Mark Gilbert’s Blog

Today Apple released it’s first coloured iPod Shuffle. They will come in pink, green, blue, silver and orange. Other specifications remain unchanged though. Availability is immediate and can be bought through Apple’s retail stores and online. Pictures are up at AppleInsider.

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My Kcorp KLG-575 router recently started having some problems. Wireless dropouts were starting to become common. It needed power cycling more and more often. So I needed a replacement. I spent a long time looking at routers. I very seriously considered getting a Netgear KWGR614. I liked the idea that it was an open source router and I like the Netgear web interfaces.

However these routers are not cheap and thought that for nowt I could just whip out my old Linksys WRT54G routers. The reason I bought the Kcorp in the first place is that the WRT54G routers needed continuous power cycling to keep working. Now I thought they were slowly giving up the ghost.

So off I go, my old black and blue boxes out, all filled with childlike nerd excitement. I fired up one of them and wondered if it would still work. They did, all the required lights came on and so I tried to load up the web interface. To my delight the web interface from the old firmware I had on the router loaded up. It was the Sveasoft Alchemy firmware, not the stock Linksys firmware, but this was still working. I immediately thought that I should get a new version of the firmware but knowing the problems associated with the Sveasoft Alchemy firmware I decided to go for the one other WRT54G firmware I had experience with, DD-WRT. I downloaded the latest version, currently standing at v23 SP2, flashed this firmware to the router and off I went. I was immediately surprised by the quality of the firmware. For an open source handfull of developers outfit it was very fully featured and well written. It offers many features such as QoS, SSH access and so many other things I will simply point you to their wiki. I really do love this firmware it is simply fantastic, but still the problem with needed power cycling continued. That was until I stumbled accross this page at the uTorrent site. They suggested, and it all does sound perfectly reasonable, that the cause of the problem stems from the router tracking old connections for five days. Now with the ammount of connections a P2P network generates this can easily become a problem. So, the solution, simply increase the number of ports allowed to be open and massivly decrease the time connections are tarcked for. On applying these changes and then rebooting the router, as if by magic the power cycling problem had gone away.

So next port of call was to set up the second router and hopefuly use it as a WDS. I followed the instructions provided on the DD-WRT Wiki. This was a straight forward task and very soon I could connect to the WDS client router and access the Internet. So I moved the client router to it’s final location and tried again. It still worked, an I can attest to the range since you can now access the net in my kitchen, which was just a pipe dream before.

So the moral of this story is, if there even is a moral, is that new firmware can fix a lot of problems, and sometimes tweaking settings can be as effective as replacing a product you think might be faulty.

Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed reading this, someone commented today that I havn’t done many home-grown personal posts of late, so in one night I’ve fired two off.

Cheers

Really I should qualify that title, wireless networks in the hands of people who have basic understanding of networking are the bain of my existance. As regulars or people who know me personally will know, I work in computer retail as a technician. On any given day roughly 38% of all people who come to me for whatever reason have some issue with wireless networking kit.

I think it might be amusing to list some of the problems I am presented with, so here I go;

A customer may come having bought a wireless router, they went home and tried to set the thing up. They had problems and so they were here talking to me. First question I ask is hav they followed the setup instructions that came with the router, to which the customer replies “no, I thought I just had to plug it in”. It’s no surprise I find myself forever frustrated by wireless networks. People think you can just plug them in, with no other setup required. That is partly the responsibility of the industry, wireless kit is marketed as simple to use, which with a little basic knowledge it is, but without that basic knowledge it might as well be rocket science. Linksys market their routers as having “one touch setup” buttons. Now this does work in the same way that it only takes one press of a button to launch a rocket to the Moon, but without all the correct work beforehand you will crash and burn, same deal with wireless routers.

Next off a customer may come in with a similar problem, they have bought a router and simply cannot get their machine to connect to it. Normally this can be resolved in three questions or less. Question one, is the PC or laptop wireless enabled. If this question draws blank looks or the customer has to ask what I mean then problem solved. If they answer yes then next ask, have you turned the wireless on on the router. Again if this draws blank looks or questions of how you do this or why you need to do it then problem solved. Third and final question would have to be how far away are you from the router. Now this is a vey relavent question since some people beieve that routers work like mobile phones, you can set a router up in your house and then anywhere in the world access your Internet connection.
If the answer to all these questions is good then you can move onto checking to see if the router is actually faulty, slim chance though it is. If you can connect to the router using the customers hardware then a whole new line of inquiry opens up. It is at this point we move onto the joys of checking if they bought a router or an ADSL router. This throws most people. One is clearly marked ADSL router and the other clearly marked simply router, but in a customers mind this makes no difference, after all it’s “computer language” not English. So they buy the cheapest, which is always the router and then we find out they have ADSL.

I should probably mention at this point that as a company we do offer an in home network install. It is always worthwhile, I have never heard of anyone being dissatisfied with the service, but 99% of people balk at the cost. It does cost almost as much as the hardware but then this is the case with a lot of things. When you have a car serviced, the cost of labour most often comes to more than the parts. The cost of four spark plugs, some oil and maybe a filter isn’t a great deal, but labour to fit these parts normally comes to more than the cost of those parts. No one queries this when it comes to a car, but for some reason when its networking kit or a computer in general labour costs are somehow offensive to a customer.

Next problem is people who got slightly further up the evolutionary chain and bought a router knowing they already have a modem sent to them by their ISP. Obviously modems sent by most ADSL ISP’s are USB based and so will simply not work with routers since they require an ethernet modem not a USB modem. USB modems are of course the devils spawn anyway but that’s a topic for another post.

Next problem, and another one created really buy the industry is incompatibility between different manufacturers proprietry wireless implementations. All the major router manufacturers produce high speed wireless kit, non of which are compatible with each other. So plastering “125Mb” or “MIMO” accross the front of your networking kit with no mention of these incompatibilities is just great. People buy this kit with the plan of it working with a Centrino based laptop, for example, then they will get no benefit from these features.

I really dont know if there is a solution to this problem. Uneducated people will always but wireless kit, you cannot educate everyone or force knowledge on people before they buy the kit. Manufacturers could help things buy not advertising products based on features that only work with the same manufacturers products, but that wont happen either. There is surely good money to be made by misinforming the public at large. My personal view is that network installs should be compulsary with all network kit. Again this could never happen, people wouldn’t stand for it. Of course I could enforce it personally, we can refuse sale to anyone for any reason, but management would never allow it. The only conclusion I can draw is that there is simply nothing I can do about this. I will forever in this job be continuously be plagued be wireless network problems where peope have bought the wrong kit, or simply dont have a clue how to get the stuff setup. Obviously we are under no obligation to return working network kit because a customer doesn’t know how to set it up. However customers have a terrible habit of feeling somehow aggrieved if we dont return network kit that isn’t faulty because they’re unable to get it working, and so management cave in and return it anyway.

Ho Hum

To go back to a very old story, a gent over at the Hermit’s Cave believes Intel will announce another wave of redundancies this week. As many as 1,000 may go.

Cheers

On Tuesday Apple announced the iPhone. On Wednesday they’re being sued by Cisco Systems over the iPhone trademark. Straight after the launch Cisco said it would most likely settle over the iPhone trademark, which it acquired in 2000 when they bought Infogear technology. However Apple said “We think Cisco’s trademark lawsuit is silly” and they were confident they would prevail if the dispute ever went to court.

Here’s hoping thet it gets sorted,the last thing Apple needs for it’s latest device is a long drawn out trademark dispute. They have already got a huge level of brand awareness in the iPhone name, and to have to change at this late stage in the product develoment cycle could be problematic.

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No, not that sort of porn you dirty monkeys, tech hardware porn. TUAW have some great iPhone porn shots.

iPhone Gallery

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The iPhone is finally here. I was literally figuratively over the announcement, even though I was just reading the text version over at MacNN. This really does look tasty. I mean come on, one button on the front of the phone, with the rest being a huge touch screen. It runs OS X for Christs sake. Feature summary as follows;

3.5″ screen at 160PPI resolution
One “Home” button
11.6mm thin
2MP Camera
Built-in Orientation Sensor
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
iPod connector
Syncs with iTunes
Conference Calling
Runs OS X, including Power Management, security, and networking
Dashboard style interface

If that wasn’t enough the phone has a slide mechanism with a difference, on the iPhone you slide your finger across the screen to unlock the device. Apple have also added a nice new feature called visual voicemail. If I have five voicemails on my current Nokia 6280, I have to listen to each one in turn, then remove it or listen all the way through before I can move on to the next, quite a pain. However with the iPhone you can pick visually which voicemails to listen to.

The phone has full Internet access on it, with a full version of Safari and full support for POP3 or IMAP e-mail services. With full Google Maps integration too the iPhone really is a smart device. When in range of an access point the iPhone simply uses it’s built in Wi-Fi to accessthe net and when out and about, does it over a cell network. Steve also promised 5 hours talk time and 16 hours msuic playback time from the device.

Prices are $499 for the 4Gb version and $599 for the 8Gb version, although I’m not sure how this will translate over in the UK. The one thing that did concern me was the lack of information on who the network carriers will be in Europe. Cingular are providing network coverage in the US, but there was no mention of UK carriers.

Anyway if you’re not totally sold already, have a look at Apple iPhone Page. Drool over the pictures and silly silly features, I know I did.

Cheers

Apple today at MacWorld 2007 finally unveiled it’s long awaited iTV device, albeit under a new name. The Apple TV is on sale now and has some nice features. These features include;

40GB drive to store streamed content and recent films
HDMI Port
720p Video Support
802.11b/g/n Compatible
Apple Remote Support

The whole setup looks pretty sweet. It will allow you to stream content such as music or films from you Mac to your TV wirelessly. As with most Apple network setups it should be a doddle to get going. I should add at this point that I hate wireless networks, or more specifically wireless networks belonging to clueless people, they are the bain of my working life, bu tthat’s for another post.

The Apple TV starts shipping in Febuary but is available to order today for £199 from the Apple store. (Donations of Apple products are always welcome here)

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Intel today launched their second quad core part, with the first being the Core 2 Quad Q6700. The newly released Core 2 Quad Q6600 runs at 2.4GHz and comes with a whopping 8Mb cache. The only difference vetween this chip and the Q6700 is the clock speed, with the latter running at 2.6GHz. The Q6600 will also be the first quad core chip marketed at people other than enthusiasts and server nerds. With a retail price of $851 for the Q6600, it’s still beyond the reach of most people, especially when you consider the E6600 Core 2 Duo is available for $316 and runs at the same clock speed.

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Hon Hai Industries or Foxcon as they are more commonly known are now rumored to have received the order to build Apple’s upcoming iPhone. Foxcon have according to Forbes recieved an order for 12 million, yes 12,000,000 handsets to ship in the first half of next year.

This really is starting to feel less like a rumour and more and more like an real upcoming product. Roll on MacWorld 2007

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I really found this hillarious. Microsoft have rushed so much to get both the Zune and Vista out of the door that the two of them are incompatible.

As the screenshot above shows the two simply will not work together.

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I found this video courtesy of TUAW. CNN had someone from the NYT in to demo Microsoft’s new Zune player, which was going well until the Anchor decides to start asking some questions.

It really is worth a watch. When the female anchor pulls out a 2nd Gen Shuffle it really starts to go downhill, until the male anchor asks why they dont get some decent design people to make the Zune look better.

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Intel have lined up a collection of major price cuts for the New Year. These cuts will affect many of the companies chips and in some cases sees better than 50% price cuts.

These cuts will take place on the 21st of January and should make life very hard for AMD who are still struggling with chip shortages.

This news courtesy of The Inquirer.

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Today Apple updated it’s MacBook lines to Intel’s new Core 2 Duo processor. The machines also got some other minor increases such as 20Gb more hard drive space for each model, making hem 80Gb, 100Gb and 120Gb respectively, and the top two models now ship with 1Gb or memory as standard. This update brings them sqaurely into line with the rest of the Apple family, with the only odd one out being the Mac Mini since that still comes with a Core Duo processor. I wonder when and if the Mac Mini will recieve the same loving Core 2 Duo treatment as the rest of the lines?

One other noticable fact is that in terms of core components, all that seperates the MacBook from the MacBook Pro is graphics and screen size.

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Well we all knew it would happen eventually, the MacBook Pro has now been kitted out with Intel’s new Core 2 Duo processor. They come in 15 inch and 17 inch varieties costing £1349 for the 15″ 2.16GHz model and £1699 for the 15″ 2.33GHz machine, which the larger 17″ model with the 2.33GHz processor costs £1899. They certainly look fantastic and I would love one. At a supposed 39% speed boost over the Core Duo models it certainly will fly.

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Sony is to recall 90,000 laptop batteries in China and Japan, but there is no mention on whether any recalls would take effect outside those two countries mentioned above. This is being reported by the Wall Street Journal.

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It has been reported that some of Apple’s new 5th Gen iPods are shipping with a Windows virus. Apple has put up some information on the virus on their website for all to see. The virus, RavMonE.exe affects less than 1% of video iPod while the Nano and Shuffle are unaffected. iPods shipping from today are virus free and only users who have already purchased a new iPod video should be concerned.

Apple recommends users on Windows run a full anti-virus scan with thier iPod plugged in. This will allow the scanner to scan the iPod and all hard drives too. This should fix the problem. Rather silly of Apple to let this slip out though.

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AMD have unveiled it’s first quad core chip code named Barcelona. As of yet they are not talking about any performance details.
The chip is based off the existing x86-64 architecture seen in the Opteron processors. AMD’s next gen desktop chip will likely be based on a similar design to the new Barcelona parts but for now this should keep AMD ticking over in the server market.

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I know this sort of thing so barely qualifies as news now, but here goes anyway. Hitachi are recalling 16,000 batteries made by, well you know who without me saying. I wonder how much compensation Sony will be paying out for this mess? I would think they would at least cover the cost of the recalls for affected manufacturers.

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Fujitsu-Siemens have recalled a further 287,000 batteries. I mentioned this last week and details of the affected batteries can be found here.

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