Saturday Morning Blog: Return of the 90's

I did something odd this beautiful, early November (gorgeous month here in North Texas) morning. I got out some CD's and are playing them; literally as we speak. Why is that unusual? Some of you may already know. Ironically, it's a compilation of popular 90's songs! .....you know, one of those CD's you can buy at Target or some place like that, or in my case, Half Price Books. It cost $7 and they are all good songs; if you don't mind Pop. For me, the 90's were pretty much a music wasteland anyway, and I mostly wanted the songs to situationally return me to a time when I was working in higher education administration, spending a lot of time with college students. So, these types of CDs are perfect...no waste on songs I don't recognize.

Now is it obvious where I'm going on this!?! The 90's was when the CD medium reached it's Zenith. By the last half of that decade, it had swept all competition into the dustbin of recorded sound history. Yet today, I was literally blowing dust off of my cherished 40 CD albums to get at my languishing collection. What happend!?! In today's world, I'm not so much deciding what CDs I want to play, but more what format(s) I want my collection ripped into so I can access them in a more efficient manner. Computer manufacturers are about to eliminate optical drives from the design of newer laptops all-together. This is a medium that sowed the seeds of it's own demise within the concept itself. As a digital format, the medium is actually pretty much irrelevant. 

 

In the world of 1s and 0s, it certainly doesn't need to be in the form of pits read by a laser. 

In October of 2001, the devastator arrived:

Was it the first digital music player? No Was it the best (however you define that)? Probably not. It was the most powerful, in terms a shift of how people saw the delivery of content. Yes, I understand that it was probably a product that rode on the back of what went before.

I'd argue that the concept of portable music can be credited to the Sony Walkman.

And that the 1992 Minidisc was the pinnacle of that concept, with a superior sound reproduction almost a decade before the iPod, but with the arrival of the 20Gb versions of the iPod, a person could pretty much put their entire music collection in one place. This is almost irresistible as a concept.

For us, the tipping point was the 5G (5th Generation) version in 30Gb capacity. I kind of use my wife as a "bell-cow" (forgive the term). She's not so much technologically oriented vs. technologically aware. When she starts asking about some product or another (Android Tablets are the latest), I know that it's mature enough to look into purchasing for our use. When I say mature; what I mean is that the cost-benefit ratio is such that I'll get enough use out of it not to have "buyer's remorse" after purchase. In this case, it was her Christmas present that year, and I spent the rest of the holiday ripping our CD collection into her iTunes. At first, we just enjoyed literally having our entire CD collection with us when we traveled (from Dallas, it's 6 or 7 HOURS to Amarillo, Lubbock or Midland......Texas is a BIG place). So the necessity of going through my CDs to decide which ones to take came to an end.

Then a couple of years ago, the Griffin TuneDock came to live at our house, which of course interfaced with the receiver in my main A/V system which is the main reason that there's dust on my CD albums. 

But the things that really put the nails in the coffin was my rediscovery of the joys of vinyl records for my serious listening.......and the adoption of the computer based home file server which not only streams music anywhere on my network, but "losslessly" meaning that it's essentially the same as what the CD originally offered. 

So yeah, something like this; which explains the HTPCs littered through previous posts for those who have been following along. "Thus endith the lesson", as originally delivered by Sean Connery to Kevin Costner in The Untouchables" of 1987.

The Spider Web

One of the things I really just don't enjoy doing is networking. Unfortunately, in our modern "connected world, it's not only a reality, we're pretty much at it's mercy.....that is if we want our computing devices to run well! For the most part, our little household has been running pretty darned well despite the large number of devices on the little network.

 

In fact, the little D-Link router/access point/switch has been plugging away in the networking cabinet for nearly 8 years now without drama of any sort. I originally went with this brand and model because it was one of the APs out there that used the Atheros "SuperG" chip that when paired with a laptop with matching chips could run  at 108mps vs. the standard 54mps of the standard "G". It handled the Wi-Fi as well as the wired parts of "Stanet" without hiccups for all this time, and I tend to be very loyal to the brands that work well for me, so over time I added a whole list of D-Link networking products (including an identical model at my brother/sister-in-law's).

That would include the DIR-615 when mine and my wife's laptops came along with "N" Wi-Fi capabilities, a well as the need for multiple networking connections in our living room area to accommodate not only the HTPC, but the Blu-Ray player, and Wii.

Around that time, it became obvious that I didn't have enough connections in the office either. I brought up the WHS file server which needed two ports, then a motherboard change on my workstation allowed it to have two as well, the two networked printer had to have their own and it was clear that the office needed an 8-Port switch. The thing that pushed it all over the edge was the client machine(s) that needed their own connection(s) to do updates after reloading. So, in came the D-Link DES-1108 to which was connected a separate DI-624 (the in-law's old one after they went with AT&T U-Verse) to handle those ports. There's also a 4-Port DSS-5+ that handles the printers as well.

Everything percolated along pretty well right up until this thing came along: the Nettalk-Duo. You've heard of Majic-Jack voice-over-IP phone service, right? This is a more advanced product that doesn't require a computer to be on. It's designed to attach directly to a router. So, here's how this came about: we haven't had a "landline" since before the year 2000. These days, we have a child who comes home before we do, so we want him to call us when he gets here AND we are not parents who are going to give an 8-year old a cellphone! Unfortunately, this device doesn't like my "long-in-the-tooth" router. Hmmmm...

This is the item that ends up pushing "Stanet" to the next logical stage: Gigagit networking. Virtually all my desktop/HTPCs have built-in Gigabit LAN anyway and with 5e Ethernet in the walls, all that's missing is the 1000mps switching function. I picked up the D-Link DGL-4100 router a few months ago which had Gigabit, then added the 8-Port DGS-2208 switch that now handles all the network traffic. With a second one on the way for the office, and the move of the DGS-5g from the office printers to the living room entertainment section, the entire "backbone" will now be Gigabit! This allows the Nettalk Duo to work and everything (particularly the digital media to and from the HTPC) to move across the network MUCH faster. An added benefit is that now I have the kids on a separate "SuperG" DI-624 AP that I can turn on and off "at will", while momma and I are on a completely isolated "N" router.

And of course, all of the devices (with the exception of the DIR-615) were bought used on eBay or Craig's List. It seems that networking devices don't hold there value very well! :)