Since their last update, SEACOM – via their news section or the SEACOM Blog which are ostensibly the same (sort of very weak SQL coding and gaping holes asking for SQL injection) – has not released any further news since 9 July 2010 — the target date of recovery is 22 July 2010. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Did you know’ Category
[UPDATE] SEACOM cable outage update – new ETA: down until 22 July
2010
07.09
07.09
There has been a flurry of updates relating to the repairs to the SEACOM cable. In short – don’t expect anything before 22 July – previous expectations of “5 – 8 days” were over-enthusiastic from the operator themselves…
While restoration capacity has successfully been sourced and implemented from other cable operators servicing the eastern and southern African regions, a lot of work lies ahead regarding the actual SEACOM cable. It appears that the exact location of the cable break, above and beyond the previously reported repeater issues, has been pinpointed at 4 700m below sea level, resulting in the need for specialised repair equipment, robotics and expertise.
The repairs, according to SEACOM, are in the hands of third-party contractors who – beyond weather and sea conditions – run on their own timeline. So the cable operators, SEACOM, have put forward 22 July as a possible next repair date. (more…)
[UPDATE] (no) News on SEACOM down due to router off Mombasa
2010
07.09
07.09
So the site’s back, but there’s no news. No news is good news?
Please note that our News module is currently unavailable, due to a security patch implemented by Hosting – we are working on the problem and the news will be back ASAP. (more…)
[UPDATE] SEACOM down – now their website, too
2010
07.08
07.08
Now the website, too...
The official source for SEACOM press releases, www.seacom.mu has decided to follow suit on the router off Mombasa that has decided to crash, with a very boring bog-standard JET Database error message after the “Detecting Flash” redirection:
Microsoft JET Database Engine error ’80004005′
Unspecified error
/index2.asp, line 10 (more…)
Spidercam floating above the stadia @ World Cup
2010
07.07
07.07
The spidercam in action at the World Cup
The Spidercam that has been hovering above the pitch in four of the stadiums for the World Cup in South Africa is manufactured by spidercam GmBH (headquartered in Austria). The company was founded in 2000 as CCSystems Inc and the prototype free-flying 360° view camera came into play in 2003. 2007, spidercam GmBH was founded. (more…)
[UPDATE] More news : SEACOM router down
2010
07.07
07.07
Local ISPs have been making a variety of attempts and efforts to reroute local traffic to bridge the virtual shut-down of the connectivity of those users solely dependent on the SEACOM fibre-optic cable for their Internet access.
Internet Solutions in South Africa have put in place a variety of rerouting options which, depending on the downstream ISPs, should result in improved browsing availability. Alternate international routes by IS were confirmed to be up in semi-live state yesterday late afternoon. (more…)
#Worldcup #URU vs #NED tickets still available
2010
07.06
07.06
FIFA just released another 1600 tickets, so there are oodles of Category 1 tickets still available!
Only R 4 200.00 each! So hurry over to https://lmsfwctickets.fifa.com/LMS/UserArea/Wizard.aspx if you’re that way inclined… I wonder how close to the “64 100″ attendance in the 68 000 seater stadium we will get today… R 6 720 000 more revenue on 1 match… (more…)
[UPDATE] SEACOM cable offline until at least 11 July
2010
07.06
07.06
Slow Internet access (if any – in some cases, you can’t connect to sites without using a proxy) in South Africa… SEACOM has announced that the actual repair on the repeater in segment 9 will take only a few hours, though the full process may take at least 6 – 8 days. The ship is not out and mobilised yet. On their website, there is an update relating to the latest system failure: (more…)
[UPDATE] SEACOM down again: A ship, a ship…
2010
07.06
07.06
New update at 5am SAST: So they have initiated the deployment of the ship to the wet plant. That does not mean, though, that the ship is actually is already on its way – it’s deployment is initiated…
Official communications from SEACOM have been promised to follow…
In addition:
SEACOM’s investigations have revealed that an offshore repeater has failed on the cable’s segment 9, to the north of Mombasa. This unexpected failure affects traffic towards both India and
Europe. Traffic within Africa is not affected.
At SEACOM.mu, they have added a news item: (more…)
IOL with some issues?
2010
07.05
07.05
IOL – the online offering of Independent Newspapers – seems to have issues — only two stories show up – one about Nigeria reversing their ban on its soccer team (and announcing that the football federation said it would disband and rebuild the side) and another after a very strange story about the Gatsby International Health Spa, and the search they performed on the suspicion of theft… (more…)
[UPDATE] SEACOM down again
2010
07.05
07.05
One of my service providers have forwarded me an update to the latest SEACOM outage:
According to the update, SEACOM has sent out notification that they are currently localising the fault from both Mumbai and Dar-es-Salaam (in Tanzania). (more…)
SEACOM down again – cable break in Kenya
2010
07.05
07.05
Afrihost, as well as a range of other resellers of SEACOM bandwidth, again had to post notifications today of network downtime:
We are experiencing an intermittent International ADSL connectivity problem. Our upstream service providers’ engineers are investigating the cause of the problem. We will post more details here shortly once we have more information.
Services such as Instant Messenger and websites hosted overseas(google,facebook) have been affected.
From my datacentres’ notification reports, I can say that this is related to a failure on the SEACOM link in Kenya; as Afrihost’s only redundancy would be their hosting infrastructure, which their proxy is running on, they’re pointing users to http://www.afrihost.co.za/proxy.pac as the proxy solution for now.
Data centres are using other redundancy links through London and DC on a very congested local network with now high latency… (more…)
Symbolic links in Windows
2010
06.28
06.28
Windows Vista and 7, if not before, allow symbolic links — mklink is your command-line friend!
Creates a symbolic link. (more...)
#Twitter taking #WorldCup strain during matches like #FRA v #MEX
2010
06.17
06.17
http://status.twitter.com/ is reporting the High Error Rate on Twitter.com since yesterday already, and #Trends have been temporarily disabled since the 15th of June.
On Monday the 14th of June, #Twitter blamed the site availability issues on the failed enhancements to their #Timeline Cache. At that stage, it took them a good 5 hours to restore the site to full status, but there were ongoing hassles, dragging on into the next day – at that stage, Twitter #Places needed to be switched off.
June shows 5 hours of #downtime, with 98.64% availability of the site.
Under #WorldCup traffic, matches like #France vs #Mexico, #Uruguay vs #South Africa, and other #CapeTown or #SoccerSCity matches are causing a huge amount of traffic and tweets, specifically due to the #Twitter/Worldcup link… Trying to #pepper this post with #keywords about #uptime, #availability, #highavailability and #twitter overall.
How many hashes does it take? 
And now for something completely different
2010
06.10
06.10
The Hippopotamus Song
Words by Michael Flanders
Music by Donald Swann and Michael Flanders
A bold Hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar.
He gazed at the bottom as it peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star.
Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair Hippopotamine maid.
The Hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade.
Mud! Mud! Glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow in glorious mud. (more…)
2 days, 18hrs to go – tickets for Cape Town matches plentiful
2010
06.08
06.08
That place on the web that sells tickets to the foot-operated sport worth billions taking place in a country featuring cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg this year – FIFA.com – has taken the count-down clock off-line – so I had to find other sources to give the 2 day, 18hr count-down.
Meanwhile, there is some uproar regarding the takings some teams have in store for them as winnings paid by their own countries should them come home successfully from the World Cup 2010, even in the light of world-wide “financial pressure”.
So, how much can each player expect to take home as earnings should they lift the trophy?
- Spain: € 600 000 per player
- Italy: € 250 000 per player
- Argentina: € 510 000 per player
- England: € 470 000 per player
- Brazil: € 445 000 per player
- France: € 300 000 per player
- Germany: € 250 000 per player (Quarter-Final progress: a payment of € 50 000 per player, Semi-Final progress: additional € 100 000 per player, making it to the final: additional € 150 000 per player)
- Ghana: € 100 000 per player should they reach the Round of 16 matches
Let’s translate this into South African Rand (€ 1 = R 9.5014 on 8 June 2010 at 16:00), and compare this to the per-capita GDP in South Africa (latest World Bank figure (2008) is $5,678 (approx R 44 912.98 at the same conversion rate date, at $1 = R 7.91), Stats South Africa is offline (technical error):
- Spain: R 5 700 840 per player ( 126.9 x South African GDP per capita)
- Italy: R 2 375 350 per player ( 52.8 x South African GDP per capita)
- Argentina: R 4 845 714 per player ( 107.9 x South African GDP per capita)
- England: R 4 465 535.80 per player ( 99 x South African GDP per capita)
- Brazil: R 4 228 123 per player ( 94 x South African GDP per capita)
- France: R 2 850 420 per player ( 63 x South African GDP per capita)
- Germany: R 2 375 350 per player (Quarter-Final progress: a payment of R 475 070 per player, Semi-Final progress: R 950 140 per player, making it to the final: R 1 425 210 per player) ( 52.9 x South African GDP per capita)
- Ghana: R 950 140 per player should they reach the Round of 16 matches ( 21 x South African GDP per capita)
So if Spain win, their 23-man squad takes home as much as 2918 South Africans earn (gross) in a year. I just worked that out. Compare that with www.capetown.travel‘s info regarding trivia on the new Cape Town Green Point Stadium: “More than 2 500 workers were employed on site during construction, and almost 1 200 artisans received training from the contractors.”
Just a thought… Kinda surprising, but I guess that’s big soccer…
Tickets are still available for Cape Town for the following matches in the following categories: (more…)
Ticket sales improving? 15:53 SAST vs 18:24 SAST Cape Town FIFA Ticket availability
2010
06.05
06.05
Seems like tickets are flying… check the usage at 15:53 SAST on 5 June below.
Cape Town FIFA Ticket Sales at 15:53 SAST, 5 June 2010
Now compare this with the availability at 18:24 SAST today same time (ie 2hr 31 min later), below.
Cape Town FIFA Ticket Sales at 18:24 SAST, 5 June 2010
Seems like tickets are near to the “sold-out” definition – but let’s wait for the re-shuffle to proceed…
TimesLive reports that 58 000 tickets will be made available on Monday (remember my previous comment regarding the 90 000 tickets vs the higher number of tickets released?): (more…)
6 days to go… tickets available again for the Soccer World Cup
2010
06.04
06.04
Wheel of Excellence, V&A
So the big ticket shuffle has started again, and tickets that were “currently not available” this morning, at least for the Cape Town matches (France – Uruguay) are available again – if only in Category 1. An overall view shows tickets available across the board (especially in Polokwane and Rustenburg…)
If you’re keen on getting tickets, keep checking back on the Last Minute Sales FIFA World Cup Ticketing site (as long as it’s up… <grin>) [oh, and add as many ™ and ® signs as you feel like - in your head (if you don't get the joke, don't worry)]. (more…)
Maverick Meerkat Alpha 1 (Ubuntu 10.10) is out
2010
06.04
06.04
Quick note – Ubuntu 10.10 – Maverick Meerkat is out. Mark Shuttleworth had already given a vision for it back in April 2010.
Let the “light”ning commence!
“Maverick Meerkat” is the code name for Ubuntu 10.10, scheduled for release on 10 October 2010. See the Maverick release schedule. A quick sketch-up roadmap is over here.
Samba cheat sheet – Ubuntu
2010
06.02
06.02
Samba. Whopping goodness. Here are a few notes that help in the setup – from user creation, to directory settings etc
This blog post contains a few lessons learnt and thus by extension a migration plan from a Windows file server to a Samba-based one running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I look at users, system vs smbpasswd user creation and linking (set that up in Webmin before you start, as well as for groups), share setups, general permissions and some very basic troubleshooting (as there weren’t many troubles, just headaches.) (more…)