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Hotmail stinks

Inside of a Cisco PIX501 firewall

Less is more with MX5020 speakers





Hotmail stinks and Gmail rocks.

In December 2003, hotmail did the FINAL switch from BSD to exchange for their mail servers.   It just didn't "look like" outlook web access, they were really using exchange.   An impressive migration because of the mammoth size of hotmail.   Five months later, April 20th 2004, the problems began and we all heard about it first on nanog just before seeing it on own our mail servers soon after:
North American Network Operators Group
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2004-04/msg00548.html

hotmail issues

From: Mark Jeftovic
Date: Tue Apr 20 13:36:08 2004

We're having a lot of deferrals with connection timeouts for mail destined to hotmail.com, some of the IP's in question are accessable breifly from other locations before they start timing out as well.

This is resulting in a lot of hotmail.com bound email backfilling in our queues.

Is this some new tarpitting or throttling mechanism, anyone else experiencing it?

Can a hotmail admin contact me off-list?

-mark

--
Mark Jeftovic    markjr easydns.com
Co-founder, easyDNS Technologies Inc.
ph. +1-(416)-535-8672 ext 225
fx. +1-(416)-535-0237

-------------------------------------------------
skipping over other emails on nanog...
-------------------------------------------------

http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2004-04/msg00817.html

Re: hotmail issues

From: J.D. Falk
Date: Tue Apr 27 16:30:51 2004

On 04/27/04, Alan Sparks wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-04-27 at 13:23, Chris Griffin wrote:
> >
> > This issue seems to have returned. Same symptoms. Anyone
> > else having similar issues?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Chris
>
> Yes, same here. Took hours for our hotmail/msn queues to clear
> last night. We've talked to Hotmail before, they've acknowledged
> they're having problems...

Sadly still true. A few helpful hints we've been giving people:

    - make sure your MTA isn't latching onto just one MX, or
      just one IP address within each MX record;

    - things clear up overnight & on weekends, though I'm
      sure that'll change once word gets out;

    - don't send (or relay, or forward) spam.

    I'll post another update if anything changes.

(Disclaimer again: this is from my personal account; I do work for Hotmail, and I'm directly involved with inbound mail, but I'm not the escalation path you're looking for.)
--
J.D. Falk                               "be crazy dumbsaint of the mind"
jdfalk cybernothing.org                              -- Jack Kerouac

To this day, Hotmail did not solved the problems, they still have recurrent troubles.   The roots of the problems are mysterious because they keep it under the lid, of course.   It is not apparent to end-users but mail administrators notice.   Regularly, we can see it cropping up.   This cannot help microsoft exchange's reputation.   At last, Microsoft can have a taste of their own medicine with their software!

Migrating Microsoft Hotmail from FreeBSD to Microsoft Windows 2000 Technical Case Study
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/case/hotmail/default.mspx Author Information for Migrating Microsoft Hotmail from FreeBSD to Microsoft Windows 2000 Technical Case Study
Content Lead:
   Mike Kim Microsoft TechNet
Key Authors:
   Steve Terhune Microsoft Consulting Services
   Marcus Hass Microsoft Consulting Services
Reviewers:
   Aaron Scarisbrick Microsoft Hotmail Team
   Dallas Davis Microsoft Product Support Services
   Daryl Wray Microsoft Integrated Enterprise Solutions Team
   David Brooks Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Product Group
   Fred Link Microsoft Hotmail Team
   George Reilly Microsoft Windows 2000 Internet Information Services Group
   James Hamilton Microsoft Hotmail Team
   Jeremy Doig Microsoft Hotmail Team
   Nick Diaz Microsoft Hotmail Team
   Van Van Microsoft Windows 2000 Internet Information Services Group


Gmail rocks

Robert Croson Jr's web page about how to configure your email client to work with Gmail, and why it's generations ahead of anything else out there:
http://email.arcm.com/wiki/index.php/GMail
That's it. You can now use GMail as a POP3 and SMTP server. Enjoy!


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Inside of a Cisco PIX501 firewall.


0: Cisco Pix 501 (precursor to ASA 5505)
1: CPU Am5x86 133 MHz
2: four ports Layer2 switch
3: 8MB Flash E28F640J3
4: 16 MB RAM (two chips of 8mb, 4A and 4B)
5: CR2032 battery
6: INTeL 82559 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet controllers with TCP/UDP checksum off-load
6A: ethernet0, irq 9, outside interface (internet)
6B: ethernet1, irq 10, inside interface behind the #2: four ports Layer2 switch
7: connectors for the #2: four ports Layer2 switch
8: connector for the 6A: ethernet0, irq 9, outside interface (internet)
9: CONsole connector
10: power connector, 3.3 volts, 4.5 amp
11: security slot for laptop locking device






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Less is more with Altec Lansing MX5020 speakers.


The MX5020 piano-quality black finish powered audio system gives the phrase "less is more" a new meaning.




254mm high, 135mm wide and 72mm thick, the Altec Lansing MX5020 speaker system creates the new standard in 2.0 powered audio.    The grills are removable and speakers are shielded for use near video monitors.

The custom-designed 78mm woofers produce extremely responsive sound with surprisingly deep bass with the Altec Lansing "MaxxBass technology" that rounds out the sound (without a lousy subwoofer).    The 25mm horn-loaded tweeters offer crystal-clear dispersion of the high frequencies.

Power, volume, bass, treble and a headphone jack (for private listening) are conveniently located behind a pivoting door.    Just push the little illuminated blue button (when turned on) to see it pivoting smoothly. The back shows dual inputs to connect a second audio player while your speakers are connected to your computer.    Each as a standard camera C-mount connector to hang them professionally on a wall or stand.

They really kick ass!

12 Watts RMS total power (front speakers: 6 Watts/channels @ 8 ohms @ 1% THD @ 20   -   20000 Hz 2 Channels loaded) powered by a 12 VDC @ 1.25AMP ac/dc adapter.


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