Developers, developers, developers, developers

[donavannj]

Ah, Mediacom. I saw a list from GigaOm of all the common ISPs in the United States and it listed their data caps by common tier levels. Not sure if it's just your municipality though, but this article says that Mediacom instates a cap: http://gigaom.com/2013/11/15/data-cap-2013/

It's our plan. Ours is the 50/10 plan (50 down, 10 up).

 

[Meganium]

I've heard of the Six-Strikes policy as well, and it sucks that you got slapped with a strike already, Megan. While it does seem to be a good way to crack down on piracy, I don't really think it's effective at all, really. @_@ There are many people in this world that are tech-illiterate and might have an open access point, and then have other people torrenting on that network. Who's going to get busted? Not the downloader, that's for sure.

Also, they can't necessarily nail you on seeding, unless they know what you're seeding. Not all torrents are illegal, and there might be an instance where one seeds something legit and not illegal.

I do understand what they're coming from. Piracy rates have gone high nowadays and I'm actually okay with it. It's a step forward to combat torrenting/piracy so that way it'll pester us to actually spend money on legit downloads.

 

[Tsutarja]

So now my college is apparently blocking traffic on ports other than the standard ones. I can't use IRC from the network anymore as all of my clients throw a "CONNECTION REFUSED" error at my face. I wonder what prompted them to change this?

 

[Tsutarja]

It's probably because they're trying to get all the traffic into the standard ports so they can filter it more efficiently and try to block what activity they don't like.

I still find it really funny that our school filters the student-accessible WLAN access points, but the guest access points aren't filtered at all.

Hmm, I wonder why then. But essentially, no web traffic is filtered at all if you use ports 80 and 443.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

So now my college is apparently blocking traffic on ports other than the standard ones. I can't use IRC from the network anymore as all of my clients throw a "CONNECTION REFUSED" error at my face. I wonder what prompted them to change this?

Eh, that's one of the things that's always made me want to get one of those mobile hotspot things. Lets me have internet my way anywhere without dealing with public networks that wear enough protection to investigate a meth lab. :3

 

[Hiatus]

I'm able to set up Internet hot-spot right from my phone, but it drains a lot of my battery, though, so I always need to keep it plugged into the charger when using that. Seriously wish it weren't like this. ):

 

[Tsutarja]

I tried using a friend's phone at school to use a hotspot with so that I didn't have to deal with my school's slow wifi the other day, but too bad his carrier had locked the option to do so >_<

 

[Oryx]

I've considering rooting my phone just for that purpose, but my data plan isn't that high so I'd probably just kill it by making it a hotspot. I have a ton of patience for slow internet, so it wouldn't be an issue to just use free internet instead.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

Yeah, I tried many a time to root my Samsung Galaxy Reverb but none of the available options seemed to work. I'm not about to pay a bunch of extra money each month so they can flip a switch on my phone, lol. Not to mention the additional costs of paying for a reasonable data cap for PC internet usage… no thanks. :P

I'm actually wanting to get a 4G mobile hotspot thing from Verizon to use with my computer, since I really hate how archaic home Wi-Fi is for someone who's always on the go. :/

 

[Legendary Silke]

As for me, I'm using Nokia Software Updater to flash the old Windows Phone 8.0 + Lumia Black OS-firmware combination to my Lumia 525, as I find 8.1 to lack polish for now.

 

[twocows]

So now my college is apparently blocking traffic on ports other than the standard ones. I can't use IRC from the network anymore as all of my clients throw a "CONNECTION REFUSED" error at my face. I wonder what prompted them to change this?

Our university did that almost the entire time I was there. Mostly, it was a security measure. They really don't care unless they get in trouble for it, but if someone turns your machine into a zombie and they get a message from the police saying that you're part of a botnet that did X illegal activity, that causes them problems. IRC is actually one of the more common ways for this to happen, since there are a lot of unsavory folks on some IRC networks and you can easily reveal a lot of information about your computer and your connection unintentionally over IRC.

Stuff like this is usually just a blanket measure since it's easier to just block everything than to deal with individual cases. The only real good way to deal with it (at least if it's as strict as I'm guessing it is) is by tunneling, and that requires a reliable, unrestricted off-site computer, and it's probably going to introduce a bit of lag unless it's well set-up. It's also pretty complicated to set up and probably not worth it.

For IRC, just learn to like Mibbit or web IRC for networks that don't allow Mibbit.

 

[Tsutarja]

Hmm, didn't think of that. However, I did discover a few more things about this flaw today. Firstly, it must be the particular IP or something.. because the IP is different than before the incident started to occur. Secondly, this is a somewhat serious problem, as I'm not able to search the school's library directory anymore. The school's library directory uses traffic on port 8891, and with those new measures in effect, I cannot seem to connect to that.

I feel like placing a call to the school's IT department, but I'm not sure if it'd be something to complain about.. especially with the library database issue.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

That's probably their tech department forgetting to clean up after themselves, i.e. forgetting to unblock necessary school-specific ports in their haste to disable everything but 80 and 443. :P

 

[Legendary Silke]

I guess Microsoft wasn't kidding when they said that the Preview for Developers is a Preview. Sometimes, it pays to be patient and enjoy stability. I don't believe in moving too fast when it comes to software these days.

 

[Tsutarja]

I'm still waiting for Windows Phone 8.1 to come to my phone. I also don't want to really want to download it while it's under closed review to developers because of bugs, which was why I wanted to install Windows 8.1 Update 1 as well.

Speaking of 8.1 Update 1, something in my laptop got corrupt recently and I had to reinstall Windows 8.1 Update 1 to it the other day when I did a system restore.

 

[Meganium]

/needs to summon quilzel in here asap because windows phone discussion

In regards to internet hot spots, my iPhone can be a personal hot spot thanks to my new data plan. So that way when we're on the road, my sister can use the net in car rides. lol Although yes...that drains the battery tons S_S

I can't use it at home, 4G is VERY spotty where I'm at, and it sucks :(

 

[Legendary Silke]

Speaking of 8.1 Update 1, something in my laptop got corrupt recently and I had to reinstall Windows 8.1 Update 1 to it the other day when I did a system restore.

I suggest you enable System Protection if it's not enabled and set at least 10 GB of space on your laptop's system drive in the future. System Protection is reliable since Windows Vista or 7; usually you can get out of unexpected system changes with some few short clicks.

 

[Mittens95]

Quick question, how does the 3DS do as an MP3 player? Back when I had a DSi, I had to convert mp3s to a weird format just to get music working. Has the 3DS fixed this issue? Also, is it a good enough replacement for an iPod?

 

[Tsutarja]

Quick question, how does the 3DS do as an MP3 player? Back when I had a DSi, I had to convert mp3s to a weird format just to get music working. Has the 3DS fixed this issue? Also, is it a good enough replacement for an iPod?

The 3DS uses the m4a music format, just like the DS I'm afraid. However, if you use music from iTunes, you shouldn't need to convert the files. Or if you have mp3 files, you can download iTunes for the purpose of converting them to m4a files.

 

[Tsutarja]

The 3DS can also decode standard MP3 files. I know this from experience.

Oh it can? Last time I tried it, it only read m4a files last time I tried, I think @_@