RUNITE BLOG

one big reason why iPad rivals can't compete on price

2011-02-23T10:18:00.000+01:00

The mass invasion of Apple iPad competitors has begun. But, what was expected to be a ferocious battle is starting to look like it could turn into a lopsided rout, at least during 2011. The reason: price.

While many of the top tech vendors have trotted out impressive-looking tablets, the problem with virtually all of them is that they look great until you see the price tag. It’s developed into a sad little ritual in the tech industry in recent months where a company announces a very promising tablet and gets people excited and then the price of that tablet leaks out and people gasp in confusion and disappointment.

The Motorola Xoom - the flagship Android tablet - will cost $800 ($600 for the Wi-Fi model). The HTC Flyer will reportedly cost around $700 and it’s only a 7-inch tablet (compared to the 10-inch iPad). Another attractive 7-incher is the BlackBerry PlayBook, but it’s likely to cost about the same as the iPad while offering very few advantages. The Hewlett-Packard TouchPad based on Palm’s webOS looks like an excellent alter

native, but will reportedly cost $700.

The iPad starts at $500 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model. That’s the magic number.

So why is that these highly disciplined, very experienced hardware makers cannot match — let alone beat — the price of the iPad?

I’ve heard a lot of reasons thrown around, from buying flash memory in bulk to Apple’s strength in supply chain management to the fact that Apple now has its own line of CPUs. However, nearly everyone seems to be missing the biggest and most obvious reason: The Apple Store.

Line for the iPad wraps around the Apple Store in Shanghai, China. Photo credit: Apple

More specifically, the combination of Apple’s 300+ retail stores and its online Apple Store means that the company sells a huge chunk of its iPads directly to its customers. While Apple has cut distribution deals with Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon, and a few others, those are mostly market-share grabs and ways to help spread the iPad’s marketing message.

Apple appears to carefully control the inventory it sends to these retail partners. Even during the holidays, there weren’t typically huge stacks of iPads on a pallet in the aisle at Best Buy or Wal-Mart like other popular consumer electronics such as the Nintendo Wii or the Xbox 360. The iPads seemed to be sprinkled among the various retailers throughout the holidays. Meanwhile, the Apple retail stores were loaded with an almost unlimited supply of iPads, so if you wanted to make sure you got one your best bet was to go there (or order one from Apple’s Web store). One estimate was that Apple sold 8.8 iPads per hour per retail store on Black Friday.

While Apple hasn’t released statistics on the percentage of iPads that it sells directly to customers versus the number it sells through its retail partners, I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of direct sales was as high as 50%.

That means that Apple can set the retail price of the iPad at a precipitously low number. The company can swallow the bitter pill of hardly making any money from iPad sales through its retail partners because it can feast off the fat profits it makes when customers buy directly through its retail outlets and the Web store. However, companies like Motorola, HP, and Samsung have to make all of their profit by selling their tablets wholesale to retailer partners.

For example, iSuppli estimates that the total production cost of the 16GB iPad Wi-Fi is $229.35, so when Apple sells it directly to customers for the retail price of $499 the company makes a whopping $270 of “profit” on each unit. This isn’t pure profit, obviously, since the company has additional overhead, but we’ll use the term profit for the purpose of this discussion.

However, when Apple company sells the iPad wholesale to retailers, it’s a different story. The wholesale price is traditionally half of the retail price (although this sometimes varies in high volume consumer electronics and PCs where manufacturers and/or retailers take less profit in order to get the price down and ultimately make more money by selling in larger volumes). We don’t know the wholesale price of the iPad, but since the iPad launched as an untried experiment in computing, it’s likely that Apple and its retail partners have a more traditional arrangement. In other words, Apple probably sells the iPad to retailers for around $250, which means it makes about $20 profit on each unit — respectable, but certainly not a number Apple would live with if it didn’t have the big profits of its direct sales to balance it out.

Conversely, iSuppli estimates that the Samsung Galaxy Tab has a total product cost of $214.57. Verizon Wireless was selling the Galaxy Tab for $600 with no contract (and thus, no subsidy) when the product was first launched last fall, which means Samsung was likely wholesaling it for around $300. So, Samsung was making about $85 per unit on the Galaxy Tab — much better than the 20 bucks Apple makes from retailers on its lowest priced iPad, but a far cry from the more healthy $270 Apple makes when it sells the iPad itself.

So, when pundits like me were saying that the Samsung Galaxy Tab would have been a much more popular product if it cost $300 (and I stand by that), you can see where that price was utterly impossible for Samsung to hit — unless it was selling the tablet directly to consumers.

The math here is estimated and imperfect, but it gives us a general picture of the situation. From this perspective, it’s easy to see why the tablet economics are not adding up for everyone else outside of Cupertino, California. This is a massive advantage that Apple has over its tablet competitors, and the fact is, none of them are going to be able to change the reality of the situation any time soon.

WebOS-based TouchPad by HP

2011-02-23T07:33:00.000+01:00

After months of anticipation, HP has finally announced the WebOS-based TouchPad, a full-on tablet complete with a 9.7-inch display, a dual-core processor, slick multitasking capabilities, and video chat. Missing in action at Wednesday's lavish San Francisco press conference, however, was the actual "Palm" brand name.

The 1.5-pound, 13.7mm-thick TouchPad will go on sale this summer, said HP, which didn't reveal any pricing details. Also coming later this year: the HP Veer, a mini version of the old Palm Pre smartphone, as well as a new, bigger brother, the Pre3.

HP's Todd Bradley, EVP of the company's personal computing division, also dangled the possibility of bringing the WebOS platform to printers and even PCs, although he left any and all details to the imagination Wednesday.

Under the hood, the upcoming TouchPad tablet will boast a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm "Snapdragon" processor, along with optional embedded 3G networking, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 16GB or 32GB of storage.

MOTOROLA XOOM - Android Smart Tablet - Overview - Motorola Mobility, Inc. USA

2011-02-23T07:22:00.001+01:00

MOTOROLA XOOM - Android Smart Tablet - Overview - Motorola Mobility, Inc. USA

OTOROLA XOOM is a tablet like none other. Powered by a dual-core processor and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), its 10.1-inch display is perfect for all media - including Adobe Flash.

Its sticker price would be at $800 but if you feel that this cost is too steep, then probably you could go the Verizon way which offers this same product at $600 with a 2 year contract.And by the way, the zoom is just $70 more than last year's camera-less 32GB iPad 3G

A pill to prevent HIV?

2011-02-20T09:20:00.000+01:00

Anna Forbes's picture

“Pill May Prevent HIV” -- it’s an attention-getting headline. On November 23, the announced results of a clinical trial conducted in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, the United States, South Africa and Thailand showed that taking an antiretroviral drug (in the class of those used to treat HIV/AIDS) may help prevent an HIV-negative person from becoming infected if exposed to HIV. The study, called iPrEX (Iniciativa Prophylaxis in Spanish or the Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Initiative in English) showed that, overall, those taking the medication were 44 percent less likely to become infected than participants using the placebo pills. Researchers also reported that the study participants who took the drug strictly according to schedule and did not miss doses were 73 percent less likely to become infected.

Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) refers to the practice of using medicine to prevent yourself from getting a disease or condition before you are exposed (pre-exposure) to the thing that can cause it. You take malaria medication, for example, before traveling to areas where you may be bitten by mosquitoes that carry malaria. Having the medicine already in your system greatly reduces your chances of getting malaria if you are bitten. Some people who are severely allergic to cats may take an allergy medication before visiting a friend who has cats – another form of PrEP. In this case, the iPrEx trial showed that HIV-negative people can reduce their risk of acquiring HIV by taking an antiretroviral pill every day. Obviously, this strategy is nowhere nearly as effective as using condoms or having sex only with people who are HIV negative. But it may be a good prevention tool for people who are at high risk of HIV because they do not or cannot use those risk reduction strategies.

Started in June 2007, the iPrEx study ended in 2009 after enrolling 2,499 HIV-negative gay men, male-to-female transgendered women, and other men who have sex with men (MSM). It was conducted at 11 sites in six countries: two sites in Lima, Peru, one site in Iquitos, Peru, one site in Guayaquil, Ecuador, one site in Boston and one site in San Francisco in the United States, one site in Cape Town, South Africa, two sites in Rio de Janeiro and one site in Sao Paulo, Brazil and one site in Chiang Mai, Thailand. These locations were selected because the prevalence of HIV infection among the men and transgender women having sex with men there is extraordinarily high, between 10 and 28 percent. The iPrEx study was funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The medication tested in the study was donated by their manufacturer, Gilead Sciences.

Proof that PrEP works – that there is, literally, a pill can help to prevent HIV -- is an extraordinary breakthrough, as was the news received last summer that an effective vaginal microbicide had been identified. But what does a study focused on people engaging in rectal-penile sex have to do with women and their reproductive health? There are many ways to answer that question -- some of them cause for celebration and some reasons for real concern. Consider the following:

1. What do the iPrEx results mean for women?

It’s great to know that PrEP may be an effective HIV prevention tool that women could use on their own, without a partner’s cooperation. Taken orally, the drug goes into the bloodstream and could help protect women who are having vaginal sex, anal sex or are exposed to HIV through other means. They may actually be of particular interest to women who have anal sex because many report that it is easier to insist on condom use during vaginal sex, where they can make the pregnancy prevention argument, than it is during anal sex. This puts them at serious risk because, although estimates vary, unprotected receptive anal intercourse with an infected partner is probably five to twenty times more likely to transmit HIV than receptive vaginal sex.

Between 10 percent and 35 percent of heterosexual women in the US and UK acknowledge practicing receptive anal intercourse. Among American men, 40 percent report having engaged in anal intercourse with a woman at some point in their lived.

Clearly, we can’t assume that the PrEP medications tested in iPrEx will have the same effect in women’s bodies as they did in the bodies of the male and transgender study participants. Additional PrEP trials are already underway, including a study enrolling heterosexual men and women in Botswana and the UK, one enrolling just heterosexual women in seven African countries, and one enrolling serodiscordant couples (couples with one HIV-positive and one HIV-negative member) in Kenya and Uganda. Studies enrolling injection drug users and adolescents of all genders are also occurring. Expected to produce results in 2011-2013, these studies will tell us more about the gender-based differences (if any) in how the drugs tested in iPrEx work. But the iPrEx results are certainly cause for optimism that PrEP may provide women with another HIV prevention tool in the near future.

2. Who will get these PrEP medications now?

Truvada® (a combination of Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate or TDF and Emtricitabine) is the medication tested in the iPrEx trial. In the short term, this drug will only be legally available to iPrEx study participants, who will be offered the option to volunteer for the follow-up “open label” study. This standard procedure recognizes the ethical responsibility to allow those who took on the burden of study participation to be the first to benefit from the study results and it allows investigators to gather more information about use of the medication..

The unusual aspect of this process, however, is that Truvada® is already on the market and regularly prescribed to treat people living with HIV. Typically, it takes three to five years to get a new drug into consumers’ hands after it is proven to be effective. It has to be reviewed and approved by government regulators, manufacturing of it has to be scaled up, a supply chain has to be created to get it from factory to stores, etc. Truvada® is now only approved as a treatment for HIV and will have to go through a separate regulatory approval to be marketed for HIV prevention once at least one other study confirms its efficacy at an acceptable rate. Nevertheless, some consumers can already access it for prevention from private health care providers. Physicians in the U.S. and some other countries can, at their discretion, prescribe drugs for purposes other those for which they have been approved (a practice usually known as “off-label” use). Thus, these drugs are already available as prevention tools to those able to pay for them privately.

The third option -- and one of which women’s health advocates need to be particularly mindful – is that the “pill may prevent HIV’ headlines could escalate the informal (or black market) sale of Truvada®. Envision the following: On one hand we have people who read the headlines and want to take a pill to protect themselves rather than having to use condoms. But they either don’t want to go to a doctor or can’t find one willing to prescribe these drugs for HIV prevention.

On the other hand, we have people living with HIV who are being prescribed Truvada®. How do HIV-positive individuals who are poor choose between maintaining the treatment regimen they need to stay healthy and selling their pills at a high price on the street? This may be particularly problematic for indigent women living with HIV who are trying to make ends meet for their families. What about the woman who brings the pills home only to have her partner or someone else take them away from her to use himself for prevention or to sell on the street? This threat of mis-appropriation is one of the major differences between PrEP and microbicides. Men are foreseeably much less likely to grab up a woman's microbicidal gel (once we have one) because they will not see it as something that other men want or that they can use, themselves.

Informal marketing and non-prescription use of PrEP drugs may also have serious public health implications. To get these pills prescribed for prevention, consumers will have to take an HIV test before each refill to ensure that they are still HIV negative. If you use PrEP when you are already HIV-positive, you may develop drug resistant virus. You could pass this resistant strain on to other people and having it is likely to make it harder to treat your HIV infection on an on-going basis. Experts warn that epidemiological “train wrecks” could occur if access to these drugs used for both prevention and treatment is not well controlled.

Very little drug resistant virus was detected among participants in the iPrEx study because they received HIV tests monthly and stopped using the Truvada® immediately if they tested positive. In real world use, people obtaining Truvada® without a prescription will likely not be tested regularly. The longer they, unknowingly, continue to take the drug after acquiring HIV, the higher the chance that they may develop drug resistant virus.

Uncontrolled access could result in a rise in the prevalence and transmission of virus that is resistant to these drugs, resulting in reduced utility of first-line treatment regimens involving Viread® (an antiretroviral drug containing TDF) and Truvada® and a subsequent rise in the death rate. Someone using black market Truvada® occasionally (rather than daily) or those who sometimes buy counterfeit versions of Truvada® that contain no active drug may be particularly susceptible to developing resistant virus if they become HIV positive, are not tested, and continue to take non-prescription PrEP drugs. At the very least, we have to anticipate that increased levels of drug resistance would increase the cost of treating HIV because more second-line treatments (those able to overcome drug resistant virus) would be required.

3. How might PrEP work in the real world?

As women’s health advocates, there are things we can do to try to ensure that the iPrEx results lead to good outcomes for women that are not eclipsed by unintended consequences. Among other things, we must:

Insist that policy makers look at real world issues, not just clinical trial results:

The CDC is preparing a PrEP implementation plan that will include public education, guidance for physicians and health care providers regarding PrEP use, and implementation research. Advocates need to insist that the implementation research agenda include examination of the impact of informal marketing and drug sharing on the well-being of people living with HIV and on public health generally. If evaluators focus solely on the experience of people with legal access to PrEP drugs, they may miss effects such as treatment non-adherence due to drug misappropriation, increases in drug resistant virus levels due to sporadic use of illegally obtained and/or counterfeit PrEP drugs, and other consequences indicative of informal marketing and drug sharing practices.

Call for resistance monitoring systems:

Once approved for use in the U.S., PrEP is only likely to be prescribed to high-risk people who are demonstrably unable to use other HIV prevention methods consistently. Nevertheless, we need to put systems in place now to do baseline assessments of population-level drug resistance and then monitor the level periodically so that any effect PrEP has on the prevalence of drug resistant virus can be tracked. Research has shown that, in places where anti-retroviral drugs are widely used, between 5 and 15 percent of new HIV infections transmit drug-resistant virus from one person to another. We will need an effective evidence base to determine whether or not use of PrEP—formal or informal/”off-label”—is increasing the prevalence of HIV that is resistant to PrEP drugs.

Demand stakeholder involvement in setting the PrEP research agenda and roll-out:

As mentioned above, trials showing how PrEP works in women’s bodies are likely to produce results in the next few years. Additional data are needed to show whether gender-based differences occur in terms of overall effectiveness and the incidence and severity of side effects during long term use. Additional trials will also be needed to determine how use of PrEP drugs affects pregnancy or breastfeeding. Advocacy will be required to get those trials on the research agenda sooner rather than later.

Implementation research is also needed to understand the barriers that keep people from accessing HIV testing and how they can be overcome. Women who need PrEP because they have no other prevention alternative when their partners don’t use condoms will be unable to get it if they feel unable or unwilling to get HIV testing.

Most of all, community stakeholders need to play key roles in planning and delivering highly targeted community education about PrEP. This is essential to ensuring that women and men in high risk communities understand about how PrEP works and why it is not a replacement for condoms. People will need to hear clearly, from those they perceive as credible, that they endanger their own health—and the community’s health—if they use PrEP without a prescription or buy it on the street.

No matter how well PrEP works to prevent HIV in tightly controlled clinical trials environments, significant stumbling blocks exist to its effective use in the real world. Unfortunately, these “real world” challenges are often set aside as issues that can be addressed once roll-out of an intervention to the target population has been achieved. Funders and policymakers often see work to address them prior to introduction as optional and aspirational, rather than as an investment that is essential to the intervention’s success.

We can’t let PrEP go the route of condoms and circumcision—becoming an HIV prevention tool primarily benefitting men. As we celebrate evidence of its potential effectiveness, we must also pay close attention to what next steps are needed to put this new HIV prevention tool into the hands of the women who need it most.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/11/23/pill-prevent-what-iprex-results-mean-women

GEJ speaks on election rigging

2011-02-18T20:23:00.002+01:00

As I said in Jos and say again, I have not and will never authorize ANYONE to rig elections in my favour. It is a crime and I say it loud and clear to ANYONE who may want to engage in such practices as a means of pleasing me to think twice about his/her actions. You will be caught and I will not protect you. Join me instead in pleasing Nigerians by bequeathing credible elections to all. GEJ

I was grossly Misunderstood - GoodLuck Jonathan

2011-02-14T14:29:00.000+01:00

The president did a note on facebook about what he purportedly said in his South-West campaign at Ibadan last week. Below is the writeup.

At my zonal presidential campaign rally in Ibadan, Oyo State, last Tuesday, I spoke about the place of the South-West in the Nigerian federation. Without mincing words, I spoke about the level of education and sophistication in the region.

In my opinion - and in the opinion of many informed Nigerians - the South-West is of critical significance to the economic and political advancement of the country. The progress of the zone is the progress of Nigeria. It makes perfect sense that such a critical segment of Nigeria is governed by those who have what it takes!

These were my exact words as accurately captured by the Nigerian Tribune of Wednesday, February 9, 2011:

"The entire South-West is too important, too sophisticated and too educated to be in the hands of rascals."

I had referred here to the fact that unreliable or mischievous behaviours or notions ought not to be acceptable in any part of our body politic especially not in the South-West where the population has had the privilege of a head start in education compared to other parts of the country.

It is unhelpful to public discourse if we constantly twist words beyond intended meaning. Surely, even the most zealous detractor of the interest of the South West would not desire that anyone would wish upon such a sophisticated part of our country, the activity of unreliable or mischievous intentions.

In other words, I had indicated that abhorrence for such behaviour should be our proclivity, especially considering the disposition of the people of the Western States to governance standards.

But by laying so much emphasis on the latter part of the sentence we dither profoundly on nuances, and this typifies the general tendency to dwell on the negative which we must, as a country, refrain from. My qualification of the West as highly educated and sophisticated was easily dispensed with, while the fact that we should not expose such civilized and educated populace to rascality was played more upon, with emphasis on the rascality.

But we easily forget, perhaps because we have neglected for far too long the important role that our educational institutions play in development, that the foundations of our independence movement burgeoned its fruits from the discussions which emanated from the sophisticated “Ibadan School of thought” as the liberal Arts faculties of the then University College Ibadanwas then known.

However, as true leadership requires, I take responsibility for any misunderstanding of the context in which my statement was made. In a time of active politicking, when scoring political points have taken precedence over our overarching goal of nation building, we must not allow those strong bonds which tie us together as a nation, and which brought our people to the streets, for the common cause of seeing that the right thing is done by all and for all the people of our country - an ideal which the western part of Nigeria has always been in the fore-front of aspiring for - to be dispensed with by the mere nuance which we attach to words.

The Western part of Nigeria by my estimation remains a very sophisticated and educated part of our dear country as sophisticated as the cultures in all other parts of our country and unique in its unequivocal stand for justice and equity. Therefore,as Architect Sambo and I move around the country seeking the mandate of our dear countrymen and women, we shall continue to respect and pay tribute to the hard work and patience of all our people. Our promise of a significant turnaround in the way our country operates and is governed is an article of faith.

I made a commitment to Nigerians that our campaign will be about issues and livelihood advancement. I am determined to remain true to this commitment.

In this regard, we made the promise and will zealously deliver on, amongst other things, a stable, constant supply of electricity which will revolutionise the way business is done in our country.We will pay special attention to the security of lives and property; we will focus on access to good quality health andeducation for all Nigerians and job creation for our youths, for this is the only way we can defeat poverty.

We are focused on delivering on our commitment to agricultural and infrastructural development, the expansion of our economy and the complete transformation of our national security architecture in other to better secure lives and property in our Country.

Let us all insist in building a united nation where justice, equityand the fundamental essence of freedom and democracy is sustained. GEJ

What do you all think?

Working Naked Day!

2011-02-02T10:24:00.000+01:00

Today is working naked day. Its a day when those who work at home are expected to work naked. Well i guess the purpose is to increase and promote the idea of working from home. On a particular website, workers were advised to "brag" about their freedom on twitter, youtube, facebook and all. Been trying to see how many people are observing it, but obviously, none of the people i follow on twitter are.

As for me, i shall work for half of the day and go have the well deserved rest my body has long been craving for.

GEJ orders Evacuation of Nigerians in Egypt

2011-02-01T09:07:00.000+01:00

The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria yesterday ordered the immediate evacuation of Nigerians in Egypt. This move has since raised mixed reactions from the people of Nigeria.
It should be recalled that in the past two weeks, Jos has been home to massive killings and wanton destruction of lives and property. Maiduguri has had its own share in the killing of the ANPP gubernatorial candidate on Sunday. with all these killings going on in the country, the government is yet to make any official statement on any of them.

Some people have hailed the governments decision to evacuate Nigerians from Egypt, while others think GEJ should concentrate on the events happening "right under his nose".

Police Officer Kills Pregnant woman in Abuja, angry youths burn bank

2011-02-01T08:56:00.000+01:00

The federal capital Abuja, yesterday experienced another disturbance as a police man shot and killed a pregnant woman in a cab. Eye witness report stated that the cab driver made an illegal turn in-front of the bank premises and hence the police man attempted stopping him. The cab driver refused to stop and this led the angry police man to shoot at the vehicle. The passengers in the cab sustained different degrees of injuries while the pregnant woman lay dead in the cab.

The police man, on realizing what had happened ran into the bank which he was attached to for cover. This led the infuriated by standers to set the bank on fire. It took a combined effort of the police anti riot squad and the army to calm the situation. The IG of police had ordered the arrest of the police office for "a full scaled investigation".

Egypt Shuts down Internet

2011-02-01T08:46:00.000+01:00

Egypt's government has posted troops at key locations and cut Internet service, as anti-government protesters planned a "march of millions" Tuesday.

Activists pledged to hold major demonstrations in cities throughout the country -- a week after rallies began calling for President Hosni Mubarak's resignation.

But Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years under a sweeping emergency decree, has given no indication that he plans to give up power.

His government planned to shut down mobile phone networks, closed banks and schools and continued a curfew in preparation for Tuesday's protests.

Protesters have defied previous curfew orders. And late Monday night, Google announced a new technology option that could help Egyptians get around restrictions on mobile phone and Internet service.

visit http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/02/01/egypt.protests/index.html for more details.

In my own opinion, Mubarak should just step down. He has been there right before i was born. What is the problem with we Africans and our hunger and appetite for holding on to power? Even in smaller offices, the same thing is being experienced.

Mubarak, I'm sure did not envisage, like his Chinese counterparts, that the Internet and social media can pose a lot of threat to his power drunkenness.

Net Gear CEO fires at Apple's Steve Jobs

2011-01-31T23:14:00.000+01:00

Looks like not everybody wants Steve Jobs back at Apple. Netgear CEO Patrick Lo attacked the Apple CEO, who is on medical leave, for promoting closed platforms on the company's devices.

"Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Apple famously closes off their platform by controlling everything from hardware, to software, to content and applications. By contrast, competitor Google's Android OS is open-source, allowing any manufacturer to use the software for free.

Lo believes such a system only works because Apple currently "controls the market," but foresees a future where their closed platform will inevitably be overtaken by open platforms.

"Ultimately a closed system just can't go that far," he said. "If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it's pretty difficult as I see it."

The outspoken Netgear CEO pointed to the history of computing, as with Mac vs. Windows and Betamax vs. VHS, saying that the history of the tech industry had "seen this movie play several times." But Apple has thus far been able to succeed on their closed system, despite historical trends that would prove it wrong.

"Right now the closed platform has been successful for Apple because they've been so far ahead as thought leaders because of Steve Jobs," Lo said. "Eventually they've got to find a way to open up iTunes without giving too much away on their revenue generation model."

Lo didn't stop at prognosticating Apple's downfall. He also had a few choice words for Steve Jobs himself.

"Steve Jobs wants to suffocate the distribution so even though he doesn't own the content he could basically demand a ransom," he said, calling Jobs' criticism of Adobe's Flash a function of his "ego."

What does Jobs think of all this?

"Steve Jobs doesn't give me a minute!" Lo said.

Taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Ribadu Tells GEJ to resign

2011-01-31T13:39:00.003+01:00

Presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has asked President Goodluck Jonathan to resign.

The call for his resignation came following findings of the Presidential Advisory Committee headed by retired General Theophilus Danjuma that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan is engrossed in massive corruption and high level debt profile.

Ribadu made the call today (Thursday) through a statement signed by the Director Media and Communication of his campaign team, Ibrahim Modibbo.

The presidential hopeful suggested that since Jonathan was asking the Minister of state for Health to resign on corruption charges, “the President, who seems to be helpless in the face of this national problem, should also resign on the grounds of the findings of the PAC.”

It would be recalled that the PAC, which was set up by President Jonathan on the 20th of January 2011 presented a report to the President which raised alarm over widespread and substantial increase in the level of corruption in all sectors of government

The report claimed that as a result of the high level of corruption, Nigeria had remained internationally uncompetitive and that it had hampered the implementation of several policies like the vision 20-2020.The committee also raised concerns over the depletion of the Excess Crude Account at a time of rising oil production and prices and the excessive expenditure on the legislature.

Ribadu decried the level of corruption in the country and the president’s inaction towards the menace.

“We are baffled that despite the common knowledge that corruption is the bane of the country’s growth and development, President Jonathan has allowed this menace to thrive during his administration.

“It is even more compelling that it is the President’s own advisers who are not only admitting this, but apparently chastising the government for its inactions by calling for the President and his administration to be more proactive in the fight against corruption.” , he said.

http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/resign-now-ribadu-tells-jonathan

School Resumes Today

2011-01-31T11:40:00.001+01:00

After a compulsory forty or fifty days holiday, school is expected to resume today. Driving by the street of the Lagos metropolis, I could see a lot of pupils making a steady movement towards school in different directions. This is supposed to be the second of three terms which is the usual calender operated by most schools in Nigeria.

It should be recalled that the school were asked to remain on break through out January to allow for the voters registration exercise. The exercise which has just come into its third week had to be extended to give room for more people to register.

The issue now is this, to what effect was the compulsory holiday placed on the student, on the success of the voters registration? To this day, there is still wide spread complain about the effectiveness of the exercise. Complaints ranging from insufficient materials to security etc. The future of this country, was sacrificed on the platter of time for the purpose of election. We all know that the second term is suppose to end in March or early week of April after which the student would proceed on another break which then heralds the third term.

We hope that the election would finally be worth all the stress Nigerians have undergone for it.

Eroding reading culture

2011-01-30T08:14:00.000+01:00

It is usually said that if you want to hide something from a black man, put it inside a book. I have observer with absolute dismay that the reading culture, which we never had, is now eroding. This sounds funny, you may say, because something that has never been there cannot erode. But believe me; the little culture which was almost being forced into our younger generation is gradually going the way of the dinosaurs.
I once saw a video on YouTube where young child cried his heart out because when he opened his gifts on his birthday, it was books instead of toys. He felt so disappointed in his parents, he left the gift there and walked away. This same character displayed by this young chap is unfortunately what is being noticed today in our environment.
I shall give you another instance, I newly joined an organization as the IT administrator, and a lot of the guy who report directly to me told me of how much they were interested in attaining my level of skill in IT, they said they wanted me to tutor them along and brush them up to a skill I had acquired over the past six years. I agreed to, and I went ahead to bring all my books on IT that I had at home to the office, formed a mini library for them and gave them all access to the books. To my greatest amusement, these books started accumulating dust right where they sat. I took my books home one after the other till there were no more books in the library. Till the time of writing this article, no one has noticed the absence of those books.
In schools today Montessori Method of teaching children is now being applied, gradually taking away the place of reading the information off the book. In the universities also, students no longer make researches, they just log on to the internet and copy paste someone else’s write up, hence encumbering any further discovery. Little wonder why in this our generation, we hear of little or no scientific discoveries.
In this part of the world, and indeed every other part, the failure of the reading society is usually blamed on the government as if the government would come into your household and regulate how your children / wards watch the television. This in fact, would lead me to stray from the point of issue here if I have to go into the television issue. Some households have forgotten where the “off” switch is on their television remotes, and have even gone as far as buying UPS to power of their TVs incase a power failure occurs. Satellite television stations now show for 24hours, as against what was obtainable in the days of the black and white televisions. Then I remember vividly, NTA was usually the first to start at 4pm and they close by 12AM, thus giving everyone room to do something else with their time.
I shall say finally that Technology is a blessing if handled properly and a curse if mishandled. Good day my people.

More Linux Issues

2011-01-26T18:17:00.000+01:00

Honestly the migration from Windows to Linux has been a serious pain in the ass. The very annoying part is that for major stuff that i have to install on my Linux server, i have to go online to download them. This is quite unlike what is obtainable in the Windows world where I could just easily move to program and features and install any application i feel like adding to my system. Trust me, this is a major downside of the Linux machine.

On my desktop, i use a Ubuntu v10 OS, and i wanted to play music while offline, but unfortunately i was directed to the internet to go and get the patch needed to play MP3 cds, at which point i gave up on the system and switched back to my windows. This is an addiction. This Windows thingy. Any small dicouragement i face on the Linux platform plunges me straight into Windows.

I can't still underestimate the power of Linux in terms of security. Little wonder why most server administrators prefer to use the Linux machine as their last end fire wall.

Whare else does the comparison lie? What is the strong point of Windows against Linux? any answers?

My new Linux Design

2011-01-24T18:10:00.000+01:00

Well, once again i went offline for a short while to allow me time focus on something new in the IT industry. I have started using Linux. I initially had this phobia for Linux and command line(to think i am a system admin.) But suddenly i decided to conquer it when my perimeter security was breached by some bad guys. ISA server 2006 actually failed to protect my network so i had to pay the price for my negligence.

Now, i have moved to using Linux. I got some guy to install cyberoam as my perimeter security and also put a Linux based firewall between my internet and the cyberoam. not like this new design is not penetrable, but at least, they have some work to do.

I did not completely throw away my ISA server, because i paid some good money to acquire that software. But i gave it some work to do, guard my web servers. I have so many layers of security between my end users and the internet and that of course, that has its own down sides. Join me tomorrow as i detail some of the major disadvantages of this rather bogus network design.

I have had to read Linux day and night to learn how to administer my Linux infrastructure. trust me, I'm having fun.

NB
did i forget to mention that my laptop and desktop both at home and in the office are all running Linux?

Na waa for INEC

2011-01-19T14:44:00.002+01:00

I have come again today. I usually come here to say my own when I get so angry with these people (our government). My people can you imagine INEC going on to put the blame on poor “kofas” (corpers) as the reason for their DDC machine not functioning? I have a lot of issues with them o! Somebody should better hold me before I start dancing.
I’m just going to analyze their “latest discovery”. How could the government have expected these corpers to have any necessary skill required to use the DDC machine? I made a comment on Linda Ikeji’s blog, I said even computer science students in some universities never had the opportunity to touch a computer while they were in school. How do you now expect them to play around with the DDC machine after training them for just a day? Well, if they (the government) are disappointed in this breed of graduates then what should employers of labor out there be doing? These employers of labor are the ones to provide jobs for the corpers after their pass out. Little wonder, why on the streets of Nigeria today, you see a lot of “ex-corpers” still move around in search of jobs. Which employer of labor would want to bring in a liability?
Secondly, what is the relationship between the IT literacy of the computer operators and the fact that the finger print device refused to pick finger prints easily? At the registration center closer to where I reside, we had to all wash our hands with soap and dry them right before thumb printing. Does this not point to the fact that despite all the money the government has sunk into this project, some substandard devices still found their way in?
Allow me chip the part about the lost machines into this place. A number of machines were declared lost and later some were recovered. When the recovered machines were checked, a lot of vague name had been registered. Yet, the major people to be blamed are the corpers.
May God bless Nigeria.

Blackberry Rave

2011-01-14T16:10:00.000+01:00

I don’t have the full details, but what I know is that the kind of market pull the blackberry is enjoying in Nigeria now, I don’t think it was ever envisaged by Research in Motion (RIM). Blackberry handheld devices have moved from being tools for revolutionary business (as globacomm telecommunications Ltd put it then) to fashion and class statement.
Today in Nigeria, if you do not have a blackberry and are not ready to drop or request for a bbpin during the cause of a conversation, you are well below the league. Blackberries are held like hand bags now by youths (who happen to be the ones in the blackberry craze) on the street of Nigeria. Telecommunications companies like MTN and Airtel have even had to pull down the cost of subscribing to the monthly Blackberry internet bundle to 3000 naira from the previous 5000.
Today, while walking on the road there is a very high possibility that someone would bump into you because such an individual was chatting or “bb-ing” as It is called here, and walking at the same time. I have seen a lot of students forfeit their feeding in order to get the hand held device.
Despite a lot of anti social behavior this device has brought with it, it also suffices to say that it also has its own advantages. A lot of people still use it for business and transactions which was supposed to be the major reason why one would consider getting it in the first place.
As the telecoms companies smile to the bank on this their glorious achievement and some students cry over the failure of their pocket to keep up, we hope that this technology does not get the better of us.

I used to have a life but...

2011-01-14T15:51:00.000+01:00

Today I was visited in my office by this young woman, not married and somewhat successful in her chosen field. She had this sticker on her car which read “I used to have a life but my work ate it up”. When I read this, I chuckled a little within me and stored it off somewhere in my head.
I got back to work and I started thinking about the sticker, “I had a life…” at one point, the “bearer” obviously used to enjoy life in the best way he could. Hang out with friends, drink and be merry, travel around, go shopping, see movies etc… then finally got this new job… worked really hard, resumed for the day at 7:30 am and close at about 9-pm. Drive all the way from Victoria island to Gbagada every day, work on Saturdays like Saturday was a normal working day, and finally goes to church on Sunday. Returns from church does the laundry and probably cleans the house, then knocks out in bed. Monday, the circle begins again. No time for friends, not time for movies, makes all the money and stacks it up somewhere in one bank or the other. Making money for the bank and never having time to spend it…”my work ate it all up”.
My people, some of us have this life style, I inclusive. The good news about mine is that I finally came to the realization of the truth when one of my colleagues in the office died. This fellow works so hard that he kept winning awards year after year. The moment he died, one week later he was replaced with a different person. The work continued, I chose at that point never allow my work eat up my life.

Some of my pics

2011-01-14T15:29:00.000+01:00

Over the while I have been gathering some pictures from different sources like facebook, MySpace, twitter etc. I’ve had all these pictures in my hard drive and I thought I should share them all on this blog for all to see.

These two shall do today. Look out for some more next time

Welcoming myself

2011-01-14T15:26:00.000+01:00

Ok, it’s been a while I posted last. I guess that is not news. I really have been pursuing my career for a while now. I have been following some very interesting blogs and they have been making good companions for me. Thanks to you all. I am back now and this time around, I just want to write on anything that interests me. So shall we start?

Google OS set for release soon.

2009-11-14T10:29:00.002+01:00

Google will release its Chrome operating system for download within a week, according to a report in the blog TechCrunch, which sited an unnamed source.

Launching the OS as soon as possible makes sense, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "I would expect the Chrome OS will show up shortly because they need the ecosystem ready by the end of 2010," he told TechNewsWorld.

That ecosystem consists of products from Chrome OS project partners, including Lenovo, Acer, Asus, HP, Toshiba and Qualcomm.

"It appears that Google's getting ready to finally put some muscle behind its Chrome OS bluster," Al Hilwa, program director of application development software at IDC, told TechNewsWorld. However, he reckons this is more hype than anything else.

"I get the sense that Google's trying to leverage the excitement around Windows 7 and get a bit of a 'me too' buzz," Hilwa explained. "Leaking out that it will have some alpha bits for the Chrome OS in a week is really a weak response to Windows 7."

Google did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The Chrome OS is a fast, lightweight operating system that will be open sourced, Google said in announcing the project. It will sit on top of a Linux kernel and will use a new windowing system. The Web will be its application development platform.

Meanwhile, Google is extending the Chrome browser to the Mac OS X platform, and an early developer channel version is now available. The Mac beta will be released in December, according to a blog post by Nick Baum, a Chrome product manager.

search result

2009-11-13T22:19:00.003+01:00

Common Causes of Slow IntraVLAN and InterVLAN Connectivity in Switch Networks

2009-11-09T21:15:00.007+01:00

The symptoms of slow connectivity on a VLAN can be caused by multiple factors on different network layers. Commonly the network speed issue may be occurring on a lower level, but symptoms can be observed on a higher level as the problem masks itself under the term "slow VLAN". To clarify, this document defines the following new terms: "slow collision domain", "slow broadcast domain" (in other words, slow VLAN), and "slow interVLAN forwarding".

These are defined in the section Three Categories of Causes, below.
In the following scenario (illustrated in the network diagram below), there is a Layer 3 (L3) switch performing interVLAN routing between the server and client VLANs. In this failure scenario, one server is connected to a switch, and the port duplex mode is configured half-duplex on the server side and full-duplex on the switch side. This misconfiguration results in a packet loss and slowness, with increased packet loss when higher traffic rates occur on the link where the server is connected. For the clients who communicate with this server, the problem looks like slow interVLAN forwarding because they do not have a problem communicating to other devices or clients on the same VLAN. The problem occurs only when communicating to the server on a different VLAN. Thus, the problem occurred on a single collision domain, but is seen as slow interVLAN forwarding.

Three Categories of Causes
The causes of slowness can be divided into three categories, as follows:
Slow Collision Domain Connectivity
Collision domain is defined as connected devices configured in a half-duplex port configuration, connected to each other or a hub. If a device is connected to a switch port and full-duplex mode is configured, such a point-to-point connection is collisionless. Slowness on such a segment still can occur for different reasons.
Slow Broadcast Domain Connectivity (Slow VLAN)
Slow broadcast domain connectivity occurs when the whole VLAN (that is, all devices on the same VLAN) experiences slowness.
Slow InterVLAN Connectivity (Slow Forwarding Between VLANs)
Slow interVLAN connectivity (slow forwarding between VLANs) occurs when there is no slowness on the local VLAN, but traffic needs to be forwarded to an alternate VLAN, and it is not forwarded at the expected rate.
Causes for Network Slowness
Packet Loss
In most cases, a network is considered slow when higher-layer protocols (applications) require extended time to complete an operation that typically runs faster. That slowness is caused by the loss of some packets on the network, which causes higher-level protocols like TCP or applications to time out and initiate retransmission.
Hardware Forwarding Issues
With another type of slowness, caused by network equipment, forwarding (whether Layer 2 [L2] or L3) is performed slowly. This is due to a deviation from normal (designed) operation and switching to slow path forwarding. An example of this is when Multilayer Switching (MLS) on the switch forwards L3 packets between VLANs in the hardware, but due to misconfiguration, MLS is not functioning properly and forwarding is done by the router in the software (which drops the interVLAN forwarding rate significantly).
Troubleshoot the Cause
Troubleshoot Collision Domain Issues
So if your VLAN appears to be slow, first isolate the collision domain problems. You need to establish if only users on the same collision domain are experiencing connectivity problems, or if it is happening on multiple domains. To do this, make a data transfer between user PCs on the same collision domain, and compare this performance with the performance of another collision domain, or with its expected performance.
If problems only occur on that collision domain, and the performance of other collision domains in the same VLAN is normal, then look at the port counters on the switch to determine what troubles this segment may be experiencing. Most likely, the cause is simple, such as a duplex mismatch. Another, less frequent cause is an overloaded or oversubscribed segment. For more information on troubleshooting a single segment problem, refer to the document Configuring and Troubleshooting Ethernet 10/100/1000Mb Half/Full Duplex Auto-Negotiation.
If users on different collision domains (but in the same VLAN) are having the same performance issues, it still may be caused by a duplex mismatch on one or more Ethernet segments between the source and destination. The following scenario often happens: a switch is configured manually to have full-duplex on all ports in the VLAN (the default setting is "auto"), while users (network interface cards [NICs]) connected to the ports are performing an auto-negotiation procedure. This results in duplex mismatch on all ports and, therefore, bad performance on each port (collision domain). So, although it appears as if the whole VLAN (broadcast domain) is having a performance problem, it is still categorized as duplex mismatch, for the collision domain of each port.
Another case to be considered is a particular NIC performance problem. If a NIC with a performance problem is connected to a shared segment, then it may appear that a whole segment is experiencing slowness, especially if the NIC belongs to a server that also serves other segments or VLANs. Keep this case in mind because it may mislead you as you troubleshoot. Again, the best way to narrow down this issue is to perform a data transfer between two hosts on the same segment (where the NIC with the supposed problem is connected), or if only the NIC is on that port, isolation is not easy, so try a different NIC in this host, or try connecting the suspected host on a separate port, ensuring proper configuration of the port and NIC.
If the problem still exists, try troubleshooting the switch port. Refer to the document Troubleshooting Switch Port and Interface Problems.
The most severe case is when some or all of the incompatible NICs are connected to a Cisco switch. In this case, it appears that the switch is having performance issues. To check compatibility of the NICs with Cisco switches, refer to the document Troubleshooting Cisco Catalyst Switches to NIC Compatibility Issues.
You need to distinguish between the first two cases (troubleshooting collision domain slowness and VLAN slowness) because these two causes involve different domains. With collision domain slowness, the problem lies either outside the switch (or on the edge of the switch, on a switch port) or external to the switch. It may be that the segment alone has problems (for example, an oversubscribed segment, exceeding the segment length, physical problems on the segment, or hub/repeater problems). In the case of VLAN slowness, the problem most likely lies inside the switch (or multiple switches). If you diagnose the problem incorrectly, you may waste time looking for the problem in the wrong place.
So, after you have diagnosed a case, check the items listed below.
In the case of a shared segment:
determine if the segment is overloaded or oversubscribed
determine if the segment is healthy (including if the cable length is correct, if attenuation is within the norm, and if there are physical damages of the medium)
determine if the network port and all NICs connected to a segment have compatible settings
determine if the NIC is performing well (and running the latest driver)
determine if the network port continues to show increasing errors
determine if the network port is overloaded (especially if it is a server port)
In the case of a point-to-point shared segment, or collisionless (full-duplex) segment:
determine the port and NIC-compatible configuration
determine the health of the segment
determine the health of the NIC
look for network port errors or oversubscription
Troubleshoot Slow IntraVLAN (Broadcast Domain)
After verifying there are no duplex mismatch or collision domain issues as explained in the above section, you can now troubleshoot IntraVLAN slowness. The next step in isolating the location of the slowness is to perform a data transfer between hosts on the same VLAN (but on different ports; that is, on different collision domains), and compare the performance with the same tests in alternate VLANs.
The following may cause slow VLANs:
traffic loop
overloaded or oversubscribed VLAN
congestion on the switch inband path
switch management processor high CPU utilization
ingress errors on a cut-through switch
1 software or hardware misconfiguration
1 software bugs
1 hardware problems
1These three causes of slow intraVLAN connectivity are beyond the scope of this document, and may require troubleshooting by a Cisco Technical Support engineer. After ruling out the first five possible causes listed above, you may need to open a service request with Cisco Technical Support.

Traffic Loop
A traffic loop is the most common cause of a slow VLAN. Along with a loop, you should see other symptoms that indicate that you are experiencing a loop. For troubleshooting Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) loops, refer to the document Spanning Tree Protocol Problems and Related Design Considerations. Although powerful switches (like the Cisco Catalyst 6500/6000) with gigabit-capable backplanes can handle some (STP) loops without compromising the performance of the management CPU, looped packets can cause input buffers to overflow on NICs and receive/transmit (Rx/Tx) buffers on the switches, causing slow performance when connecting to other devices.
Another example of the loop is an asymmetrically configured EtherChannel, as shown in the following scenario:

In this example, ports 1/1 and 1/2 are in the channel, but ports 2/1 and 2/2 are not.
Switch 1 has a configured channel (forced channel), and Switch 2 has no channel configuration for the corresponding ports. If flooded traffic (mcast/bcast/unknown unicast) flows from Switch 1 toward Switch 2, Switch 2 loops it back into the channel. It is not a complete loop, since traffic is not looped continuously, but is only reflected once. It is one-half of the total loop. Having two such misconfigurations can create a complete loop, as shown in the example below.

The hazard of having such misconfiguration is that MAC addresses are learned on incorrect ports as traffic is incorrectly switched, which causes packet loss. Consider, for example, a router with active Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) that is connected to Switch 1 (as shown in the diagram above). After the router broadcasts packets, its MAC is looped back by Switch 2 and learned off the channel by Switch 1, until a unicast packet is sent from the router again.
Overloaded or Oversubscribed VLAN
Notice if there are bottlenecks (oversubscribed segments) anywhere on your VLANs and locate them. The first sign that your VLAN is overloaded is if Rx or Tx buffers on a port are oversubscribed. If you see outdiscards or indiscards on some ports, check to see if those ports are overloaded. (An increase in indiscards does not only indicate a full Rx buffer.) In Catalyst OS (CatOS), useful commands to issue are show mac mod/port or show top [N]. In Cisco IOS® Software (Native), you can issue the show interfaces slot#/port# counters errors command to see discards. The overloaded or oversubscribed VLAN scenario and the traffic loop scenario often accompany each other, but they can also exist separately.
Most frequently, overload happens on the backbone ports when the aggregated bandwidth of the traffic is underestimated. The best way to work around this problem is to configure an EtherChannel between the devices for which the ports are bottlenecked. If the network segment is already a channel, add more ports into a channel group to increase the channel capacity.
Also be aware of the Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) polarization issue. This problem happens on networks in which traffic is load-balanced by routers, but due to the algorithm uniformity of Cisco Express Forwarding, all traffic is polarized and, on the next hop, it is not load-balanced. This problem does not occur often, however, because it requires a certain topology with load-balanced L3 links. For more information regarding Cisco Express Forwarding and load balancing, see How-To Troubleshoot Unicast IP Routing CEF on Catalyst 6000s with a Supervisor 2 in Hybrid Mode.
Another cause for the overloaded VLAN is an asymmetric routing problem. This type of configuration also can cause an excessively high amount of traffic flooding your VLANs. For more information, refer to the Cause 1: Asymmetric Routing section of the document Unicast Flooding in Switched Campus Networks.
Sometimes a bottleneck can be a network device itself. If you try, for example, to pump 4-gigabit traffic though the switch with a 3-gigabit backplane, you end up with a dramatic loss of the traffic. Understanding network switch architecture is out of the scope of this document; however, when considering the capacity of a network switch, pay attention to the following aspects:
backplane capacity
head-of-line blocking problems
blocking and non-blocking switch/port architecture
Congestion on Switch Inband Path
Congestion on the switch inband path can result in a spanning tree loop or other types of instability on the network. The inband port on any Cisco switch is a virtual port that provides interface for management traffic (traffic such as Cisco Discovery Protocol and Port Aggregation Protocol [PAgP]) to the management processor. The inband port is considered virtual because, in some architectures, the user cannot see it, and the inband functions are combined with the normal port operation. For example, the SC0 interface on the Catalyst 4000, Catalyst 5000 and Catalyst 6500/6000 series switches (running CatOS) is a subset of the inband port. Interface SC0 provides only an IP stack for the management processor within the configured VLAN, while the inband port provides access to the management processor for bridge protocol data units (BPDUs) in any of the configured VLANs and for many other management protocols (such as Cisco Discovery Protocol, Internet Group Management Protocol [IGMP], Cisco Group Management Protocol, and Dynamic Trunking Protocol [DTP]).
If the inband port gets overloaded (due to a misconfigured application or user traffic), it may result in instability of any protocols for which the protocol state stability is based on regular messages or "hellos" received. This state can result in temporary loops, interfaces flapping, and other issues, causing this type of slowness.
It is difficult to cause congestion of the inband port on the switch, though maliciously formed denial of service (DoS) attacks may succeed. There is no way to rate-limit or reduce traffic on the inband port. A solution requires switch administrator intervention and investigation. Inband ports generally have a high tolerance for congestion. Rarely does the inband port malfunction or get stuck in the Rx or Tx direction. This would mean severe hardware outage and would affect the whole switch. This condition is difficult to recognize and is usually diagnosed by Cisco Technical Support engineers. The symptoms are that a switch suddenly becomes "deaf" and stops seeing control traffic such as Cisco Discovery Protocol neighbor updates. This indicates an Rx inband problem. (If, however, just one Cisco Discovery Protocol neighbor is seen, you can be confident that inband is working.) Correspondingly, if all the connected switches lose Cisco Discovery Protocol from a single switch (as well as all other management protocols), it indicates Tx problems from the inband interface of that switch.
Switch Management Processor High CPU Utilization
If an inband path is overloaded, it can cause a switch to experience high CPU conditions; and, as the CPU processes all that unnecessary traffic, the situation worsens. If high CPU utilization is caused by an overloaded inband path or an alternate issue, it can affect management protocols as described in the Congestion on Switch Inband Path section, above.
In general, consider the management CPU to be a vulnerable point of any switch. A correctly configured switch reduces the risk of problems caused by high CPU utilization.
The architecture of the Supervisor Engine I and II of the Catalyst 4000 series switches is designed such that the management CPU is involved in the switching overhead. Keep in mind the following:
CPU programs a switch fabric whenever a new path (the Supervisor Engine I and II are path-based) enters the switch. If an inband port is overloaded, it causes any new path to be dropped. This results in packet lost (silent discard) and slowness in higher-layer protocols when traffic is switched between ports. (Refer to the section Congestion on Switch Inband Path, above.)
Since the CPU partially performs switching in the Supervisor Engine I and II, high CPU conditions can affect the switching capabilities of the Catalyst 4000. High CPU utilization on the Supervisor Engine I and II may be caused by the switching overhead itself.
Supervisor Engines II+, III and IV of the Catalyst 4500/4000 series are fairly traffic-tolerant, but MAC address learning in the Cisco IOS Software-based Supervisor Engine is still done completely in software (by the management CPU); there is a chance that high CPU utilization can affect this process and cause slowness. As with Supervisor Engine I and II, massive MAC address learning or relearning can cause high CPU utilization on Supervisor Engines II+, III and IV.
The CPU is involved in MAC learning in the Catalyst 3500XL and 2900XL series switches as well, so a process that results in fast address relearning affects CPU performance.
Also, the MAC address learning process (even if it is completely implemented in hardware) is a relatively slow process, compared to a switching process. If there is a continuously high rate of MAC address relearning, then the cause must be found and eliminated. A spanning tree loop on the network can cause this type of MAC address relearning. MAC address relearning (or MAC address flapping) may also be caused by third-party switches that implement port-based VLANs, which means that MAC addresses are not getting associated with a VLAN tag. This kind of switch, when connected to Cisco switches in certain configurations, may result in MAC leaking between VLANs. In turn, this may lead to a high rate of MAC address relearning and may degrade performance.
Ingress Errors on a Cut-Through Switch
Cut-through ingress error packet propagation is related to Slow Collision Domain Connectivity, but because the error packets are transferred to another segment, the problem appears to be switching between segments. Cut-through switches (such as the Catalyst 8500 series Campus Switch Routers (CSRs) and the Catalyst 2948G-L3 or L3 switching module for the Catalyst 4000 series) begin packet/frame switching as soon as the switch has enough information from reading the L2/L3 header of the packet to forward the packet to its destination port or ports. So, while the packet is being switched between ingress and egress ports, the beginning of the packet is already forwarded out of the egress port, while the rest of the packet is still being received by the ingress port. What happens if the ingress segment is not healthy and generates a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) error or a runt? The switch recognizes this only when it receives the end of the frame and, by that time, most of the frame is transferred out of the egress port. Since it makes no sense to transfer the rest of the erroneous frame, the rest is dropped, the egress port increments the "underrun" error, and the ingress port increments the corresponding error counter. If multiple ingress ports are unhealthy and their server resides on the egress port, it appears that the server segment is having the problem, even though it is not.
For cut-through L3 switches, watch for underrruns and, when you see them, check all ingress ports for errors.
Software or Hardware Misconfiguration
Misconfiguration may cause a VLAN to be slow. These negative effects may result from a VLAN being oversubscribed or overloaded, but most often, they result from a bad design or overlooked configurations. For example, a segment (VLAN) can be easily overwhelmed by multicast traffic (for example, video or audio stream) if multicast traffic constraining techniques are not properly configured on that VLAN. Such multicast traffic may affect data transfer, causing packet loss on an entire VLAN for all the users (and flooding the segments of users who did not intend to receive the multicast streams).
Software Bugs and Hardware Problems
Software bugs and hardware problems are difficult to identify because they cause deviation, which is hard to troubleshoot. If you believe that the problem is caused by a software bug or hardware problem, contact the Cisco Technical Support engineers to have them investigate the problem.
Troubleshoot Slow InterVLAN Connectivity
Before troubleshooting slow interVLAN connectivity (between VLANs), investigate and rule out the issues discussed in the Troubleshoot Collision Domain Issues and Troubleshoot Slow IntraVLAN (Broadcast Domain) sections of this document.
Most of the time, slow interVLAN connectivity is caused by user misconfiguration. For example, if you incorrectly configured MLS or Multicast Multilayer Switching (MMLS), then packet forwarding is done by the router CPU, which is a slow path. To avoid misconfiguration and to troubleshoot efficiently when necessary, you should understand the mechanism used by your L3 forwarding device. In most cases, the L3 forwarding mechanism is based on a compilation of routing and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) tables and programming extracted packet forwarding information into hardware (shortcuts). Any failure in the process of programming shortcuts leads to either software packet forwarding (a slow path), misforwarding (forwarding to a wrong port), or traffic black holing.
Usually a shortcut-programming failure or the creation of incomplete shortcuts (which can also lead to software packet forwarding, misforwarding, or traffic black holing) is the result of a software bug. If you suspect this to be case, have the Cisco Technical Support engineers investigate it. Other reasons for slow interVLAN forwarding include hardware malfunctions, however these causes are out of the scope of this document. Hardware malfunctions simply prevent successful shortcut creation in hardware and, therefore, traffic may either take a slow (software) path or may be black holed. Hardware malfunctions should be handled by Cisco Technical Support engineers, as well.
If you are sure that the equipment is properly configured, but hardware switching is not taking place, then a software bug or hardware malfunction may be the cause. However, be aware of device capabilities before forming this conclusion.
The following are the two most frequent situations in when hardware forwarding may cease or not take place at all:
The memory which stores shortcuts is exhausted. Once the memory is full, the software usually ceases further shortcut creation. (For example, MLS, whether NetFlow or Cisco Express Forwarding-based, becomes inactive once there is no room for new shortcuts, and it switches to software [slow path].)
Equipment is not designed to perform hardware switching, but it is not obvious. For example, Catalyst 4000 series Supervisor Engines III and later are designed to hardware-forward only IP traffic; all other types of traffic are software processed by the CPU. Another example is the configuration of an access control list (ACL) that requires CPU intervention (for example, with the "log" option). The traffic that applies to this rule is processed by the CPU in software.
Ingress errors on a cut-through switch can also contribute to interVLAN routing slowness. Cut-through switches use the same architectural principles to forward L3 and L2 traffic, so the troubleshooting methods provided in the section Troubleshoot Slow IntraVLAN (Broadcast Domain), above, can be applied to L2 traffic, as well..
Another type of misconfiguration that affects interVLAN routing is misconfiguration on the end-user devices (such as the PC and printers). A common situation is a misconfigured PC; for example, a default gateway is misconfigured, the PC ARP table is invalid, or the IGMP client malfunctioned. A common case is when there are multiple routers or routing-capable devices, and some or all of the end-user PCs are misconfigured to use the wrong default gateway. This may be the most troublesome case, as all of the network devices are configured and working properly, however, the end-user devices do not use them because of this misconfiguration.
If a device in the network is a regular router that does not have any type of hardware acceleration (and does not participate in NetFlow MLS), then the rate of traffic forwarding depends completely on the speed of the CPU and how busy it is. High CPU utilization definitely affects the forwarding rate. On L3 switches, however, high CPU conditions do not necessarily affect the forwarding rate; high CPU utilization affects the ability of the CPU to create (program) a hardware shortcut. If the shortcut is already installed into the hardware, then even if the CPU is highly utilized, the traffic (for the programmed shortcut) is switched in hardware until the shortcut is aged out (if there is an expiration timer) or removed by the CPU. However, if a router is configured for any type of software acceleration (such as fast switching or Cisco Express Forwarding switching), then packet forwarding may be affected by software shortcuts; if a shortcut is broken, or the mechanism itself is failing, then instead of the forwarding rate being accelerated, traffic is punted to the CPU, slowing the data forwarding rate down.

Sourced from CISCO

Internet connection sharing on vista

2009-10-31T07:56:00.004+01:00

If you want to share one Internet connection among several computers, you have two options:

*

Use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS).
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Use a router.

For information about using a router, see Setting up a home network.

How does ICS work?

First, you need one computer, called the host computer, that is connected to the Internet and that has a separate connection to the other computers on your network. You enable ICS on the Internet connection. The other computers on your network then connect to the host computer, and from there to the Internet through the host computer's shared Internet connection.

Enabling ICS

To enable ICS, on your host computer:

Open Network Connections by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Network and Internet, clicking Network and Sharing Center, and then clicking Manage network connections.
Right-click the connection that you want to share, and then click Properties. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Click the Sharing tab, and then select the Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection check box.

Note

The Sharing tab will not be available if you have only one network connection.
If desired, you can also select the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box.
Optionally, to allow other network users to use services running on your network, click Settings and select the services you want to allow.

When you enable ICS, your local area network (LAN) connection gets a new static IP address and configuration, so you'll need to reestablish any TCP/IP connections between your host computer and the other network computers.

To test your network and Internet connection, see if you can share files between computers and make sure each computer can reach a website.

Configure TCP/IP

To use ICS, make sure the local area network (LAN) connection on each network computer is configured to get an IP address automatically. To do this:

Open Network Connections by clicking the Start button , clicking Control Panel, clicking Network and Internet, clicking Network and Sharing Center, and then clicking Manage network connections.
Right-click the LAN connection, and then click Properties. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6), and then click Properties.
Click Obtain an IP address automatically or Obtain an IPv6 address automatically.

The Internet options on your network computers should also be configured for ICS. For more information, see Change Internet settings for ICS (Internet Connection Sharing).

Do not use ICS on a network with domain controllers, DNS servers, gateways, or DHCP servers. And don't use ICS on systems configured for static IP addresses.

ICS and ad hoc networks

If you share your Internet connection on an ad hoc network, ICS will be disabled if:

You disconnect from the ad hoc network.
You create a new ad hoc network without disconnecting from the ad hoc network for which you enabled ICS.
You log off and then log back on (without disconnecting from the ad hoc network).

Source: Microsoft