25. March 2010 by admin.




Here is an interesting, easy to understand, video I found on Youtube, about IPv6. It’s not the seminar or webinar that I talk about below. It’s much easier to understand than that was. They talked with a lot of cable Internet terms on the webinar that I viewed, that your average viewer of this blog just would not understand or appreciate. And it was bent a lot toward Cable Internet Service Providers (technical people.) Anyway the above video is both interesting and easy to understand for a MUCH viewer audience. So… I liked it, and embedded it on here. Go and thank the guy that made it!

I watched and listened to an IPv6 Deployment seminar online the other day, brought to me by Communications Technology, one of the email newsletters that I get.

Comcast Cable is on roll in deploying IPv6 in their Cable Modem Internet Networks not only in their command and control structure but out to the actual homes and businesses. They are asking for Beta Testers … so if you are *that* type of person and you are on Comcast you might jump in there and ask to be a Beta Tester of Ipv6 out to the premises.

For those that don’t know, a lot of the issue of IPv4 Addresses running out, was mitigate by NAT - Network Address Translation. That’s that “192.168.x.x” stuff that you see on your computers coming from your router that gets the *real* Internet IP Address. This however just delayed the problem, so now Government Networks, Satellite and Cellular Networks, and your local Comcast Cable Network (and others) are scrambling to put IPv6 into play. After all *I know* from experience, having worked in a Cable Company / ISP - what’s involved in getting an ARIN allocation of huge chunks of IPv4 Address Space. You have to do a *lot* of figuring and managine of your IP Space and some cool paperwork using CIDR notation (Subnetting, Supernetting, IP Address Aggregation) … you know? Fun stuff.

Awhile back I posted an article on my main web site on IPv6, so I’ll recall that for you for reference. http://www.marinetelecom.net/ipv6-addressing.html <– There it is.

So with IPv6 there will be enough IP Addresses for your dog, your cat, you goldfish, your toaster, your living room carpet, and more to get an IP Address. No NAT. “It can all be over right now, no more running up Curahee, no more Captain Sobel” :-) <– That was joke, a movie quote coming from the Band of Brothers series that was released on HBO and now on DVD.

Back when I wrote that article page … I was running Freenet6 on my Linux Server and sharing IPv6 connectivity to my local network by running what I had to run to do that… But I just revisited this and Freenet has been taking over, apparently, from where it used to be run by Hexago Company, to now being GogoNet or Gogo6 … (google.com that…) And although it seemed to me to be a bit more confusing (now they a “Community” on there. Wowww a Community … yawn…. ho hum) to find the Freenet6 stuff. But it’s still there. And you can get a Windows version and actually (almost) trivially get an authenticated Freenet6 Account (you can have an anonymous one as well, but not as capable, and not as educational) … whereby you can run the program on Windows, get logging in (authenticated mode), get a - what is it - /56? IP Block Allocation and “Serve” that to other computers on your LAN (Local Network.)

Pretty soon IPv6 will be the *norm* and we will all be on Ipv6 IP Addresses. For now, on some ISP’s, asking to be on IPV6 is like asking for Free Internet. On my DSL I doubt that AT&T would do that without charging me heaps of extra money (like they did with Business Class DSL.) The IPv4 “space” on the Internet will still be available, no matter what, because once IPv6 becomes the norm, then our ISP’s will have us Natively on IPv6 and will “Gateway” us to anything IPv4 that we need to get to.

So what _Am_ I going on about???? Well there are a FEW places on the Internet, The IPv6 “space” that you can only go on if you have IPv6 Connectivity. It’s not a LOT. So mainly this is good for educational purposes … to learn about IPv6, the Numbering Scheme of it, How it Works Dot Com, and prepare for the Judgement Day coming soon when IPv6 will hit us all like A Ton of Bricks. Don’t wait for the last minute!

By the way, IPv6 is built-in to Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X, Linux, and other modern Operating Systems. IPv6 is available in Windows XP by typing “ipv6 install” in a CMD prompt window. You can remove it from Windows XP by typeing “ipv6 uninstall” - just in case you have any problems that seem to come from it. I seem to remember some issues in the past with IPv6 on my computers and onboard some motor yachts. Some conflicts of some sort occurred. So make sure that you know how to take it back out if you need to.

Soooo. I am running on Windows 7 64-bit - Gogo Client Utility (The HOME version) for test and educational purposes. And I signed up for an account with Freenet6 in order to get a username and password, and be able to request a “/56″ IP Address Block Allocation. *A hell of a lot easier than, as an ISP, getting an Ipv4 “/20″ allocation!!!! And by turing on a simple feature “Home Access” - I was able to share my IPv6 Connectivity with the whole premises here. So every machine on my network automatically gets IPv6 Address, and my machine as the Router, and can access IPv6 Internet Resources. Pretty cool, huhhh????

P.S. Oh, your phones, your PDA’s, on Cellular, etc. will be using Ipv6 more and more as time goes on … if they aren’t using it already. 

P.S.2. - Here is another *good read*:

http://itexpertvoice.com/home/troubleshooting-ipv6-on-windows-7-and-why-its-worth-the-bother/

 You may not need IPv6 right now, but you will soon. Fortunately, Windows 7 supports the advanced networking protocol better than any other Windows version. But that doesn’t mean you should rely on the default IPv6 configuration.

If you’re an old tech coot like me, you know that the “Imminent Death of the Internet” has been  predicted for decades now. While the Internet is in no danger of dying anytime soon, the days of relying on the old core TCP/IP protocol IPv4 do appear to be coming to an end.

After years of delaying it with techniques like Network Address Translation (NAT), we’re finally really running out of IPv4 addresses. Major ISPs like Comcast, and Web sites such as YouTube now support IPv6. This time around, IPv6 really is getting attention in corporate networks and the Internet. Fortunately for the enterprise desktop, Windows 7 is also ready.

Early Windows versions of IPv6 were, ah, crude. Though that’s not to say that Windows 7 does a perfect job with IPv6 even now. Certainly, the people who appear to have IPv6 connectivity but no network access have learned this the hard way.

(more of that… at the link just given above)

P.S.3. - Another *interesting read*:

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/02/youtube-calls-on-ipv6.html

* I’ve always had an interested in “telephone stuff” which is why my web site has “telecom” in it. My old: http://www.marinetelecom.net/page-2.html shows some of that interest - as well as other interests I have had over the years.

Friday, February 5, 2010
YouTube Calls on IPv6

The first telephone numbers in the latter part of the 19th century were short and simple, made up of no more than a few digits. Calls would be routed through operators and these operators would then manually patch these calls into the lines of their intended recipients. As more and more people got telephones, the length of telephone numbers grew from three to four to seven and then eventually to 10 digits and beyond. Today, cities like Manhattan have been forced to have multiple area codes (917, 646, 212, 347, etc.) and if you want to dial outside of your country, add on a few more numbers.

So what does this history lesson have to do with YouTube? IP (the Internet Protocol) is the protocol used to communicate data across the Internet in the same way telephones connected conversations over a century ago. Each connection has an IP address that works like a telephone number. Just like telephone numbers, these IP addresses need to grow to accommodate all the new people coming online. The problem is that IPv4, the current version of the Internet protocol, uses a 32-bit address and those addresses are running out of space — fast. In 2000, Internet users had consumed 50% of IPv4 address space. Today, IPv4 has less than 10% of addresses available. When address space runs out, users will have to share addresses, because there won’t be enough to go around.

But there is hope. IPv6 has a vastly larger address space (128-bit) and allows everyone to have an incredibly large number – 2^64 or more — of personalized IP addresses for all their devices (think of it as having a whole telephone exchange in your home). Not having to share IP addresses is good for users because it means better, more relevant information can be delivered to them whenever they want it. It’s a win for openness and new applications because any device can connect directly to any other device on the Internet. It’s even a win for security, because it’s harder for hackers to find your computer and attack it. But up until now, IPv6 still hasn’t gotten as much traction as IPv4. And content creators and users have yet to adopt it on a wide scale.

Since the very first announcement of ipv6.google.com (IPv6 connection required; if you don’t have it, ask your ISP to deploy it), we have been committed to supporting IPv6 and have steadily added IPv6 support to more and more services. The service most requested to have IPv6 support has unquestionably been YouTube. Given all of this, we’re proud to make YouTube available over IPv6 and to begin streaming videos from a select number of sites worldwide to our Google over IPv6 partners. With YouTube on board, we now have a significant amount of content delivered on IPv6 and a real audience/traffic for it. This is a good day for YouTube, our users and for an open and accessible Internet.




IPv6 by Johannes Ullrich - Part 1




IPv6 by Johannes Ullrich - Part 2

 —

Alan Spicer (Radio Amateur KA4UDX)

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

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25. March 2010 by admin.

Microsoft removes “hardware virtualization” requirement for XP Mode in: Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows 7

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/191938/windows_7_xp_mode_loses_hardware_requirement.html

http://windowsteamblog.com/

A new functionality that came with certain versions of Windows 7 (not all of them?) includes an “XP Mode” which comes with a full rendition of Windows XP. This was great for those that still like Windows XP or have a real reason to run XP because of Legacy Applications (Programs) that won’t run in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Now grant it there are some persons, like myself, Alan Spicer, that require Operating Systems Virtualization not for legacy applications purposes, but for being able to “run” many different OS’s for educational and support (of my customers) purposes.

Anyway this XP Mode of Windows 7 only worked on hardware that could perform the “hardware assisted virtualization” which lots of PC Hardware (computers, laptops, desktops) does not have. I’m not even sure how you would shop for that. I don’t think it’s one of the “features” on a lot of the web sites or price / features sheets in stores. You’d almost have to be a geek (not that there’s anything wrong with that) to recognize that you would need that and know how to ask for it while computer shopping. Here’s a link that explains what this is all about.

http://www.desktop-virtualization.com/2008/05/14/what-hardware-virtualization-really-means/

Anyway, I for one, wanted to try the XP Mode out in Windows 7 - but I didn’t have hardware VT in any of my CPU’s in any of my computers. I was happy for a few seconds when I read the above linked post that the hardware requirement would be gone… only to be saddened a few seconds later when I realized that it was only for a few versions of Windows 7 … and definately not for Windows Home Premium, which I run on my main Windows 7 Desktop machine.

Now grant I have another machine around here (somewhere) that I think is running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, I’d sure like to be able to do this on my main PC that’s hooked up to the big screen all of the time. I could get another Windows 7 Pro 64-bit at a discount … but I ‘ve already done upgrade on this machine from Windows Vista 64-bit to Windows 7 64-bit (it was a free upgrade) and going to Pro wasn’t supported in that free upgrade. Well at least I’m in the 64-bit class which lets me test 64-bit and 32-bit “stuff” on this class and see how well things work. And in general it has been working out *rather well* - thank you.

Soooo I’d like to see Microsoft bring this XP mode, with hardware VT requirement removed, brought down one more level to Windows 7 Home Premium. So we can all get a taste of it. Maybe the XP Mode wasn’t even in this version at all anyway? So maybe we’re asking for more than Microsoft is willing to give? But hey, we’re singing your song … we’re praising your Windows 7 OS release, how about throwing us a bone? ehhh?

* What’s all the fuss over XP Mode?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=896 

—

Alan Spicer (Radio Amateur KA4UDX)

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

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