About gaines_wright

  It seems to me that there has been an increase in posters in Tech Support complaining of speed and/or data usage problems. It also looks to me like some of these people have been given unrealistic expectations by the Hughes sales people, since so many of them are trying to stream movies.     Is there anybody out there who sucessfully streams movies every day, and if so, how much money do you spend on tokens every month?   SALESMAN n. A certain kind of liar, whose lies are often by exaggeration or omission. The New Devils Dictionary ( With apologies to Ambrose Bierce )   ... View more

  I almost always use multiple tabs when browsing, that way I can continue looking at a site while waiting for the links I've chosen to load in their own tabs. As opposed to opening the new link in the same tab, and then hitting the back button to return to the original site.     This seems to be a more efficient way to do things to me, but then I thought, how does this effect my data usage? So I came up with the following test using Linux Mint 18.3, Firefox 61.0.1, and Linux iftop ( A linux utility that keeps a total of the data flowing through an etherenet port ).     I purposefully picked a site that takes a moderate amount of data ( around 2 meg ) to load its home page, loaded the site, reset iftop, and then opened every link ( 5 total ) in a new tab. Waited for all the tabs to finish loading. and then recorded the total traffic from iftop.     I then shut down and restarted Firefox to clear any cache data, reloaded the same site, reset iftop, and then used the back button method on the same links.     The results:     New tab          9.68 meg     Back button    27.8 meg     I alway suspected the new tab method would save data, but was somewhat surprised by the amount of the difference. I thought that most of the original page would have been stored in the cache, and it wouldn't have to reload that much from the internet every time I hit the back button.     Of course, this is just a single test on a single site, and it may prove exactly nothing, but I think I'll stick to the new tab method.   "An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications."   Lazarus Long   ... View more

  While I was still an industrial electrician I learned to program with BASIC ( which I later learned to hate ), 'C' ( which I love ), and PLC Ladder Logic. All mostly self taught. I think this was a big part of why I later got a much better job in process automation.     Our processes were controlled by a hybrid system, a DCS ( distributive control system ) did all of the analog stuff ( flows, temperatures, etc ) and a PLC ( programmable logic controller ) handled the digital logic ( motors, bindicators, interlocks, etc ).     In addition the DCS handled the operator consoles, originally using DEC PDP-11-73s running RSX, later with DEC Alphas running VMS. and finally ( much to my disgust ) a PC running Windoze.     When I was assigned to do the automation programing in a plant,   I did the all the programming on both systems, and also drew the operator console graphics with ACAD    At first, I found my job fascinating, but some years before I retired, I was sick of the whole thing. When you've written code that people use every day, you don't own the program - it owns you!      All of those of 3:00 am phone calls, where 99.999 percent of the time it's either operator error or a hardware problem. Very rarely is it what we called in the department a "logic bomb". IOW where code that's run perfectly for years encounters a unique set of circumstances that makes it blow up.     Hey, I just realized that my Hughes data usage problems may have turned ME into to one of those 3:00 am callers! :>)>     "Enough about me, let's talk about you for a a minute"     Alanis Morissette   ... View more

  It seems that Linux is actually spying on its users  I've been seeing a small amount of data going to sites like:   golem.canonical.com chilipepper.canonical.com     Typical of Linux humor. :<)>     When I googled these names I found that these, and other sites containing ".canonical.com" are used by Linux developers to gather user information to be used in designing the next version of Linux.   It can be disabled from a terminal, but it looks complicated.     I think I'll just leave it alone.    "Cheops’ Law: Nothing is ever built on schedule or within budget."    Lazarus Long ... View more

  Wow! I actually made it through this month without running out of data The first time with Gen5. Of course, I've been getting up at 5:30 every morning to do a lot of my browsing   I guess I'll be doing this for a while. The sum of my anytime data and bonus bytes is still over 100% of the anytime data cap about a week before the the usage resets.     Some friends of mine, who are experiencing the same Gen5 data usage problems, gave up and went to a larger data plan.    Take that Hughes! Your evil plan has failed! You're not going to get an extra twenty dollars a month out of me! :<)>     Yes, I've done all of the tests recommended here, including using a glasswire like Linux program called iftop, I'm even running a spreadsheet on Hughes vs iftop. I've only run the spreadsheet for 4 days though. So far, the data seems inclusive.     OTOH, I haven't found a data leak either, and there's still that pesky data cap that was NEVER a problem pre-Gen5.    In the future, I'm going to be very wary about doing another Hughes upgrade, at least until I google around to see what problems people are having. ACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws. The Devils Dictionary ... View more