Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

Link: http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/06/dell-netbook-coming-in-august-sans-function-keys/

Dell is pushing too little and too late.

Since seeing the power of the ASUS Eee Pc, I've been thinking of getting such a device. Though I wasn't sure if I could handle the sacrifice of hardware to get small, light and low cost. Then others started coming into the scene....such as the HP Mini Note. And, things started looking up that something suitable would be offered.

I then heard rumors of Dell coming out with something in June. And, since there are Dell's that can be had with Ubuntu...this seemed like it might be a good thing to wait for.

But, now they are saying August....I don't think I can wait that long. (too late). And, its not going to have function keys. Well, that's a sacrifice in hardware that I don't see myself accepting. (too little).

Guess I'll take a look over what is available now and pick the one that I'll have live with for the next 5-6 years (that's how old my previous laptop is).

This morning I woke to find my DSL modem reporting a speed of 1984/512. Reran the spectrum analysis tool at DSLreports. I shows a theoretical 35xx/818....wonder if I could've really gotten the 6.0/768 tier to at least get the much higher upsteam speed. It would've only been $5 more per month. (The tiers were 1.5/384, 3.0/512, 6.0/768 and the prices were $25/$30/$35).

I graph the SN margin/Line Attenuation along with up/down speed from the modem in cacti....so I see that my SN margin has dropped quite a bit, and Line Attenuation has gone up a little. So I see it started shifting gears around 5:20am.

Using the speed tool, I still can't get the reported speed. But, there is a proportional improvement. But, latency has dropped quite significantly. Better than cable now. Well under 100ms.

Don't know when the current DHCP leases expire, but I reconfigured DHCP to tell my Broadvoice VoIP service to use DSL as its gateway now. Wonder if there's anything else I want shift around....

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I mentioned that my URC-6131 was failing...the main annoyance was the PVR Menu button. It was getting harder and harder to get into the Replay Menu on my ReplayTVs.

I searched around online to try to find a new URC-6131 (forgetting at first that it needs to be modded to do JP1 reprogramming). But, no luck. I decided I would take a chance try the 6131n. Found it in numerous places.

But, as I was looking at whether to buy or bid....I saw an auction listing that mentioned that the 6131n for sale had been modded for JP1 programming. Oh ya....the 6131 that I had was modded for JP1...that means I should be bidding on this one.

I marked it for future bid....

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I fiddled with it a bit more...even with both the master and terminal in the livingroom....I couldn't get the terminal to work from either of the jacks by the computer....and further away...the speed test was poor.

Come to think of it, I use powerline speakers for my rear surrounds...at least they work...though that might be why I can't get powerline networking to function. There might be other powerline network technologies that will co-exist, but the speakers are more important and wireless is acceptable.

Plus I already see myself getting better units down the road. Wonder where I would put them, and if it would be 'bad' if I had DROBO's on both....other than a serious lack of cash for all the tech stuff I want to get this year.

Guess I'll have look at some other solution for home network.....perhaps I'll buy WireTracks for the living room....

Anyways...I when I first tried to set it up...I couldn't get link in the storage room. Turns out the plug tab is broken for that cable in the network closet, so it wasn't in all the way. Next I got things set up...and when I put the terminal by the living room computer....I couldn't get it to work there.

Seems there's too much interference in the living room for it to cope with. While going around trying plugs, I unplugged some stuff...which seemed to help a little bit, but not enough. And, I couldn't go without what I had unplugged.

So, for the time being, I'm staying with the current WDS bridging. Wonder if I got a pair of Airport Extreme's...if they would do bridging?

Link: http://www.lhaven.net/netmap.html

Wait...it isn't April 2008 yet.

Well, there's one item on the map, that I haven't purchased yet. But, I intend to order it tomorrow...and I do hope it arrives before the end of the month....but decided the put a future date to indicate that it contains future stuff.

It also contains that I'm dropping the WDS bridge for Powerline networking (HD-PLC), that has been ordered...it just hasn't arrived yet. Originally, there was some question of finding an open outlet behind my home theater setup to plug it in. But, then it occurred to me that the adapter could go anywhere on my wired network...since I had made that upgrade....and there's the jack in the storage room that I haven't acquired stuff to put around yet.

There's a plan to do so, but I need to go through the stuff in there to figure out what to get rid of to make space for using it for more than storage. One is to acquire a network laser printer (ideally with color and duplex capabilities, maybe copier)....and locate it here where (rather than next to one of my computers, due to concern on whether I have enough power at those locations ) I'm also wondering if I really need all the features, to maximize the number of other gadgets I also want to acquire....

Meanwhile, I'm already plotting my next addition....Been thinking of getting a TimeCapsule, but now Apple has released the patch to allow Time Machine to storage attached to an Airport Extreme....so I'm thinking that I'll do this, and get a Drobo to attach to it (assuming the pairing will work). Of course, it could be a while before I get around to having all the pieces.

Possibly like the 500GB SATA drive I purchased a while year before I found something to stick it in to.... Sadly that was the mirror drive in my Linux server (Orac) that failed recently. I should maybe see about getting Seagate to replace it.... Even though I don't need it for the Linux server now (though I am considering buying an enclosure for it...to mount 4 more drives outside of it....possibly more, since there's 4 regular eSATA ports and 2 PM-capable eSATA ports on the back. Though waiting for a version of Linux that'll hopefully support PM.)

Also looking at USB over ethernet, since I'm running out of space for USB peripherals at my main desk.... This this spot also cries out for the acquisition of a Drobo....since I pretty much to disk-to-disk backup now (since I had long ago past the point of reasonable tape backup [to DLT7000's] of my system, and it seems less and less likely that I'll be buying a new tape drive [LTO1] now). I'm sure if I think some more (oops I did), I can think of other places around here that cry out for additional Drobo's. Wonder if there's a limit to using the GeekBrief.TV discount code.... Though Drobo isn't the only think on the market that might solve my needs, but it is one of the cool looking things. Though it is only a USB storage device....there's an ethernet option for it, but it isn't a native ethernet option...so that sounds like it would be slower than some other sort of NAS product.

Hmmm.....so many gadgets....so little time, money, space, power, etc...

Well, now that things seem to be working, I was making use of the TiVo HD last night....to the point where I didn't check any of my other recorders for content last night....

There's quite a bit of channels that I got on the Cox HD DVR, that I don't see via CableCARD....don't know if that's because Cox isn't making them all available to CableCARD subscribers or because they aren't in the lineup data from TiVo. TiVo lineup isn't very complete...there are channels it knows about, but has no program info for...so I can't schedule anything from those channels. And, there's other channels that are just missing. I had submitted the missing channel form for Fox HD, along with a link to the local lineup information...so hopefully TiVo will eventually get around to having things right.

Meanwhile, I started looking at the TiVoCasts....some of them are pretty interesting, I've downloaded just a few of them, and set up season passes to keep them coming. Checking my cacti monitor, I see that I've already downloaded >10GB of data in the last week. Wow. Probably the most downloading I've done....even more than when I set up my last new computer. Though that's probably because it wasn't a Windows computer.

Someday I'll get a new Windows computer.....only because my current one is starting to fail (had originally intended to replace it a couple of years ago, when it was 3....) And, want to get one before I can't get Windows XP anymore.

Link: http://www.ohgizmo.com/2008/03/17/panasonic-bl-pa100kta-adaptor-turns-electrical-wiring-into-ethernet-cable/

I've been thinking of trying some form of Home P* Networking. At my previous apartment, I was considering Home Phone Line Networking. Because I had switched to Vonage (and no more home phone service), and the phone lines were conveniently located to the locations I wanted to link together.

But, it had to be better than what I was getting by WiFi, and even though the new standard was approved...I never saw any retail products for it.

Now in my new home, I don't have phone jacks near the places that I want linkup + plus its CAT5, so I'm using that for my network (in places). But, there are computers and such located away from phone jacks (and cable jack)....so I used WDS bridging to link things up. With a plan that someday I would get Powerline networking (AV or HD) to replace it.

One concern is whether I would have an open outlet to plug the oversized wall-wart, without losing the other jack...since just about every outlet in this place is in use. There have been numerous occasions where I was looking for an open outlet to plug something in, and couldn't find one.

Then I read about this Panasonic one...and saw the picture and the price.....I just had to pull the trigger on it to get one. So, now to wait for it to appear.

I ordered both the kit and an extra adapter....just in case I should ever want to run network into the one room that I didn't convert its phone jack to networking....or I decide to claim some other inaccessible corner with networking equipment.

Link: http://www.woot.com/Blog/BlogEntry.aspx?BlogEntryId=4120

A new category has appeared on my blog.

That's because I pulled the trigger on buying a TiVo HD DVR yesterday....via Woot!

Not entire sure where I'm going to put it or how it is going to be connected into my setup. But, I've done it.

Not sure what this means to my HTMac project. I think I still want a computer as part of my HT, but it might take on a different form....perhaps it'll be something with its own screen (either as its primary display or only display)...also not sure how it ties into the plan to switch my main desktop from Windows to Mac. Or my other Mac purchase wishes.

Like the Time Capsule. Or at what point do I stop buying stuff for the only mac that I do have....my work laptop.

Link: http://www.wirns.com

I've had it with lack of line up updates from DNNA, and the need to call a non-tollfree number and wait on indefinite hold to fix something they should be keeping up on.

So, I looked at remapping some data to get the one channel that I'm missing out on....digital Fox.

I had stopped using WiRNS, because my ReplayTVs had stopped being able to get data from it....I figured it was probably related to having lost one of my Linux servers due to the icepocalypse. And, evidently this is so.

Now at least I'll have the option of recording Fox from digital cable....though American Idol filling up the schedule, means there's just "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"....which isn't in conflict, so is getting recorded on the DVR.