Server up for 401 days without reboot

This is a good news.  My server has been up and running for 401 days without reboot.  On one occassion, httpd suddenly disappeared and I had to manually start it up again.

I hope the situation can continue till 800 days. 

Dedicated Internet Access in Hong Kong in Year 1994

In clearing my drawers today, I found a quotation from Supernet sent to me in December 1994 about subscribing to its 256kbps Internet Dedicated Access.  The installation charge was HK$55,000 quoted as follows:

HKT DDS leased line installation – HK$4,000

Supernet Dedicated Installation fee – HK$10,000

Router installation – HK$41,000

As for the monthly recurrent cost, it was charged at HK$45,900 a month made up as follows:

HKT DDS leased line rental – HK$5,900

Supernet Dedicated monthly rental – HK$40,000

That was not the end of the story.  Supernet adopted a cap on monthly throughput of 8000 MB per month.  If the quota was exceeded, user would be charged HK$8 per MB.

It should be noted that in the early days of Internet, routers and switches, firewall and other networking equipment were not highly reliable and the committed availability of Supernet was just 99 %.  We all know that the Service Level Agreement used today always require the serving ISP to provide 99.9 or 99.95 % availability.

Looking back, I could not imagine how network administrators could have paid such high cost for Internet provisions and yet the services were not reliable. On top of that, how could they ensure that the maximum throughput was not exceeded.  Of course, having said that, network administrators today have easier jobs as they can ask ISPs to provide the best possible services without worrying the bandwidth usage.

What the hell is Google on this planet !

What the hell is Google on this planet ! Google is testing intelligent cars that can drive by themselves.

The technolgies involved are video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder. I believe digital road maps are also required. Ultimately, the number of car accidents can be reduced.

When such cars are available in the market, I don’t need to learn driving and get a drive licence in order to use a car.

Google please keep up with the good work and give us more surprise in whatever new inventions.

Nobel Peace Prize 2010

Though I can download or copy and paste the statement by the Noble Committee about the Nobel Peace Prize Award 2010 granted to Liu Xiaobo, I prefer to buy a newspaper and type the content word by word by myself and post it on my blog. This way, I am paying a tribute to the winner.  Here comes the statement:

The Nobel Peace Prize 2010

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 to Liu Xiaobo for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.  The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace.  Such rights are a prerequisite for the “fraternity between nations” of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will.

Over the past decades, China has achieved economic advances to which history can hardly show any equal.  The country now has the world’s second largest economy; hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty.  Scope of political participation has also broadened.

China’s new status must entail increased responsibility.  China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights.  Article 35 of China’s constitution lays down that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration”.  In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China’s citizens.

For over two decades, Liu Xiaobo has been a strong spokesman for application of fundamental human rights in China.  He took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989; he was a leading author behind Charter 08, the manifesto of such rights in China which was published on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 10th of December 2008.  The following year, Liu was sentenced to eleven years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights for “inciting subversion of state power”. Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both China’s own constitution and fundamental human rights.

The campaign to establish universal human rights also in China ie being waged by many Chinese, both in China itself and abroad.  Through the severe punishment meted out to him, Liu has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China.

Oslo, October 8, 2010/10/9

***** End *****

In memory of John Lenon

Anybody still remember John Lenon was born on 9 October 1940. Google certainly do. Look at the Google logo on the left.

SOA expiration time and DNSSEC signature period

My DNSSEC-signed zone bya.org.hk has SOA expiration timer set to one week (604800) which is not aligned with the published DNSSEC operational practices, RFC4614 bis. It is advisable to have SOA expiration timer between 1/3 and 1/4 size of the signature validity period (30 days = 2592000 seconds). If this is not handled properly, secondary nameserver could keep serving out of date RRSIGs. This can only happen when a primary nameserver is unreachable for AFXR update.

I have decided to set it to 720000 which is easy to remember.