[oclug] incompatible sympatico and support help desk

[Greg]

Mike wrote:
> 2 hours latter the problem fixed itself.

he he  I had a rep once tell me was "accessing", as we spoke, the server 
which the web-page later apologized for being "down" for several hours 
before and after my phoning.  I suspect that both quoted words mean 
something different from what you or I, or the phone-talker, thinks.

I suspect also that the people who arranged for those words to be 
misused would react indignantly, or at least litigiously, to being 
called liars.

> Been having troubles again this week, kmail hangs while fetching mail, last 
> night is sat a 5 of 116 till this morning when I killed it and it then 
> fetched them all.
> I can often ping a web site or traceroute but the webpages do not appear.
> I notice that the sockets seem to be swapped, After a reset I've been getting 
> 10.64.64.64 as an IP which is latter switched.
> 
> Originally the problem seemed to happen Friday afternoons his tine it's been 
> bad since Saturday with connections only late evenings.  

I was about to say I had not noticed.  However, thinking back, I have 
avoided for a long time doing things technological at prime times.  Back 
when I used them the freenets here and in Nova Scotia became nearly 
inaccessible every workday around 09:00 to 10:00, the OPL/BPO catlogue 
is difficult at best over lunchhour, back when OPL was my internet 
provider if I could not book 14:00 or 15:00 I didn't bother, the 
internet in general during tv primetime, the grocery store around 
suppertime.

When my mail agent chokes, if it remains choked while I briefly divert 
myself, I just terminate it and try again much later.  As far as I can 
tell, both my agent and sympatico's server are waiting each for the 
other to reply;  my agent will wait forever;  their server gives up 
(cleanly) quite soon.  The protocol is "robust", not "responsive".

I have no commercial servience pressures, and the last time I had a boss 
yammering at me about wasting time waiting (or not waiting) for email, I 
asked when he would be available to meet my union rep.

Free lunches are reserved for those who have already indulged in too 
many.  The rest of us have to pay a real provider, or accept various 
flavours of reliable-enough service.

Greg