Modem madness

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,

Well, the 2wire modem experiment is officially over. I broke down and ordered a D-Link combo router/modem/WAP today. I rely heavily enough on my Internet connection to justify having something with a warranty and at the beginning of his lifecycle.After a bad experience with a D-Link switch a few years ago I would have preferred a Netgear unit, but the Netgear equivalent is getting hard to find. There’s a draft-N version of the Netgear out there, but I don’t need that capability, and prefer to buy mature technology anyway.

So we’ll see how the D-Link goes. I’ll post a full review after a few days with it. Decent reviews of that kind of equipment are very hard to come by.

Boundaries

Dave Farquhar Personal

So an ex-girlfriend finds you on Facebook and contacts you out of the blue 12 years after the fact. What do you do?

1. Jump up and down like a giddy schoolgirl because someone’s interested enough to find you after all that time?

2. Passive-aggressively sit on the message?

3. Tell her exactly what you never had the chance to tell her?

Although option 2 crossed my mind, I thought it best to handle it a little bit differently.

My wife wasn’t home at the time, so I actually had a few minutes to think about it, which is probably good. The answer really was pretty easy.

I didn’t even open the message. When she got home, and after our son went to sleep, I told her, and I asked her to read the message and tell me what she wanted me to do with it.

Just this past Sunday, our pastor said in his sermon that one thing destroys marriages the fastest: secrets. To me, this seemed like a classic example of something (most likely) completely innocent that could very easily turn into something out of control under the wrong circumstances.

While my option certainly could be construed as overkill, it eliminates all possibility of misunderstanding. And it sends a very clear message that she’s more important than the ex.

Nothing in the message made her feel uncomfortable or threatened. Curious certainly, but not threatened. She spent some time poking around the ex’s Facebook profile and asking questions. And that was fine. It’s better for her to know than to wonder.

Maybe I handed over more control than some people would be comfortable handing over. But since this was completely innocent, what was there to be afraid of? I trust my wife, and this tells her that in a big way.

An hour or two later, I wrote a reply. I was cordial. Cordial is the appropriate tone. I’m not interested in being best friends. And being hurtful 12 years after the fact accomplishes nothing. Well, nothing worthwhile anyway.

And I was brief. This is also appropriate. Minutes after I saw the message, I talked to one of my best friends for the first time in months, and we talked for about 15 minutes. If that’s all I have right now for the guy who was the best man at my wedding, then I shouldn’t have more than that for someone who broke my heart 12 years ago and–I’ll say it–wasn’t very nice about it.

All relationships are different, but I can’t think of any good reason for two people, both married to someone else, to be writing long epistles to each other 12 years after the fact. That only invites the mind to go all sorts of places it shouldn’t go. "Your Wildest Dreams" by The Moody Blues doesn’t need to be cuing up in your head, and neither does anything by Barry Manilow.

I asked my wife to read my reply before I sent it. It’s all about checks and balances. She knows what’s going on. I was going to say it also prevents me from saying things I shouldn’t say, but self-restraint in e-mail is a requirement for my job and I’ve had lots of practice. But everyone is different.

"So are you going to friend her?" my wife asked. I said I didn’t know.

That, too, is a situation where everyone is different. If the parting wasn’t especially bitter and two people can both gain something by corresponding occasionally, why not? On the other extreme, if the sight of a person’s name triggers fight-or-flight mode, then it’s obviously not a good idea.

If the sight of a person’s name does cause you to go into fight or flight mode, I will say, speaking as someone who’s been there, that you need to deal with that issue. I don’t say that flippantly; I spent a lot of time and money working through it myself. It’s not easy but it’s necessary.

Ultimately the most important thing to do when a situation like this crops up is to keep priorities straight. There’s no reason to say, write, or do anything on account of 12 years ago that might mess up today or tomorrow.

Depending on what you make of it, this situation can sow seeds of trust or seeds of doubt. Personally, I’d rather have trust.

The 2wire 1701HG and its dodgy power supply

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

I picked up a 2wire 1701HG DSL modem/router/WAP this weekend cheap. The power supply (or AC adapter) was missing. Google indicates the factory power supply is really dodgy. A replacement 2wire 1701HG power supply costs anywhere from $13 to $25.

But it turns out the Sony PSP’s AC adapter works fine with the 2wire. Sony’s power supply is common and dirt cheap. Normally I prefer to get higher amperage when buying replacement power supplies, but the connector is a little weird. The PSP box is readily available, so I’ll go with that, at least for a while.

Now I just have to configure the 2wire in such a way that I don’t have to redesign my whole home network… That’s a project for another day. The main thing is getting a quality replacement 2wire 1701HG power supply, so the unit itself will be reliable.

Improving DSL speed

Dave Farquhar General , , , , , ,

I found some DSL speed tips. They work. If you have DSL, you should read them and do the same.I went from speeds all over the map to a fairly consistent 600 kbps just running a new CAT5 line for DSL. Replacing the cheap, flat, old-fashioned phone cord running from my modem to the phone jack and the other cheapie in my patch panel with UTP phone cords boosted me another 30-50 kbps. That extra boost varies, but it’s something, and I’m glad to be consistently above 600 kbps now.

Finding UTP phone cords is a challenge. Supposedly Lowe’s has them but I can’t verify that. I had one that I wasn’t using for some insane reason. I found another one at a garage sale, obviously from a DSL installation kit. I don’t remember what I paid for it, only that it was a lot less than it’s worth to me. Digging through boxes of random cables at garage sales can pay dividends.

The easiest way to get them is probably to make your own from scrap lengths of CAT5/5e/6 cable. Just crimp RJ11 modular plugs onto the ends instead of RJ45. Radio Shack sells a package of 10 plugs for $6. Overpriced, but convenient. There’s always a Radio Shack nearby.

Belkin sells a special shielded twisted pair modem cable as an “Internet cable,” for around $20. I’m sure it’s a very good cable, but it’s not worth 20 bucks.

When looking at a store, as a general rule, flat cables are always bad, but a round cable stands a chance of being good.

If you have a fairly new house, chances are your phone wiring is pretty good, in which case the most important thing is getting a good phone cord. If you have a house built in the ’60s like me, with phone wire run after the fact by a weekend handyman who either didn’t know or didn’t care how to avoid interference on the wires, that’s another story. If there’s 30 feet of bad wire between the telco and the modem, the quality of that last 6 feet of wire doesn’t make much difference.

While you’re at it, you might as well replace all your phone cords with these higher-quality models. Your voice calls will be clearer, and it eliminates the possibility of those cables introducing interference into the line. That interference shouldn’t reach the modem, but “shouldn’t” is no guarantee.

New wiring

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

Gatermann and I spent most of the day pulling CAT5e through the house. It’s long overdue. The guy who wired the phones in the house broke every single rule I could find about running voice/data cable, and it wasn’t good stuff to begin with. Plus, I was really tired of the lack of reliability of 802.11g in this house. Why I can see all of my neighbors’ networks but not my own is beyond me.Running a single CAT5e line from where the phone network comes in over to the center of the house made a huge difference. The phones sound clearer, the DSL is much faster (consistently 630K now–it used to dip to 300K frequently) and running lines is much easier when you’re away from the circuit breaker box and not surrounded by power cables everywhere.

At present I only have two rooms networked, but it’ll be easy enough to add to that as needed now.

Wireless is convenient, but 100-meg is very nice. It’s reliable and fast. Gigabit is even nicer. Now it would actually be practical to upgrade to gigabit. At gigabit, network resources run nearly as fast as local ones.

I wish I’d done this years ago.

Why piracy matters

Dave Farquhar Copyright, Games, Music, Retro Computing , , , , , , ,

Rob O’Hara offers an interesting perspective on piracy.

I agree with him. 20 years ago, copyrighted material offered presence. It was something special.

Computer software was mostly sold in specialty stores. And if you wanted something, the store might or might not have it. There was a bit of a hunt involved. I still have fond memories of going to Dolgin’s, Babbage’s, and other long-gone stores to buy Commodore software. Sure, I pirated some stuff (who didn’t?) but mostly confined myself to pirating out-of-print stuff that you couldn’t otherwise get.

Believe it or not, I took pride in having a shelf of paid-for software.

Music was the same way. Back then, the average record store had a comparable selection to your local Target. If you decided you liked Joy Division or Sisters of Mercy, you had a long road ahead of you to collect all their stuff. Acquiring material that was far off the Top 40 path took time and effort, not just money.

Today it doesn’t matter what you want, you can probably find it in 30 minutes online. Legally, or, in most cases, illegally. Like a friend asked me about 10 years ago when broadband connections became attainable and this stuff started to change, “How can data be rare?”

The solution some people give is touring. That works for musicians, but not so well for everyone else. Book signings aren’t very profitable for most authors. There’s no close equivalent at all for software. Charging for service works for application software, but not at all for games.

The solution is to find other ways to make a living.

The loss? Culture, frankly. Music gets reduced to the lowest common denominator. Record labels can’t (or won’t) take a chance on promising young bands whose first few records don’t sell. Had U2 come on the scene in 1999 instead of 1979, it never would have made it. The Joshua Tree was a huge seller, but who’s ever heard of Boy and October? By today’s standards for first and second albums, they were flops.

The result is we see a lot more acts like Justin Timberlake, who can make a lot of money fast. If they fade from view, it doesn’t matter, because the record companies can always manufacture a replacement. Which leaves little reason to take a chance on someone who does things differently and takes a few years to really burst onto the scene. The environment doesn’t really favor the development of someone like Talking Heads, the Moody Blues, or much of anything else that deviates from the norm today. Or U2, for that matter, who may sound mainstream today, but they sure didn’t in 1980.

I see other arenas suffering too. Name me an innovative video game. There’s been very little innovation since Wolfenstein 3D came into being in 1992. Virtually everything since is just a variation on that same theme: Shoot everything that moves in a 3D environment. Yawn. That wasn’t even very innovative–it’s just that it happened in 3D. There were plenty of shoot-everything-that-moves games out there in the mid/late 1980s for the Nintendo NES. Wolfenstein itself was a remake of a 2D shooter from the early 80s for 8-bit computers called Castle Wolfenstein.

Creative people who want to have a house and a car and a few things to put in it find other ways to make a living. Like writing or doing graphic design for Pizza Today or another trade magazine. It’s steady work. It’s not glamorous and won’t make you famous, but it pays the bills. And it’s niche enough that it’s unlikely to be pirated.

Someone may find a way to make things work in this new reality. Odds are it won’t be someone in Washington. And it probably won’t happen tomorrow. Which is a shame.

A couple of links, one with a quote from Yours Truly

Dave Farquhar General

Speed traps. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch couldn’t find anyone willing to speak out about them, for fear of becoming a target. Until my phone rang.

The Slackers were right. I pretty much agree with this editorial. I did things a bit differently. But I think the GenX way is more sustainable.On the speed traps story: Minor infractions, like tail lights, speeding by 6 MPH, and illegal window tint catch criminals. So I see that. But Bella Villa and St. George take it too far. I’m pretty sure nobody’s going to rob a bank and then drive through either of those towns.

To me, there are much bigger problems than minor traffic infringements. I see kids riding mini-motorcycles at high speeds on the street all the time. They don’t follow traffic laws, they don’t have licenses, and they’re a danger to everyone: pedestrians, other vehicles, and themselves. Nobody ever seems to bother them, though.

Meanwhile, when you’re certain you’re going to get pulled over for something, you become too self-conscious and make mistakes. It makes you a worse driver. Everyone loses, except for the dinky speed-trap town’s bank account balance.

On GenX: I didn’t buy the total nomad philosophy. I got married, but late. I bought a house, but one I could afford. I realized early enough that I was a mercenary in every potential employer’s eyes. I did buy a small car and continue to drive it. I buy lots of used stuff. I lived sustainably, while putting down shallow roots and making changes that allowed me to do that. And I paid for that car and that house early. Real early.

And I did it while voting Republican, although since I don’t like neoconservative philosophy that relationship is strained. I want the government to live sensibly like I do.