A serious case of one-downmanship

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Windows , , ,

While researching nLite (I’m thinking about rebuilding a PC), I found a page about two Germans exploring the true minimum system requirements of Windows XP.

I won’t spoil the ending, but one of them managed to accidentally discover the world’s slowest Pentium.I used to enjoy that kind of tinkering but really don’t have time for it anymore, especially when you’re talking boot times of 30 minutes.

At any rate, it was very interesting to see what these two tinkerers could do, even if I’m not too keen on running XP on anything less than about 1.5 GHz these days. I run a Pentium D system at work, which probably runs around 2.6 GHz, and it’s a slug. But that’s probably mostly because they insist on foisting Office 2007 on us.

But sometimes that work PC feels like one of the PCs on that web site must.

Review: D-Link DSL-2640B

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Servers and Networking , , , , ,

I’ve had DSL for right around 10 years. I would have ordered it sooner, except it wasn’t available in my area any earlier than that.

Over the years I’ve owned several modems. I started out with an Alcatel, then after I moved a mile down the street I owned a couple of different Speedstream modems. Each would drop connections every so often, and each had a different (and undocumented, of course) ritual to get it back online.

The highest praise I can give to the D-Link DSL-2640B is that I haven’t discovered such a ritual yet. If the phone line and electricity are working, it finds a way to stay online.

There’s nothing especially flashy about the 2640B. It’s an unassuming black and silver box, similar in styling to modern PCs, with jacks in the back. It’s a combination modem, gateway, and switch in one package, so in my case, it replaced two boxes–my Speedstream modem, and my Linksys WRT54G. Many ISPs have been distributing all-in-one units made by companies like 2wire in recent years; the D-Link is similar to those, but a bit smaller than many of them.

Setup is trivial for someone who’s set up devices like my old Linksys. Those who’ve never done such a thing may need assistance. I can’t vouch for the quality of D-Link’s customer service because I didn’t need it. Before I plugged the unit into my phone line, I plugged a laptop into the D-Link, brought the two units over to my desktop PC where I brought up my Linksys configuration, and I checked all my settings against the Linksys. About 10 minutes later, I plugged the D-Link into my phone line, it connected to my ISP, and it’s been online ever since.

The nicest feature is its ADSL information screen. It tells me the modem speed (downstream and upstream), number of errors, and other diagnostic information. I’ve seen my speed range from 1.5 megabit to as low as 256K (upstream stays steady at 384K), but it’s never dropped. I’ll take speed fluctuations over dropped connections any day. If the quality of my phone line deteriorates any further (or maybe I should say, “when”)–I’ll be armed with some good information. Southwestern Bell/SBC/AT&T have always been able to dismiss my complaints in the past. I imagine that’ll be harder to do when I can tell them exactly how many tens of millions of downstream errors I have, versus 96 upstream errors.

Despite those connections, the modem keeps on trucking. I’m impressed.

My sole complaint is that the DynDNS client doesn’t pass my domain name to my internal network. I had to put an entry for my DynDNS name into my hosts file. This won’t be an issue for anyone who isn’t running their own web server, but it’s a little aggravating for those who do. Less aggravating than a dropped connection though.

So if you need a new DSL modem for whatever reason, I recommend the D-Link DSL-2640B. It isn’t flashy, but it works and keeps working.

Update 10 October 2010: I’ve been using this unit for about 15 months, and it’s still going strong. So I can recommend it even more strongly than when I wrote this. It’s out of warranty now, and I didn’t even notice.

Firefox vs. Chrome

Dave Farquhar Software , ,

I used Google Chrome this week while I waited for Firefox 3.5.1 to come out. I like both browsers but still prefer Firefox by a slight margin. But Chrome is nice to have for those times when Firefox has unpatched vulnerabilities.Popups: Chrome wins hands down. Firefox doesn’t block all popups, but in a week of using Chrome, I had zero popups. None. That was nice.

Searching: Firefox wins. Most people don’t mind hitting ctrl-f to search, but I’ve grown used to Firefox letting me search by hitting the / key. It’s faster and easier and now that I have the feature I hate not having it.

Blinky crap: Firefox wins. I can disable animated GIFs in Firefox and I can use Flashblock. Maybe I can get Chrome to disable animation too, but I know where to look in Firefox. Firefox will stay near and dear to me as long as it lets me block all that blinky crap.

Speed: Chrome runs Google Maps and the new Yahoo mail faster and on a marginal PC it scrolls text a bit better. But I think Firefox finds sites faster. Both are much faster than IE though, and after suffering through 8 hours of IE at work every day, either one is heavenly.

Search bar: If all you do is search Google, Chrome is better. I routinely search Amazon and eBay, a lot. Chrome’s way of doing it is clumsier than Firefox even though it uses less screen space.

Frankly I like both browsers but I’m glad to have Firefox back. I may find myself alternating between the two based on whatever I happen to be doing.

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.