OT test - please ignor

The local Primus server has stopped reporting new headers after DEC04.

Old headers are still retreivable. No response from ISP. Strange.

Will this message post? ....testing

Cannot post new messages - can reply to those posted before Dec04'

even stranger

RL

Google groups is pretty good spam-wise these days.... George H.

I've been having strange problems with Teksavvy. They claim my system is causing the problem but that can't be true. Here's what it does at random:

1. I can log on to one of my online banks but not the other
2. I can log on to Paypal but not eBay
3. If I try to post a message longer than a few lines it hangs. I'm not even using Teksavvy's newsgroup server
4. If I try to send an email longer than a few lines, it hangs

I try with Firefox 12 and 20, both do the same thing.

The newsgroup program is XNews.

My email client is Pimmy (a plain ASCII client).

A couple of hours later, everything is back to normal.

There is no way that four different programs can all go berserk at the same time, then suddenly cure themselves simultaneously.

Teksavvy used to be pretty good. But the tek support has gone downhill over the past year or so, and they don't seem to have anyone left who understands computers or how the web works.

I'm looking for another ISP, but to be honest, it is difficult to find anything as inexpensive in my area.

I need to move to a different area with more competent ISP's that don't charge an arm and leg.

I have similar intermittent problems and it is usually my ISP, or actually WISP. They are a small outfit and often have issues with their equipment and/or available bandwidth.

Sounds like your system doesn't get patched regularly. Might be malware. Have you tried another ISP or another computer?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

That is a good idea. Try going to a place with good wi-fi to see how your computer works there. I have found the best wi-fi in many places is the hospital cafeteria. They have a great system to keep doctors connected and often make it available to guests. No one can complain if you are in the cafeteria drinking coffee. :)

I don't always get good results in the various eating establishments. Heck, I remember once with my Windows 8 machine I couldn't get past the signon page at Panera Bread. After some 15-20 minutes on the phone with support they just gave me a pass and registered my MAC as a permanently authorized connection, lol. But their wi-fi has never been all that great with moderately slow rates.

The system is XP. It will never get patched.

Patching is fake security. AV is fake waste of time. AV cannot give assurance there is no malware on your machine. Malware has far more zero days than AV has hashes. You need a different philosophy that assumes you are going to get nailed, with strong detection and good backups.

For detection, I run System File Checker from Win98 and Sysinternals RootkitRevealer plus similar programs regularly. There is no malware.

I run RAID0 on Ubuntu. If malware tries to modify the MBR, it will destroy GRUB and the system will not boot. I have had to reinstall Ubuntu a number of times due to programs trying to load stuff into the boot area, notably .NET.

The Windows system is on separate vm's. The banking and financial sites are on one vm, the email and newsgroups are on a different one. It is highly unlikely that both vm's would go berzerk then heal themselves simultaneously.

Most malware, such as ZEUS, shut down as soon as they find they are running in a vm. They don't want to risk running in a debugger.

If malware could somehow write into the hidden area on the SSD's, the symptoms would likely not go away, then return, then go away, and come back, and my bank accounts would have been drained by now.

You are doing the same thing as Teksavvy. You are assuming the fault must be with the user. In this case, the user has some pretty good arguments why the fault is with Teksavvy.

I am looking for another ISP. There are very few in this area that offer the bandwidth, data cap and monthly rate of Teksavvy. I will have to move to a more favorable area. I am OK with that.

The current version of Firefox is 42.0. If you don't like what Mozilla has done to Firefox, there are various forks of the older code which seems quite good (so far).

The web site is dead. The last stable version was in 2002. The last beta release was in 2009. Perhaps something more modern and better supported might be helpful. I suggest Forte Agent.

Last updated in Nov 2012. Good enough.

Magic.

Sure there is. If the base operating system goes nuts, everything built on top of it will also go nuts. If you're using a VM (virtual machine) add another layer of potential problems.

Some clue as to your OS and version/revision level might be helpful.

Sure. Anyone that knows what they're doing has graduated out of tech support and into development, engineering, testing, etc. What left is the residue at the bottom of the barrel. Mostly, tech support is trained by the customers and the days of competent tech support are long over.

When in doubt, change everything.

I can usually tell if I'm going to have problems with tech support by the initial exchange. If they ask me to describe my system down to the hardware revision levels, support has a clue. If the immediately dive into keyword searches, it will be a waste of my time.

Good luck on your search for the perfect ISP.

FF12 has all the addons I need and want. Later versions drop them. FF20 tries to drop most of the addons, but I fake it out with Checkcompatibility 1.3.1. Then it runs the bare minimum I can get along with, such as Classic Toolbar Buttons, KeyConfig, NoColor, QuickJava, TabKiller, Updated Ad Blocker and a few others. I tried FF37 and FF38 which were a waste of time.

K-Meleon is good, but not usable for the work I do on the web. I use it mainly for sites that insist on newer browsers by limiting the encryption methods. I've tried Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and a bunch of other browsers. They have major flaws and most will crash on some sites I visit, such as Quartz at

Stable means no changes and no new bugs. It works fine. I tried Forte and all the rest. None work as good as Xnews.

I'm running Pimmy 3.5, released on 5/18/2004. Again, works exactly the way I want. I don't want newer versions with fancy doodads that just give problems.

You are are way off base. The base system is Ubuntu 10.04. It does not go nuts on its own then heal itself. If there is any problem, it simply crashes.

There is no way that the operating system can allow me to log on to one site but not another. There is no way the operating system can allow news postings or emails that are one or two lines, but block larger ones. The error messages are the most bizarre I have ever seen. They are from Teksavvy, not my system. There is no way my system can consistently do these things, then suddenly heal itself.

The vm is an old version of Virtualbox, 4.02. Newer versions add compatibility for Win 7, which destroys LTspice. Again, I stay on the trusted tried and true and forsake updates. If it works, leave it alone.

This setup has been working for many years with no problems. The bizarre problems with Teksavvy only started recently. After I complained, they seem to have stopped. But I have no guarantee they won't start again soon.

Host : Ununtu 10.04 VM : VirtualBox 4.02 Win : XP SP3

I agree. Actually, tech support is really a sales function. One of the most important in the company, since it involves direct contact with irate customers. So it requires highly skilled and motivated individuals, but they have no hope of reaching incomes that reflect their worth to the company.

I'd quit also.

I am just looking for the level of system performance Teksavvy had when I started years ago.

That seems to have faded.