The new LAN, almost
Posted on January 4, 2007
Filed Under All, Photos, Gulker labs |
The cruft has finally been banished to hard-to-reach corners and cracks in the wall, allowing us to take the first run at getting the new LAN in place. We had visualized a more vertical substrate hugging the wall, but time prudence and our ‘deconstruct’ mantra dictated recycling the old LAN rack, also formerly home to a cordless phone, phone books and assorted papers that didn’t fit elsewhere (yet another junk catcher).
This time around the rack is full, so maybe it won’t catch old financial statements et al. The bottom shelf houses the new gigabit switches and the half-terabyte array, while the top holds the cable-modem and a new guest ’sandbox’ network that allows easy wireless and wired firewalled net access that can’t see anything on the new gigabit LAN.
We’ve been testing this evening, and the net appears to be fast and stable. The Cat 5 is all off the floor, tucked into cable guides and/or velcroed or otherwise tied down. Not quite full ‘pro,’ but much better than previously.
We will also soon have a much more secure WiFi router bridged to the LAN, and all the WiFi gear goes to an elevated location that should improve coverage around the house and patio (opening some amusing possibilities, I hope).
Next up will be getting services in place - people oriented things like streaming WBGO (Linda’s favorite straight-ahead jazz station, in Newark, NJ) available throughout the house. The kitchen computer shall return, complete with internal recipe database and access to the usual web-based repositories like Epicurious. Finally coming together…
Comments
3 Responses to “The new LAN, almost”
Leave a Reply
[…] So, we realize our new life as a commuter will occasionally call on us to rise to new challenges. One challenge I’ve dealt with well up today, thanks to Adobe Connect web conferencing, a broadband connection (with a our new Gigabit LAN) and a revamped ‘World HQ’ (complete with a home edition of a Polycom conference phone) was an 8 AM meeting at work, timed to make it less onerous for colleagues in India to join in). I would phone in to the meeting, then catch a ride with spouse or a neighbor to Menlo or Palo Alto Caltrain stations, and be off to work in San Jose. […]
[…] Incredibly, the 1/2-terabyte array we put on the LAN in January is already full - mainly with backups. The culprit is me, and my reluctance to delete email. So my MBOX is huge, and changes every day, so the incremental backups (via Apple’s Backup 3.0) are big, and chew up storage pretty quickly. Yesterday I picked up a new Iomega 500 GB NAS drive for what 250 GB cost 6 months ago. I think we’re also going to change our backup strategy… […]
[…] So, we’ve had a cold for a couple of days, and have used the opportunity of being more or less flat on our back to do a little health research (love that WiFi). The pictures above show the evolution of my mug over the past 18 months or so, during 12 of which I’ve been on massive doses of steroids to control brain swelling left over from radiaton therapy last December. […]