Plumbing

In the computing world, networking is called plumbing... for obvious reasons. And, there are very few things in computing that I find more tedious than networking. However, like any home; very little gets done as long as there are outstanding networking/plumbing issues to resolve. Or in my case.... long put-off chores. So today was network day!

One of my ongoing annoyances has been the fact that the HTPC in our Master Bedroom connected via WiFi due to it's location. Although connection was "N", it was still wireless and far less throughput than advertised or specified. Luckily, a number of rooms in our house had "structured" wiring which included 2 Cat 5e and 2 RG6 runs. One of the Cat 5e is set up nominally as "telephone" service, and one RG6 is cable television. Therefore, what I needed to do was to terminate the other Cat 5e, but of course nothing is as easy as it sounds, especially when you rarely do it and don't have the specialized tools! So, after an hour or so of the joy that is terminating a new Ethernet cable of the correct length and "punch-down" into a keystone, I had direct wired connection to our house's backbone. 

However, that wasn't the end of it. When we rearranged the bedroom (which allowed me connect the HTPC), I of course also had to rearrange the rear speakers of the surround sound as well. So that had to be run, connected and calibrated too. 

 

But actually, my day of networking goodness didn't start there. I spent the majority of this morning doing the little things of "plumbing" like digging around inside my main router (D-Dlink DGL-4100) to set some reserved IP addresses for the printers among other things that I haven't gotten around to previously. Also, I had another little chore. Recently while on one of my little scavenging forays at the monthly computer flea market, I picked up a D-Link DWL-G730ap for the enormous investment of $5. If you aren't familiar with this little gadget, don't feel bad. D-Link never sold very many of them (although enough to create an updated version). Basically, it's a portable WiFi access point. On occasion, hotels and other facilities will have wired Internet via Ethernet, but not wireless, or worse yet, charge for it. Most of the "mid-line" hotels that we tend to stay at generally offer free WiFi, but the coverage is often spotty, but each room will normally have a wired port. So, this little gizmo makes for a cheap insurance policy for that situation. It would be awesome to have the new "N" version (DAP-1350), but I'll live with "G" speed at my price. Anyway, I spent some time this morning configuring it for our trip out of town next week.

 

I've also had a growing desire to do something about improving our wireless situation at home. Currently we have a DIR-615 150-"N" router set to access point duties in the living room, and an older DIR-624 "G" router in the opposite corner of the house doing the same job. The idea is for the 615 to serve the wife's and my ThinkPads, and the kids on the 624 since their rooms are on the other side of the house. Unfortunately, I haven't been terribly happy with the performance of the "N' router in either range or speed. So I found a ready made deal this weekend on eBay in the form of a DGL-4500. This is more advanced dual band version of the well thought of DIR-655. It will allow me to move the 615 into office and replace the 624. That's the plan anyway! I'll definitely post when I have the network improvements finished.