Local News: Server issues resolved; cable modem arrives

Server issues resolved Good news. We've made some software changes that appear to have remedied the server problems reported last time. Everything has humming along smoothly since Monday evening. If we get through today without incident, it should mean the problem is solved. At least for now. As we add more features and as readership continues to grow, we could still see the problem return down the road. That's why we are proactively continuing to work on this matter.

Cable modem arrives! A personal note. Cable modems finally came to my neighborhood a few weeks ago. And I finally got one yesterday. It's from TCI@home. My initial experience has been 100% positive. It has worked flawlessly for its first 24 hours. Overall, it delivers on the promised speed (although not really as fast as promised; it's still quite fast). However, speeds canvary widely as a function of the site you are trying to reach (you can't get the information any faster than the other site can send it!). But I did download Netscape Communicator in just over 5 minutes. And perhaps the best benefit of all is the constant connection; no more need to dialup and deal with possible busy signals, just to check your email. And it doesn't use DHCP, so hopefully I won't see any stall problems.

I even have the modem hooked up to my Ethernet hub so that I can use the modem and maintain my Ethernet network at the same time. The only hitch was that I did not realize at first that the modem's cable needed to be plugged into the hub's crossover (In) port rather than one of the standard (Out) ports. Once I figured this out (thanks, Sam), all went well. I'll report more details, if they seem of interest, in the days ahead.