Data corruption.

[Len]

I apologise for the inconvenience but I have moved these post from another thread as it would be a shame to lose the good information.

If software and severs were in perfect working order we would still experience the odd glitch. The data that’s being passed backwards and forwards could be corrupted by perhaps noise or the odd spick from the wiring or sumat. There are probably millions of devices/machines out there that generate interference that all could potentially interfere with the data that’s passing by. But then that’s the internet for you. It’s probably never gong to be perfect.

[KIPAX]

Originally Posted by Len

The data that’s being passed backwards and forwards could be corrupted by perhaps noise or the odd spick from the wiring or sumat. .

haha before the web we used BBS systems and the only one for my atari was in newcastle.. used to cost a fortune dialing that number everyday... until while someone was online or while the bbs was calling out... lightning struck the telephone lines and fried his moterboard, hard drive whatever and the whole BBS dissapeared forever...

the old modems we used to not dial out if there was a storm in case it fried our pooters... i still dont know to this day if i was being over protective...

[Len]

Originally Posted by KIPAX

haha before the web we used BBS systems and the only one for my atari was in newcastle.. used to cost a fortune dialing that number everyday... until while someone was online or while the bbs was calling out... lightning struck the telephone lines and fried his moterboard, hard drive whatever and the whole BBS dissapeared forever... the old modems we used to not dial out if there was a storm in case it fried our pooters... i still dont know to this day if i was being over protective...

I;ve just found this if anyone is interested what the bulletin boards system is;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

[KIPAX]

Originally Posted by Len

I;ve just found this if anyone is interested what the bulletin boards system is;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system

ooops yeagh.. they wont know.... oops

[Len]

Originally Posted by KIPAX

ooops yeagh.. they wont know.... oops

Neither did I. hehe

[Neil]

Originally Posted by KIPAX

ooops yeagh.. they wont know.... oops

The good old days , well maybe not that good. We have it easy now compared to just a few years ago. I don't think I would have got many jobs if I had sent my CV in on Sinclair thermal paper

[KIPAX]

What that doesnt make clear is that only one person at a time could log into a BBS so you often waited ages to get on... download all the messages and view them in a special reader.... make your answers.. dial in again and upload.... BBS would link to each other around the country and once a night would swap messages... so it could take 24 hrs for one message to be answered by someone accross country

As this was done while paying national rate per minute (and soemtimes the internet was when www started) thats why sig lines where kept to 4 and you had to post more than you quoted to stop over quoting.. also abbreviarions a plenty as every letter cost money

A lot of us brought the same mentality over to the WWW because we where paying per minute on slow modems and you didnt want to pay to download a 30 line sig on 100 messages say.... ALSO thats why SPAM is hated so much.. you where paying to download adverts

Now in the age of broadband these things dont matter... accept to old school who cant get it out of our system and stuck doing a lot the way we did


PS: Before BBS sytems (now we are going way back) we all used to write messages on floppy disks and pass round via jiffy bags and our loverly post office... to a network of users.. people could reply.. that could take weeks for a message to be replied to.. many many years ago I programmed a talking message creator so people could listen to text sent on a disk..... only for it to be reviewed in a computer mag as a tool for kids to swear and laugh....duh..

[Neil]

Originally Posted by KIPAX

only for it to be reviewed in a computer mag as a tool for kids to swear and laugh....duh..

And now BT lets do the same thing by sending text messages to landlines

[WillowTheWhisp]

Originally Posted by Neil

The good old days , well maybe not that good. We have it easy now compared to just a few years ago. I don't think I would have got many jobs if I had sent my CV in on Sinclair thermal paper

Oh I'd totally forgotten that stuff! We usedto have some micro-encapsulated paper in our "computer terminals" at work which was fine if you remembered to separate the two sheets before folding or you'd burst the bubbles and get lines across the paper. Those terminals were a laugh a minute - great lumbering keyboards on legs that went for a walk across the office if they weren't fastened down! And they had paper tape punchers attached so that any time we were offline we punched the transactions and then sent the spools of tape to the CPU which was housed in a warehouse in Wythenshawe!

[entwisi]

Originally Posted by Len

I apologise for the inconvenience but I have moved these post from another thread as it would be a shame to lose the good information.

If software and severs were in perfect working order we would still experience the odd glitch. The data that’s being passed backwards and forwards could be corrupted by perhaps noise or the odd spick from the wiring or sumat. There are probably millions of devices/machines out there that generate interference that all could potentially interfere with the data that’s passing by. But then that’s the internet for you. It’s probably never gong to be perfect.

thats why TCP has inbuilt error tracking. There will never be an item of data that is 'interfered with' that is accepted at the receiving end. There is a cracking video of how 'stuff' makes its way round the net here http://www.warriorsofthe.net/movie.html

be warned its BIG (73 Meg) but its a) very funny and b) very informative.

Also when it comes to databases updates, the industry standard is to use a 2 phase commit process to ensure nothing becomes corrupt. I'm not sure if vBulletin uses this yet or even what DB is hanging off the back end(MySQL if I was pressed to guess??)

[KIPAX]

Yes MySQL ......... I always thougth databases where for geeks.. but then i started working wiht them and found them challenging and fun and one of the best tools on the web.... does that make me a) wrong for my first thought or b) a geek .... answers on a postcard blah blah

[entwisi]

Go on, you can be Geek no. 2

A good DBA is a many skilled bod

[Len]

Cheers chaps, appreciated.
You learn some thing every day and I’ll probably have forgot by tomorrow, but there you go.. hehe
At least by my guessing from no real knowledge it manages to drag out the truths from others.

Cheers.