Friday, July 22, 2005

Blocking AOL Instant Messenger Traffic at the Hampton Inn Provo For some odd reason, I have observed a somewhat inconsistent blocking of AOL Instant Messenger traffic from my hotel, the Hampton Inn Provo.  When I first arrived on Sunday and Monday, I could fire up my Gaim instant messenger client and connect just fine.  On Tuesday, I had problems connecting, and I had some initial problems on Wednesday before it finally connected in the evening.  Last night, I had the same problem.  I even downloaded the AOL Instant Messenger client to see if the problem was with Gaim.  I had the same problem.  What appears to happen is that the instant messenger client connects and logs my user into the system.  When the AOL server attempts to send a cookie, the connection then fails.  Apparently, I can connect to the server, it justs seems as though the router/firewall at the hotel's ISP is blocking the connection sending data to that port.  I am stuck looking for an alternative.  Can I connect to AOL via port 80 or a different server with a different port altogether?  I have not been able to readily find the answer, but I would like to find something to make it work.  My Google searches have not turned up anything conclusive, but I might be conducting my search wrong.  4:31:30 PM    comment []  trackback []

Day 5 from Provo: Training Today is the last day of the TTP Conference for me, as I leave tomorrow morning on a flight back to Baltimore.  It will be nice to come back home, after a long trip in Utah.  Also, it will be nice to return to a state where the liquor laws are a bit more "reasonable."  We are in a series of training classes today, and so far it has not been too bad.  Most of the training today centers around Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES), the Linux server offering from Novell.  The advantage of dealing with this group is that the chance is quite high that someone in the room has already dealt with the issue or technology we are discussing.  Last night, we had dinner at the Foundry Grill at the Sundance Resort.  I opted for the New York Strip, which was quite good.  The last time I was in Provo, I also had a meal at the resort.  Four years ago, we had brunch there and it was delicious.  Both times the meal was a bit pricey.  Given that I am not here all that often, I decided to treat myself.  The only problem with last night is that a large number of us decided to go to the restaurant.  It is normally best to not spring a group of twenty (20) people on a restaurant without at least calling ahead.  As a result, we had to wait for just over 90 minutes.  As a result, we did not get in until much later in the evening than I had expected--close to 11 PM Mountain Time.  Tonight is dinner at one of the Novell engineers I know who has become a good friend.  He is being kind enough to open up his home and family to me for dinner tonight, I am looking forward to it.  Hopefully, I will have a photo to post following dinner.  Well, back to the training.  12:27:59 PM    comment []  trackback []