Comcast tries to charge fee to Level Three; net neutrality and Netflix

Ok, so here’s the deal – Comcast, whom we all love dearly, has decided they want to charge Level 3, the company that helps stream Netflix, to deliver content to their own customers.  Wait, what?  Yup.  Check it:

On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast’s customers who request such content. By taking this action, Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable TV and Xfinity delivered content. This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access markets as the nation’s largest cable provider.

Grasping straws are we, Comcast?  This is kind of the opposite of what we were worried about when the whole net neutrality debate started, but it’s equally disturbing.

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Studying for the CCNA? Here are some useful cheat sheets for pros and students alike.

As mentioned in other posts on this site, I’ve been working on my CCNA certification. Now it’s no secret that this is a difficult test, and while there are many tools out there that will help you study and prepare, the simple fact that you are going to have to know the material inside and out can be daunting. It is for this reason that I’m always hunting for a better way to break down the information.  Click the link after the break.

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Duplicate SIDs in Active Directory

There doesn’t seem to be very much agreement on the problems or even if duplicate SIDs are a problem within Active Directory.  I’ve been reading other blogs and some say that its only a problem within work-groups and with Active Directory there is nothing to worry about. Within AD I have seen duplicate SIDs cause machines not to correctly join the domain, and problems connecting to network resources. It only takes a few minutes to run sysprep  so I chose to error on the side of caution.

The best way to prevent duplicate SIDs is to sysprep systems before cloning them.  Microsoft will only offer support for images that have been syspreped.  SysPrep will remove the SID from the reference computer and set the image back to the OOBE “Out of box experience”, but the image will retain the configuration changes ans application install made on the reference computer.

Image building instructions including sysprep to remove the SID:

http://www.shudnow.net/2008/05/05/unattended-server-2008-base-image-creation-using-wsimsysprep/

Note that Sysprep resets other machine-specific state that, if duplicated, can cause problems for certain applications like Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), so MIcrosoft’s support policy will still require cloned systems to be made unique with Sysprep.

Now I am become NetFlix, the destroyer of internets.

Run for your lives!!!  NetFlix is going to destroy the internet!!  Their streaming awesomeness will shake the webbertubes until they burst,  so says The Slate.  I mean, look at the numbers – 10% of Canadians visited netflix.com in the first week of its launch!  PANIC!!!1!!!!!

You’re not buying this, are you?  I even put ‘panic’ in all capital letters, just for you.  I also put in numbers and stuff, you know like percentages.  Ok, fine, NetFlix will not destroy the internet and I’ll tell you why after the jump.

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