Category Archives: Blog
Adventures in IPv6
I posted this on the Linux Beer Hike list this evening, its probably of interest to a wider audience.. I’ve been working with IPv6 a bit recently and have been discovering lots of interesting implementation issues with both Windows and … Continue reading
Battery Charging
A couple of days ago I was going through Athens airport when I saw something which at first glance failed to make any sense. The airport has charging stations for cellphones – free for anyone to use. The person setting … Continue reading
How to defend a NTP server against abusive clients
I’ve been running a NTP server in the ntp.org pool project for several years now. However I’ve always been plagued by a few clients who put a continual stream of NTP requests into my server. Eventually I decided to do … Continue reading
Getting around Athens Airport WiFi time limits
Athens airport (code ATH) offers free wireless which can be very useful. The only problem is it is time limited to 45 minutes at a time. After that time it stops you accessing the Internet. The solution to this is … Continue reading
Ships and Gaza
The recent boarding of a Turkish ship by heavily armed Israeli gunmen and the resulting deaths have upset me enough to write publicly about this rogue state which thinks nothing of arranging an assassination in Dubai, kidnapping nuclear engineers in … Continue reading
QNB (Qatar National Bank) sucks
Today I closed my account with QNB. I opened the account when I came over to Qatar a year ago. Since then I’ve had nothing but trouble with them. On the face of it they offer an attractive package including … Continue reading
When your ISP blocks incoming SMTP Connections
Things keep changing in Qatar. Just before Christmas the local ISP (QTEL) decided to start blocking inbound port 25 connections to the DSL line I use for work. This posed a problem for me as I run a mail server … Continue reading
Rain in Doha
Winter has arrived in Doha. About 10 days ago we had rain which caused serious flooding all over the city. This is because Qatar is basically a thin rock covering over an impervious rock base so the water just sits … Continue reading
Goodbye Geocities
Yahoo will be shutting down Geocities later today. Geocities started up in 1994, was purchased by Yahoo in 1999 for USD 2 billion and will finally die today. When I formed an Internet company in 1995 with a partner Geocities … Continue reading
Censorship, self censorship and attempted coups
Its been an interesting week in Qatar. On Tuesday I came across a blog which reported that there had been a failed coup attempt in Qatar. Apparently several Arabic websites had been reporting the story. As this was a story … Continue reading