Live and Let Live

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet 1 The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet Ed Krol [email  protected] cso. uiuc. edu Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet 2 This document was produced through funding of the National Science Foundation. Copyright (C) 1987, by the Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois. Permission to duplicate this document, in whole or part, is granted provided reference is made to the source and this copyright is included in whole copies. This document assumes that one is familiar with the workings of a non-connected simple IP network (e. . a few 4. 2 BSD systems on an Ethernet not connected to anywhere else). Appendix A contains remedial information to get one to this point. Its purpose is to get that person, familiar with a simple net, versed in the â€Å"oral tradition† of the Internet to the point that that net can be connected to the Internet with little dang er to either. It is not a tutorial, it consists of pointers to other places, literature, and hints which are not normally documented. Since the Internet is a dynamic environment, changes to this document will be made regularly. The author welcomes comments and suggestions.This is especially true of terms for the glossary (definitions are not necessary). In the beginning there was the ARPAnet, a wide area experimental network connecting hosts and terminal servers together. Procedures were set up to regulate the allocation of addresses and to create voluntary standards for the network. As local area networks became more pervasive, many hosts became gateways to local networks. A network layer to allow the interoperation of these networks was developed and called IP (Internet Protocol). Over time other groups created long haul IP based networks (NASA, NSF, states†¦ ). These nets, too, interoperate because of IP.The collection of all of these interoperating networks is the Internet. Two groups do much of the research and information work of the Internet (ISI and SRI). ISI (the Informational Sciences Institute) does much of the research, standardization, and allocation work of the Internet. SRI International provides information services for the Internet. In fact, after you are connected to the Internet most of the information in this document can be retrieved from the Network Information Center (NIC) run by SRI. Operating the Internet Each network, be it the ARPAnet, NSFnet or a regional network, has its own operations center.The ARPAnet is run by Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet BBN, Inc. under contract from DARPA. Their facility is called the Network Operations Center or NOC. Cornell University temporarily operates NSFnet (called the Network Information Service Center, NISC). It goes on to the -2regionals having similar facilities to monitor and keep watch over the goings on of their portion of the Internet. In addition, they all should have some knowledge of what is happening to the Internet in total.If a problem comes up, it is suggested that a campus network liaison should contact the network operator to which he is directly connected. That is, if you are connected to a regional network (which is gatewayed to the NSFnet, which is connected to the ARPAnet†¦ ) and have a problem, you should contact your regional network operations center. 3 RFCs The internal workings of the Internet are defined by a set of documents called RFCs (Request for Comments). The general process for creating an RFC is for someone wanting something formalized to write a document describing the issue and mailing it to Jon Postel ([email  protected] edu).He acts as a referee for the proposal. It is then commented upon by all those wishing to take part in the discussion (electronically of course). It may go through multiple revisions. Should it be generally accepted as a good idea, it will be assigned a number and filed with the RFCs. The RFCs can be divided into five groups: required, suggested, directional, informational and obsolete. Required RFC's (e. g. RFC-791, The Internet Protocol) must be implemented on any host connected to the Internet. Suggested RFCs are generally implemented by network hosts. Lack of them does not preclude access to the Internet, but may impact its usability.RFC-793 (Transmission Control Protocol) is a suggested RFC. Directional RFCs were discussed and agreed to, but their application has never come into wide use. This may be due to the lack of wide need for the specific application (RFC-937 The Post Office Protocol) or that, although technically superior, ran against other pervasive approaches (RFC-891 Hello). It is suggested that should the facility be required by a particular site, animplementation be done in accordance with the RFC. This insures that, should the idea be one whose time has come, the implementation will be in accordance with some standard and will be generally usable.Informational RFCs contain factual information about the Internet and its operation (RFC-990, Assigned Numbers). Finally, as the Internet and technology have grown, some RFCs have become unnecessary. These obsolete RFCs cannot be ignored, however. Frequently when a change is made to some RFC that causes a new one to be issued obsoleting others, the new RFC only contains explanations and motivations for the change. Understanding the model on which the whole facility is based may involve reading the original and subsequent RFCs Get any book for free on: www. Abika. comThe Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet on the topic. -3(Appendix B contains a list of what are considered to be the major RFCs necessary for understanding the Internet). 4 The Network Information Center The NIC is a facility available to all Internet users which provides information to the community. There are three means of NIC contact: network, telephone, and mail. The network accesses are t he most prevalent. Interactive access is frequently used to do queries of NIC service overviews, look up user and host names, and scan lists of NIC documents. It is available by using %telnet sri-nic. rpa on a BSD system and following the directions provided by a user friendly prompter. From poking around in the databases provided one might decide that a document named NETINFO:NUG. DOC (The Users Guide to the ARPAnet) would be worth having. It could be retrieved via an anonymous FTP. An anonymous FTP would proceed something like the following. (The dialogue may vary slightly depending on the implementation of FTP you are using). %ftp sri-nic. arpa Connected to sri-nic. arpa. 220 SRI_NIC. ARPA FTP Server Process 5Z(47)-6 at Wed 17-Jun-87 12:00 PDT Name (sri-nic. arpa:myname): anonymous 331 ANONYMOUS user ok, send real ident as password.Password: myname 230 User ANONYMOUS logged in at Wed 17-Jun-87 12:01 PDT, job 15. ftp; get netinfo:nug. doc 200 Port 18. 144 at host 128. 174. 5. 50 a ccepted. 150 ASCII retrieve of NUG. DOC. 11 started. 226 Transfer Completed 157675 (8) bytes transferred local: netinfo:nug. doc remote:netinfo:nug. doc 157675 bytes in 4. 5e+02 seconds (0. 34 Kbytes/s) ftp; quit 221 QUIT command received. Goodbye. (Another good initial document to fetch is NETINFO:WHAT-THE-NIC-DOES. TXT)! Questions of the NIC or problems with services can be asked of or reported to using electronic mail. The following addresses can be used: [email  protected]ARPA requests [email  protected] ARPA General user assistance, document User registration and WHOIS updates Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet [email  protected] ARPA Hostname and domain changes and updates [email  protected] ARPA SRI-NIC computer operations [email  protected] ARPA Comments on NIC publications and services -4For people without network access, or if the number of documents is large, many of the NIC documents are available in printed form for a small charge. One frequently ordered document for starting sites is a compendium of major RFCs.Telephone access is used primarily for questions or problems with network access. (See appendix B for mail/telephone contact numbers). 5 The NSFnet Network Service Center The NSFnet Network Service Center (NNSC) is funded by NSF to provide a first level of aid to users of NSFnet should they have questions or encounter problems traversing the network. It is run by BBN Inc. Karen Roubicek ([email  protected] nsf. net) is the NNSC user liaison. The NNSC, which currently has information and documents online and in printed form, plans to distribute news through network mailing lists, bulletins, newsletters, and online reports.The NNSC also maintains a database of contact points and sources of additional information about NSFnet component networks and supercomputer centers. Prospective or current users who do not know whom to call concerning questions about NSFnet use, should contact the NN SC. The NNSC will answer general questions, and, for detailed information relating to specific components of the Internet, will help users find the appropriate contact for further assistance. (Appendix B) Mail Reflectors The way most people keep up to date on network news is through subscription to a number of mail reflectors.Mail reflectors are special electronic mailboxes which, when they receive a message, resend it to a list of other mailboxes. This in effect creates a discussion group on a particular topic. Each subscriber sees all the mail forwarded by the reflector, and if one wants to put his â€Å"two cents† in sends a message with the comments to the reflector†¦. The general format to subscribe to a mail list is to find the address reflector and append the string -REQUEST to the mailbox name (not the host name). For example, if you wanted to take part in the mailing list for NSFnet reflected by [email  protected]NSF. NET, one sends a request to Get any book f or free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet [email  protected] NSF. NET. This may be a wonderful scheme, but the problem is that you must know the list exists in the first place. It is suggested that, if you are interested, you read the mail from one list (like NSFNET) and you will probably become familiar with the existence of others. A registration service for mail reflectors is provided by the NIC in the files NETINFO:INTEREST-GROUPS-1. TXT, NETINFO:INTEREST-GROUPS-2. TXT, and NETINFO:INTEREST-GROUPS3.TXT. The NSFNET mail reflector is targeted at those people who have a day to day interest in the news of the NSFnet (the backbone, regional network, and Internet inter-connection site workers). The messages are reflected by a central location and are sent as separate messages to each subscriber. This creates hundreds of messages on the wide area networks where bandwidth is the scarcest. There are two ways in which a campus could spread the news and not cause these messages to inundate the wide area networks. One is to re-reflect the message on the campus.That is, set up a reflector on a local machine which forwards the message to a campus distribution list. The other is to create an alias on a campus machine which places the messages into a notesfile on the topic. Campus users who want the information could access the notesfile and see the messages that have been sent since their last access. One might also elect to have the campus wide area network liaison screen the messages in either case and only forward those which are considered of merit. Either of these schemes allows one message to be sent to the campus, while allowing wide distribution within. Address Allocation Before a local network can be connected to the Internet it must be allocated a unique IP address. These addresses are allocated by ISI. The allocation process consists of getting an application form received from ISI. (Send a message to [email  protected] arpa and ask for the template for a connected address). This template is filled out and mailed back to hostmaster. An address is allocated and e-mailed back to you. This can also be done by postal mail (Appendix B). IP addresses are 32 bits long. It is usually written as four decimal numbers separated by periods (e. . , 192. 17. 5. 100). Each number is the value of an octet of the 32 bits. It was seen from the beginning that some networks might choose to organize themselves as very flat (one net with a lot of nodes) and some might organize hierarchically -6(many interconnected nets with fewer nodes each and a backbone). Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet To provide for these cases, addresses were differentiated into class A, B, and C networks. This classification had to with the interpretation of the octets.Class A networks have the first octet as a network address and the remaining three as a host address on that network. Class C addresses have thre e octets of network address and one of host. Class B is split two and two. Therefore, there is an address space for a few large nets, a reasonable number of medium nets and a large number of small nets. The top two bits in the first octet are coded to tell the address format. All of the class A nets have been allocated. So one has to choose between Class B and Class C when placing an order. (There are also class D (Multicast) and E (Experimental) formats.Multicast addresses will likely come into greater use in the near future, but are not frequently used now). In the past sites requiring multiple network addresses requested multiple discrete addresses (usually Class C). This was done because much of the software available (not ably 4. 2BSD) could not deal with subnetted addresses. Information on how to reach a particular network (routing information) must be stored in Internet gateways and packet switches. Some of these nodes have a limited capability to store and exchange routing i nformation (limited to about 300 networks).Therefore, it is suggested that any campus announce (make known to the Internet) no more than two discrete network numbers. If a campus expects to be constrained by this, it should consider subnetting. Subnetting (RFC-932) allows one to announce one address to the Internet and use a set of addresses on the campus. Basically, one defines a mask which allows the network to differentiate between the network portion and host portion of the address. By using a different mask on the Internet and the campus, the address can be interpreted in multiple ways.For example, if a campus requires two networks internally and has the 32,000 addresses beginning 128. 174. X. X (a Class B address) allocated to it, the campus could allocate 128. 174. 5. X to one part of campus and 128. 174. 10. X to another. By advertising 128. 174 to the Internet with a subnet mask of FF. FF. 00. 00, the Internet would treat these two addresses as one. Within the campus a mask of FF. FF. FF. 00 would be used, allowing the campus to treat the addresses as separate entities. (In reality you don't pass the subnet mask of FF. FF. 00. 0 to the Internet, the octet meaning is implicit in its being a class B address). A word of warning is necessary. Not all systems know how to do subnetting. Some 4. 2BSD systems require additional software. 4. 3BSD systems subnet as released. Other devices -7and operating systems vary in the problems they have dealing with subnets. Frequently these machines can be used as a leaf on a network but not as a gateway within the subnetted portion of the network. As time passes and more systems become 4. 3BSD based, these problems should disappear. 7 Get any book for free on: www. Abika. om The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet There has been some confusion in the past over the format of an IP broadcast address. Some machines used an address of all zeros to mean broadcast and some all ones. This was confusing when machines of both type were connected to the same network. The broadcast address of all ones has been adopted to end the grief. Some systems (e. g. 4. 2 BSD) allow one to choose the format of the broadcast address. If a system does allow this choice, care should be taken that the all ones format is chosen. (This is explained in RFC-1009 and RFC-1010). 8Internet Problems There are a number of problems with the Internet. Solutions to the problems range from software changes to long term research projects. Some of the major ones are detailed below: Number of Networks When the Internet was designed it was to have about 50 connected networks. With the explosion of networking, the number is now approaching 300. The software in a group of critical gateways (called the core gateways of the ARPAnet) are not able to pass or store much more than that number. In the short term, core reallocation and recoding has raised the number slightly.By the summer of '88 the current PDP-11 core gateways will be replaced with BB N Butterfly gateways which will solve the problem. Routing Issues Along with sheer mass of the data necessary to route packets to a large number of networks, there are many problems with the updating, stability, and optimality of the routing algorithms. Much research is being done in the area, but the optimal solution to these routing problems is still years away. In most cases the the routing we have today works, but sub-optimally and sometimes unpredictably. -8-Trust Issues Gateways exchange network routing information. Currently, most gateways accept on faith that the information provided about the state of the network is correct. In the past this was not a big problem since most of the gateways belonged to a single administrative entity (DARPA). Now with multiple wide area networks under different administrations, a rogue gateway somewhere in the net could cripple the Internet. There is design work going on to solve both the problem of Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com T he Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet gateway doing unreasonable things and providing enough information to reasonably route data between multiply connected networks (multi-homed networks). Capacity & Congestion Many portions of the ARPAnet are very congested during the busy part of the day. Additional links are planned to alleviate this congestion, but the implementation will take a few months. 9 These problems and the future direction of the Internet are determined by the Internet Architect (Dave Clark of MIT) being advised by the Internet Activities Board (IAB).This board is composed of chairmen of a number of committees with responsibility for various specialized areas of the Internet. The committees composing the IAB and their chairmen are: Committee Chair Autonomous Networks Deborah Estrin End-to-End Services Bob Braden Internet Architecture Dave Mills Internet Engineering Phil Gross EGP2 Mike Petry Name Domain Planning Doug Kingston Gateway Monitoring Craig Partridge Internic Jake Feinler Performance & Congestion ControlRobert Stine NSF Routing Chuck Hedrick Misc. MilSup Issues Mike St.Johns Privacy Steve Kent IRINET Requirements Vint Cerf Robustness & Survivability Jim Mathis Scientific Requirements Barry Leiner Note that under Internet Engineering, there are a set of task forces and chairs to look at short term concerns. The chairs of these task forces are not part of the IAB. -9Routing Routing is the algorithm by which a network directs a packet from its source to its destination. To appreciate the problem, watch a small child trying to find a table in a restaurant. From the adult point of view the structure of the dining room is seen and an optimal route easily chosen.The child, however, is presented with a set of paths between tables where a good path, let alone the optimal one to the goal is not discernible. *** A little more background might be appropriate. IP gateways (more correctly routers) are boxes which have connections to multiple networks and pass traffic between these nets. They decide how the packet is to be sent based on the information in the IP header of the packet and the state of the network. Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet Each interface on a router has an unique address appropriate to the network to which it is connected.The information in the IP header which is used is primarily the destination address. Other information (e. g. type of service) is largely ignored at this time. The state of the network is determined by the routers passing information among themselves. The distribution of the database (what each node knows), the form of the updates, and metrics used to measure the value of a connection, are the parameters which determine the characteristics of a routing protocol. Under some algorithms each node in the network has complete knowledge of the state of the network (the adult algorithm).This implies the nodes must have larger amounts of local storage and enough CPU to search the large tables in a short enough time (remember this must be done for each packet). Also, routing updates usually contain only changes to the existing information (or you spend a large amount of the network capacity passing around megabyte routing updates). This type of algorithm has several problems. Since the only way the routing information can be passed around is across the network and the propagation time is non-trivial, the view of the network at each node is a correct historical view of the network at varying times in the past. The adult algorithm, but rather than looking directly at the dining area, looking at a photograph of the dining room. One is likely to pick the optimal route and find a bus-cart has moved in to block the path after the photo was taken). These inconsistencies can cause circular routes (called routing loops) where once a packet enters it is routed in a closed path until its time to live (TTL) field expires and it is discarded. Other algorithms may know about only a subset of the network. To prevent loops in these protocols, they are usually used in a hierarchical network.They know completely about their own area, but to leave that area they go to one particular place (the default gateway). Typically these are used in smaller networks (campus, regional†¦ ). -10Routing protocols in current use: Static (no protocol-table/default routing) Don't laugh. It is probably the most reliable, easiest to implement, and least likely to get one into trouble for a small network or a leaf on the Internet. This is, also, the only method available on some CPU-operating system combinations.If a host is connected to an Ethernet which has only one gateway off of it, one should make that the default gateway for the host and do no other routing. (Of course that gateway may pass the reachablity information somehow on the other side of itself). One word of warning, it is only with extreme caution that one should use static ro utes in the middle of a network 10 Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet which is also using dynamic routing. The routers passing dynamic information are sometimes confused by conflicting dynamic and static routes.If your host is on an ethernet with multiple routers to other networks on it and the routers are doing dynamic routing among themselves, it is usually better to take part in the dynamic routing than to use static routes. 11 RIP RIP is a routing protocol based on XNS (Xerox Network System) adapted for IP networks. It is used by many routers (Proteon, cisco, UB†¦ ) and many BSD Unix systems BSD systems typically run a program called â€Å"routed† to exchange information with other systems running RIP. RIP works best for nets of small diameter where the links are of equal speed.The reason for this is that the metric used to determine which path is best is the hop-count. A hop is a traversal across a gateway. So, all machin es on the same Ethernet are zero hops away. If a router connects connects two networks directly, a machine on the other side of the router is one hop away†¦. As the routing information is passed through a gateway, the gateway adds one to the hop counts to keep them consistent across the network. The diameter of a network is defined as the largest hop-count possible within a network. Unfortunately, a hop count of 16 is defined as infinity in RIP meaning the link is down.Therefore, RIP will not allow hosts separated by more than 15 gateways in the RIP space to communicate. The other problem with hop-count metrics is that if links have different speeds, that difference is not -11reflected in the hop-count. So a one hop satellite link (with a . 5 sec delay) at 56kb would be used instead of a two hop T1 connection. Congestion can be viewed as a decrease in the efficacy of a link. So, as a link gets more congested, RIP will still know it is the best hop-count route and congest it eve n more by throwing more packets on the queue for that link.The protocol is not well documented. A group of people are working on producing an RFC to both define the current RIP and to do some extensions to it to allow it to better cope with larger networks. Currently, the best documentation for RIP appears to be the code to BSD â€Å"routed†. Routed The ROUTED program, which does RIP for 4. 2BSD systems, Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet has many options. One of the most frequently used is: â€Å"routed -q† (quiet mode) which means listen to RIP information but never broadcast it.This would be used by a machine on a network with multiple RIP speaking gateways. It allows the host to determine which gateway is best (hopwise) to use to reach a distant network. (Of course you might want to have a default gateway to prevent having to pass all the addresses known to the Internet around with RIP). There are two ways to insert stat ic routes into â€Å"routed†, the â€Å"/etc/gateways† file and the â€Å"route add† command. Static routes are useful if you know how to reach a distant network, but you are not receiving that route using RIP. For the most part the â€Å"route add† command is preferable to use.The reason for this is that the command adds the route to that machine's routing table but does not export it through RIP. The â€Å"/etc/gateways† file takes precedence over any routing information received through a RIP update. It is also broadcast as fact in RIP updates produced by the host without question, so if a mistake is made in the â€Å"/etc/gateways† file, that mistake will soon permeate the RIP space and may bring the network to its knees. One of the problems with â€Å"routed† is that you have very little control over what gets broadcast and what doesn't.Many times in larger networks where various parts of the network are under different administr ative controls, you would like to pass on through RIP only nets which you receive from RIP and you know are reasonable. This prevents people from adding IP addresses to the network which may be illegal and you being responsible for passing them on to the Internet. This -12type of reasonability checks are not available with â€Å"routed† and leave it usable, but inadequate for large networks. 12 Hello (RFC-891) Hello is a routing protocol which was designed and implemented in a experimental software router called a â€Å"Fuzzball† hich runs on a PDP-11. It does not have wide usage, but is the routing protocol currently used on the NSFnet backbone. The data transferred between nodes is similar to RIP (a list of networks and their metrics). The metric, however, is milliseconds of delay. This allows Hello to be used over nets of various link speeds and performs better in congestive situations. One of the most interesting side effects of Hello based networks is their great timekeeping ability. If you consider the problem of measuring delay on a link for the metric, you find that it is not an easy thing toGet any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet do. You cannot measure round trip time since the return link may be more congested, of a different speed, or even not there. It is not really feasible for each node on the network to have a builtin WWV (nationwide radio time standard) receiver. So, you must design an algorithm to pass around time between nodes over the network links where the delay in transmission can only be approximated. Hello routers do this and in a nationwide network maintain synchronized time within milliseconds. 13Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP RFC-904) EGP is not strictly a routing protocol, it is a reachability protocol. It tells only if nets can be reached through a particular gateway, not how good the connection is. It is the standard by which gateways to local nets inform the ARPAnet of the net s they can reach. There is a metric passed around by EGP but its usage is not standardized formally. Its typical value is value is 1 to 8 which are arbitrary goodness of link values understood by the internal DDN gateways. The smaller the value the better and a value of 8 being unreachable.A quirk of the protocol prevents distinguishing between 1 and 2, 3 and 4†¦ , so the usablity of this as a metric is as three values and unreachable. Within NSFnet the values used are 1, 3, and unreachable. Many routers talk EGP so they can be used for ARPAnet gateways. -13Gated So we have regional and campus networks talking RIP among themselves, the NSFnet backbone talking Hello, and the DDN speaking EGP. How do they interoperate? In the beginning there was static routing, assembled into the Fuzzball software configured for each site.The problem with doing static routing in the middle of the network is that it is broadcast to the Internet whether it is usable or not. Therefore, if a net beco mes unreachable and you try to get there, dynamic routing will immediately issue a net unreachable to you. Under static routing the routers would think the net could be reached and would continue trying until the application gave up (in 2 or more minutes). Mark Fedor of Cornell ([email  protected] tn. cornell. edu) attempted to solve these problems with a replacement for â€Å"routed† called â€Å"gated†. â€Å"Gated† talks RIP to RIP speaking hosts, EGP to EGP speakers, and Hello to Hello'ers.These speakers frequently all live on one Ethernet, but luckily (or unluckily) cannot understand each others ruminations. In addition, under configuration file control it can filter the conversion. For example, one can produce a Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet configuration saying announce RIP nets via Hello only if they are specified in a list and are reachable by way of a RIP broadcast as well. This means that if a rogue network appears in your local site's RIP space, it won't be passed through to the Hello side of the world.There are also configuration options to do static routing and name trusted gateways. This may sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there is a catch called metric conversion. You have RIP measuring in hops, Hello measuring in milliseconds, and EGP using arbitrary small numbers. The big questions is how many hops to a millisecond, how many milliseconds in the EGP number 3†¦. Also, remember that infinity (unreachability) is 16 to RIP, 30000 or so to Hello, and 8 to the DDN with EGP. Getting all these metrics to work well together is no small feat.If done incorrectly and you translate an RIP of 16 into an EGP of 6, everyone in the ARPAnet will still think your gateway can reach the unreachable and will send every packet in the world your way. For these reasons, Mark requests that you consult closely with him when configuring and using â€Å"gated†. -14â € ³Names† All routing across the network is done by means of the IP address associated with a packet. Since humans find it difficult to remember addresses like 128. 174. 5. 50, a symbolic name register was set up at the NIC where people would say â€Å"I would like my host to be named ‘uiucuxc'†.Machines connected to the Internet across the nation would connect to the NIC in the middle of the night, check modification dates on the hosts file, and if modified move it to their local machine. With the advent of workstations and micros, changes to the host file would have to be made nightly. It would also be very labor intensive and consume a lot of network bandwidth. RFC-882 and a number of others describe domain name service, a distributed data base system for mapping names into addresses. We must look a little more closely into what's in a name. First, note that an address specifies a particular connection on a specific network.If the machine moves, the address c hanges. Second, a machine can have one or more names and one or more network addresses (connections) to different networks. Names point to a something which does useful work (i. e. the machine) and IP addresses point to an interface on that provider. A name is a purely symbolic representation of a list of addresses on the network. If a machine moves to a different network, the addresses will change but the name could remain the same. Domain names are tree structured names with the root of the tree at the right. For example: 14 Get any book for free on: www. Abika. om The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet 15 uxc. cso. uiuc. edu is a machine called ‘uxc' (purely arbitrary), within the subdomains method of allocation of the U of I) and ‘uiuc' (the University of Illinois at Urbana), registered with ‘edu' (the set of educational institutions). A simplified model of how a name is resolved is that on the user's machine there is a resolver. The resolver knows how to contac t across the network a root name server. Root servers are the base of the tree structured data retrieval system. They know who is responsible for handling first level domains (e. g. ‘edu').What root servers to use is an installation parameter. From the root server the resolver finds out who provides ‘edu' service. It contacts the ‘edu' name server which supplies it with a list of addresses of servers for the subdomains (like ‘uiuc'). This action is repeated with the subdomain servers until the final subdomain returns a list of addresses of interfaces on the host in question. The user's machine then has its choice of which of these addresses to use for communication. -15A group may apply for its own domain name (like ‘uiuc' above). This is done in a manner similar to the IP address allocation.The only requirements are that the requestor have two machines reachable from the Internet, which will act as name servers for that domain. Those servers could also act as servers for subdomains or other servers could be designated as such. Note that the servers need not be located in any particular place, as long as they are reachable for name resolution. (U of I could ask Michigan State to act on its behalf and that would be fine). The biggest problem is that someone must do maintenance on the database. If the machine is not convenient, that might not be done in a timely fashion.The other thing to note is that once the domain is allocated to an administrative entity, that entity can freely allocate subdomains using what ever manner it sees fit. The Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) Server implements the Internet name server for UNIX systems. The name server is a distributed data base system that allows clients to name resources and to share that information with other network hosts. BIND is integrated with 4. 3BSD and is used to lookup and store host names, addresses, mail agents, host information, and more. It replaces the â€Å"/etc/ho sts† file for host name lookup.BIND is still an evolving program. To keep up with reports on operational problems, future design decisions, etc, join the BIND mailing list by sending a request to â€Å"[email  protected] Berkeley. EDU†. BIND can also be obtained via anonymous FTP from ucbarpa. berkley. edu. There are several advantages in using BIND. One of the most important is that it frees a host from relying on â€Å"/etc/hosts† Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet being up to date and complete. Within the . uiuc. edu domain, only a few hosts are included in the host table distributed by SRI.The remainder are listed locally within the BIND tables on uxc. cso. uiuc. edu (the server machine for most of the . uiuc. edu domain). All are equally reachable from any other Internet host running BIND. BIND can also provide mail forwarding information for interior hosts not directly reachable from the Internet. These hosts c an either be on non-advertised networks, or not connected to a network at all, as in the case of UUCP-reachable hosts. More information on BIND is available in the â€Å"Name Server Operations Guide for BIND† in â€Å"UNIX System Manager's Manual†, 4. 3BSD release.There are a few special domains on the network, like SRINIC. ARPA. The ‘arpa' domain is historical, referring to hosts registered in the old hosts database at the NIC. There are others of the form NNSC. NSF. NET. These special domains are used sparingly and require ample justification. They refer to servers under the administrative control of -16the network rather than any single organization. This allows for the actual server to be moved around the net while the user interface to that machine remains constant. That is, should BBN relinquish control of the NNSC, the new provider would be pointed to by that name.In actuality, the domain system is a much more general and complex system than has been descr ibed. Resolvers and some servers cache information to allow steps in the resolution to be skipped. Information provided by the servers can be arbitrary, not merely IP addresses. This allows the system to be used both by non-IP networks and for mail, where it may be necessary to give information on intermediate mail bridges. 16 What's wrong with Berkeley Unix University of California at Berkeley has been funded by DARPA to modify the Unix system in a number of ways.Included in these modifications is support for the Internet protocols. In earlier versions (e. g. BSD 4. 2) there was good support for the basic Internet protocols (TCP, IP, SMTP, ARP) which allowed it to perform nicely on IP ethernets and smaller Internets. There were deficiencies, however, when it was connected to complicated networks. Most of these problems have been resolved under the newest release (BSD 4. 3). Since it is the springboard from which many vendors have launched Unix implementations (either by porting the existing code or by using it as a model), many implementations (e. g.Ultrix) are still based on BSD 4. 2. Therefore, many implementations still exist with the BSD 4. 2 problems. As time goes on, when BSD 4. 3 trickles through Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet vendors as new release, many of the problems will be resolved. Following is a list of some problem scenarios and their handling under each of these releases. ICMP redirects Under the Internet model, all a system needs to know to get anywhere in the Internet is its own address, the address of where it wants to go, and how to reach a gateway which knows about the Internet.It doesn't have to be the best gateway. If the system is on a network with multiple gateways, and a host sends a packet for delivery to a gateway which feels another directly connected gateway is more appropriate, the gateway sends the sender a message. This message is an ICMP redirect, which politely says â€Å"I' ll deliver this message for you, but you really ought to use that gateway over there to reach this host†. BSD 4. 2 ignores these messages. This creates more stress on the gateways and the local network, since for every packet -17sent, the gateway sends a packet to the originator.BSD 4. 3 uses the redirect to update its routing tables, will use the route until it times out, then revert to the use of the route it thinks is should use. The whole process then repeats, but it is far better than one per packet. Trailers An application (like FTP) sends a string of octets to TCP which breaks it into chunks, and adds a TCP header. TCP then sends blocks of data to IP which adds its own headers and ships the packets over the network. All this prepending of the data with headers causes memory moves in both the sending and the receiving machines.Someone got the bright idea that if packets were long and they stuck the headers on the end (they became trailers), the receiving machine could pu t the packet on the beginning of a page boundary and if the trailer was OK merely delete it and transfer control of the page with no memory moves involved. The problem is that trailers were never standardized and most gateways don't know to look for the routing information at the end of the block. When trailers are used, the machine typically works fine on the local network (no gateways involved) and for short blocks through gateways (on which trailers aren't used).So TELNET and FTP's of very short files work just fine and FTP's of long files seem to hang. On BSD 4. 2 trailers are a boot option and one should make sure they are off when using the Internet. BSD 4. 3 negotiates trailers, so it uses them on its local net and doesn't use them when going across the network. 17 Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet Retransmissions TCP fires off blocks to its partner at the far end of the connection. If it doesn't receive an acknowledgement in a re asonable amount of time it retransmits the blocks.The determination of what is reasonable is done by TCP's retransmission algorithm. There is no correct algorithm but some are better than others, where better is measured by the number of retransmissions done unnecessarily. BSD 4. 2 had a retransmission algorithm which retransmitted quickly and often. This is exactly what you would want if you had a bunch of machines on an ethernet (a low delay network of large bandwidth). If you have a network of relatively longer delay and scarce bandwidth (e. g. 56kb lines), it tends to retransmit too aggressively.Therefore, it makes the networks and gateways pass more traffic than is really necessary for a given conversation. Retransmission algorithms do adapt to the delay of the network -18after a few packets, but 4. 2's adapts slowly in delay situations. BSD 4. 3 does a lot better and tries to do the best for both worlds. It fires off a few retransmissions really quickly assuming it is on a low delay network, and then backs off very quickly. It also allows the delay to be about 4 minutes before it gives up and declares the connection broken. -19Appendix A References to Remedial Information 18Quaterman and Hoskins, â€Å"Notable Computer Networks†, Communications of the ACM, Vol 29, #10, pp. 932-971 (October, 1986). Tannenbaum, Andrew S. , Computer Networks, Prentice Hall, 1981. Hedrick, Chuck, Introduction to the Internet Protocols, Anonymous FTP from topaz. rutgers. edu, directory pub/tcp-ip-docs, file tcp-ip-intro. doc. -20Appendix B List of Major RFCs RFC-768 RFC-791 RFC-792 RFC-793 RFC-821 User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Internet Protocol (IP) Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the InternetRFC-822 RFC-854 RFC-917 * RFC-919 * RFC-922 * Subnets RFC-940 * RFC-947 * RFC-950 * RFC-959 RFC-966 * Protocol RFC-988 * RFC-997 * RF C-1010 * RFC-1011 * Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages Telnet Protocol Internet Subnets Broadcasting Internet Datagrams Broadcasting Internet Datagrams in the Presence of Toward an Internet Standard Scheme for Subnetting Multi-network Broadcasting within the Internet Internet Standard Subnetting Procedure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Host Groups: A Multicast Extension to the Internet Host Extensions for IP Multicasting Internet Numbers Assigned Numbers Official ARPA-Internet Protocols 9 RFC's marked with the asterisk (*) are not included in the 1985 DDN Protocol Handbook. Note: This list is a portion of a list of RFC's by topic retrieved from the NIC under NETINFO:RFC-SETS. TXT (anonymous FTP of course). The following list is not necessary for connection to the Internet, but is useful in understanding the domain system, mail system, and gateways: RFC-882 RFC-883 RFC-973 RFC-974 RFC-1009 Domain Names – Concepts and Facilities Domain Names – Implement ation Domain System Changes andObservations Mail Routing and the Domain System Requirements for Internet Gateways -21Appendix C Contact Points for Network Information Network Information Center (NIC) DDN Network Information Center SRI International, Room EJ291 333 Ravenswood Avenue Menlo Park, CA 94025 (800) 235-3155 or (415) 859-3695 [email  protected] ARPA NSF Network Service Center (NNSC) NNSC BBN Laboratories Inc. 10 Moulton St. Cambridge, MA 02238 (617) 497-3400 Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet[email  protected] NSF. NET -22Glossary core gateway The innermost gateways of the ARPAnet. These gateways have a total picture of the reachability to all networks known to the ARPAnet with EGP. They then redistribute reachability information to all those gateways speaking EGP. It is from them your EGP agent (there is one acting for you somewhere if you can reach the ARPAnet) finds out it can reach all the nets on the ARPAnet. Which is th en passed to you via Hello, gated, RIP†¦. ount to infinity The symptom of a routing problem where routing information is passed in a circular manner through multiple gateways. Each gateway increments the metric appropriately and passes it on. As the metric is passed around the loop, it increments to ever increasing values til it reaches the maximum for the routing protocol being used, which typically denotes a link outage. hold down When a router discovers a path in the network has gone down announcing that that path is down for a minimum amount of time (usually at least two minutes).This allows for the propagation of the routing information across the network and prevents the formation of routing loops. split horizon When a router (or group of routers working in consort) accept routing information from multiple external networks, but do not pass on information learned from one external network to any others. This is an attempt to prevent bogus routes to a network from being pr opagated because of gossip or counting to infinity. -23- 20 Get any book for free on: www. Abika. com

Succubus Shadows Chapter 23

â€Å"Where've you been?† asked Roman. I hadn't landed in Seattle until later the next day. Turns out getting flights from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest can take a little longer than immortal teleportation, particularly on short notice. â€Å"To the edge of the known world and back,† I said, falling onto the couch. Both cats came to me, which I took with some smugness, seeing as they usually fawned all over Roman. â€Å"So, what, South Dakota?† I made a face and covered my eyes with one arm. My trip to locate Seth had only taken twenty-four hours, but really, that was a lot to endure in so short a time. â€Å"I found Seth.† â€Å"Oh.† Roman's enthusiasm dimmed considerably. â€Å"I guess his disappearance wasn't as milk carton?Cworthy as Maddie made it sound.† â€Å"Well, I had to – literally – call in a demonic favor to hunt him down.† â€Å"And? Are you guys running into the sunset together now that he's free?† The mention of sunset made me flinch, recalling how Seth and I had held each other on the beach. â€Å"Not quite. I†¦left him.† â€Å"What's that mean exactly?† I tried to explain all that had gone down with Seth, but it wasn't easy. It was almost too much for my brain to wade through, let alone articulate to someone else. When I finished, I felt even more exhausted than before. â€Å"So that's it? You're never going to see each other again?† Roman's voice was skeptical. â€Å"He said he's not coming back, and I didn't stick around. So, yeah.† â€Å"I have a hard time believing that. Is he just going to live at that hotel permanently? Even he can't make that much money.† â€Å"No, he mentioned at dinner that he'd be settling down somewhere else. He just hasn't decided where.† All was quiet between us for a minute or so. The only sounds were the traffic outside and Aubrey purring near my ear. At last, Roman asked, â€Å"Are you okay?† I glanced over at him in surprise. â€Å"What do you mean?† â€Å"Exactly what I said. This can't be easy on you. I mean, you haven't even had any downtime since the Oneroi.† I don't know why his words caught me by surprise. I guess it was because amidst all the woes that were always going on in my life, few people ever asked if I was okay. Maybe they'd given up asking because depressing things were so commonplace for me. How weird, I thought, that Roman had swung from sociopathic to compassionate while Seth had fallen down a darker path. Of course, I had no hard evidence that Roman wasn't actually a compassionate sociopath. Still, I gave him a smile of gratitude. â€Å"I am okay – or will be eventually. Thanks.† There must have been something in my smile that gave him hope or just made him feel inspired because his own smile grew radiant. I'd forgotten just how beautiful it was, the way it could light up his face. We left dangerous topics alone after that but spent the rest of the night hanging out together. I wasn't totally okay by any means, but it was nice to simply be ordinary for a while and free of drama. I wondered if that's what my life would be like now – and what role Roman would play. Still, adjusting to a world without Seth wasn't easy over the next few days. Even when he'd been with Maddie, even when the sight of him had caused me pain, he'd still been there. And I'd known he was there. Now, the knowledge that he was gone and that he wasn't coming back left a strange emptiness in my heart, even as the rest of my life began to stabilize. I returned to work, a good thing for the store because Maddie had taken some much-needed time off. I checked on her via Doug and offered to go to her if needed, despite knowing I wouldn't enjoy listening to her mourn for Seth. Of course, since I was doing the same thing, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to turn down commiseration. â€Å"She just wants to be alone right now,† Doug said, leaning in my doorway. He had no joke today, none of his usual wackiness. â€Å"Still upset – but she's a trouper. I'll let you know when she's ready to see anyone.† â€Å"Okay.† My heart went out to her. â€Å"Keep me posted.† It was nearing closing time, and I went out to the store's main part to help with some of the evening tasks. A few of the staff members were already going home. One of them was Gabrielle. And she was leaving with Cody. â€Å"What's going on?† I whispered to him while she went to get her purse. He wasn't even wearing black. â€Å"We've gone out a couple times since†¦well, while you've been distracted.† He sounded apologetic for his happiness. â€Å"That's fantastic,† I said. Love was managing to survive somewhere in this world. â€Å"What changed her mind? The concert?† â€Å"A little. I think that opened the door. She's really excited that I'll only hang out at night. And that I can show her real vampires.† â€Å"What? You managed to convince her Peter was a vampire?† To the average human, that would be even less likely than Cody being a vampire. â€Å"No, of course not.† His lovesick expression hardened a little. â€Å"But Milton – you know that vampire from Eugene? – he's been in town this week. Claims he's visiting friends.† Vampires were very territorial about their hunting grounds, even ones like Peter and Cody who rarely took victims and didn't kill when they did. â€Å"He hasn't caused any trouble, but I don't buy that vacation thing. It's as ridiculous as Simone just visiting.† â€Å"She is gone, right?† That had been the rumor, and seeing as there'd been no wacky mishaps with two Georginas, I had to believe it was true. I'd never know what her motivation had been. â€Å"Yup, as far as I know. Anyway. Milton. He sure does look like a vampire. Have you seen him? He's like a modern-day Nosferatu. I took Gabrielle when I went to spy on him at a dance club, and she got really excited. She thinks I have some special knack for finding vampires – at least wannabe ones.† â€Å"Huh,† I said. â€Å"That's somehow bizarre, funny, and cute all at the same time. Maybe a little disturbing.† He grinned at that, showing his fangs. â€Å"What's she think of the teeth? You can't hide those if you're up close and personal all the time.† â€Å"Told her I had them cosmetically done.† He looked very pleased. â€Å"She thinks it's hot.† His new romance left me in a good mood when I finally took off. I stepped outside into the chilly night, surprised I didn't mind it so much. Something about the clean, brisk air seemed refreshing to me, and for the first time in a while, I regretted moving out of Queen Anne. It would have been nice to walk home on this early winter evening, instead of climbing into the plastic and metal of my car. There was nothing to be done for it, though. I turned the ignition and checked my cell phone before heading out of the parking lot. I often left the ringer off while working, and three calls had come in for me. I had a voice mail for each. The first was from a few hours ago, from Erik. He spoke in his usual genteel tones, but I could hear some urgency underneath. He told me he'd come up with some theories about my contract and wanted to talk to me soon. The next message was from Roman, from about an hour ago. He knew my work schedule perfectly and was calling to see what kind of takeout I wanted. If I called as I was leaving, he said, he'd probably have food by the time I walked in. I felt my lips turn into a smile at that – one that promptly dropped when I heard the last message. It had come in five minutes ago and was from Erik again. â€Å"Georgina – â€Å" That was it. Just my name, tense and strangled. After that came static, what sounded like the phone dropping, and then the voice mail ended. I stared at my phone as though it were a totally foreign object. I had never, ever heard Erik call me by my first name. My car was already headed toward his store when I dialed him back. It was too late for the store to be open, but that was the number my cell phone had logged. No answer came. I tried his home number, just to be safe, and received no answer there either. My fear increased, as did my speed. Easy traffic moved me along, but I still felt like his store might as well be hundreds of miles away. I made it there in fifteen minutes, which was actually pretty remarkable. The store's lights were on, though everything else in the strip mall and its lot was dark. I parked right in front, in a handicapped spot, and tore out of my car, nearly coming to a halt at what I found. The glass of the door and window were smashed, with glittering shards covering the sidewalk. Even if the door had been locked, I could have reached right in to open it. I pushed through, stepping inside to find more destruction. Fountains still tinkled, music still played, but everything else was in shambles. Bookshelves knocked over. Statuary in pieces. Jewelry cases broken – and empty. â€Å"Erik?† I called, hurrying through the store. There was no answer. I passed the register, saw the drawer hanging open, and suspected I'd find it as empty as the cases. I was heading for the store's back room when I heard a small noise. Turning, I peered around wildly and caught a glimpse of a hand, behind the checkout counter. There, I found Erik sprawled on the floor, pale despite his dusky skin. A hand lay over his stomach, which was a pool of dark blood. His eyes were glassy, and for a moment, I thought he was dead. Then the lids twitched, and his eyes focused on me. â€Å"Miss Kincaid†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I dialed 911 while simultaneously trying to rip my coat off. I screamed at them to send an ambulance and pressed the light fabric of the trench coat into his stomach. The effort was futile. A red strain promptly began spreading through the cloth. â€Å"Don't say anything,† I pleaded when I saw his lips move. They were blue-tinged. â€Å"Someone's coming. You'll be okay.† I wanted to ask a hundred questions: what had happened, who had done this. None mattered. Only saving him did – and besides, the scenario seemed painfully clear. A break-in, one in which he must have interfered. Two bullet holes on the wall revealed what had happened to his stomach. The third shot had hit. â€Å"Miss Kincaid†¦Ã¢â‚¬  His voice was so small, barely a croak. â€Å"Shh. We'll talk later, after the paramedics come. Save your strength.† â€Å"There won't be a later,† he gasped. I swear, he tried to smile. â€Å"Not†¦for†¦me†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"They'll be here in, like, five minutes,† I countered. â€Å"Doesn't matter. Too weak. Too much blood.† â€Å"No,† I said desperately. â€Å"No.† Even as I begged, my hysteria growing, I knew he was right. He had lost too much blood. He was only alive now because this was a slow-killing wound. Even if paramedics walked in right now, they wouldn't get him away in time to save him. With his age and recent illness, he wouldn't come back from this. Still, I denied it. â€Å"You'll be okay. Listen – â€Å" â€Å"You listen.† There was no real force behind the command, but I shut up. One of his hands clung to me. â€Å"It's not†¦your contract.† I was confused, my mind still on his condition and the store. Then, I caught the context. â€Å"Let the contract go. We'll worry about it later.† His grip tightened. â€Å"There must be another. Two contracts.† â€Å"There†¦what? No. That's not how it works. I know that for sure. One contract per soul. I signed one. Now, please. Don't say anything else.† â€Å"Find it,† he coughed. There was blood on his lips. â€Å"Find†¦it.† â€Å"I will, I will.† I would have agreed to anything, though what he was saying made no sense. My words must have comforted him because he relaxed ever so slightly. There was still no question that he must be in agonizing pain, though. I glanced up at the front of the store, willing myself to hear sirens. â€Å"They'll be here,† I said. â€Å"Too†¦late. You†¦you can stop the pain.† He was so hard to hear now, I had to lean close. Even then, I didn't fully parse his words until a few moments later. â€Å"I'm trying.† I shifted the coat a little, which was proving totally ineffectual. â€Å"A kiss†¦one kiss†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  My eyes went wide. â€Å"No. No. It'll kill you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Even as I said the words, I realized how stupid they were. This gunshot was already going to kill him. He was going to die. One kiss. He wanted a kiss to speed his dying, just as I'd given Luc. I'd never performed that deed again, nor had I wanted to. Maybe it had been mercy, but I'd felt like a killer. And yet, just like I had then, I knew it would ease the passing†¦. I shook my head. â€Å"No.† â€Å"Nyx†¦showed me. Showed me my death: you.† He coughed again and could speak no more. Still, he clung to life, with pain on his face and pleading in his eyes. Nyx? Nyx had shown him his death†¦. In the far reaches of my mind, I remembered finding him one day, right after Nyx had visited him and shown him a vision. He'd recoiled from me at first and then later shrugged it off, laughing it away as the remnants of a nightmare. But I understood now. He'd seen his death – seen me causing it. He'd been afraid of me in those moments. My man in the dream had been a lie, but all the other visions she'd shown had been true. My role in Erik's death had been destined†¦just not in any malicious way. That was how her dreams often worked. Never quite what you expected. And so, for the second time, I became an angel of mercy†¦an angel of death†¦whatever. I hunched down and kissed him, ignoring the blood on his mouth. Just like with Luc, there was only a breath of life left. Five more minutes, and Erik would have been gone without me. That tiny bit of life was as pure and good as I'd known it would be. Erik would be rewarded in the afterlife. As I lifted my head and watched peace settle over his features, faint feelings flitted through me, as sometimes happened when I took energy. There was affection for me. It wasn't romantic love. More like fatherly love. Friendship. Fondness. And underneath it was a warning, a warning for me he never got to convey. I was so caught up in those last bursts of life, that I was only distantly aware when the lights and sirens came. Someone lifted me away, and I saw people huddling around him – too late. I stared at the commotion that followed – paramedics, police. I saw it without seeing it, answered questions without even knowing what I said. A policeman with kind eyes took it all down and spoke to me gently, often repeating himself. I don't know how long it all took. Maybe an hour, maybe more. I only remember assuring them over and over that I was okay, that I was going home, and that I would answer any other questions that came up. But when I drove away, still in shock, still barely grasping what had happened, I didn't go to West Seattle. I went to Pioneer Square, parking in a lucky street spot and then winding my way through the partying crowds. A few people gave me curious looks when I walked into the Cellar, looks I gave no heed to as I honed in on Jerome's table. He drank alone tonight, his dark eyes watching me intently as I approached. â€Å"Georgie,† he said when I came to a stop in front of him, â€Å"what's the point of shape-shifting if you're going to walk around with blood on you?† I looked down, only then registering the stains on my shirt. I turned back to him, ignoring the shape-shifting suggestion. â€Å"Erik's dead,† I told him, my voice flat. Jerome's face displayed no reaction. â€Å"How?† â€Å"A break-in. Somebody shot him.† Jerome sipped his bourbon and remained silent. â€Å"Well? Don't you have anything to say?† He scowled. â€Å"What do you expect me to say? Should I cry? Put on sackcloth and ashes? Humans die all the time, Georgie. You're the one who mourns them – not me. I have no sentiment for any of them. You know that. And certainly not for him.† I did know that. When Duane – one of Jerome's former employees – had been killed, the demon's only reaction had been annoyance. â€Å"What's weird†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I paused, putting to words what had been coalescing in the back of my mind this whole time. â€Å"What's weird is that someone would break into a New Age store at all. It's not a good place for a robbery.† â€Å"If it has money, it's a good place for a robbery. If it's in a deserted strip mall, with only an old man there, it's even a better place for a robbery. Were the valuables gone?† â€Å"Yes,† I admitted. â€Å"Then why are you here wasting my time?† â€Å"The glass.† â€Å"The glass?† â€Å"The glass was broken from the inside,† I said. â€Å"The pieces were scattered on the sidewalk. Whoever did it didn't break the glass to get in. It just looked that way.† Jerome sighed irritably. â€Å"After everything you've seen, can you honestly question the behaviors of humans?† â€Å"It just seems strange that someone like Erik – someone who deals in the supernatural and who had – † I hesitated, about to say that he'd been pondering my contract. Instead, I said, â€Å"Who had just been involved with a big immortal blowout would be the victim of this by coincidence.† â€Å"Coincidences happen.† â€Å"I don't believe in coincidences anymore.† â€Å"Then replay your own words. Your ‘big immortal blowout' is the answer. They might not live in our world, but do you think dream creatures don't have connections here?† I frowned. â€Å"What are you saying?† â€Å"That I thought it was too convenient for the Oneroi's overlord to walk away. He knew he couldn't touch me or any other immortal. But a human? One who had been actively involved with thwarting him?† Jerome shrugged. â€Å"It's revenge. He could arrange for that. We can't prove it – and we can't do anything. Make sure you understand that. I'm not going to avenge your friend, if that's what you're asking for.† I hadn't expected him to. In fact, I really wasn't sure what I'd expected of him at all. Why had I come here? Because I was in shock. Because what had happened to Erik didn't make sense. Because Jerome often had answers for me. This time, he did too†¦but I wasn't sure that I believed them. The old adage came back: How do you know if a demon is lying? His lips are moving. â€Å"Okay,† I said with a small nod. His eyes narrowed a little. I think he was surprised I'd given in so quickly. Glancing down, I shape-shifted the blood away. â€Å"I'm going to go home and†¦I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do.† My confusion wasn't faked, and I hoped it would be enough to clear any suspicion. And really, what did he have to be suspicious of? I didn't even know. Two contracts. Jerome didn't try to stop me. I drove home with almost no realization of what I was doing until I pulled into the parking lot under my building. As soon as I opened my condo's door, I caught the faint smell of Chinese food. It smelled delicious, yet at the same time, it had that slight twinge of food that had been sitting around for a while. Roman sprawled on the couch, staring at nothing as far as I could tell. The TV was off. The cats remained unpetted. â€Å"I'm sorry I didn't call,† I said. â€Å"You won't believe what – â€Å" â€Å"I've got something for you,† he said. â€Å"Two somethings, actually.† The odd tone of his voice was about the only thing that could have stopped me from gushing about what had gone down at Erik's tonight. Even now, the events in the store were so surreal that it hardly seemed like something that had happened to me. Surely it was something I'd seen in a movie. I sat down in the armchair near Roman, the queasy feeling in my stomach growing as I wondered what else could possibly happen tonight. â€Å"What is it?† He handed me a piece of paper. â€Å"This was under the door when I got back with the food. I didn't mean to read it, but†¦well, it wasn't in an envelope or anything.† I took it wordlessly, immediately recognizing the scrawled writing. Seth's. To a lot of people it would be undecipherable, but I'd had a lot of practice in decoding his sloppy penmanship. Georgina, When I woke up without you in Mazatln, I was so angry. I felt betrayed and abandoned and wondered if you'd been playing me the entire time. Then, the more I thought about your words, the more my life began to come into focus. I still don't want to deal with the mess here in Seattle. I don't want to face Maddie. I don't want to face myself. But, I realized, I do want you to be proud of me. Maybe â€Å"proud† isn't the right word. Respect? Like? Love? I'm not sure, but the events at Erik's have still left an impression. Really, lying in your arms has left an impression. I meant what I said: I'd rather be alone than not be with you. Even apart, though, I can't stand the thought of you being disappointed in me. To regain your good opinion, I would risk almost anything. I'd even come back here to face my demons. And I have come back here, despite how much I wish I could run away. Disappearing won't erase the bad things around me, however. Maybe you're a messenger of some sort, some agent of destiny. If not for you, I almost certainly wouldn't have returned, but it turns out I needed to. Terry and Andrea received their results yesterday. She only has months to live, something that I'd almost swear was the doctor's joke. Only a few weeks ago, she seemed perfectly fine. I don't want to face that, any more than I want to face everything else. But they need me more than ever now, and I love them. I love them so much that I realize my own life and wants don't matter. As soon as I finish this book, I'm putting everything else – even the new series – on hold. None of it matters. Only they do. They'll need me in the next few months. They'll need me more in the months after that. I don't know when we'll see each other again – though you'll notice I say â€Å"when† and not â€Å"if.† Like I mentioned in Mexico, I know better than to think the universe will keep us apart. Regardless, I want you to be happy wherever your life takes you – and I hope someday I can be worthy of your respect again. I also want you to know that in returning, I don't expect anything from you. I just wanted to make sure you understood what I did†¦and how you've affected me. – Seth I looked up at Roman, who had been studying me while I read. I didn't know what astonished me more: Seth returning – because of me – or the god-awful news about Andrea. Both were monumental in their own ways. One was a tragedy of epic proportions. I swallowed, afraid if I fully processed it all, I'd start crying. â€Å"I'm not sure how much more I can handle tonight,† I said in a small voice. Roman's face was a mixture of sympathy and cynicism. â€Å"Well, you've got one more thing.† He handed me a magazine. It was a trashy celebrity gossip one that was a popular source of mockery over at the bookstore. I couldn't imagine why he was giving something so trivial to me, in light of everything else that had gone on. One page was marked with a Post-it, and I flipped to it. It was a spread of assorted celebrity shots, the kind of candids that paparazzi delighted in: actors out with their children, pop stars spotted in Las Vegas nightclubs. I skimmed over the two pages, feeling a frown grow on my face as I tried to figure out why on earth I'd care about this right now. Then, I found it. It was a small picture, shoved off to the side between much more interesting and larger ones of badly dressed actors. The caption read: Best-selling author Seth Mortensen enjoys some natural beauty in Mazatln. And it showed Seth and me kissing on the beach.

Fly-by-Night Case

Part A There were many signals shown in the financial statements and other exhibits in the case that represented poor cash flow through Year 14. The most obvious of them all is that the collectability of the accounts receivables was problematic. It seemed as if Fly-by-Night had a good system of collecting their sales on account from year 9 to year 10 as the accounts receivable number decreased during those years. However, the accounts receivable account increased by more than six times through years ten and fourteen.Because of this poor system of collecting accounts receivable, Fly-by-Night’s cash flow would suffer. The same can be said about the inventory account. Because the amount of inventory increased by almost five times through years twelve and fourteen, the cash would continue to decrease at the same rate. Another area of concern that affected Fly-by-Night’s cash flow negatively was their income from continuing operations. All of the companies’ expenses o n its comparative income statement had enormous increases from year 13 to 14.This was the first year that Fly-by-Night recorded a loss from continuing operations and it was a pretty big loss. This suggests that they paid too much to run their business. Some of the ratios presented in the case also suggests a negative flow of cash for year 14. The long term debt ratio dropped from 88% to 0% in year 14, which means that the company paid all of its long-term debt in year 14 and that would have a huge impact on cash flow.The quick ratio also had a major drop from year 12 to year 14, which indicated that the amount of cash and accounts receivable to cover its current liabilities was becoming a problem. Part B I do not believe that FBN can avoid bankruptcy by year 15. In the case, it states â€Å"As of April 30, Year 14, the Company is in default of its debt covenants. It is also in default with respect to covenants underlying its capitalized lease obligations. As a result, lenders have the right to accelerate repayment of their loans. Accordingly, the Company has lassified all of its long-term debt as a current liability. † The way the company is moving, it does not appear that FBN will have enough cash to cover these now current liabilities. The company has to implement new strategies in order to avoid bankruptcy. First of all, there has to be better communication between the members of the board. It says that Mather received a loan authorized by the board for $1,000,000 when later that month the board said it was unaware of this loan and that it never authorized it. Obviously there was fraud occurring when Mather was the CEO.With better oversight by the board, problems such as this could be averted. Also, FBN needs a better system to collect its accounts receivables. As said in Part A, the accounts receivable amount had increased so much in the past 5 years and that negatively affected cash. It is a misnomer that high revenue is the sign of success when re ally it should be how much cash the company has. That is why Mather was confused why there was a problem with cash and the reason was that the company did not pay enough attention to the cash flow statement.

The Children's Classics of EB White Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Children's Classics of EB White - Essay Example Two of these books have since been made into major film events in addition to winning numerous awards and are considered to be staples of a child’s library. E.B. White’s children’s books, Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan all reflect the concepts of true friendship and love’s power to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Stuart Little was the first of these books that he wrote. White said the idea for the book came to him while he was riding on a train. â€Å"During the night I dreamed about a tiny boy who acted rather like a mouse. That’s how the story of Stuart Little got started† (White, 1985). White’s Stuart Little was born â€Å"not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way† (1), including tail, whiskers and the ability to walk soon after his birth. With a â€Å"pleasant, fine manner† (2), Stuart helps his family around the house doing little things that they can’t do, such as climbing down the bathtub drain after his mother’s wedding ring and retrieving ping pong balls when necessary. He is treated in every way as if he were any other normal little boy, being treated by the doctor, wearing clothes, talking with his family and ‘playing’ with the family pet, Snowbell. How ever, because of his small size, he often has adventures that other children would not normally experience. Examples of these adventures include getting stuck in a blind for half the day because he was doing gymnastics on the cord or being thrown onto a garbage scow when he was hiding from a dog that wanted to eat him. Thanks to his friend Margalo the bird, though, he is able to escape the garbage scow and undertakes a journey to the north in pursuit of her when she leaves in the spring. His confident manner despite his size make him inspirational to many while his dedication and interdependence with his friends highlight the true

Analyze blog Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Analyze blog - Essay Example These two concepts are highly related in their application; people in the course of discharging their duties and responsibilities often use them. Critical thinking is an important practice that has to be practiced by all people in the social and other dimensions of life including careers. This practice refers to the disciplined procedure of active and skillful conceptualization, application and evaluation of information. The information in reference is collected though various ways that include; observations, reasoning, experience among others. The process of critical thinking comprises of all the examination of structures and elements of thought that is implicit on all ways of reasoning, which include purpose, assumptions, problems and other empirical grounds that lead to certain conclusions (Horvath 2011). Critical thinking is an important process that guides effective and efficient practices in various professions. In becoming a professional nurse, an individual has to learn how to think and act like a nurse, this is an essential practice that governs the way they make decision in discharging their duties (LeMone & Burke 2011). The difference between the nurse and other medical practitioners lies in the way they view clients, their medical challenges, as well as the actions and practices they engage in caring for the particular patient. Critical thinking in nursing means that nurses learn the main requirements in the profession, concepts and ideas as well as particular theories relating to nursing. Critical thinking is important in developing the intellectual capacities of people including their skills in making them become disciplined and resourceful persons in their field. In addition, it makes them become self-directed people that can handle various issues and challenges in their life and profession. In nursing, critical thinking describes the processes used in thinking systematically and in logical ways while discharging

HEALTH AND WORK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

HEALTH AND WORK - Essay Example Cox: 1996) In light of the preceding nuances on racism institutional racism can be thus perceived as a way in which particular racial groups are denied rights or benefits or on the other extreme, get preferential treatment. "Institutional racism (or structural racism or systemic racism) refers to a form of racism which occurs specifically in institutions such as public bodies, corporations, and universities." (Institutional racism: Wikipedia 2008) According to the source cited above the term was coined by Black Nationalist, pan-Africanist and honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party, Stokely Carmichael. In the late 1960s, Carmichael defined the term as "the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin". There is resonating concurrence in various theories and perspectives on institutional racism that this form is an elaborate form of racism that purports to circumvent the acute nature, application and effects of orthodox racism. Some Examples drawn from American history illustrate the dynamics of institutional racism. In 1935, the U.S. Congress promulgated the Social Security Act. The act was guaranteeing an income for millions of workers after retirement.

Commerce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Commerce - Essay Example In contrast, sole proprietorships and general partnerships offer no shield or protection against personal liability and creditors can satisfy liabilities from personal assets of the owner(s). For instance, in the case of Walmart, they offer shares to be purchased as a benefit to their associates. If an associate chooses to invest their money in stock purchases and Walmart becomes severely devalued or goes out of business all together, the associates that invested to purchase stocks will not be held responsible for any outstanding debts of the company. However, in order to avoid risks due to small invested capital, creditors may require personal guarantees from owners of the incorporations. As shareholder entities have separate legal existence, personal liability protection is a major benefit for owners of small and medium incorporated businesses. New shareholders and investors can be easily attracted if their personal assets are protection is guaranteed, increasing the investment pool. The investors willing to remain passive are not responsible for managerial activities of the active shareholders. The corporate legal person has infinite life span, and management changes such as resignation, retirement or death of corporate personnel has no affect over the entire existence or continuity of incorporations. Separate legal personality of firms provides shareholders with liberty to choose the tax treatment according to their investment projects. Transaction costs and operational risks to owners are reduced through existence of a legal framework. The investor does not have to pay taxes on the profits of the company; only on the share that they receive in dividends which are taxed at a lower rate. The taxes that are paid on profits are the responsibility of the company. Other taxation benefits of incorporation are that once incorporated, many additional items of expenditure become tax deductible. For example medical expenses,

Research paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Research paper - Essay Example Great emphases on the inferential cycle demarcate the specific reduction strategy that variously enhance the sustainability of small scale businesses and conceptualize the resultant consistencies in the business. The key concerns that factor the review system highly substantiate the voluminous women based entrepreneurs that have potentially improved expansively through the entire developmental phases. The temperamental culture of women in business expressed by Cromie and Hayes (1988) explains the demands available in the market world and how inclusive characteristics of women provide hidden business ideas that summarily articulate the role of women entrepreneurs in establishing robust businesses. In general terms, the role played by women in ensuring that business performances are duly observed create a much more consultative overview of factors that enrich the provisions of women in an enabling business environment. 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The business entrepreneurship concept in India reflected a general impression of the role women play in modern entrepreneurs. The simplistic nature of the entire business cycle further displays the convergence of business along gender and regard for women remained lightly earmarked hence further demonstrating the greater role these perceptions are to women today. The independence of women’s entrepreneurs’ expresses opportunities slashed in view of Tyrkko (1986) as generally modeled to mainstream the submissions against growing efforts to enrich the potentials of women and in principle, give substantial business aids. In the transitional cycles heightened in key convenient principles, Minniti (2012) expresses the record-based mainstreaming of Indian’s women emerging business experiences and how descriptive processes would largely propel them to characteristically viable business engagements. In general terms, this factor has critically hindered women from satisfactorily meeting their business goals. In that sequence, it has proven too difficult to support these women further to achieve their business goals (Buttner and Moore, 1997). 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The study on Indian Women entrepreneurs will be aided by comprehensive study objectives, noted in principality of their relevance to the study; a) To highlight key factors that shall influence the business performances of Indian Women Entrepreneurs b) To create a comprehensive comparison between women entrepreneurs and male entrepreneurs and draw relevant conclusions as per the research c) To make relevant conclusions regarding possible improvement measures of such women entrepreneurs in India 1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS The study, reflected by (Buttner and Moore, 1997), demonstrates the relevant convergence of independent factors in describing the transitional cycle of the entrepreneurship theory among the various women groups in India. From the direct relationships created between direct influences resulting from effects of procedural women entrepreneurs in India and the immediate market trends created by varied correlation values, there is a substantial similarity between women and men entrepreneurs. The business characteristic created during the entrepreneur pitfalls and certain set trends reflect the ownerships remarkably paralleled in view of the transitional

Queen vs. Carpenter Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Queen vs. Carpenter - Term Paper Example When Carpenter told him about the death he gave him no clue about the reasons that caused death and showed that he didn’t had a clear idea. 3 Other witnesses also told that the afternoon when Mrs. Carpenter was murdered her husband arrived earlier than expected and soon a rush was created in her home after which Giles came. Another neighbor heard voices that Mr. Carpenter was disgracing his wife few hours before the murder. Some witnesses also heard sounds of quarrels coming out from Carpenter’s home. Robert McDonald Physician He told that her fits were of hysterical nature and never lasted long. McDonald confirmed that she didn’t die of fits after he had examined her body. He predicted that Mrs. Carpenter was died a couple of hours ago. After examining the body this physician was unable to identify the cause of death but it was sure that she didn’t died out of fits.4 Peter. E. Jones Post Mortem Report The report showed a number of signs of injury. Peter e xamined and suggested that these signs on the back of skull were due to external injuries which might had been the cause of death. There was no matter of poising or any other brain damage. 5 There was insufficient evidence to prove Carpenter’s guilt. Post Mortem report showed a minor indentation on the skull which might had been due to an instrument of any other accident. There were no punctured parts disapproving the cause of murder as commissioned by the trial. Stomach and heart were never determined for the causes of death. 6 If we see today the evidence provided by the doctors and witnesses was insufficient. Reports cannot be formulated just on the basis of post mortem reports. In the neighborhood only Giles had the idea and links with Carpenter and his wife. Meanwhile... It was an expensive task to take a course to the courts. Prosecutor was fined if the witness failed to appear at the proceedings rendering advantage in the hands of the witness. Similar to the civil litigation laws this starting to become recognized and entered the system by awarding costs. It was therefore said and perfumed in the current case that the monetary parties settled down by giving payments to both parties and settling the issue. This unjust act was a common observation. In many of the cases even the magistrate was the supreme power who dealt the system of transferring money from one party to another and settling the dispute. The courts were therefore left for only a few cases where all the other attempts would have failed to solve the problem. In the 19th century criminal justice was similar to the civil courts of this date, where problems of paying utility bills and other such issues were rendered as the last choice in courts.

Discussion questions Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Discussion questions - Article Example I agree with the constituencies who argue that the flag preserves the fallen heroes’ legacy. On the other hand, the heroes represented by the flag were against the civil rights which promote racism in the region. The governor should, therefore, remove the flag to reduce cases of unrest and discrimination in South Carolina (Eugene 2011). Q2. Policy making is one of the toughest process lawmakers, and policy implementers go through in any given region. This is because; there are conflicts with respect to the views of various policy makers. Every person is mandated to personal opinion which leads to conflicting versions in the policy making process. It also clear that, some problems in society are not public problems considering the place the place that experiences the problem (Peter 2001). Q3. Regionalism is an approach in policy making that promotes the idea that some problems in the society are not public issues. This is because, the problem affecting a particular region do not affect other regions equally (Eugene 2011). Regionalism has various benefits in problem-solving across the country. For example, the issue of Marijuana consumption and peddling in the U.S has found a solution through implementing laws that legalize its use in the rampant states of Washington and Colorado. This makes it easier for the government to control the use of Marijuana in the specified states. Regionalism is effective in controlling cartels dealing with distribution of the drugs in Colorado and Washington. This is because it helps in eliminating other criminal activities accompanying illegal sale of Marijuana (Peter

Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 15

Human Resource Management - Essay Example The company has a total of 37 aircraft, and more than 9000 employees. Annually, Virgin Atlantic serves 4.5M passengers to major cities globally. The company has grown rapidly. Now serves 31 destinations worldwide, and has a made its mark in pioneering many innovative services packages and has gone ahead to set new guidelines in its industry. The company has continued expanding with the same vigour it began. Although the company has a massive growth streak, Virgin Atlantic is considered customer oriented, with more emphasis on their money value and has offered uniqueness in service delivery and high quality service. The enterprise faces an aggressive competitor in the airline business, British Airways. Virgin Atlantic is one of the most successful business venture taken up by the vast Virgin Group of companies. This report seeks to address in detail, the aspects of some of the concepts and human resources strategies which Virgin Atlantic airways has implemented to achieve such success in employee satisfaction and subsequently in their business field. They seem to have perfected all the five models of Human Resource. These include teamwork, organization culture, performance management, learning, development, and leadership. This report however focuses on how two practises have help improve their employee and system as well as critically analyzing Virgin Atlantic on the these bases of the theories. Virgin Atlantic is passionate about exploration, taking risks, challenging conventions and looking for solutions and that made it the company it is presently. That is how it has developed its perfect brand. An innovator established the brand and made it such a perfect setting to developed ones career. Virgin Atlantic has taken the creativity and innovation seriously and it is considered a place where great service is of concern. The company establishes a comprehensive framework for the career of the employees from the very beginning.

Cost Accounting Essay Example for Free

Cost Accounting Essay Questions arise as to why ABC implementation is successful in certain companies and fails in others. Based on the contingency theory, researchers have argued that the reasons for different degrees of ABC success could be due to the different contextual factors faced by each firm. These have led researchers to recognize assessing factors that influence ABC success implementation as an important research area. The following are among the research that have been carried out to examine factors that influence ABC success: Anderson [18]; Shield [3]; McGowan and Klammer [19]; Krumwiede [20]; and Anderson and Young [21] This article has two main objectives; the first objective is to identify research gaps based on the revision of previous research and the second objective is to propose theoretical research framework for current research. This article is organized as follows: Section II presents a discussion of selected articles related to factors influencing ABC implementation and gaps or limitations of previous studies and suggestions for current research are stated in the section III and IV. The framework for current research is provided in section V, Section VI defines each research variable and the final section presents the conclusion. II. PREVIOUS RESEARCH In this section, selected ABC implementation empirical 144 Abstract—In today’s advanced manufacturing and competitive environment, accurate costing information is crucial for all the kinds of businesses, such as manufacturing firms, merchandizing firms, and service firms. Argued to be superior to the traditional volume-based costing system, Activity-Based Costing system (ABC) has increasingly attracted the attention of practitioners and researchers alike as one of the strategic tools to aid managers for better decision making. The benefits of ABC system and its impacts on companies’ performance have motivated numerous empirical studies on ABC system and it is considered as one of the most-researched management accounting areas in developed countries. Previous research on ABC have examined pertinent issues related to ABC implementation such as the levels of ABC adoption in various countries, the reasons for implementing ABC, the problems related to ABC and the critical success factors influencing ABC. This paper reviews the research on ABC carried out within the last decade, from 1995-2008, and from the review research gaps are identified. Specifically, this paper examines the selection of factors influencing successful ABC implementation, variables used by previous research and the definitions and operationalization of the variables. The review reveals that past research concentrated mainly on behavioral, organizational, and technical variables as the main determinants of ABC success but very little research have been done to examine the roles of organizational culture and structure. Based on the research gaps identified, a research framework for future research is provided. Index Terms—Advanced Manufacturing Activity-Based Costing, ABC Success Environment, I. INTRODUCTION In today’s competitive and continually changing business environment, firms need to be vigilant of the impacts of the changes in the business environment and devise appropriate strategies to survive and prosper. Advancements in manufacturing and communication technologies have drastically changed the ways businesses conduct their activities. Adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies such as robotics and computerized manufacturing have resulted in significant changes in the manufacturing cost structure which have led academics and practitioners to argue that the traditional costing methods are no longer sufficient within this new manufacturing environment [1] (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). This had resulted in the change from the traditional volume-based cost model to new costing methods such as Activity Based Costing (ABC) [2]. Due to its ability in providing more accurate costing information and enhancing firms’ performance, ABC is International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X studies, which spanned 1995-2008 periods, were collected from four prominent refereed accounting research journals, in management accounting field: Journal of Management Accounting Research, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Management Accounting Research and British Accounting Review. Factors used by previous research to investigate the effect on ABC success implementation are summarized, and stage of ABC implementation also is outlined. A. Technical Variables Early studies of ABC adoption and implementation undertaken by previous researchers concentrated on technical factors, such as identification of main activities, selection of cost drivers, problem in accumulating cost data. Example of these research are Cooper [9], Morrow and Connelly [22]. However, technical factors alone may not be adequate to explain the factors influencing ABC success implementation. Cooper et al. [23] argued that the key problem during ABC implementation stage is that companies only focus on technical factors. They suggested that to make ABC implementation more effective, non-technical factors such as involvement of non-accounting in ABC implementation process, top management championship, adequate training program to employees about the objectives and benefits of ABC should be emphasized as well. Similar opinions were expressed by Shield [3] and Shields and McEwen [14]. Shield (1995) found no significant relationship between technical factors and ABC success. Shields and McEwen [14] also highlighted that sole emphasis on the architectural and software design of ABC systems leads to the failure of ABC implementation. Therefore many researchers have suggested that new variables should be considered to investigate factors influencing ABC success. B. Contextual, Behavioral and Organizational Variables Recognizing the research gaps in identifying factors that may affect ABC success, academicians shifted their focuses from technical factors to other variables, such as contextual, behavioral and organizational, culture, as well as organizational structure. Anderson [18] conducted a longitudinal investigation of ABC process in General Motor (GM) from a period of 1986 to 1993. In his research, he examined the effects of organizational variables and contextual variables, and segmented ABC implementation into four major stages, initiation, adoption, adaptation and acceptance. He found that organizational factors, such as top management support and training for the ABC system affected various stages of ABC significantly, while contextual variables, such as competition, relevance to managers’ decisions and compatibility with existing systems produced different degree of impact on different stages of ABC. Shield [3] examined the relationships between diversity of behavioral, organizational and technical factors and the success of ABC implementation. She employed Shield and Young’s [24] framework and summarized behavioral and organizational variables as top management support, adequate resources, training, link ABC system to performance evaluation and compensation, non-accounting ownership, link ABC to competitive strategies as well as clarity of ABC objectives. She found that top management support, linkage to quality initiatives and to personal performance measure (pay/appraisal), implementation of training and resource adequacy were the significant predictors in explaining ABC success. She also found that technical variables were not associated with ABC success. Shield’s findings are supported by other researchers, such as Shield and McEwen [14], who argued that a significant cause for unsuccessful implementations of ABC of several companies could be due to the emphasis of architectural and software design of the ABC system and less attention given to behavioral and organizational issues, which were identified by Shield [3]. Krumwiede and Roth [25] also stated that barriers of ABC implementation can be overcome if firms could give importance to behavioral and rganizational variables identified by Shield [3]. Similarly, Norris [26] agreed with Shield’s [3] findings that the association between ABC success and behavioral and organizational variables is stronger than with technical variables. She further highlighted that the impact of behavioral, organizational and technical should be focused at individual level. McGowan and Klammer [19] conducted a survey of 53 employees from 4 targeted sites in the U. S. o examine whether employees’ satisfaction levels are associated with ABC implementation by They also measured their perceptions of the factors associated with the degree of satisfaction, such as top management support; the degree of involvement in the implementation process; objectives clearly stated; objectives shared; training; linkage to performance evaluation system; adequate resources; information quality and preparer over user. Their results indicated that employees’ satisfaction with ABC implementation was positively related with clarity of objectives and quality of ABC information. Gosselin [15] carried out a survey of 161 Canadian manufacturing companies to examine the effects of strategic posture and organizational structure on adoption and implementation of general forms of Activity-based costing. He segmented the ABC implementation stage into adoption and implementation. The research findings showed that a prospector strategy was associated with manager decision to adopt ABC, while centralization and formalization were significantly associated with ABC success implementation. Krumwiede [20] surveyed U. S manufacturing firms to study how contextual factors, such as the potential for cost distortion or size of firms; organizational factors, such as top management support, training or non-accounting ownership, affect each stage of ABC implementation process. His findings showed that the different factors affected the various stages of implementation of ABC and the degree of importance of each factor varies according to the stage of implementation. Contextual factors, such as usefulness of cost information, IT existence, less task uncertainty and large organizations were related to ABC adoption. Moreover, organizational factors, such as top management support, non-accounting ownership, and implementation training affect ABC success implementation. 145 International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance, Vol. 1, No. 2, August, 2010 2010-023X In another study by Anderson and Young [21], the relationship between organizational and contextual variables, such as organizational structures, task characteristics, management support, information technology and ABC success was examined. The result confirmed the importance of organizational factors (top management support and adequacy resources) during the ABC implementation stage. In South Africa, Sartorius et al. [27] carried out a mail survey to investigate the effect of organizational factors such as top management, adequate resources, coherence with organizational goals and strategy on ABC success. They found top management support and resources were the crucial factors in explaining ABC success. In the UK, Innes and Mitchell [4] and [12] surveyed the extent of ABC adoption among largest firms. The study aimed to find out factors influencing ABC success by using behavioral and organizational variables, and it was found that top management influenced ABC success significantly. In another study conducted by Khalid [28] using a questionnaire survey among the largest 100 firms in Saudi Arabia, ABC adoption was found to be positively related to diversity of products. In Malaysia, Ruhanita et al. [29] conducted a mail survey and a case study to examine that factors influencing ABC success, especially at adoption stage. They found the significant factors were cost distortion, decision usefulness, information technology and organizational factors. In addition, the findings showed that decision usefulness, top management support, link ABC to performance measure and compensation influenced the ABC success adoption significantly. A case study of one Chinese manufacturing firm was carried by Lana and Fei [30] in China. Their research aimed to examine some key success factors pertinent to ABC implementation within Chinese organizational and cultural setting. The research findings showed that top management support, hierarchical and communication structure and high proportion of dedicated professionals were the significant factors in determining ABC success implementation. Majid et al. [7] used a case study approach to describe the process of ABC implementation in a Malaysian service company and a Malaysian manufacturing company. In this research, they categorized ABC implementation into initiation and adoption, design, implementation and use of information. The purpose of the research was to find out the problems faced during ABC implementation, He found that the factors determining ABC success were top management support, suitable ABC software, and finally, ensuring that all affected employees understand and participate in the ABC implementation stage. And they also found that at different stages of ABC, the dominant factors influencing ABC success were also different. Colin et al. [31] adopted behavioral and organizational factors summarized by Shield (1995) to examine factors influencing the adoption and degree of success of ABC systems and determinants of that success. In their research, the targeted research population was manufacturing and service firms in the UK. They found that top management support, non-accounting ownership, adequate training provided to ABC determined the ABC success. Besides behavioral, organizational and technical variable, some researchers also indicated that the dimensions of national cultures could affect the level of ABC success [32, 33]. Brewer [32] used Hofstede’s taxonomy of work-related cultural values to examine the relationship between national culture and Activity-Based Costing system. In the study, Hofstede [34]’s work was applied to the case of Harris Semiconductor (HS), which has implemented ABC at plants in Malaysia and the USA. The results showed that the level of ABC success in Malaysia was higher than that of U. S due to high-power-distance and collectivist cultures in Malaysia. In addition, Supitcha and Frederick [33] also included national culture’s dimension into framework in a case study of one Thai state-owned enterprise’s budgeting system. They found that due to cultural differences, modifications were required when the organizations in Thailand tried to implement ABC system in Thai environment. Apart from national culture, corporate culture factors were also tested by prior research. Baird, Harrison and Reeve [17] conducted a study to investigate the relationship between the extent of ABC adoption and the organizational variables of size and decision usefulness of cost information and business unit culture. In their research, data were collected by a mail survey questionnaire and samples were randomly selected from business units in Australia. The research finding showed significant relationships between ABC adoption and decision usefulness, cultural dimensions of outcome orientation and tight verse loose control. Baird, Harrison and Reeve [16] examined the relationship between success of activity management practices and organizational factors (top management support, training, link to performance evaluation and compensation, and link to quality initiatives), and organizational culture (outcome orientation, team orientation, attention to detail, as well as innovation). They adopted a survey questionnaire method on randomly chosen business units in Australia. The findings showed that two organizational factors (top management support, link to quality initiatives) explained the variations in success of activity management practices, such as ABC, and outcome orientation and attention to detail of organizational culture were associated with ABC success. They also stressed that compared with organizational culture, organizational factors had stronger associations with the ABC.