John Dolan, Viant Solutions

Home Entertainment System - Part 1

For the last 10 years I’ve wanted to purchase a home entertainment system. For my birthday this year, my wife let me get a TV, receiver and speakers! This was an amazing gift! I did a bit of research before making this purchase and so the next two blog entries will be a basic buyer guides for these items.

The first purchase was the TV. In selecting a television, there are three items you want to consider. The first consideration is the resolution of the TV (720P/1080i or 1080P). The second item to consider is the brand of television. The last item to consider is the number of connections.

Television resolution is measured in terms of number of horizontal lines drawn on the screen. Originally, televisions generated an image by first drawing the odd lines and then drawing the even lines, this is called “Interlaced” (i). Newer televisions can display all the lines at the same time which is called “Progressive Scan" (p). When considering your television, don't worry about the number followed by the “i”, what you care about is the number followed by the “p”.  Interlaced signals are still in use and have a variety of applications, but this is a very simple buyers guide and so we won't bore you with those details.

In deciding 720P v 1080P, there are a few items to consider. If the television is less than 40” in size, you most likely will not be able to tell the difference between 720P and 1080P. Cable, Dish and Broadcast HD are broadcast at 720P (or 1080i). Today’s DVD’s are recorded in 480i.  At present, the only time you will enjoy the full 1080P image is when using a gaming consoles or playing a Blu-ray DVD. So, you most likely won’t get much benefit from a 1080P television at this time. However, if you’re like me and tend to keep your television set for 5-10 years, you may be glad that you bought the more future proof 1080P system if you have a set larger than 40”; especially if you will be viewing your television from closer ranges.

More important than the resolution of the television is the brand of television. This is VERY important! There are a number of manufacturers coming out with very cheap 1080P television sets. You will be in better shape with a nice 720P set over a cheap 1080P set. The best place to look for reviews is: http://reviews.cnet.com/televisions.

The last item to consider is the number of inputs and outputs the television has. If you are going to purchase an up-converting receiver, then you only need a couple HDMI inputs. If you will be plugging your components directly to the TV, then you need to make sure your television has enough inputs to handle the items you want to plug-in to your TV. Listed from highest quality to lowest quality, the type of input signals are: HDMI, Component, s-video and Composite. Additionally, if you will be plugging items directly into your television, ensure that your television has an optical output and HDMI output.

When it comes time to buy your television, I have heard from a number of people that Amazon has the best prices.

I hope I’ve provided you with the information needed to make a good decision without killing you with the details. If you'd like more details, check out CNet's HDTV world.  I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions, just let me know.

Dell Support and Windows Live Writer

A while back I purchased a Dell D630, which has been a great system for me.  However, over the last few months it's begun running hot.  Very hot.  So, I called Dell and they said it wasn't safe and they wanted to get it fixed as soon as possible.  Three days later, a brand new D630 showed up on my doorstep.  With a faster processor, better graphic card and larger hard drive.  Wow!  That is great support.

I've been using Vista for a while now, but as I'm setting this system up I am taking my time and digging-in just a bit more.  First thing I've noticed is Windows Live Writer.  Very easy to setup, just typed in the name of my blog and my login after which it connected to my blog, downloaded some stuff and now I'm creating my first blog on Live Writer. 

So far, it seems easy to use and is a welcome change from using Word or typepad to create blog entries.  It also makes insert pictures very easy, see:

Time to get back to the Lakers v Celtics game and a bottle of Dogfish Head IBA.  But don't worry, more observations are coming soon.

Hudson Edward Dolan

Hudson Edward Dolan was born at 7:52 AM weighing in at 6 lb 14 ounces and relatively long.  He's long and skinny just like mom and dad.  Mom, dad and baby are doing great.  McKenzie was a true champ pushing this little slugger out!

Hudson enjoys whole milk, tight swaddling and lots of attention.  Can you believe it, I'm a dad!  Please pray for that child, he's going to need it.

Viant's Award Winning Staff

I'm very proud to announce the latest award won by Viant personnel.  Richard recently entered three beers in the 15th Annual Peach State Brew Off.  One earned the Blue Ribbon, another a Red Ribbon, and the third wasn't all that bad either.  Richard competed against a number of Beer Clubs and came out ahead of them in his very first competition.  Needless to say I was quite impressed.  You can read more about Richard's brewing ventures on his blog.  You can see results of the Brew Off HERE!

AT&T DSL and Static IP's

Last week I did something I've never done before.  I set-up an AT&T DSL line with 5 static IP addresses behind an enterprise firewall (Astaro).  Setting-up multiple IP's behind a T1 is a walk in the park.  Behind a DSL line, not so much; unless of course, you know what to do.  Just know the average AT&T/Bell South tech will not be able to help you out very much as this just isn't something they encounter very often.

I wrongly assumed that once the Netopia modem/Router was put into bridged mode and the PPPoE info was put into Astaro firewall, the Astaro would be assigned the first of the Static IP Addresses with the appropriate subnet mask once.  This is not what happens.  If you do this, your firewall will be assigned a dynamic IP Address. 

After many support calls, support tickets, escalations and all the rest, I learned that when you have multiple IP Addresses, you can't set your Netopia router in bridged mode.  You use the Netopia in standard mode and then set it to pass the Static IP Addresses to the internal network.  Bell South will ensure that your statics are routed to your Netopia, and once it is configured as below, the Netopia will send a broadcast request to the internal side of your network to determine if/where it should route those packets.  So, you don't have to tell the Netopia where to route the packets, but you need to tell your firewall to receive them. 

Ok, enough delay, here is the documentation I received from Bell South for the configuration (if you need the associated images just let me know).

Configure Static IP on Bell South Moden/Router

I am certain this applies when configuring multiple IP addresses at a single location.  I do not think it applies when only one IP address is assigned.

1. Surf into the Netopia 3347W/3347NWG interface using the 192.168.1.254 address in a web browser and login.

NOTE: Depending on the firmware currently installed on the Netopia router there may or may not be a login prompt.

2. On the left hand side of the screen, click on the link that says Expert Mode.
3. Then click on Yes to proceed.
4. On this screen click on Configure from either link.
5. From here select LAN.
6. Type in first available IP address in your range as the LAN IP Address and type in the appropriate IP Netmask. For example - if your IP range is 65.15.150.220 to 65.15.150.227 then your LAN IP will be 65.15.150.221 and the Netmask will be 255.255.255.248.
7. Click Submit.
8. Click on DHCP Server.
9. Type in the Starting IP Address and the Ending IP Address. For example, if the customer’s IP range is 65.15.150.220 to 65.15.150.227 then the Starting IP Address will be 65.15.150.222 and the Ending IP Address will be 65.15.150.226.
10. Click Submit.

NOTE: If and only if the customer explicitly requests that the Netopia's DHCP server be disabled can the help desk do so. The customer should be made aware that doing so is a non-standard configuration for the Netopia, that support will be limited and that it may be necessary to temporailily re-enable DHCP in order to troubleshoot any problems with their DSL service. If the customer still wishes to have DHCP disabled document it in the call notes and proceed with the following steps:

JD Note:  I reccomend doing this

1. Choose Off from the Server Mode drop-down list.
2. Click the Submit button.

11. Click on WAN.
12. Click on PPP over Ethernet vcc1.
13. Uncheck the box next to Address Mapping (NAT).
14. Click Submit.
15. Click on Security.
16. Click on Stateful Inspection.
17. Click on Exposed Addresses.
18. Click the Add button.
19. Type in the first usable IP address and the last usable IP address of your IP range in the Start Address and End Address boxes. For example, if the customer’s IP range is 65.15.150.220 to 65.15.150.227 then the Start Address will be 65.15.150.221 and the End Address will be 65.15.150.226. Leave Protocol set to Any.
20. Click Submit.
21. Click on the yellow Alert Button.
22. Click on Save and Restart.
23. Verify that the Netopia reflects the changes by renewing the IP address. The gateway and IP address should reflect the static IP information entered into the Netopia. If the changes didn't take, the process needs to be repeated. A reboot may be needed to refresh the IP if the renew command continues to be unsuccessful. 
24. Verify that the exposed IP addresses are now reachable by performing a ping command on the exposed IP addresses.

NOTE: If the ping returns all packets then the IP addresses have been exposed successfully. If the ping returns Request timed out or Ping request could not find host, then the IP addresses are not exposed properly and the process for exposing IP addresses needs to be done again. If the customer's IP address is still unreachable after performing these steps then check for the following:

• Go back to step 19 and type the full static IP range assigned to the customer instead of the usable IP range.   
• Verify customer's static IP addresses have been setup properly on Netopia.
• Verify customer is actually online.
• Check for firewall (software and hardware) and disable / unplug from the network.
• If possible isolate network down to just 1 computer and the Netopia to rule out 3rd Party CPE configuration conflicts (Routers, Switches, Hubs, Firewalls)

If unable to resolve the issue, escalate to Tier2 / Product Specialist.

XO Buyer beware

It's hard to know how good a relationship is until you have your first fight.  That's when everything comes to the surface.  Do they really care, or are they simply providing lip service.  The same is true of a phone/data vendor.  You never know how good they are until you have your first set of issues.  If someone tells you how great a phone vendor is because they've never had any issues, don't pay them any attention.  They are still in the honey moon phase.

One of my clients just moved to a new location.  They decided on XO as their phone/data vendor.  I can't tell you enough how grately I regret that decision.  XO has provided some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced.  The Data line was over a week late, and they still haven't completed the port of the phone numbers which they had weeks in advance!

Through it all they demonstrated no sense of urgency, no desire to go the extra mile and no desire to make any effort to make it right.  A great example is that when we pointed out that based on the timeframe they explained, we should have the line live on Monday rather than Wednesday, it took about 4 emails before they finally came out and said "we don't work weekends."  After 3 urgent requests to have a Reverse DNS entry set-up, they finally responded with an 800 number to call and provided an incorrect account number to reference.

All of the phone lines still haven't ported over and they are still asking if dates 1 week out "will be convenient for us."  No it's not convenient!  Can you at least demonstrate that you understand the pain we are in?  I would love to post the emails I've received from them, but I'm cocerned about legality, so I'll just leave you with a friendly caution.  I would rather have BellSouth DSL with one analog line before using a T1 and PRI from XO.  Buyer beware.

Excel 2007 Opens Very Slowly

Microsoft Excel 2007 Opens Very Slowly

Extended title:  Microsoft Office 2007 or Excel 2007 opens very slowly when I click on an icon to open a document.

A client was having extreme delays when opening Excel 2007 documents on all of their computers.  My search led me to a two part solution.  The second part came from this blog.

First, check the XLStart menu under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\XLSTART.  We had PDFMaker.xla which was causing some issues.

Next try the following.  This made the largest performance improvement.

      1)      Open Windows Explorer and go to Tools -> Options and then select the “File Types” tab

2)      Click Advanced

3)      Click open and then select edit

4)      Now click open and then select edit.

5)      Add "%1" (with quotation marks) to end of the “Application use to perform  action:” and then click OK.

6)      Mine looks like the image below with the highlighted text being the text I added

Exciting new Blog

There's an exciting new blog I came across the other day.  It's far less boring than this one, and if you're at all interested in technology, beer brewing, or quality sarcasm, you'll probably find it to be a great site.  You can track it down at http://web.mac.com/richarddolan/Site/iDolan/iDolan.html.

Bellsouth is blocking my email

NOTE:  Thanks to Ben Totanes for pointing out that this now applies to all AT&T (att.net) accounts and sbcglobal.net accounts.

I've thought about this a great deal, and I think my initial concerns have proven true.  Taking two companies who were neck and neck in the race for nations worst tech support and merging them was a very bad idea.  This became even more apparent as I was troubleshooting an issue where one of our clients was unable to send email to a specific domain (AT&T's Bellsouth.net domain).

One of our clients recently noticed their messages to BellSouth.net were being delayed and then they received an NDR.  The error messages they received looked like: "This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.  Unable to deliver message to the following recipients, due to being unable to connect successfully to the destination mail server."

There are a few steps you can take to greatly expedite the troubleshooting process:

1)    Check a site like http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx to make sure you are not on a blacklist.

2)    Perform an NSLookup for Bellsouth.net on your mail server.

H:\>nslookup
Default Server:  appserver.local.dcaglobal.com
Address:  10.100.111.2 > set type=mx
> bellsouth.net
Server:  appserver.local.dcaglobal.com
Address:  10.100.111.2

Non-authoritative answer:
bellsouth.net   MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = gateway-f2.isp.att.net
bellsouth.net   MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = gateway-f1.isp.att.net gateway-f2.isp.att.net  internet address = 207.115.11.16
gateway-f1.isp.att.net  internet address = 204.127.217.16

3)    From command prompt attempt a telnet connection to a Bellsouth mail server on port 25 (e.g. telnet 204.127.217.16 25).  Pay attention to the response, if your connection is rejected you are most likely on one of their blacklists.

Good response: 220 isp.att.net - Maillennium ESMTP/MULTIBOX frfwmxc11 #116

Bad Response: 550-65.182.55.3 blocked by ldap:ou=rblmx,dc=bellsouth,dc=net

550 See http://www.att.net/bls_rbl/ for information.

4)      If you are blocked, send an email to bellsouth_unblock@abuse-att.net including

a.       Originating email domain:

b.      IP Address of mail server

c.       Company name:

d.      Phone Number:

e.       Contact Email:

f.       Time issue was first noticed:

g.      Error received:

h.      Message Header (if you have it):

5)      You can also request they unblock your email address here: http://worldnet.att.net/general-info/bls_info/block_admin.html

This issue took far more time to troublshoot than it should have due to the obscure/misleading NDR message from Bellsouth.  I'm hoping that by posting this I might save a few people a bit of time.

European Vacation

McKenzie and I just got back from an incredible trip to Europe. We went on a 10 day cruise aboard Celebrity’s Century cruise ship. We learned a great deal about Europe on this trip:

· Vacations are exhausting!

· All the good European Museum’s are closed on Monday.

· Viruses spread quickly on cruise ships.

· Being quarantined isn’t all that bad.

· Soap tends to be optional in bathrooms in the larger European cities.

Below is a brief summary of where we went along with a few pictures.

Marseille – Our first visit was to Marseille. We really enjoyed all of the boats (especially the large number of sail boats) in the Vieux Port. The fish market and flower market were also highlights. The Basilique Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde is a beautiful cathedral and had a wonderful view of the city.

Nice/Monaco – Nice is a beautiful, clean city. We walked along the Promenade des Anglais which provides a lovely view of the coast on one side and Nice on the other. From here we made our way to Monaco and hit the Casino. Well, sorta. We walked into the front entrance of Monte Carlo, but decided we didn’t care to pay the $15 admission to see the action on the Casino floor. We left the casion and walked the streets a bit more. Fortunately it was Sunday and so Prada, Versace etc were all closed. My wallet was sure glad I didn’t wave to worry about McKenzie wanting to go there! We walked the streets a bit more. Saw a few more Ferrari’s, Porsche’s and Lamborghini’s before heading back to the cruise ship.

Florence – The one thing McKenzie was truly excited about was seeing the Michelangelo’s statue of David. Well, we hit Florence on a Monday and so all the museum’s were closed, including the Academia were David is. Fortunately we were able to go to Palazzo Vecchio and see a replica of the David in its original location. Here we also saw Bartolomeo Ammannati’s Fountain of Neptune, and Neptune, Benvenuto Cellini’s bronze statue Persius, and so many others. We saw so much here and barely scratched the surface. We look forward to going back to Florence one day!

Rome – This was the highlight of the trip! We spent the morning at the Vatican Museum which was absolutely amazing. I have never seen anything so incredible as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, except for possibly The Judgment. Sitting in the Sistine Chapel and attempting to behold the genius of Michelangelo's work was a wonderful and humbling experience.  Raphael's work was also amazing.

From the Vatican we went to The Coliseum and The Forum (see picture). We had a wonderful time enjoying the sites of these historic Roman Ruins. It’s amazing how much is still in place after all these years. Our last stop in Rome was a visit to the Pantheon which is now a Catholic Cathedral. Here we had some authentic Itallian ice which was every bit as good as promised!

Corsica – Unfortuntaely, McKenzie wasn’t able to make it into Corsica with me L She was still quarantined (since I wasn’t actually sick, I was only quarantined for 24 hours). Corsica was a very charming town and I enjoyed walking the streets and doing a bit of shopping. I was hoping to find something fun to bring back to McKenzie on the ship to brighten her day. Unfortunately I struck out. A highlight was having lunch at a café with a view of the Mediterranean. While I was there I saw a school of about 5 tiny Sail boats all tied together with a class of ~10 year old sailors in them, precious!

Valencia – With McKenzie feeling better, we were ready for more exploration! McKenzie and I loved the central market, complete with cows heads, skinned pheasants, and most other animals in whole and part. We also visited a cathedral - Basilica Virgen de los Desamparados. Where did the Catholic church get the money to build all these huge amazing cathedrals?

Gibraltar – Seeing the Rock of Gibraltar, and the tailless apes were certainly the highlights here. We also got to walk through the defense tunnels the English had dug into the Rock of Gibraltar during the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1779.

Barcelona – With the cruise over, we checked into our hotel and began a day of sight-seeing in Barcelona. I can’t remember the last time I walked so much! My pregnant wife McKenzie was a phenomenal trooper! We walked Las Ramblas, the Gothic center and then walked to the Picasso museum, which was closed. From here we walked to the Gaudi Cathedral. Started in the early 1900’s, it’s still about 50 years from being completed. I have never seen a cathedral quite like this! 

From here it was back to the hotel to get cleaned-up for dinner.  We had to leave the hotel at 4:15 am the next day for our flight home and so we wanted to get an early dinner. After about 1 hour of walking, we found an open restaurant (it was 7 PM at this time). By the time we finished eating more restaurants were beginning to open.

We got a good nights sleep and had an uneventful flight home. We had a wonderful trip to Europe, but it is sure nice to be home from our vacation so we can get some rest!