Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Gigabit Giggity Goo

I used to think my home Megabit ethernet was fine. I was able to send files from computer to computer ranging anywhere from 4 to 11 Megabits per second. That is, until I started a new IT job a few months back. I saw the difference. I liked it.

You have to be pretty serious about networking before even thinking about Gigabit in the home. Gigabit offers up to 1000Mbps bandwidth. Here are a few numbers to put things in perspective:

Wired Megabit (eg connecting a desktop to a router): 100Mbps
Wireless G (eg older laptop to a wireless router): 54Mbps
Wireless N (eg newer laptop to a wireless router): 300Mbps

DSL Broadband: Up to* 24Mbps
Fibre Optic: Up to 50Mbps

*Up to: most home users are only able to get up to 8Mbps (if that) on DSL thanks to BT's old copper cabling...
Also, note that these figures are all theoretical. I've yet to see a Wireless N device communicate at 300Mbps (37.5 Megabytes per second).

Looking at these figures, Megabit seems perfectly fine - internet speeds are far less, so Megabit is unlikely to ever be a bottleneck in the home... or is it?

If you're like me, and you have a lot of network devices, you've probably seen a little bit of strain on the network. If you have a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device you use for backups, you'll especially know what I'm talking about.

Even though Megabit routers are much faster than the average internet connection, start passing a lot of internal data through it (think transferring data from one PC to another), and even small webpages will start to have loading problems.

The cure? A faster switch. Now, this isn't to say that a Gigabit (or faster) switch won't have the same problems - but it will deal with it a lot better.

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I started by replacing the 4-port wireless Megabit modem/router (with multiple PCs connected to it) with a much simpler device - one DSL input, and one ethernet output.

I then connected this ethernet output into a 5-port Gigabit switch, which feeds the same multiple PCs as the old 4-port router did:



I then have a cable running up to my attic. I used to have a 16-port Megabit switch, but I replaced this with 2 Gigabit switches. I use the first one for high-priority devices (my PCs, NAS, Media Center PC etc), and then connected the other switch to it for use with print servers, non-priority PCs etc:



I have also connected a couple of Wireless-N routers (one is viewable, the other runs to another part of the house).

The final step is to then make sure that I've got my PCs equipped to make use of the Gigabit. In my new PCs, Gigabit comes as standard, but I had to purchase a couple of Gigabit cards for the older PCs in the house. Transfer Speeds went up from around 8Megabytes to around 100Megabytes per second (125MBps is the theoretical max).


To really finish it all off, I purchased a new NAS - a QNAP TS-210, with a 4TB capacity. I run 2 x 2TB drives in RAID1. No doubt there will be another post once I've become more familiar with it.

This lovely device is already set up to backup my entire family's documents/pictures/videos/outlook emails etc on a nightly basis (controlled client-side by QNAP's software).

Til next time.
Digiman Out.

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

My Object of Desire

Apart from my wonderful and beautiful girlfriend (and I'm not just saying this because I have to), my new HTC is my object of Desire. I'm not going to talk about the specs because you can read them on any website reviewing it, but I want to say a few things about it.

After spending about half an hour setting up the phone and customising it (which is a fantastic feature in itself), I was ready to explore.

The things I like enough to write about

1) Typing correction: You don't have to hit every key exactly. In fact, you can type "kcxrkkrny" and it will still come up with the word "excellent". And that word describes this function.

2) Flash Support: I don't know what big Steve over at Apple has against Adobe, and why he chooses to deprive users of his gadgets of it. The Flash support on this phone is great.

3)Android Marketplace: This is my first Android, so I didn't know what to expect when it came to apps - I was pleasantly surprised! Apps I've downloaded include a Wifi Analyser, a 3G "watchdog", barcode scanners, myPlayer for BBC iPlayer, and Office applications, to name a few. Really, really handy stuff. It may not have as many apps as the Apple App Store, but it's enough to keep most people happy.

4) Facebook Integration: Once signed into Facebook, I am able to "link" facebook accounts to the names I already have on my phonebook. It automatically puts their display pic as caller ID, and imports their info such as birthday, emails, address, etc. Fantastic. I'm also able to see phone numbers for all my friends on FB who I don't have stored on my phone!

5) Emails: I know lots of phones have email support, but I just think they do it really well on this device. I've added three so far, all of which can be separately configured. My hotmail account gets loads per day, so I can set it to delete them automatically after 3 days. My other email account gets less, and emails are more important, so they stay on the phone for 7 days. My laptop at home then gets them permanently.

6) Wifi and 3G switching: I like Wifi as default, and it's even better that it's lighter on the battery than 3G is. Unlike my old Samsung Jet, which I had to switch to 3G manually (arg!), the Desire does it by itself.

7) Office Applications: It comes with QuickOffice, which allows you to view documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, and PDFs. Really, really handy for reading attachments that come through email. There is a paid for app, called Documents to Go, which allows you to create or edit things too - I'm seriously looking into getting that soon.

8) Speed: The processor is 1Ghz, and that's fast. The browser is fast too, because it's by Google. The OS is clean, and multitasking capable. There is lots of RAM too (576MB). This all combines to make a crazy fast and responsive phone.

9) Location for weather: You can manually set this too, but I think it's amazing. It gets your location using cell triangulation, and gives you the current temperature and weather for wherever you are. It also gives you a 4 day forcast.



The Things I Don't Like

1) Battery Life: When you first get the phone, you will be disappointed. It won't seem to last you through the day. But once you stop flicking through it every 2 minutes you'll start to find it will last you a lot longer. In fact, I very recently got 2 days out of it. However, I did buy a charging dock with a spare 1600 mAh battery, which helps if I'm going to be away from electricity for a while...

2) HTC have their own GUI, called Sense UI. Because of this, Desire users have to wait about 6 months after Google release updates for the Android OS as HTC need to run tests to make sure everything is compatible. You CAN "root" the phone and install the 2.2 and future updates yourself, but meh - I can wait!

If you're on the fence about whether to get a Desire or an iPhone - just follow your heart's Desire.

Digiman out