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!

So following on from last weeks Duty Manager shift I had this Friday off so a nice short week. Of course that is a good thing but not without its own problems, as I still have the same amount of work to get through. The evenings therefore were pretty much a write-off as I just didn’t have the energy or the inclination to do anything more then eat and vegetate in front of the TV. The thought of a long weekend however kept me going.

Thursday night I met up with Chris Scott, and Leon, part of the crowd I went to Mumbia and Goa with. We had a few beers at the Globe on London Wall. We chatted about the Mumbia and Goa trip, and the time Chris and I had spent in India. We talked about there plans to climb Kilimanjaro this year, only teasing Leon a little about some of the nasty things that could happen. The guy’s tried to persuade me to join them, but I managed to change the subject (Lucky Escape).

Friday, after a little lay in, I got on with tidying the house up a little and caught up with some paper work. I finished running the new Cat 6 cables in the study to the new Gigabit switch and finished tidying up some of the cabling, although I am still not 100% happy and will need to do this again once I have picked up some cable ties.

Saturday I had arranged to meet up with Dave Birkett for a few beers so walked into town. I have been looking for way’s to hook up with Sony SR7E HandyCam to use as a web cam with my iMac so headed into the iStore and the Sony shop to see how I could do it. The guy’s in the iStore seemed to think it could be done via a simply USB connection but didn’t know what cable I would need so I checked with the guy’s in the Sony store. They explained that the camera couldn’t be used in that way as it didn’t support it, but did say it would be possible with some form of external device that allowed you to take the feed straight off the sensor and encode it in real time. So back to the drawing board on that one. Feeling dejected I set off to meet Dave and lets just say several hours later, and a lot worse for wear I made it home.

Today is another house catch up day with a bit of relaxing mixed in before work tomorrow. Next week however I really have got to start on sorting some of the bigger jobs out at home.

Okay so since coming back I have been working on tidying up my home network setup, and for the main part I have it all sorted, but I have one annoying problem that I just don’t seem to be able to resolve, and that’s my WiFi signal.

Now I have a Netgear DG834GT wireless router and previously had two Netgear WG602v3′s setup using WDS. One was wired directly into the DG834GT and the other was installed discreetly in my lounge. With these setup I had 100% coverage all over the house. The problem was the WG602 only supports WEP and apart from the fact that WEP is easily broken, giving people the key to log on is a nightmare.

So while I was in India (Well going through duty free to be precise) I picked up an Apple Airport Extreme, an Apple Airport Express, and an Apple TimeCapsule. These worked wonderfully and provided me with a complete 802.11n network throughout my apartment, and better still allowed my to use WPA2 encryption.

Returning to the UK I thought I would recreate the network I had running in India and that’s where my woes started. I have tried locating each of the devices in different rooms but I don’t seem to be able to get the 100% coverage I need. The main problem is in my lounge where I tend to spend most of my time with my MacBook Air. The really annoying part is that it works pretty much everywhere in the lounge apart from the seat I sit in, where it moves between 100% coverage and 0%. Now I could change my seat, but I simply refuse to do that. I am loathed to spend any more money, but have the feeling that I may need another Airport Express just to provide the coverage I need. Anyone have any other idea’s?