Things steadily got worse; programs stopped working, files vanished, error message after error message. I was getting too bogged down in technical problems so my machines been completely formatted and rebuilt. I hope I backed up everything I need and that I didn’t back up whatever caused the problem in the first place.

An activity that seems to be frequently associated with ‘tracing routes’ is packet sniffing.

When data is sent through the TCP/IP protocol it is split into segments called packets, each with it’s own set of instructions for transferring to, and being reconstructed by, the destination. (I’m sure we’ll see more of this later)

I found a program called Wireshark which was reasonable easy to use but I had difficulty deciphering the results. I never realised how many packets of data are sent. The screen scrolled so fast I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t delve too deeply into it as I’m sure we’ll probably get to this later in the subject but it did make me wonder what a program like this could be used for. I didn’t realise I had an application for it straight away.

I’ve think I’ve got a spyware/data-miner program somewhere on my system as when I log off the internet something perpetually attempts to access an outside source/destination. I can’t figure out what it is as my Task Manager has been disabled (maybe it’s a virus). I thought I’d try Wireshark to see if I can locate the destination and content of these ‘unauthorised’ transmissions.

Results were inconclusive; I need to learn how to interperate them

Hmm.. OK, I think I’ve done this before. Can’t remember why though.

Results from Centralops.net

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Tracing route to curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.53]…

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Results from network-tools.com

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TraceRoute to 134.7.179.53 [curtin.edu.au]

—————————————————————————————————–

I tried both Traceroute services. Centralops.net used 20 hops while network-tools.com used 16. Strangely enough they both concluded very simular times. What was my average… I’m not sure as there a three separate values and Howstuffworks.com only describes two of them; time to, and time from.

I’ve just been informed that RTT mean Round Time Taken which would indicate that it pings it’s destination three times. That means the average time taken to curtin.edu.au from centralops.net is 247ms and from network-tools.com is 250.3ms.

Curtin’s Host IP address is 134.7.179.53

I was under the impression that the FTP protocol needs to be active to browse the web, so why are we guided to sites to download an FTP program? I didn’t bother as you can just use an FTP address in your browser. Maybe I should look and answer my own question…

OK, it appears to be another front-end, just like Firefox, Netscape, and Hyperterminal. More user-friendly but not necessary. I’ve never seen anything but typical directory structure when using FTP servers and this one is no different. Maybe a search within the directory structure would be useful but in this case readme.txt was not too difficult to find.

Anyway, to the task at hand. I quickly scanned the document for “blank” MATTERS. I was shocked. CAPITALISM!!! I scanned the rest of the document and felt a little confused. It’s about file compression. What has that got to do with capitalism? I read the document more thoroughly and found my reoccurring error (PEBKAC).

Well, in the words of Kyle, “I’ve leaned something today. I should stop jumping to conclusions and read things a little closer”

Ha ha, yeah, I’ve seen plenty of these before. Takes a long time and wears out your [CTRL], [C], and [V] keys (hehe)

It also goes to show how a new (at the time) system for data transfer can be used in a different way. I bet whoever developed Telnet never thought of sending ASCII animations through it. Therein lies one of the greatest things about the human race. Individuals can be so talented but the almagation of many talents together is really incredible. Things have come a long way in a short period of time. I bet this Star Wars rendition isn’t that old but look what we have now with applications like ‘Flash’ and web services like ‘YouTube’.

It’s a simular situation with the MP3 algorithm. It was developed for DV, yet it brought peer to peer protocols to the mainstream (Napster) as an easy way to share music, and of course portable music devices will never be the same. It’s pleasing to see these revolutionary concepts appearing from looking at pre-existing ideas, with imagination.

Here we go, from the beginning. Haven’t used it for so long, don’t even know if Win XP supports it.

Sure enough it does, but I don’t wanna go back to typing commands again *sigh*

I remember we used to use Hyperterminal in Win 95/98 which effectively does the same thing but has a pretty (comparatively) windows interface. And… Win XP has it, WooHoo! The rest of the task is pretty straight forward except for “What kind of terminal you’re using? V/W” Huh?!?!? “V” or “Compatible” (well my machine hasn’t found too much it isn’t compatible with yet) worked. I wonder if this is blowback from the IBM Compatible days.

Funny side-note; I couldn’t find any books by Author “Brennahum” (error occurred between chair and keyboard)

I was surprised to see all the different protocols identified separately. I thought they were different front-ends of TCP/IP. For example, isn’t an IP address just a computers way of dealing with URLs but in reality they’re the same thing. Are all these different protocols just for the benefit of the end user?

1. One word – ‘research’. Isn’t that the greatest use for the internet. It’s a good idea to know what your doing before you do it. Depening on the subject, the first place I usually go is [www.wikipedia.com] closely followed by a concise search on Goolge.

2. Have a look at some examples/other blogs. I guess this also comes under the category of research but it also fuels your imagination. Two people will often approach something differently and often there are aspects that you haven’t considered.

3. Think of what you are trying to achieve and try to find a blog host that meets your needs and suits your working style. Don’t think that they’re all the same. Many offer different services and tools such as the ability to upload A/V media while others don’t.

4. Keep things simple. If you have a look at some other blogs you’ll notice that while some look very nice or seem to have a wealth of interesting reading they may turn most people away as there are already hundreds of thousands of blogs to sift through.

5. Have fun and enjoy what you’re doing. The overall quality of your work will be reflected by this.