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Replacing the home network with the Linksys WRT150N

I’ve been making comments here and there about our home network for the past few weeks, and it all came to a head about a week ago. At first, I was quick to blame Shaw about their service and lack thereof. I know for a fact that there was one day where it was their fault that we had no access for nearly a day, but the problems continued after a quick phone call about the problem.

Out with the old, in with the new

For the past few years, I’ve been using an Asante FriendlyNET FR3004 router (circa 2002) and an Apple Airport Express to create a wired and wireless LAN. Not even a year after buying that Asante of an eye sore, it was discontinued, and the firmware updates stopped not long after. The UI for setting up the thing was never my favorite, but it worked. Well, it worked until about a week or so ago, and the Apple Airport Express has always worked well, now a very handy, travel-sizable WiFi device.

During a recent recording of The Crazy Canucks that ended up being a hodge-podge selection of material due to technical problems, our network went into meltdown. Skype wasn’t working, and the entire bandwidth ground to a halt after that. This was prefaced with slow performance in the days leading up. It wasn’t until that I bypassed the router and went straight into the iMac that the Asante was medically discharged from service.

After some research, Rebecca and I settled on getting a new router. Like my father raised me, I didn’t want to get something that would work as much as it would be a suitable replacement for at least the next three years. Looking at the specs for the WRT150N, it had a few key things that I wanted; four 100/1000 Base-T ports on the back, WPA wireless encryption, and 802.11n capabilities that would support Rebecca’s MacBook.

There were some folks recommending other versions of Linksys routers, namely Duane and Gregg, and those were very much appreciated. For the price and the performance that I’m getting now compared to what I had is very noticeable and quite loved though, and it makes me very happy. I used to think that my PowerBook’s performance over wireless was poor due to it’s age, but it was obviously the poor operation of the old router translating traffic to the Apple Airport Express. It’s nearly a new world, and Rebecca has noticed it as well.

So far, I’m really impressed with the Linksys WRT150N. I spent some time setting it up to allow better functionality with certain programs like iChat or Skype, and the wired connection for the iMac has an increase in performance when loading websites or downloading podcasts. Here’s hoping for the long term, but knowing the interesting things I could do with other Linksys models makes me wonder what other, geeky things I could do with it. I’d just have to brave to try.

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And now it’s sooner still

Better late than never to make a birthday post, but I’ll do this in a photo and video mix.

IMG_1072.JPG

It all started with a surprise opportunity to catch the Canucks game at GM Place against the Calgary Flames last Wednesday. Thanks to the day job, we were able to sit in the Visions Lounge, all the way up in the 400 level. Cool seats, 4-0 win over the Flames, and Rebecca got to meet a lot of awesome folks that I work with.


Photo credit: matthewgood on Flickr

Thursday, found us at the Matthew Good show at The Centre downtown. Absolutely amazing. Matt put on one hell of a performance. He snapped this picture from the stage during the performance, and you can almost see Rebecca and I in the back.

Juan!!!
Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Friday was a good night for us to settle in on the couch to get caught up on our (downloaded) TV viewing, but Saturday was a heck of a gathering at our place for my birthday.

the spread
Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

So much food, and thanks to John, David, Pam, Keira, Corinna, Adam, Jenny, Sean, James, Tanya, Bourton, Jennie, Amber, and Dan for coming over. I feel like there are names I’m forgetting, but you were more than awesome to come by if I have.

happy family
Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Corinna and Adam have officially made us apart of the Sock Monkey Army, but I call it a new addition to the family, Montalban Esplendido.

Papa Got A Brand New Bag

Sunday we had a family celebration out in Surrey, and I got this wicked new messenger bag from my mother-in-law. She also got me the third cake of the weekend, which was outstanding as well.

John Bollwit and me
Photo credit: Mark Blevis on Flickr

Sunday was the Vancouver Podcast Meetup at Steamworks in Gastown. Mark Blevis was visiting on business, and a few of us gathered to hang out for the night. Of course Rebecca was there, but so was John and Dave. I’ll make a longer post about the meetup later, but Mark graciously bought me a round in celebration of my birthday.

My mom sent me the above video yesterday. It’s a very traditional song to hear on your birthday, at least in my family.

Monkey Beer
Photo credit: Keira Anne on Flickr

This last picture has no relevance to the wonderful dinner that Rebecca and I had at Hapa Izakaya last night, but it is entertaining to me. We’re also embarrassed that we’ve waited this long to try that place out. The food is just as awesome as the feeling you get when you walk in the front door of the place and all the wait staff and cooks yell hello to you in various phrases of Japanese that I half recognize and half have no clue what they’re saying.

And then we had another small gather of folks over last night to eat the extra cake that was leftover from the weekend. It was hardly leftover though. The chocolate cake from Capers was pretty fantastic, as was the red wine from Golden Beaver. Good times, great people.

Also, all the Facebook well wishers has been amazing. If there is one thing that site is always good for, it’s coordinating gatherings and keeping track of everyone’s birthday.

None of this would have been half as good as it was without Rebecca helping to pull it all off. I have to say that I’ve been pretty lucky to have a great birthday (week) if it wasn’t for her. And in all actuality, it won’t be completely over until tonight when we get to see They Might Be Giants at The Commodore. My fifth or sixth time seeing them, and I can’t wait to share the experience with Rebecca.

With that, here’s the TMBG song, “Older”. Seems fitting.

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The Crazy Canucks #42 – Special Report: DaveO on the 2007 Super Series

This episode was a lot of fun for me to edit together. Without spending a ton of time fretting over the details, the recording that Dave did in the living room of the apartment with the mobile recorder gave me some inspiration to play with the final product. Interesting to note, Dave did this all in one shot with minimal notes. He’s just that good.

A special report for this short episode of TCC, DaveO chimes in with an editorial about the 2007 Super Series between Canada and Russia. He goes through a brief history of the 1972 Summit Series and relates it to the recent series, telling you why the hockey world should have payed more attention.

9:13 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

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Comparing loonies to the thin, aluminum Apple keyboard

My mom did something interesting the other day. They purchased one of the new Apple keyboards, the new, ultra thin aluminum ones that now come standard with most of their desktop machines. Taking some loonies from their last trip to Vancouver, she showed just how thin it actually is.

Two loonies thick

As you can see, the thickness of the keyboard is just two loonies.

One loonie thick

The keys themselves stick up from the keyboard at just one thickness of a single loonie.

That’s an outstanding size comparison. I haven’t had a chance to use one of these, but the last standard that Apple sent out with their products, in terms of keyboards, is something I’m not too found of. I love the feel of the keys on Apple laptops, so this might be an investment worth snagging. I fear I’d fight Rebecca over it though.

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The Crazy Canucks #41 – Interview with CBC Sports reporter Shanel Pratap

Recorded last night and edited this morning, I am a proud member of this podcast. I’ve got some amazing co-hosts doing really cool things. 🙂

In this special episode, J.J. and Alanah take control of the podcast to interview Shanel Pratap from CBC Vancouver. He does the sports for the noon news hour and weekend sports anchor on the CBC. Shanel also spent four days at Canucks training camp in Victoria, B.C. Our crew chats with him, gets inside his head a little, and look ahead at what we can expect by what he saw at training camp.

Also, Rebecca got some air time on local radio station 95 Crave after her experience at the opening pre-season game at GM Place. Listen all the way to the end to catch it.

28:29 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

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Vancouver Podcast Meetup: September 23, 2007

It’s getting to the point where I’m bypassing the spam that comes in my email, but luckily, I was able to catch an email from Mark Blevis about an upcoming Vancouver Podcast Meetup that he’s bringing together during a business related trip out here.

I am taking advantage of a work trip to Vancouver to organize a meetup of podcasters, podcast listeners and the podcast curious. The event will take place 7:00pmPT Sunday, September 23 at the Steamworks Brewing Co. Gastown location (375 Water Street) — makers of great beer including their Nirvana Nut Brown Ale.

Please RSVP so that we can warn Steamworks about our numbers.

The event is open to everyone so, even if you find out about this gathering at the last minute, show up. [markblevis]

This is a day before my birthday. That makes Mark 2 out of 3 so far for important dates to us, the last meetup landing on the same day as our wedding anniversary. I guess that just means that we’ll have to get Mark out here to do another meetup on or around January 9th, Rebecca’s birthday.

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Trent Reznor and the music business revolution

I find the first few minutes of the following video pretty interesting. For a time now, Trent Reznor[wiki] has been calling for fans to steal his music, and here is proof that he’s taking his message to the people and not just the media.

Basically, he’s upset, just as much as you and I are, that prices for buying music, mainly CD albums, has become ridiculously expensive. The cost for buying the latest release by your favorite band is usually in the $15-$25 range, sometimes more. As prices go up, people resort to stealing, making record companies lose money because no one is buying the product from the shelves, and to compensate they drive the CD price higher to fill in the lacking profit margins. Vicious circle? You bet.

Digital downloads are a whole other story, but even the record companies would like to see a better price than $.99 a track on iTunes. In fact, that isn’t the case for all tracks anymore because you can get music at a better bit rate and quality at just over a dollar or so, but the industry doesn’t budge like that for nothing. If they had their way, you’d be paying more than that and tell you the reason being is copyright compensation to the artist.

Every time I think about this topic, I’m constantly reminded by what Steve Albini wrote in his “The Problem With Music“. It was written just ahead of the digital music revolution in the 90’s, but I hesitate to think that the industry has moved past that mode of operation. It’s worth a read if you’ve never seen it before.

I have to say that I’m with Trent Reznor on this. The industry needs to learn a whole new way of thinking. Not sure that I’d run out a grab a ton of CD’s if they were $5-10 a piece, but it would certainly make me consider the notion. If anything, you might just save the youth of the world from missing out on some great artists because a thirteen year old could buy three for the price of today’s one.

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The Crazy Canucks #40 – The puck drops here

Started last Wednesday, more recordings done yesterday, and posted this morning.

Hockey is back! Well, we’re almost there, but the puck is dropping in pre-season action all around the NHL, and September 17, 2007 is when it started for the Canucks.

This episode ended up being a mix of content, mostly due to technical difficulties in the recording process. Everyone gathers online to discuss more of the jersey debate, but this is probably the last we’ll really hammer this topic. Then Dave and John hang out for a brief chit chat before the first game against Anaheim, and Rebecca ends this episode with a report on going to the game.

24:38 minutes
The Crazy Canucks

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WP-Cache plugin to help boost page loading time

I’ve installed the WP-Cache NoSymLink plugin to my site for a little experimentation. The goal of this is to cut down on the amount of time it takes to load the various pages and posts within my site, and this plugin is a tweaked version of the original WP-Cache plugin.

If you have a WordPress site that attracts a lot of traffic, this will help speed up page loading by a few seconds. What it does is takes some of the load off your server in terms of generating pages on the fly. With every, single post that you read on any WordPress site, the server it sits on pulls information from a handful of data sources to present you a web page on your browser.

Instead of dragging down server performance and making you wait for all this information to load from a database, the cache stores this data on a temporary basis to get the page to show up on your browser faster. This is really helpful if you have a site with a lot of traffic or host your WordPress blog on a server with a slow connection to the outside world.

Can’t say that I have the worst server or the number of readers that heeds the need for such a plugin, but I’ve noticed a little bit more speed to the load time on my site.

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Sponsor me in the CIBC Run For The Cure 2007

The time has come again for the CIBC Run For The Cure 2007, and I will be participating again this year. I’m also asking for your donations so that I can partake in the event, and all money will go directly to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation to help those dealing with breast cancer and hopefully find a cure.

CIBC Run For The Cure Make your online sponsorships here, and the run takes place on September 30, 2007 in downtown Vancouver, starting and ending at BC Place. I have until then to raise $150 to participate in the event.

ABOUT THE RUN

The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure is an extraordinary single-day experience that unites more than 170,000 Canadians in 53 communities across the country. Together, we’re raising millions of dollars to fund innovative and relevant breast cancer research, education, and awareness programs in the communities where you live. [cibcrunforthecure]

I have just recently gotten myself back into the running routine, pretty much healed from my shin splint that was bothering me a lot. My hope is to run this 5k at or under 25 minutes.