I had a miserable day fighting with networking issues today. You don't want to hear about it, unless I ended up solving the same problem you have (which is why I'm writing this -- for the search engines to pick up).

A few days ago, some web sites suddenly seemed mostly unaccessible (accessible, say, 5% of the time), while others were just fine. Since most Yahoo! sites were among the missing, this was a big problem.

The other day I was able to pinpoint that the problem occurred when I used my router (Corega BAR-SD) inline between my ISP and my computers. So, today I tried to get to the bottom of it.

Upgrading the router's firmware didn't solve the problem.

“The problem”, in this case, is that I could connect to some sites, but nothing would be returned before the connection would time out. So, I installed Ethereal (now called “Wireshark”), a network protocol analyzer, to watch what was happening. I'm not a network expert by any means, but I could see that there many duplicate ACKs, which is probably not good.

My brother recommend that I also sniff the traffic on the other side of the router, to see if the traffic was leaving the router properly. So, I went through the hassle to put one computer on the outside of the router, and another on the inside, and then tried to watch what happened as the from-the-inside request timed out.

Unfortunately, I used a switch rather than a hub to hook up both the router and the outside-the-router computer to my ISP, which means that the outside-the-router computer didn't see any traffic from the router itself. Doh. I don't have a non-switching hub. Sigh.

In the process of this, though, I'd run Ethereal on my wife's XP box and noticed that some apparent nasty-ware was contacting “offerapp.com” (67.29.139.222) serendipitously. So, this started the tangent of running the Anti-Spy component of Yahoo! Toolbar and Microsoft® Windows AntiSpyware, but a subsequent test still showed the traffic. Sigh. Must look into this later.

Back to my router problem, I decided that the router is probably just bad, so I rode my bike down to the Teramachi Joshin Denki to pick up another. While looking for one, I noticed that they didn't seem to sell a non-switching hub. Still, I should probably have one on hand just for the type of network-sniffing task I ran into today.

Anyway, I ended up dropping $50 on a Corega BARF-X2 router. (It's actually called “BAR-FX-2”, but it's more fun to write as “BARF-X2”.) Despite the previous Corega router apparently dying not much more than a year after having bought it, I stuck with the Corega over Buffalo (the other choice) because the BARF-X2 was likely to have a “PC Database” feature (see sidebar below).

So, things worked just fine with the new router, but I was still wondering if I should put my Vonage VoIP modem (Motorola VG1005v) between the ISP and my router, or just as a client of the router. It's simpler for me to just put it as a client of my router, but there are some benefits to putting it inline before the router. One is that it will give voice traffic priority over data traffic. However, while that might make an important difference on a small DSL/Cable pipe, it's not relevant on my 50 Mbit uplink (it's advertised as 100 Mbit, but a speed test got only about half that).

Another benefit of putting the VoIP modem first is that I used its MAC address when signing up for a fixed public IP from my ISP. Currently, I get up to 5 private addresses (the whole building is behind NAT), but once they get the paperwork I sent in the other day, they'll give me a public IP .... but only when the device I registered connects. In a fit of stupidness the other day, I'd given the VoIP modem's MAC address. If I put the router first, I'll continue to get the private addresses.

While rummaging around the VoIP modem's configuration screens, I turned off the “DHCP/NAT on LAN Port” feature. I had an idea what it would do, but wasn't quite sure, so gave it a try. In one sense, the result was as I expected -- putting things downstream of it connected to my ISP as if it wasn't there. What I didn't (and still don't) know is how the modem itself connects in this situation. I suppose it's a DHCP client itself, consuming an IP, but I don't really know.

Anyway, I then ran into the problem of how to turn the DHCP/NAT back on. To do that, I needed to access its menus (at the fixed address of 192.168.102.1, via its LAN port), but since my ISP was giving me address like 172.16.126.241 (and I was getting those even when connected downstream via the LAN port), I felt pretty stuck.

Fast-forward several hours of futzing around and I finally figured it out: Hooked things up as ISP -> Router -> VoIP -> Computer and set my router to 192.168.102.5. I was then able to see 192.168.102.1 (the Motorola VoIP modem) from the computer, and turn DHCP/NAT back on. Ugh. Then set the router back to 192.168.1.1 where I like it, and reconfigure things so that the VoIP Modem is a simple client of my router, as are all my computers (and nothing is downstream from the VoIP modem)

By the way, why did I care about turning DHCP/NAT back on? In case we bring it with us somewhere, we want to be able to put it inline with our single-IP connection and still connect with a computer plugged into the back of the modem.

Wonderful news: my sister Marci Kreta is now pregnant after years of trying. This follows on the heels of my niece Grace's birth three months ago. It certainly seems that a lot of friends have become pregnant or had babies in the last year or so. I sort of thought I'd hit this age when I was 25, but I'm glad I didn't, as it wouldn't have meant much to me then. (Your world view, and what you pay attention to, certainly changes once you have your own kid -- it's like you can suddenly see in color, but hadn't known that you were missing anything.)

Congratulations to Marcy and Marty! We're looking forward to a little cousin for Anthony.

UPDATE: Welcome Joshua!

Anthony is getting to the age where he'll start preschool soon, so we've started to evaluate a number of them. Japanese pre-school, called youchien (幼稚園) and sometimes “kindergarten”, generally goes for three years starting during the school year in which they turn three years old. (In the US, of course, “kindergarten” is generally a half a day for one school year at about age four or five.)

Each school has its own formal uniforms that the kids wear on the way to/from school. Being very formal (jacket, vest, shirt) but for kids (short pants and short-sleeve shirt), they're generally quite adorable on a three-year old.

I'm sure that these uniforms are a big deal to the kids too, as it represents a big step toward growing up, and makes them a tangible member of a group. Just thinking of Anthony strutting proudly in his new clothes makes me smile like the silly proud parent I am.

This all comes at a steep price, though. The first place we went to had a price list of required items (here shown with prices in US dollars, at the exchange rate of 110 yen/dollar):

These prices are ridiculous. $47 for pants for a three-year-old? Geez, I rarely ever spent that much on a pair for myself. Most of the $600 is for the formal uniform which is not even worn during school (thankfully). Generally, it's worn during the commute to/from the school. That's a heck of a lot to spend for a bit of cuteness!

Of course, the $600 is in addition to the $5,000/year for the school itself (plus another $900 if they want to ride the bus).

Choosing the school is quite an important decision, not only to ensure that they treat the kids the way you want (e.g. do they put emphasis on play? socialization? learning? etc.), but also because which pre-school they go to can have a direct impact on, I kid you not, what college they go to.

Some highly sought-after private high schools, for example, are very difficult to get into, but once you're in their system (e.g. by getting into the preschool, elementary school, or middle school), you're in. So, getting into their preschool ensures that they can continue though high school. Of course, the high school one goes to has an impact as to what college you can get in to.

We definitely don't want to put Anthony on the “boileroom” track of cram schools and study-to-the-entrance-exam that is not uncommon here. Thus, we're looking for just the right place that will let him enjoy being a kid while he's a kid, but give him the opportunity for a good education down the road. (Not that one can predict what he'll want to do when he's older, but I would think he'll go to college in the US, but we want him to have the option to go here if that's what he wants.)

I really love my new place, but there's one thing I'll miss: my old toilet.

Both the old and new places have an INAX brand “Shower Toilet” (yes, that's the name). But the two are quite different; apparently, INAX names all their toilets “shower” toilets.

The old place apparently had a “K Series” model, while the new place has an “Satis S5” series model.

Anyway, they are the same in that they have all the standard controls: bidet, “wash”, blow dry, water temperature control, water pressure control, air temperature control, and seat temperature control. The new one has the controls on a wall-mounted remote control, but otherwise they appear quite comparable. For whatever reason, at US$1,400, the new on costs about 2x the old one.

The most basic function of one of these “enhanced” toilets is its “wash” feature. Press a button and a well-aimed jet of warm water, er, washes you. The water pressure can be adjusted from a trickle to fairly strong jet.

What I'll really miss, though, is that the water pressure on the old one could be turned up to sand-blasting proportions. We're talking Old Faithful, Niagara Falls, and fire hoses. Get the aim just right, and we're talking clean outside and in. As the maker says on their English site, “Clean never felt so good.” I liked it.

The new one has no such power. Sigh. I'll miss my old toilet.

By the way, the maker now has a model for the North-American market. The title of this post comes from some of silly English copy on their site.

I noticed the other day when I filled up with gas that I was paying more than before. At 127 yen/liter, at today's exchange rate, that's about US$4.37/gallon.

Considering, though, that 10 years ago the price was about 99 yen/liter, at the exchange rate at the time it was $3.84/gallon. So, in 10 years, gas prices here have gone up about 30% in local (yen-priced) terms, and 11% in global (dollar-priced) terms.

Now consider America: gas at the station near our Cupertino house is currently $2.71/gallon. I don't know what US gas cost 10 years ago (I was in Japan), but I know that I've paid less than $0.99/gallon at that station since then (in about 1999 or 2000). So, gas in America has almost tripled in the last 10-or-so years.

I don't know what to make of these numbers... just noticing that it's odd. Maybe the US market price is catching up with the world market price....