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Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone? (resolved)
01-09-2016, 03:46 PM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2016 09:40 AM by jebem.)
Post: #1
Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone? (resolved)
One more repository is down since some time ago.
Information in this era of electronic support is easily get and easily lost.

EDIT:
This is resolved.

After talking to my ISP, they realized that I had a MAC reservation set on their modem terminal equipment and also some blocked links (only God knows why they did it).
This was very inconvenient as I had to clone that MAC address into my private NAT firewall appliance in order to be able to connect all my equipment to the Internet thru their modem.

The ISP decided to replace their modem at my home with a updated NAT router allowing any devices to be connected too it and both problems are gone.

Jose Mesquita
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01-09-2016, 04:00 PM
Post: #2
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
It loads fine for me. Are you having DNS problems?
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01-09-2016, 04:59 PM
Post: #3
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
I clicked the link, and I got to the web site.
Must have been a short term glitch of some sort.

smp
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01-09-2016, 07:56 PM
Post: #4
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
I checked DNS resolution and it seems to be fine. I get the same IP address from 3 different DNS servers:
Name: "www.vcalc.net"
Address: 216.252.197.18

It looks like my hhtp connections to this site is being blocked as I get a timeout on HTTP, but the PING reply just fine.
I get this behavior from any machine using my home ISP router when accessing that site only (using three different PC's and a Tablet - that's what I got at home now).

However I just found out that I can access the site from my mobile phone (having the wi-fi disconnected to force the connection thru the GSM network).

So the site is online, but I have a probable firewall issue on my home ISP network.
And this is really odd, as I'm pretty sure I never created such a rule on my internal firewall appliance.
I think I will have a talk with my ISP help desk line on Monday.

Jose Mesquita
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01-09-2016, 08:02 PM
Post: #5
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
Same here: connection timeout.
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01-09-2016, 08:03 PM
Post: #6
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
You might be successful with a proxy between you and the site. Here is a list of free servers: http://www.publicproxyservers.com/proxy/list1.html

Marcus von Cube
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01-09-2016, 09:17 PM
Post: #7
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
You should try flushing your DNS cache.
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01-09-2016, 09:57 PM
Post: #8
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
Works like a charm here.

d:-)
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01-10-2016, 12:22 AM (This post was last modified: 01-10-2016 12:32 AM by jebem.)
Post: #9
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
In this case my DNS cache is not causing the issue.
This seems related to a blocking rule somewhere on specific Internet routes.
This issue started a few days ago on my ISP.

As I mentioned above, I can successfully ping (ICMP protocol) the site using the correct URL that resolves to the mentioned IP address:

C:\Users\Suna\Desktop>ping http://www.vcalc.net

Pinging http://www.vcalc.net [216.252.197.18] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.252.197.18: bytes=32 time=134ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.252.197.18: bytes=32 time=133ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.252.197.18: bytes=32 time=137ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.252.197.18: bytes=32 time=134ms TTL=47

Ping statistics for 216.252.197.18:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 133ms, Maximum = 137ms, Average = 134ms


However the HTTP access gives me a timeout, so in this case the problem is not at the DNS resolution.

And yes, the access works fine using a public proxy server, but that should not be needed in normal situations.

Two questions if I may:

1. Are you able to access the site from a PC behind a NAT firewall?
That's what I have at home: A firewall appliance allowing all my private devices to access Internet using NAT and blocking all external devices from initiating a session with my private devices.

Additional info:
Right now I am connected directly to the ISP router and the issue remains. So it is not caused by my firewall.



2. Can you check what IP address are your systems using to reach the destination?
Is it this 216.252.197.18 ?

Jose Mesquita
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01-10-2016, 12:30 AM
Post: #10
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
The IP address is the same for me. I can access the site fine, even trough 2 NAT routers, one to isolate my network from IPTV traffic, and another one provided by my ISP to access the Internet.

Marcus von Cube
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http://wp34s.sf.net
http://mvcsys.de/doc/basic-compare.html
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01-10-2016, 12:41 AM
Post: #11
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
(01-10-2016 12:30 AM)Marcus von Cube Wrote:  The IP address is the same for me. I can access the site fine, even trough 2 NAT routers, one to isolate my network from IPTV traffic, and another one provided by my ISP to access the Internet.

Thank you, Marcus.
I have connected my laptop directly to the ISP router for testing, got an public ip address, but the issue remains the same.

I can only think that the ISP routing to the site, despite correct as the ping testify, is dropping the http traffic for some reason.

Jose Mesquita
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01-10-2016, 12:43 AM
Post: #12
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
(01-10-2016 12:22 AM)jebem Wrote:  Two questions if I may:

1. Are you able to access the site from a PC behind a NAT firewall?
That's what I have at home: A firewall appliance allowing all my private devices to access Internet using NAT and blocking all external devices from initiating a session with my private devices.
2. Can you check what IP address are your systems using to reach the destination?
Is it this 216.252.197.18 ?

I can also access from behind a NAT router, and I also resolve to the same IP address.

From NY - though I doubt that helps much.

--Bob Prosperi
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01-10-2016, 12:58 AM (This post was last modified: 01-10-2016 12:59 AM by jebem.)
Post: #13
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
(01-10-2016 12:43 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  I can also access from behind a NAT router, and I also resolve to the same IP address.
From NY - though I doubt that helps much.

Thanks for your input.
I can only see my ISP having some issues to serve hhtp from some Internet zones.
ISP uses data caches appliances for performance reasons and these machines can have issues like any other.

Meanwhile I have connected my mobile phone to my laptop using a usb cable and configured it as a Internet router (USB Tethering).
It works fine but now I'm using a different ISP.

Jose Mesquita
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01-10-2016, 09:23 AM
Post: #14
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
That issue seems to be solved.

Amother lost site query:

What happened to Emil Dudek's Vintage Technology site at http://www.vintage-technology.info?

That was a great resource, with loads of technical detail and calculator tear down pictures. Then it was gone. Lots of other sites still carry dead links to it.
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01-11-2016, 11:48 AM (This post was last modified: 01-11-2016 11:51 AM by jebem.)
Post: #15
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone?
(01-10-2016 09:23 AM)Chasfield Wrote:  Another lost site query:

What happened to Emil Dudek's Vintage Technology site at http://www.vintage-technology.info?

That was a great resource, with loads of technical detail and calculator tear down pictures. Then it was gone. Lots of other sites still carry dead links to it.

I had a look into the Wayback Machine, and some of the pages can still be recovered.

Calculator pages here and here.

Jose Mesquita
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01-14-2016, 09:38 AM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2016 09:39 AM by jebem.)
Post: #16
RE: Rick Furr's www.vcalc.net: Is it gone? (resolved)
My issue accessing VCALC.NET site is resolved.

After talking to my ISP, they realized that I had a MAC reservation set on their modem terminal equipment and also some blocked links (only God knows why they did it).
This was very inconvenient as I had to clone that MAC address into my private NAT firewall appliance in order to be able to connect all my equipment to the Internet thru their modem.

The ISP decided to replace their modem at my home with a updated NAT router allowing any devices to be connected too it and both problems are gone.

Jose Mesquita
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