Article – French language / Langue Française)

Is the fibre-optic Internet service to the building or to the apartments?

“Vraie” fibre contre “fausse” fibre : le gouvernement veut clarifier les choses |ZDNet.fr

“Real” fibre versus “fake” fibre : Government wants to set things right

My Comments

An issue that will surface with deploying fibre-based next-generation Internet service to apartment and office blocks and shopping centres is how should the Internet service be properly qualified as far as the consumers are concerned.

In France, where a lot of households are based in apartments, there is a fair bit of bickering about whether a service provider had installed a fibre-to-the-premises or a fibre-to-the-building deployment.  This is especially where service providers are wanting to run that their fibre installation is “real” fibre rather than “false” fibre as part of one-upping themselves against the competition.

In a multi-occupancy development, a fibre-to-the-premises deployment has fibre-optic cabling going to each apartment, shop, office or other premises. This is compared to a fibre-to-the-basement development, also known as a fibre-to-the-building development where the fibre-optic cabling goes to the building’s telecoms closet and a copper-based cabling solution is used to bring the Internet service to each apartment or shop. The copper-based cabling solution could implement VDSL2 which uses the building’s existing telephone cabling, DOCSIS 3.1 which uses the coaxial cabling that is part of cable-TV infrastructure or Gigabit Ethernet with new Cat5 or Cat6 twisted-pair “blue” cabling.

Most consumer-driven deployments would focus on the fact that households primarily download stuff and would focus on the download speed. But there are users who place value on upload speed which is one of the advantages offered by fibre-to-the-premises. These would include people who frequently work from home or run a home-based business, along with the shops, offices and like premises used for business purposes. They would place importance on uploading so as to facilitate cloud computing, telecommunications, onilne-storage and similar business services. Similarly, the concept of a future-proof next-generation Internet deployment would be considered important as peoples’ needs evolve.

An all-fibre deployment along with a fibre-copper deployment that uses Cat5 or Cat6 Gigabit Ethernet cabling for its copper component would offer the synchronous download-upload capabilities and high speeds that business users would want.

But there needs to be a standard for qualifying whether a service provider or infrastructure provider  has wired that multi-occupancy building with a fibre-to-the-premises setup or a fibre-to-the-building setup. This would include what kind of technology the copper component was based on in the latter service type and whether it is feasible to upgrade to an all-fibre installation along with extra approximate costs.

As well, there would need to be requirements concerning the kind of marketing spiel that service providers or infrastructure providers deliver to those with executive authority over the buildings and the marketing spiel delivered to potential customers who occupy these buildings.

At least the French are fleshing out this issue so that there are proper requirements regarding the marketing of next-generation broadband to apartment dwellers and shopping-centre tenants.

Articles

UK government tackles online abuse with anti-trolling website | We Live Security blog (ESET)

Cyberbullies: Anti-trolling website launched to help victims | The Independent

Government launches anti-trolling website to help victims of online abuse | The Guardian

Previous Coverage

What can you do about people who use the Social Web to menace

Dealing with Internet trolls

From the horse’s mouth

Stop Online Abuse (UK-based)

My Comments

The UK government have launched a Website focusing on online abuse and how to deal with it, including legal remedies and resources.

It is focused more towards women and the LGBT (gay/lesbian/bi/trans) community who are facing these issues because, from various surveys, these user groups are often copping it the most. This covers online abouse related to domestic violence, sexism and sexual harassment, along with homophobia and related anti-LGBT abuse. But there are other situations where people do suffer in silence such as general racism, issues-focused or business-level disputes.

I see the “Stop Online Abuse” website applying to all situations where the Internet is involved and a lot of the commentary is very generic. But I do see some limitations with the legal remedies because there may be difficulties with applying them when situations happen across jurisdictions as is the norm with the Internet.

For example, the crime of “sending messages using any public electronic communications network such as Twitter or Facebook, which are grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” that is part of the UK’s Communications Act 2003 may have a legal equivalent in your jurisdiction. This may be in the form of one or more national communications statute that proscribes the use of a communications service or “common carriage service” to harass others. Similarly, there are court injunctions that were cited for the UK like the Family Law Act 1996 Non-Molestation Order or the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 restraining order that have equivalents under your jurisdiction’s criminal, civil or family law but with different names.

It is worth contacting your local citizen’s advice bureau or similar government or voluntary organisation for more resources. Infact, locating an organisation that specialises in your particular circumstances like a domestic-violence support organisation may provide you with better information suited to your exact needs.

Similarly, it is a wise move for these organisations to “bone up” on the issue of online abuse so they can provide the right advice to suit their clients’ situations and needs. National, regional and local governments along with the judiciary can also see this site as a chance to provide a Web-hosted “one-stop shop” for their constituents to know more about these issues. This is in addition to creating legislative remedies for online-abuse problems. As well, as each case is litigated in a family, criminal or civil context, the knowledge created from the legal action can be used to tackle this situation better in the courtroom.

Article

Two or more hard disks or partitions on your computer may make you want to move games to the larger disk

How To Move A PC Game To Another Hard Drive (Without Re-Downloading It) | LifeHacker

New Information

How to Move Microsoft Store Games To A Different Partition | Next Of Windows

How to Move GOG Games to Another Drive or Computer | iFindSoft

My Comments

You may have two hard disks in your tower-style desktop computer, or the main hard disk is partitioned in to two spaces and you want to move your games to the secondary disk or partition. Or you are running a laptop with a small hard disk and want to use a USB external hard disk for your games.

An external hard disk could be useful for offloading games from your laptop

This may come across as being very difficult for games based on game managers like the Steam or Origin systems, or the Microsoft Store; which typically put all the software on the main disk or partition i.e. Drive C: . But how can you move an existing library out to the other disk or partition or to an external hard disk?

Steam – one of the most common games managers

One way is to use a utility like the “Steam Mover” utility to move the files and create symbolic links (system references) to them.

Another way would be to use the game manager to logically move the games across to the other storage location. This is simply by redefining where the game library should be for each of the games.

Steam

1. 

   Steam – Settimgs – Downloads menu

   In Steam, you use the “Add Library Folder” option in Settings>Downloads>Steam Library Folders to create the new library folder on the disk or partition you are moving your library to.

   

   Library Folders list in Steam

2. Then you would need to add a “steamapps” folder to that folder you created in the previous step and insert in to that a “common” folder using File Explorer (Windows Explorer in Windows 7 and earlier). Then you copy the game folders using File Explorer from the existing steamapps\common folder to the newly-created steamapps\common folder.
3. Using Steam, you then right-click on the game and select “Delete Local Content” to logically uninstall the game at its old location, then click the Install button to logically install the game at its new location. This routine is about creating new logical references to the game’s new location.

Origin

1. In Origin, you just create a folder in the new location for the games using File Explorer then copy the games over to that location.
2. Then you start Origin and go to the “Application Settings>Advanced” menu and update the Downloaded Games option to reflect the games’ new locations. This step tells Origin where to download games files for newer games purchases.
3. Then you would have to go to the My Games view and tell Origin to re-install the games by clicking “Download”. Here, the games aren’t being drawn down from Origin’s servers but are having logical changes to point to the new location.

Microsoft Store

1. Click on “Settings” which is the “gear” icon within Windows, then open “Apps And Features” or “Apps” depending in how old your Windows 10 build is
2. Find the game you want to move and click the “Move” button. You will see a list of volumes you can move your game to.
3. Select that volume to begin the software move process.
4. Beware not all games offered through Microsoft Store will offer this simplified software-move experience

GOG Galaxy

Most games installed through GOG Galaxy will be simple to move if you are familiar with the Windows Explorer or similar file managers.

1. Use Windows Explorer to create a folder on your destination hard disk called “GOG Galaxy”. Then, within that folder, create another folder called “Games”.
2. Again use Windows Explorer to “copy and paste” the game folder from “C:\Program Files” or “C:\Program Files (x86)” folder to the “GOG Galaxy\Games” folder you have created on your destination hard disk or partition. You will find the game folders in the “GOG Galaxy\Games” within the abovementioned Program Files folder..
   It will be more likely for those of us running a 64-bit Windows computing setup to have these games in the “C:\Program Files (x86) folder due to them being written for 32-bit Windows computing setups.
3. Run the GOG Galaxy software and  reimport the games you have moved to the secondary hard disk. Here, you click the “gear” icon at the top right of the GOG user interface. Then you select “Add Games And Friends”, then “Scan Folders for GOG Games”.
4. You will be asked to find the folder where you moved your game to. Once you select this folder, you will find that GOG Galaxy will integrate the data that is in the new location.
5. On the other hand, you may then have to run GOG Galaxy and enter the “Add Games And Friends” menu. Here, you would select “Add Game Manually”. Then you select the game’s title and be required to look for and select the game’s primary executable file which has the game’s title.

Different game installers may use different methods for shifting the logical position of your game library or allowing to move games between one or more libraries.

A problem that may surface with this kind of routine is that if Windows decides to allocate a different drive letter to your removeable storage device every time you connect it, you may end up with unreliable operation. Here, you may have to run the “Download” or “Install” routine to logically update the game manager to the current drive-letter location.

This situation could be easily redressed by integrating library management functionality in to game-manager or app-store software so you can determine where to shift games or other programs. As well, the game manager could reference volumes by volume-names as well as drive letters.

Similarly, game managers or app stores focused on games could simplify the process of setting up games to run entirely from USB memory keys or USB hard disks in a manner to facilitate portable play. This could include installing a copy of the game manager on the medium, managing multiple titles on one medium along with storing the state of play on that medium.

Update:

15 December 2020

Added information for Microsoft Store and GOG Galaxy

Articles

Google Fiber

Google Fiber Gets Approval For Expansion Into San Antonio | Broadband News And DSL Reports

San Antonio’s size proving to be a challenge for Google Fiber | San Antonio Business Journal

C Spire

C Spire Deploys Gigabit Service to a Fourth City | Broadband News And DSL Reports

My Comments

Some communities in the US’s south are about to face the end of the cable-TV / Baby-Bell duopoly courtesy of some fibre-optic Gigabit broadband services being rolled in those areas.

Google Fiber has received approval to start deploying in San Antonio which is their second Texas-based deployment. But they are facing logistical issues that are caused by that city’s geography, especially the land mass and topography. They still insist that they can surmount these issues and what I see of this is that they can learn from this deployment on how to roll out fibre-optic Internet in to cities that have difficult terrain and can share it with the rest of the industry.

While down in Mississippi, C Spire have been at it themselves rolling out Gigabit-capable fibre infrastructure to offer competing Internet service in nine cities in that state. They are an independent provider who offer mobile-telephony service in some of the US”s Deep South but are cutting in to fixed-infrastructure Internet service.

One of these that has “lit up” this week is Clinton where they offer Gigabit Internet for US$70 per month, double-play Internet + phone for US$90 per month, double-play Internet + super HDTV for US$130 per month and a triple-play phone, Internet and TV for US$150 per month.

The deployment is supposedly based on interest and they are focusing on Southern communities which are in their mobile-telephony footprint and are capitalising on their existing fibre infrastructure. C Spire could also follow in Google FIber’s footsteps by sponsoring various computer-literacy programs targeted at disadvantaged communities and older generations.

As long as there are more companies offering to compete with the Baby Bell or the cable-TV company by offering better broadband for the US’s neighbourhoods, it could be a chance to raise the standard for Internet service value and quality.

Article

Apple releases iOS 8.4 with new Music app, fix for crashing bug | ARSTechnica

My Comments

Apple have just rolled out version 8.4 of the iOS mobile operating system and the main headline feature that this came with is the Apple Music streaming-music service which came about due to their takeover of Beats by Dr. Dre.

But this version of iOS also fixes a bug that placed iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches at risk of crashing if a specially-formed message came in via iMessage or other message services. This was due to problems associated with handling standard ASCII and Unicode character combinations. To get their iOS devices back to life after a crash, they had to do things like ask correspondents to send pictures.

Any iOS user can update their devices either over the air by visiting the Settings screen then selecting “General” before clicking on “Software Update”. Or they could use the USB charge/data cable to plug the iDevice in to a regular computer equipped with iTunes and use that software to deliver the update to the device.

Article

The Pantiles at Royal Tunbridge Wells – representative of a shopping strip with small businesses

My Comments

All too often, when there are discussions about assuring Internet service quality, these discussions focus on consumers who are primarily downloading content from the Internet. But small businesses and telecommuters are easily left out of the equation.

These users have particular needs as far as Internet service goes. For example, they frequently upload data; whether to transfer data between colleagues using an online file exchange like Dropbox or BitTorrent Sync, to use a cloud-computing service, or to use IP-based telecommunications services like Skype to talk with colleagues in town or across the world. Similarly, they rely on these Internet services to “keep the pot boiling” and if these services underperform or fail, their earning potential is reduced very heavily and the “pot doesn’t boil”. But they don’t have the bargaining power that a big business has because they work on a very small cash flow and have fewer employees with some relying on one who is the “chief cook and bottle washer”.

Decent internet at a reasonable price is essential for small businesses

ISPs have often forgotten about this class of user by having them either use consumer-grade Internet services or prefer them to sign up to a leased-line or similar “big-ticket” Internet service for their business needs. This is typically shown up by product lists for small-business Internet service having the only action that a potential subscriber can do is to request a quote for their service rather than looking at a tariff chart to compare costs. It is even though some services like leased-line services have prices that are particular to the business’s location and needs. Similarly, small businesses, telecommuters and similar users may not have the need or be able to afford a “big-business” service like a leased-line.

The main ISPs in the UK have taken this head-on by working on a code-of-practice for provisioning Internet to a small business or similar user. This factors in upload speeds, the availability of next-generation broadband “at the door” and service-level agreements. As well, at the moment, ISPs that use BT Openreach’s infrastructure have the ability to sell a service-level-agreement option with faster repair times but it is not always that quick to have problems remediated.

There is a call in the UK for certain small-business Internet services that can be provisioned on a self-install basis using existing infrastructure like ADSL2, fibre-copper (FTTC/VDSL2) and the like to have the tariffs and packages listed on the ISP’s Website. Similarly, Ofcom is requiring ISPs who use the Openreach infrastructure to support the simplified switch-over arrangements for their small-business services where these services use the same infrastructure. As well, they want Broadband Delivery UK to set targets for the level of reach for business-grade next-generation Internet.

Personally, I would like to see small-business broadband that uses existing infrastructure be offered at reasonable prices and these services to come with a decent bandwidth for uploading and downloading along with a service-level agreement that covers the contracted throughput and the time it takes to remedy service faults. If the service requires new infrastructure to be pulled from the street or the building’s infrastructure hub such as FTTP fibre-optic or cable Internet, there should be a published quote for this kind of requirement.

As well, small businesses, whether working from home or other premises such as a shopfront should be factored in when it comes to assessing the quality of Internet service and the level of competition available to these users. Similarly, multi-tenancy business developments like office blocks or shopping areas need to factor in access to business-quality broadband service for their tenants as a key drawcard feature.

At least there is somewhere where action is being taken to provide proper value-for-money Internet service to small businesses, start-ups, telecommuters and similar users.

Article

Lenovo’s proposed ThinkPad Retro is like stepping back into 1992 | PC World

From the horse’s mouth

Lenovo USA

Blog Post

My Comments

The Lenovo keeps the same look for the ThinkPad laptops

There is something about classic industrial design that never dies. This has been augmented by a lot of items like the Mini, the Fiat 500, the AGA cooker, the Wurlitzer 1015 juke box amongst other things. These examples have been evolved and reworked over longer times with newer technological improvements but have maintained their shape.

Now the IBM ThinkPad has entered this line of classic designs. Here, it was about the black housing, the blue ENTER key, the red thumbstick to move the pointer around and the 7-row keyboard. These computers became a statement for what is expected of the corporate laptop that carries through the business sense of an office in New York or Chicago..

This has been carried through even when IBM sold their personal-computing business to Lenovo as part of their computing-hardware-business divestment effort and has been shown as a way to convey the bloodline that is underscored by the ThinkPad name.

The AGA cooker always had conveyed that same homely feel always underscored with the dog in front of it

A very strong analogy that comes to my mind is the AGA cooker which for many decades kept a particular design but had  many technical improvements such as being able to use oil, gas or electricity as a fuel or work under timer control. There were still the two hotplates with the distinct insulated metal lids sitting on the black top and two or four ovens with the distinctly-shaped insulated doors, the chrome towel rail on the top front edge (with many tea-towels hanging on it) and the thermometer above the top oven door. The AGA stove still carried through the homely feel in the kitchen, consistently warm and comfortable and has often been associated with the British farm houses and cottages and the cosy lifestyle endemic to them.

One of the machines that was being celebrated and is being considered by Lenovo for a “One More Time” treatment is the highly-portable IBM ThinkPad 700c which was issued in 1992. I use the expression “One More Time” to allude to what Wurlitzer had done with the 1015 jukebox. The original design could only make 10 78-rpm records for play through its valve amplifier. But Wurlitzer issued a newer machine with the same arch shape and decorations as the original unit, but was able to have 50 45-rpm records available to play via a solid-state amplifier and used microprocessor technology to fetch the records to be played. This newer model was called the 1015 “One More Time” to reference the preservation of the same industrial design but having newer improvemts.

The IBM ThinkPad 700c had a “cigar-box” look with the black housing, the red thumbstick and the distinct keyboard layout. But it had a 4:3 display that had a resolution low by today’s standards along with the processor power, memory and storage that was okay to 1992 standards for a secondary machine. It also had a 3.5” floppy-disk drive as its removeable storage. Here, they would revise this computer with a 16:9 widescreen display with Full-HD resolution at least, a few USB 3.0 ports as the main connectivity option, current-spec horsepower like Intel Core M or i-Series processors, 4Gb RAM and 128Gb SSD secondary storage at least, and more to suit today’s expectations.

What I like of this idea put up in Lenovo’s blog is to revisit a classic design and look at how it can be made relevant to today’s requirements rather than tossing it away.