[thelist] New to evolt?

[Judah McAuley]

>to quote Beericous 4.12: "Show a man how to tap a keg, and he'll drink for 
>a night. *Teach* a man how to tap a keg and he'll drink for the rest of 
>his life." Wiser words were never spoken, and the same principles hold 
>true here on thelist. We're all about sharing, and we invite you to share 
>as well. :)

I thought the quote was "Show a man how to tap a keg, and he'll drink for a 
night or two.  Teach a man how to brew and he'll have drinking buddies for 
life."  Perhaps we should start a separate evolt beer 
appreciation/brewing/drinking/pub crawling list?

Alright, this one needs a tip, so here goes...

<tip type="Fun with Traceroute" author="Judah McAuley">
         Several people have commented on the usefulness of traceroute for 
trying to figure out where network bottlenecks lay (lie?).  If you want to 
get a reasonable picture of what your network connectivity looks like to 
the rest of the world or you are evaluating a potential new ISP/Hosting 
service, then a good place to start is: 
http://www.boardwatch.com/Find_Backbone.htm

This is ISPWorld's index of Traceroute Servers.  They will allow you to 
traceroute from major Internet connection points (like Mae-East and 
Mae-West) to a host and show you what path it takes and how long it takes 
to get there.  While this is a single snapshot in time, and traceroute is 
by no means full-proof as a diagnostic tool, it is nonetheless a good 
starting point.

If you want to have a further in-depth evaluation of a ISP/Backbone/Hosting 
system, then you might also take a look at www.keynote.com
They provide availability and performance evaluations for all sorts of 
systems (for a price).  When evaluating a high-end hosting system, ask them 
if the have Keynote monitoring statistics that you can request.  It can 
give you a very good picture of what their network looks like from all 
sorts of places over time.
</tip>