10:00 < SoulFunk> Estaga: blog updates?
10:00 * Estaga has nothing to say
10:07 < SoulFunk> Estaga: how about an entry on your recent "bandwidth detox" and subsequent "return to broadband" ? :)

Righty, so after 30 days of downtime, all to blame to the first ADSL install in a new development, a broken exchange and other sad unmentionables, I'm finally back online.

Of course I received the SMS that I'm back online when I was a few hundred miles away in Bath. Some retry-forever scripts at least made up for the connectivity.

In my absence of broadband I was faced with dialup, it's sad how one forgets how utterly crap it is, 30mb download? more than a hour please! *Argh*.

Needless to say I'm much happier now, I just had to replace my gateway's 8gb hdd with a new one (80gb was best price/size for a small hdd) and I had to endure a few hours of harddrive-head-bashing-sounds while praying for data to make it to my new disk, all's well now though (:

Anyway, mandantory update completed now, I hope Soulfunk at least will be happy now.

I love their online statement viewing site, it shows you the most-dialed, most-used services, average time spent on phone a day etc. all lovely, except I like to be able to fall back to my old paper billing now and then, especially since everybody and his dog wants to see bills to your postal address in the UK.

I suspected this problem was because I have a my.carphonewarehouse account and can view my bill that way, so I dropped them a request asking where the button is on their site to receive paper billing.

I go this reply:

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your billing query.

As you are registered for the online billing, you will no longer receive your bills by post. However, your monthly bills are sent via email.

If you wish to revert to paper billing, please email back with your request and I will cancel your online billing account.

I replied:

Why is it not possible to have paper billing AND a online billing account? By "online billing account" I presume you mean cancelling my http://www.mycarphonewarehouse.com/ account which I actively use for phone trends and exporting of calls to spreadsheets? Nevermind contact, upgrade and other detail updates?

Could you please elaborate on what will be cancelled and why anything would have to be cancelled to receive statements by post but still maintain contact with yourselves via my login to mycarphonewarehouse.com?

Their response today:

Thank you for your e-mail with regards to your billing method. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your query.

I can advise that it is not possible to have both online billing and paper bills.

If you wish to revert to paper bills then you will need to cancel your online billing account, which you use to view your bills.

I hope that this information has helped you with your query.

PS: I wonder why MT changes the fontsize after the first paragraph after a blockquote but not the remainder, weird.

I decided to grab a cheap-ish 2 bed/bath room apartment to get my foot in the market over in the UK since I'm tired throwing a rather large sum of pounds to the landlord every month. As with all UK-buys, I do not know how it will go with such a pre-election and fluxuating property market country but I've tried to cover myself on all the bases I could to make sure value "should" increase over time.

As a no-credit-worthyness-new-person-in-the-country it was quite a interesting buy vs. what I had to go through in South Africa, basically, since nobody will give you a 100% loan (which first time buyers in SA normally would get) you're stuck on having to buy something and come up with 5% of the money (ie. 95% loan), thats only the loan, then you are talking stamp duty, solicitor (lawyer) fees, etc. It can be pretty expensive and you're looking at needing at least £15k in the bank before you can really go see the bank about it. If you are here indefinitely, and been here for some time it seems like you can get 100% easier, although it is still a difficult process.

So, eitherway, I've opted to go for a new build, which generally around here means they will pay the 5% deposit (of a 95% loan) + stamp duty, etc. So in the end you just pay some odds and ends and the solicitors fees, around £4k alltogether will set you off nicely.

If all goes well and if the damn health & safety inspection passes I will get the keys to my new place sometime tomorrow afternoon (: And then I can start enjoying the fun of moving.

Of course just as I wanted to take some more pictures with my 'ol EOS 300D I noticed my camera will not power on at all, it just sits blankly as if there is no batteries in it. I've changed/charged batteries to no avail, I've decided to wait until I've moved before sending in my camera to have it looked at so I'm ridiculously-downgrading to my old HP C30 (1MP) camera (jipee!), that is no doubt going to be lots of fun.

I've tried to organise with BT my new phoneline today and they can only send out a engineer on the 13th of May! I've also contacted my ISP who tried to get my broadband done on the same day but unfortunately nobody in the new development has asked for ADSL yet so they need to come out and line-test it etc. which takes another 5-7 working days after that. So - looks like I'm not going to have access to a phoneline or ADSL any time soon. ):

Eitherway, I'm looking forward to moving into my pad and have my own little nest on this island. I've taken some pictures over the past few weeks and cannot wait to see it completed.

Below is a quick episode of 4 days of pure hell and irritation to me of a client app on one side of a firewall gets NAT'd and tries to reach the other side of a firewall where the server app is running, sadly this is all between certain contracting companies who believes in throwing in many over eager over escalating-hungry project managers at "problems" that's quite simple to solve in the first place.

I've left quite a few bits out, apologies in advance...

--

Monday:

them> You got some access through some firewall for us and it aint working, can you join our conference call?
fb> ok
them> I'll send you some e-mail detailing what we think
fb> ok
*receives mail*
Thread about how a guy tarred up a box and put the app on another box which is now allowed to talk but it "aint working"
fb> *conference call dialin*
them> hello, here, meet the 15 people on the call and what they do.
them> your fw is fucked, it must be your fw because this machine is a mirror of the other one
fb> what is the error?
them> "No common encryption algorithm with client"
fb> How is that a firewall problem?
them> It works on the other machine!
fb> It sounds to me like the client cannot establish a compatible cypher to the server, is this SSL?
them> yes, we think it's because it is NAT'd, NAT's break everything
fb> Then why would it complain about a Cipher?
them> The firewall is broken! It does not happen on other machine!
fb> *knowing this is going nowhere*, Give me contact details of engineer with access to the client machine
fb> and somebody on the server side.
them> Here you go, it's really important, had to work last week, I'm going to escalate to 30 more people if
them> this does not get fixed.
fb> righty.
fb> *calls dude on client side*
fb> What you using?
them> Solaris, with perl and some ssl libs
fb> Great, try openssl ss_client --connect :
fb> do you see the SSL connect and public keys being thrown about?
them> hold on I cannot find openssl
fb> /usr/local/bin ?
them> ahh, yes.
them> *tries*
them> It says something about Ciphers and gives error 500?
fb> It's a webserver then? 500? Internal Server Error?
them> yes
fb> Righty, so its obviously talking to the server.
them> No, the firewall is broken, I setup many firewalls at home, I'm sure its NAT that is broken!
fb> No, a firewall cannot produce a http error, its not clever.
them> No, its the firewall! (insert nonsense here)
fb> Go to your working machine, try the same
them> SSL connect works!
fb> Right, something is wrong with your SSL on your client machine
them> It's a tarball! Everything is the same! All patches etc!
fb> It is talking to the webserver and cannot establish a cipher to handshake with.
them> It's the NAT, does the packets know how to get back from the server to the client?
fb> How will you get a error 500 from the webserver if the packets cannot come back?
them> It's the NAT!
fb> *hangs up after giving up with this guy*
them> Mail thread about how it's NAT because the return path "obviously" does not work.

Tuesday:

fb> *comes into work to find a e-mail with tcpdumps, thinking that they can obviously see what is going on now*
fb> *wrong* *gives them a call*
fb> You showed me tcpdumps showing a wonderfull textbook 3way handshake, then you tell me the return leg does not work?
them> Yes, you can see the data pausing for a while and then the connection closing
fb> Yes, when a application does not work it generally spits out something and closes the connection, it's the content of this conversation that is important, ie. the Error 500 the client is getting?
them> No, the return leg is not working, it is working fine on the no-NAT box!
fb> It's obviously a SSL handshake issue on the client side since a connection has been established.
them> No, it's nat *goes on for 5mins about his home firewalls*
fb> *2 hours later*
them> *via email* We analyzed the data of the tcpdump's/snoop's and we are convinced the IP connection from our server to your firewall is not being returned to the client.
them> *project manager chips in mail thread* Yes, and I cannot connect from the server to the client machine on the same port, surely this means the data is not going back!
fb> Errrr, you asked for client->server on tcp port xyz. Why on earth would server->client same tcp port work?
them> que?
them> We tested again from our working machine with no NAT or firewall, it is working fine!
fb> *ignores*
them> *"clever" user on the server side* That PM had something clever to say about the connection not going back. notice the syn sent when I do a telnet on the port!
fb> Err, you'll get a SYN_SENT when you try and reach something on that firewall and it aint allowing the traffic through
them> So that means the data cannot go to the client!
fb> *ARGH*
fb> No, it means the firewall does not allow a connection on that port frmo your machine, as specified in the rules
them> Ahhh
fb> *hangs up after giving up*
fb> *types 5 page e-mail detailing with examples of how TCP traffic works, with the syn's and synack's and all.
them> Please call server dude!
fb> *calls*
them> Please explain what you mailed? I am a programmer actually and trying to explain your firewall problem
fb> "firewall problem?"
fb> Client makes connection to you, it tries to handshake with server, it does not, it dies?
them> But surely when it handshakes it talks back to the client?
fb> Err yes?
them> On what port does it talk back? Surely you need to open both ends?
fb> No, it is not a seperate connection backwards, the connection is alread established *shows source ports*
them> Err oh, I thought everything in life has a forwards and backwards seperate connection
fb> Righty

Wednesday:

*luckily little time for them* *phones up client dude after a while*
fb> Any news?
them> Yes, we're sure it is the NAT that is breaking it, it works elsewhere
fb> *sigh* What about the error you're getting?
them> Must be client side!
fb> Right, make a telnet to the server on that port, lets converence in server side guy to make a netstat
them> okay
fb> Right, server side dude, you should see a session if you do a netstat
them> Yup, I see ESTABLISHED
fb> that means you are talking to the server and that communucations are fine between both sides of this wall
them> But it is working fine on the other machine!
fb> *sigh*

Thursday:
*get e-mail*
them> Oh, you do not have to worry, it is not a firewall problem, it was trying to handshake with SSL1
them> we made the webserver talk SSL2 and its all working now.
fb> !

--

I do not want to start to imagine how many £'s was lost in trying to "solve" such a problem. I sometimes wonder how the economy can be so strong. Absolutely no wonder South Africans are socalled good workers.

I've got a appointment for "half eleven" any normal South African (like me) would figure that that means "half past ten" (half way to eleven) but nooo, it means "half past eleven" in the "british time".
Why people cannot open their mouthes and say "past" inbetween those words are above me.

So, the rule (as per Oryx) would be anything !ZA, ie. skip your initial guestimate and +1 and you should be ok.

My bank, HSBC, suggested that I get my name on the Electoral Roll some time ago as it helps with all sorts of credit vetting nonsense. Got the application from my local council's website and sent it in. Finally yesterday I got a letter confirming my Electoral Roll Number saying I'll now be on the Register from the 1st of April 2005. yipeee.

As mentioned on Oryx's blog as a registered member on the Elecoral Register and being from the commonwealth I can even vote in the general elections, quite weird.

As warned by RIP one can get fined for not registering oneself on the Roll if you're from the commonwealth and living in the UK, so be warned.

On another note, a few months ago I was complaining to Brent about the amount of SPAM-phonecalls I'm getting. I used to atleast get about 6 telemarketing-related (mostly originating from Indian callcentres) phonecalls a week, he suggested getting my name on the TPS. It's much like the american do-not-call list, about a month after adding my name I've not received a single SPAM-call! Best is - you can get whoever is calling you into trouble if you DO get a call. Ditto for MPS which is the snail-mail alternative, as well as FPS which is for fax-spam.

That's all fine, however, the same action is not being taken with any black kids. When the head teacher was asked why action is not taken against all kids she piped: 'it's not your culture'. Weird.

Which reminds me, I saw a interesting billboard today on the way to work, "Upping requirements for immigration does not mean racism" or somesuch, fun and games.

Brick and a few others recently convinced me that typing-semi-static-crap online can be made semi-simpler with wiki's.

I had a quick look at pywiki and was quite impressed, I needed more html functionality and so, with chewy's recommendation installed moinmoin.

Spent some hours today sorting out the ACL's and just basically cut&pasting most of the crap content I have into the Wiki. I'll fix up the formatting in the next few days.

So, finally, my new little webpage that is far more complicated to use and has very simple pages are over here.

Cannot wait for it to start!

With just such a ridiculous storyline, I made some blogspace for Devdude, who seems to love spreading lies of my innocense *g*.

Verification works on a points system (aka Web Of Trust).

It's been quite some fun trying to get used to the FreeBSD way but ultimately I cannot really yet complain.

You can also only extend your stay if you move on to a Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) Visa or Work Permit. HSMP was the first Visa in the UK to come up with a points system and seems like Blair likes the system thus far.

1st Contact has some more news on this issue.

Better start looking at HSMP myself!