This does not mean that the internet is going to shut down, or we’re going to have a Y2K-type panic on our hands. It simply means that any ISP that wants to get a block of new IP addresses anywhere in the world for their customers, can’t. You’ll still be able to access Google and all your email for the foreseeable future.

I wanted to see if my ISP, Verizon, supported IPv6 so I can try it out for myself. It turns out that the Actiontec router I have doesn’t support IPv6 at all, so I couldn’t get online with IPv6 even if I wanted to unless Actiontec/Verizon rolls out a firmware update for their routers. Considering how many millions of people have these routers and the fact that firmware updates don’t always go as planned, it’s no surprise that a firmware update hasn’t been rolled out yet. Still, it’s going to have to be at some point. Jean McManus, executive director of packet network technology at Verizon said “We have thousands of routers, and we can’t cut them over instantaneously”.

I did some research to find if the top ISPs in North America are ready to roll out IPv6, or have even started testing. Here’s what I found.

Verizon: Internal testing with employees in April, 2010. IPv6 running on the back end, but consumer routers don’t yet support IPv6 natively, nor do they support “dual stack” which supports both IPv4 and IPv6. They have launched an IPv6 transition service for businesses. I couldn’t find any recent documents stating that they’ll be rolling out any IPv6 support to customers anytime soon.

Comcast: Public trials have already started and seem to be the best ISP for native IPv6 at the moment using DOCSIS 3.0 and supporting “dual stack”. Trial customers in Colorado were provided with Arris cable modems and Apple networking equipment to support IPv6 natively. Comcast seems to be currently leading in IPv6 support in North America.

Optimum Online: No current plans that I could find.

Time Warner: Currently supporting “dual stack”.

Rogers: No time frame for IPv6 support.

Cox: Has already begun IPv6 trials.

Qwest: Working on supporting “dual stack”.

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Post tags: actiontec, arris, comcast, cox, dual stack, IPv4, IPv6, isp, qwest, rogers, time warner, verizon

I installed Mac OS 10.6 on the same Mac to work on some new iPad development and found that the DNS didn’t have any delay at all. Switching back to 10.5 had a delay, so it didn’t seem like a hardware problem. I tried my iPhone which was fast, my iPad was fast, and my Windows 7 machines was fast, and they were all going through the same router. This led me to believe that there was something wrong with the 10.5 OS itself, so I did some digging and found that, in a nutshell, Verizon’s DNS servers don’t like Mac OS 10.5. I’d switch to 10.6 full time but due to driver issues that haven’t been updated for 10.6, I had to stick with 10.5.

Mac OS 10.5 does what’s called an SRV-based request when you ask for a site. The problem is that the Verizon DNS servers don’t know what to do with it, so the OS times out, tries again, times out again, and then falls back to the old A-based request which finally works. The way around this is to use OpenDNS IP addresses, bypassing Verizon’s.

Be warned that when you switch locations, any apps you have running will break their internet connections.

Find the Network icon in the System Preferences.

Select “Edit Locations…”

Click on the + to add a new location and call it “OpenDNS”

Here you can click on the + to add new DNS entries. The DNS servers are read from the bottom up so add them in this order:

208.67.222.222

208.67.222.220

Click “OK” and you’re done.

If you’re like me and stuck in Mac OS 10.5 with this problem until you can upgrade to 10.6 on a regular basis, this solution should work for you.

© June Sixth Productions for Geekistry: It's all geek to us, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: dns, leopard, mac os 10.5, slow dns, verizon

From the FAQ:

I just purchased a new smartphone during the holiday season, but if I knew that iPhone 4 was going to be available soon I would have waited. What are my options now?

Current Verizon customers who purchased and activated new smartphones, feature phones or certified pre-owned phones between 11/26/2010, and 01/10/2011, are eligible to receive up to a $200 Visa debit card when they purchase an iPhone 4 at full retail price by 02/28/2011 and return their existing phone. Note: This offer is only available on consumer accounts with five lines or less, who are purchasing iPhone 4 through Verizon Wireless retail stores, telesales, or through verizonwireless.com.

While this may seem like good customer service from Verizon, the “up to” $200 Visa card doesn’t cover the full difference if the customer bought the phone and the two year contract. If a customer wants to buy the 16GB Verizon iPhone 4 at full price, it will cost $649.99. Subtract the maximum $200 from that and you get $449.99, which is far from what people may consider a fair difference since the 16GB iPhone 4 with contract is $199.99, and those customers eligible for the $200 Visa card would only have had their phones for a few months.

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Post tags: iPhone, rebate, verizon

Most importantly, the Verizon iPhone allows users to use the iPhone as a mobile hotspot, something that AT&T users have been complaining about for years. This allows you to share your internet connection with up to five users. This is a very useful feature while out with friends or colleagues that may need an internet connection where you are.

Unfortunately, the Verizon iPhone 4 is on the CDMA network and not on the new 4G LTW network which means that you can’t use voice and data at the same time due to CDMA’s limitations. When asked why Verizon didn’t put the iPhone 4 on the new 4G LTW network, Apple COO Tim Cook replied, “Two reasons: the first gen LTW chipsets force design changes we wouldn’t make, and Verizon customers told us they want the iPhone now. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve been asked ‘when will it work on Verizon.’” This will mean that if you’re on the phone and want to look something up or check your mail while on the CDMA network, you can’t. You should be able to if you’re on a wifi network. You can see some minor modifications to the antenna gaps on the Verizon iPhone 4 which were mentioned as being necessary for the CDMA network.

Another shocker was that the Verizon page has the white iPhone listed on their web site. Apple said that manufacturing problems kept the white iPhone from being released, but it now looks like the white iPhone was kept until this announcement.

The Verizon iPhone 4 on CDMA is non-exclusive which means that it’s possible for other carriers that use CDMA such as Sprint to get an iPhone 4 in the future. Data pricing has not been released yet, but it would be in Verizon’s favor to compete with AT&T by having an unlimited data plan to woo people that are still in AT&T’s unlimited data plan. Also, there’s no mention of how using the iPhone as a hotspot will modify data pricing.

Preorders are available on February 3, 2011 and the Verizon iPhone 4 will be released on February 10, 2011. Pricing is $199 for the 16 GB version with a two year contract.

Apple’s site: apple.com

Verizon Wireless: verizonwireless.com

© June Sixth Productions for Geekistry: It's all geek to us, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 4g LTW, at&t, hotspot, iPhone, iphone 4, mifi, verizon

This happened to me recently when I tried to recover my ICQ account. I don’t know why, but my ICQ password wasn’t working on it anymore. Even the apps that worked just a few months ago and had my password saved wouldn’t work. I know I didn’t update it, and it wasn’t hacked since my old email address was still attached to it, but ICQ wasn’t helpful in getting me access to my own account back. Since the email address was no longer accessible, I was shut out of my ICQ account with no chance of recovery.

Imagine what that would be like if you didn’t change your email addresses on everything you signed up for. Being shut out of everything could do some serious damage to you if you depend on services to get work done, or if you’ve been hacked and need to have your new password sent to you. What’s worse is that some services send emails stating that someone attempted to recover a password on your account. You would never get those emails.

<strong>Getting started</strong>

If you don’t do it already, save your emails. I have emails going as far back as 1988 and every now and then there’s something in them which I need to reference. If you’ve had your ISP for a long time, chances are you used it to sign up on quite a few sites. Hotmail was big early on, but came infected with spam messages and I stopped using it. Now everyone’s using Gmail as a free alternative to their ISP’s email, and you’re not  locked in to your ISP to handle email.

In order to get an idea of all the emails I got when I signed up for web sites and services, I did a search in my Comcast folder for the subject “Welcome to”. It brought up a good number of emails which represent most of the important sites I signed up with dating all the way back to 2001. Every single one of those web sites will have to be updated with a different email address. Other phrases to search for are “Thank you”, “registering”, and “invite”.

<strong>Choose where to move to</strong>

As I hinted at before, the most obvious thing to do would be to move your email address to something that’s not tied to an ISP. You can use Gmail, MobileMe, Hotmail, Live.com, or any other email service that you won’t have to worry about changing if you move to a different ISP in the future. Even if you don’t plan on changing your ISP where you live, you could move, forcing you to do this all over again.

As I spent the better part of the afternoon changing email addresses, I found that there were a lot of sites that never once sent me a welcome email. Those were the hard ones to remember since I don’t have an actual trail of emails to look for. I had to scroll down my list of emails and look at some of the newsletters I got to remember that I signed up for a particular web site. I would suppose that the best thing I could have done to alleviate that would be to create more folders for sites than I already had. Some sites were important, but didn’t send enough emails to warrant a whole folder dedicated to it.

<strong>Update your filters</strong>

Once you change your email address, you may need to remake filters depending on your email software you use. If you attach a filter to a specific incoming email address, you may need to change which incoming email address to attach it to. I try not to be that specific with my filters so that they can go wherever they need to, but the downside is that I put them in subfolders based on the email address they came in from which would have to be changed.

<strong>What to do after</strong>

When you think you have all your email addresses changed over, you may want to hold off on canceling your old ISP’s internet for a few days. Keep checking your old email address and see if any stragglers come in that you might have forgotten about. Also, ask your ISP how long that internet address is good for. Chances are they’ll shut it down immediately, but some may let it run until the end of the billing cycle.

There are some advantages to keeping your email off your ISP. Comcast never supported IMAP which annoyed me. I don’t know if Verizon does because right now they won’t allow me to change my email name; it’s currently a string of random characters and they can’t tell me why I can’t change it when the site clearly tells me I can. I’m also not a fan of keeping everything in one basket. I split my emails between different accounts so that if I lose access to one, I don’t lose access to everything.

Email management can be a hassle, but if you future proof its organization, it can save you a lot of hassle in the future.

© June Sixth Productions for Geekistry: It's all geek to us, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: comcast, email, filters, folders, icq, imap, verizon