Mark Dalton

This week has been the usual mix of busy but has been largely uneventful. It has been bitterly cold and standing on the train platform each morning I couldn”t help but think it”s about time I started looking at holidays. What I have done this week however is start sorting out some of those little job”s I have been meaning to do for a while and start commissioning some of the new toy”s I have brought over the last few months / years to improve my general home network performance.

Like most people these day”s I have a DSL Internet connection. My Internet connection comes into my home office upstairs and terminates on a NetGear ADSL Router and Wireless Access Point (DG834GT) , this worked well and provided about 98% coverage throughout the house. The problem was that the 2% it didn”t cover was mainly the seat I sit on in the lounge with the laptop. So I had two other NetGear Wireless Access Points (WG602 V3), one up stairs and one downstairs, that were bridged to provide the additional coverage required downstairs. Now this was great for checking email and casual web surfing but was slow when doing anything heavier, downloading movies to the Apple TV for example. Now with the Sky+ HD installation last weekend I decided to resolve this.

I purchased a dLAN 200 AVeasy Starter Kit and two NetGear 8 Port Gigabit Switches. I ran a cable from my DSL router to one of the Gigabit switches which I installed on my desk and then another cable to one of the Devolo devices which I plugged into a socket under the desk. I plugged the other Devolo device into a socket behind the TV and cabled that to the second Gigabit switch. I cabled the Mac”s in the office to the Gigabit switch on my desk, and the Apple TV, SlingBox Pro, Nintendo Wii, and Samsung HD TV, to the Gigabit switch behind the TV. Downloading to the Apple TV now takes only a couple of minutes and I have seen a drastic improvement especially when using SlingPlayer and the SlingBox Pro in the office.

Now while I was living in India I also acquired a number of Apple Networking devices, well all of them if I am honest. Since being home I have added these to my home network, but they have never really added any value to the setup, maybe with the exception of the Time Capsule. Up until now I have had the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule (Recently Replaced) installed in the upstairs office and the AirPort Express installed in the garage, connected to some cheap speakers. Now this setup provided 802.11n access throughout the house but wasn”t really the best utilisation of the equipment. After installing the Devolo units I decommissioned the two NetGear Access Points (WG602 V3), which resulted in my original Wireless coverage problem. So I moved the AirPort Extreme downstairs and cabled it into the Gigabit switch. Presto! 802.11a/b/g/n throughout the house!

An added bonus of doing this is I now have two spare Wireless Access Points. One of which is going to my parents as they already have Devolo units and I as I now know this solution works I will be implementing it for them as soon as possible. Happy days!

Wow I never thought I would say it but a story like this should be listened too! Most people that have an interest in car’s, or an interest in humor watch Top Gear and listen to the high jinks that Jeremy Clarkson , James May, and the “Hamster” Richard Hamond get up to. We all laugh along with the stupid stunts they pull, and cringe at some of their less than politically correct comments.

However we see what they want us to see. We know them for what they want us to know them for. Jeremy Clarkson dam the tree huggers petrol rules, James May it’s not how quickly you get there it’s how, and Richard Hamond does my bum look good in this (flash white[ned] teeth).

Yet when the “Hamster” Richard Hamond crashed we were surprised. We thought typical Top Gear stunt! Bumped head, sore neck, and a couple of weeks of complaining.

No, this was serious. We are talking Air Ambulance, we are talking front page! We are talking about a person we think we know. All of a sudden we paid attention. Maybe because we always pay attention to bad news, but for me I paid attention because I felt I knew this person. Okay it was via my TV but he was young, energetic, he was what I wanted to be.

The book provides an insight in to Richard’s past, from Richard’s point of view of course. Richard walks us through the time leading up to the accident, and talk us though the accident itself, from his point of view.

What made this for me was Mindy’s (Richard’s wife) reading. She describes the accident from her point of view, and from the childrens.

You can hear the emotion in her voice. It’s obviously something that she doesn’t like to think about, but does. The relationship the two have and the love she has for him is laid bare and it really does give the story some grounding. When Mindy talks about Richard’s recovery you can really sense a team effort, but not a BBC corporate one, not a TV or PR one. You can see a relationship that is founded on something that is a lot more human.

I would give this one 4/5 but say listen to the audio book rather than read it.

I purchased my Apple TV going through Heathrow Airport early last year as I wanted to be able to listen to my Music, Podcasts, and Audio Books, via my TV.

I was on my way back to my apartment in Gurgaon, India at the time and the apartment was comfortable but pretty basic if I am honest. I wanted to be able to chill out on the couch with a very expensive bottle of imported vino and listen to what was going on in my other world.

Returning to the UK however I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it and it ended up in the bedroom. I did start out falling asleep to music but before long it just started to gather dust. No way to treat a shiny white box!

I had the Mac Mini downstairs hooked up to the 42″ LCD which was supposed to act as an Apple TV and some, but I found myself playing with the Mac more than listening / watching any content. So there was only one thing to do!

I moved the Apple TV downstairs and was immediately frustrated. I mean Mac Mini +Keyboard +mouse meant surfing, meant tweaking, meant…….Hold on! I sit on the sofa to absorb content! No, I sit on the sofa to absorb my content, the stuff that I want to listen to or watch. I do it in some way’s to get away from sitting in front of keyboards.

So I decided to explore a little more, like you do! The first thing I really noticed was how cool it was listening to my tunes while taking a look over my photo library. I then moved on to my home video’s and really started to understand what this device did for me.

It was a couple of days later I actually sat down and juggled the various remote controls (Project?). I finally figured out that the 900+ channels I have had nothing showing that I wanted to watch. As I juggled the remotes I found I was left with the Apple TV remote in my hands.

I then decided to move to the next level and rented a movie via iTunes. I was a little apprehensive to start with but decided to give it ago. Luckily I have a fast Internet connection (22 Mbps) and by the time I had made myself something to eat the movie had downloaded. It was a great experience and better still I didn’t need to return any DVD’s.

A few day’s later I found myself in the same position, really must think why I am paying for Sky. This time I decided to buy a movie. “Get Smart” was the chosen title and I opted for the standard definition version. Once again a very smooth experience and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to find a home for yet another DVD.

It was a couple of day’s later when I was upstairs in my study that it really hit me. I was downloading another album via iTunes and clicked on the Movies listing. There it was. The movie that I had purchased via my TV. I clicked play and the movie immediately started to play on my MacBook Pro and the sound started blaring out of my Bose Companion 5 speakers. Awesome! I went back to the iTunes store and purchased “Taken” in High Definition to watch that evening, and it immediately started downloading and I went back to my inbox.

That evening as I sat down in front of the TV I didn’t even bother to check what was on Sky. I switched to the Apple TV and selected My Movies. There it was, just sitting there waiting for me.

Since then I have purchased a couple more titles and the Skins TV Series as I had watched the first two episodes but it’s on to late for a school night.

All in all I have really started to appreciate my Apple TV but I would warn others that if you have a slow Internet connection your experience may not be as smooth. I did make the mistake on one occasion of trying to download a movie while my off site backup was running and it was painful. Why I had my backup’s starting at 6pm however is a different story and something I have since resolved.

I would like to see the next version of the Apple TV include PVR functionality, but am not sure it that is a realistic expectation given the iTunes store model, but you can but hope. I can also see myself needing to invest in more external storage if I continue down this path as the movie titles aren’t exactly small, and am going to have to find an unlimited offsite backup plan that doesn’t involve remortgaging the house to fund, as backing up to external disks is not totally bullet proof and I don’t really want to turn the house into a mini data-center.

So erm well if you know me you know I don’t go in for all this motivational fluffy self help stuff and if I had known what this was I would never have added it to my library. But I didn’t and I did. So I listened to it.

The book follows the enlightenment of a fat overpaid and burnt out lawyer who gives it all up and journey’s to India and Kashmir where he meets a group of monks who teach him how to get the most from life on the condition that he returns to the US and teaches others. He does this by teaching his former assistant and friend.

Now I’ll say it again, I don’t buy into this stuff and found it tiresome, but listened to the whole thing regardless. It did make me think about my own life however and question if I am really getting what I really desire from it. I don’t think I will be using any of the methods described but will be looking how I can get a better work / life balance.

Overall I wouldn”t recommend this one unless you are into the whole “heal thy self” mumbo jumbo. It”s not particularly long which from my point of view is a good thing.

So I have been a little slack with my reading of late but last weekend I decided that I really need to catch up. I had been following the anticipated release to the new Watchmen movie and noted a review that stated that the ending had been changed from the original and decided that I needed to read the original so I could compare when I did get around to watching the movie.

Well, it wasn’t something that I would normally pick up (graphic novel), but I was quite surprised to find I actually enjoyed it. The artwork is very good and the story line given when the book was actually written is interesting as it really does show the paranoia of the time (cold war).

The book follows a group of human vigilantes that have advanced skills and knowledge be it through training, natural gifts, or workplace accidents that dedicate themselves to ridding the world [Well mainly the US] of the growing criminal element only to find themselves outlawed by the government and disbanded.

I won’t ruin the story line but somebody decides that they are in the way and resolves to remove them totally from the scene and the story follows this through to, what I think at least, is an ending that is needed in more of todays books and movies.

The underlying politics of the era and the general social issues of the time are evident and add to the general tension of the story line.

The movies reviews haven’t been great but I think I will wait until it is available on DVD, or better still from iTunes and will watch it just to see how true to the original book it is.