Digital Dad

Router Router

After my old (not too old – two years?) Linksys router up and died on me for no reason I had to swap back to my backup Buffalo 802.11g. It’s a fair unit but once you get used to 802.11n speeds it is a noticeable lag to go back. Plus. the 802.11g routers don’t seem to have the range of the 802.11n and I was clearly on the edge of my network in several places around the house.

Loyal readers may note that I had a Linksys router die on me in 2004, to be replaced by the now “backup” Buffalo. Some things never change!

I went looking for a new router and hit eBay. I had three criteria:

1) 802.11n

2) Some antennas for better range

3) Cheap

eBay delivered with a “new in box” D- LINK DIR-615 which I picked up for $40. It has antennas, it has 802.11n.

The set up was pretty easy, although there were all sorts of warning stickers to run the CD first. I use this router to connect to my cable modem, of course, but there is no PC attached to it, so I heeded the ominous warnings by taking a notebook, connecting it with ethernet to the rig behind the TV, and then running the CD from there. Windows 7 also has a slick router set up and when a new one is detected you simply enter a PIN on the router and it configures it for you. Neat.

The performance is great – seems like I doubled if not tripled the reception at the ends of the house and my Speedtest is clocking in north of 20Mbps at the Kitchen PC. Zoiks!

Boosting my Buffalo

I recently moved a few systems around in my house.

I took the creaky Dell (256Mb RAM) and put it behind the TV, hard-wired into my router. It's now used solely as a music/photo server using Windows Media connect. I use my Xbox360 to pull the photos from it.

I took the Sony liquid-cooled hyper-threaded monster from behind the TV and put it down the hall in my office. I also put Vista on it and officially retired it from Media Center PC duty. Since I am not wired down the hall I have a PCI WiFi card (802.11g) with a little antenna thingy on it.

However, the signal down there is weak. I heard that WiFi signals travel better down than across so tried connecting my cable modem and router upstairs, right over the office. Lo and behold - no change! So much for that theory.

I moved it all back and went on eBay and bought an antenna for my Buffalo router. They sell them on eBay for about $15 and it just plugs in the back.

Sure enough, I basically doubled my signal strength. Small victories keep me going!

And the PepperPad goeth . . .

I wrote about the PepperPad last year when it was introduced at Demo2004. Neat idea - a simple well built tablet to use for email, web browsing, etc. around the house. Ran Linux and Firefox.

I never ended up buying one like I thought I would, and I guess I was not alone. The thing died in the market and PC Mag just named it one of the worst products of 2005.

Achoo.

Getting the new house (un)wired

We are now unpacking vast quantities of boxes in the new house here in Washington.

Rather than keep DSL, I decided to go for Comcast cable internet service. My motivation was based on two factors:

1. DSL requires a dedicated clean line to get good speeds and your then tethered to that dedicated line for your DSL modem
2. Microsoft had a deal with Comcast (yes, item #2 probably holds more weight)

In any event I gave them a shout and the Comcast guy was over (pretty much on time!). It took him little time to drop in the modem and activate the account, although he suggested I install the "Comcast software package" as well - no thanks. Just the IP, ma'am.

My strategy at the new gig here was to drop the modem and my Buffalo router inconspicuously behind a TV in a reasonably central location and use a cable splitter to feed the cable modem. That was easily accomplished.

I powered up the Mac G4 in the new kitchen and the built-in WiFi found the Buffalo no problem. A single cable from the Mac to the wall for power - that's it - very beneficial when you have a one year old at around that level pulling on every cord in sight.

Downstairs I powered up the Dell with my Buffalo card - again AP found no problem. The notebook roams freely as well.

I ran a bandwidth test on the Dell down here and I'm at about 1117 Mbps. Not bad - that tops my Walnut Creek DSL connection by just a bit.

I haven't tested the signal distance yet, but the Buffalo router has an input for an external antenna. I have a "barn" at the back of the property that I plan to outfit with a 200" High Def overhead projector connected into an xBox 360 - but more on that later!

Pigeon-net

Great story here about how a bunch of memory cards were strapped to pigeons to see if they could beat out the ADSL transfer rate between cities.

Will the innovation never cease!?

Auld Lang Syne for Linksys

It's not often that two products from the same company fail so definitively.   I was using a Linksys 54G router at home and also the Linksys NSLU2 Network Attached Storage.

Within a few days of each other they failed. The router power just went off - dead. Not sure if it was the power supply or what. The NSLU2 simply cannot be recognized on the network.

I had already replaced the Linksys 802.11g PCI card in my downstairs PC with a Buffalo card, so I stopped by my local Fry's and picked up a Buffalo AirStation. It cost me about $80.

After some quick connections I powered it up and it has worked like a charm ever since.

Linksys just makes low quality gear and I'm tired of it.

New Year's resolution - no more Linksys!

Gateway's Wifi DVD player - a great deal

I haven't tried one of these things but i did get an email that they are on sale for an incredible price - $108 shipped. The deal details are here.

Looks like you can connect it to your WiFi set-up and stream photos, movies, music, etc. Here is a review.

It's also progressive scan so it should display some great film-like DVD imgaes if your TV set supports progressive scan output.

More streaming, plus storage

Here's a new thingy from Viewsonic. Most people know them from their monitors, but they're now into the "wireless media" business, which means moving music, photos and video around your house, via WiFi.

The WMA100 hooks up to your TV and enables you to display photos, play music or, most interestingly, play videos that are stored on a hard drive somewhere (another PC on your home network, for example). The twist here is that Viewsonic appears to have optimized the system for videos.

The use case here is that you have a library of home movies that you have stored on a hard drive, imported from your DV camcorder and you want to show them on a TV. Traditionally you'd have to find the right DV tape, hook up the camcorder to the TV and play. With the WMA100 and imported digital video clips you can just select titles and play.

I'm sure the movie industry isn't too happy about making it this easy, but them's the breaks.

Also, the WMA100 plays not only MP3 files but AAC files as well, like those from iTunes (well, not exactly, you would need to to remove the copy protection from the ITunes purchased content for the music to stream properly. The negative here is that I don;t want to turn on my TV to play music, but it's a nice adder.

Showing photos is an interesting use case - I could use this thing to show my 8000 digital photos that I've been gathering since my 5 year old son was born.

An associated device is the Viewwonic WMG120 - it's a WiFi router like you may already have but it adds a 120 GB hard drive. In this case you store all of your photos, music and video right on this box, instead of a PC. Might even be a good network backup system, but I haven't seen the software yet.

The pricing isn't clear yet but they seem to be moving in the right direction. The home video on demand idea is very interesting....all my home videos are stuck on tapes somewhere!

Praising the Buffalo

I picked up a new 802.11g card a couple of weeks ago and recently got around to installing it.

It's a PCI card that I use for my "server" PC downstairs in my office.

I previously had a Linksys card in there that was "Wireless G", which means not 802.11g standard and therefore not the best connection or throughput to my 802.11g router. In fact, Linksys didn't even have a software upgrade to make it a fully certfied 802.11g card - the perils of being on the cutting edge! Boo Linksys.

I picked up a Buffalo WLI PCI G54, which comes with a short PCI card and an external antenna and cable. This enables you to position the 802.11 antenna from behind the PC to a better location. The whole thing was only $27 at my local Fry's.

After opening the PC box it just took a few minutes to install. I booted up, loaded the driver CD and it worked like a charm, much faster than the old Linksys card. I placed the antenna up and away from the PC and mounted it on the office wall..

One of those rare, painless, upgrades.

Working from home, or actually Starbucks

I was working from home yesterday. Actually, rather than sit in my tiny "office" (an old closet under the stairs), I usually drive a couple of blocks to my nearby Starbucks. Once my kids know I'm in my little office it's tough to get a continuous stream of uninteruppted time, nevermind the screaming in the background during phone calls. I think we've all been there.

Starbucks gives me a power outlet, a relatively unused WiFi connection and an endless supply of caffeine. I just wished they would turn the music down a bit. I can go for a couple of hours there and get quite a bit done, usually listening to my iPOD instead of the "Coffee Tracks" or whatever is playing.

I was even able to go home at lunch time and take my kids to the zoo. Dad is a hero!

I buy a five pack of "logons" from T-Mobile at $50. They come in very handy when travelling as well (Admiral's Clubs and a variety of airports). You can log in as many times as you'd like for that day. They have an "all you can eat" monthly fee but based on my usage that doesn't make sense for me.

Some people think that the days of paid WiFi are coming to a close. It turns out that the vast majority of the expense of installing the system is the payment and support part. I heard that Starbucks needs like 20 logons a day per store to break even, which seems quite high given that the base sttaion/router is less than $200 and I imagine the monthly network fee is less than $100. But if you have to pay the payment system, pay the tech support person on call, etc. then there goes your profit.

Therefore you can argue that WiFi in retail shops should be free, which is the cheapest way to set it up, and then you make money on people drinking a bunch of coffee. Sounds good to me!

The other trend is the establishment of what people call "mesh networks" of WiFi coverage. This means that an entire neighborhood is blanketed with WiFi coverage, so all those little coffee shops on main street will now have they pay to play systems negated by this wide area free service.

Interesting. In any event I certainly woudn't buy into an annual WiFi plan at my local shop.