repeated breaches and failures I don't think they have a developer rating system, if that's what you're asking. ... View more

Unfortunately, I know of no iOS apps that will schedule downloads, but I do know of several apps that you can use to download them with.   Regarding iOS being somewhat 'closed'. There's basically only one integrated development environment for it: Apple's Xcode, and one specific language: Swift. Xcode is free (albeit huge - over 6GB) and you can develop things for yourself and others to test. BUT, in order to be able to distribute things you need to buy (forget how much.. think $100) a license from Apple. The license basically authenticates you with them as an authorized developer.   I have a free license where I can develop apps for myself and install them on my own device. I can even give them to people to test on their own devices. I just can't put anything up on the store for mass distro.   Bottom line: On one hand this keeps out a lot of blatant malware (although some does sneak in through ads) since it helps pay for testers prior to putting things up in the store. One the down side, it really puts a crimp on 'just throwing something out there' and seeing if it catches on, like in the old shareware days. So there's a lot less available, and a lot less overall creativity for the sake of security. ... View more

There are lots of variables to speed, including:   1. How many people are using that gateway (and for what) at any particular time. If you have a lot of people doing high-resource-demand things (e.g., streaming) on that gateway, you're going to see a lot of peaks and valleys as the instantaneous demand changes.   2. Where the connection goes to. Not all upstream providers have the same kinds of connections to all places, and there could be problems with any of the servers along that path. For example, I can pull down a podcast file from one site with excellent speed, and have erratic download speeds from somewhere else.   Best way to tell is using a traceroute to any IP to see if there are hiccups on that path. For example, the upstream provider for GWID 068 is Level3. Their connection to Microsoft is awful at the moment, causing slow and/or erratic speeds that are all over the place. Just so happens that the problem exists at Level3's gateway to Microsoft in LA, two 'hops' past HughesNet's purview, and therefore not HughesNet's fault.   Same could be said about the server being chosen in TestMy. You should be choosing a server that is closest to your HughesNet gateway, with the fewest hops possible. That should provide the lowest risk of having an connection issue, thus skewing the results. ... View more

Are you using the internal 2G Wifi or an external wireless router? If so, it could be limiting your speed. Try using the internal 5G Wifi or an ethernet cable directly to the modem and see if things don't pick up significantly.   You can also check your LAN speed by going to http://192.168.0.1/limited.html#!/general/lan_speed which should indicate better than ~250Mbps if it's not being bogged down by something. ... View more

Not sure there's anything reliable, though I've not tried to test anything Linux-based, which might work (might need X-Quartz and some external gtk libraries for any gui).   Other than that, I've really considered writing one. Maybe when the weather gets colder... don't want to get stuck inside debugging things. 🙂 ... View more

What's neat about that site is that it gives full sighting: azimuth and take off angle. ... View more

@Dtrail Yeah, it's doubtful they're spoofing the MAC address. Some ideas: 1. After you set the MAC filter, you might have to reboot. Sometimes it doesn't take immediately. Not sure why that is. 2. Also possible that if you've set the MAC List to Deny, they are just using a different device. It's actually safer to collect a list of MAC addresses that you want to limit use of the router, and use those in one set for Allow instead. This gives you absolute control over who can use the modem. ... View more

@GabeU wrote: Eek!  It looks like Greek, to me.  I'll just stick with my guesses.  🙂   Or you could just use this site: http://www.cosinekitty.com/compass.html ... View more

Here's the process if you want to figure it out: 1. Get your location and the location of your gateway (North lats are positive, West longs are negative).     Location of E19 is at lat 0, lon -97.1071, elev 35786000 m. 2. Convert all the locations from degrees to radians (e.g., φ * pi / 180). 3. Convert all three locations to a point in 3-space:     Earth's radius: Er = √( [ (6378137²*Cos(lat))² + (6356752.3²*Sin(lat))² ] / [ (6378137*Cos(lat))² + (6356752.3*Sin(lat))² ] )     Geocentric Lat: Glat = ArcTan( (1-0.00669437999014)*Tan(lat) )     Point:     x = Er*Cos(lon)*Cos(Glat) + elev*Cos(lat)*Cos(lon)     y = Er*Sin(lon)*Cos(Glat) + elev*Cos(lat)*Sin(lon)     z = Er*Sin(Glat) + elev*Sin(lat) 3. Calculate the path distances in km for each leg by taking the square root of the sum the squares of the differences in each direction and then dividing by 1000:     Dkm = √(Δx² + Δy² + Δz²) / 1000 m/km 4. Calculate the minimum lag time by dividing twice the total path by the speed of light:     Tlag(ms) = 2*(Dkm(dish to sat)+Dkm(sat to gateway)) / 299.7924 km/ms Turns out the lag for me in C.Virginia to E-19, and San Diego and back is 500.54ms. ... View more

I've got an algorithm to calculate the actual distance between a geosynchronous satellite at lat 0, long y, alt z, and your location at any given lat x', long y', alt z'.   It's almost as complicated as calculating the seven symbols on a stargate. ... View more

Given it's around 500, add about 100 to the destination for anything added on the upstream route. Add at least 200 if your upstream is Level3 going to Microsoft. Level3's connection to MS is abysmal right now. ... View more

Just to put a lag time on it, independent of channel speed or frequency : 22,300 mi * 4 legs *         sec        = 478.843 mSec (minimum)        leg                       186,282 mi   [The speed of light is 186,282 mi/sec] ... View more

Was wondering if there weren't ways to shorten the process: I think the shipping slip is basically one of those sticker jobs like from UPS. So an alternative would be to find the dimensions for a similar box to ship it in, then pack everything in it when you're ready to do so. Once the slip arrives you can just slap it on and let it go. Or, perhaps, find out the shipping/return authorization info and see if you can't print one yourself beforehand. If in fact UPS is involved, I think they can even print the sticker for you given the appropriate information is in the system and handle it when you bring a sealed box to them to return. Any of this make sense? ... View more

I should note that Level3 has been having issues upstream from 068 as noted from traceroutes, so it's quite possible it's either them or the connection between the gateway and them in my case. ... View more

@Hal I think was @infinitytec is referring to is the default page a browser gives you when a TLS handshake fails. Usually it returns a 'bad MAC' type of error indicating packets are getting scrambled or curtailed. If it's the same thing, I too have been seeing this on Beam 68 with a near-perfect, non-FAP connection. It's not particular to any time of day but may be aggravated by increased load in the evening. ... View more

@Randym1- As you've certainly noticed, this forum is the absolute best place to get things done. @Amanda and @Liz (and their intern minions) go out of their way, spreading themselves thin to make sure of it. When all you see are the mountains of empty, entitled (and even paranoid) complaints, a post with the right common sense attitude, like this one, goes a real long way. Thank you. Note to @Liz - There needs to be a kudo multiplier. Somehow, one just doesn't seem to cut it for posts like this. ... View more

@ZPHughes wrote: What do you know?  I know for a fact that it does work in the latest Win10 update, and that the tech support person is misinformed. ... View more

Probably the Air Force working on some secret weather control application... #kidding ... View more

I belive 62 is Omaha, Nebraska. ... View more