Which Route(r) Should I Take?

The wireless age.  It is a fantastic time to live in when it comes to networking several computers together.  It is also a wonderful invention when your cable connection is on the exact opposite side of your home, so your options are: 1. drill holes in your ceilings and walls, crawl through your attic and run 100 feet of Ethernet cable or, option 2: go wireless.

This is the story of option 2.

In every place that I have lived, at least one computer was wireless, and therefore I have probably used every router in existence, especially at my current home.  You see, in the 1950’s, when my house was built, a personal computer wasn’t even a thought in most people’s head, let alone wireless connections. Therefore building a house to accommodate a wireless connection was not something that anyone considered.  Another thing to remember about the 50’s is that people knew how to build a house. My house could probably survive a nuclear strike, if it had to.  The exterior walls are block construction with vinyl siding, and the interior walls use 6” x 12” stud construction with lathe board, dry wall and chicken wire (which is key to this story) with a thick hand plaster coating.  Yep, they knew how to build ‘em.

Enter into the arena, the first router, a Belkin Play “N” series router with a 300mb/s transfer rate antennae. 

This router worked great at my last apartment, which was only 800 square feet, and the computer sat about 20 feet away from the router with a clear line of sight, so the connection and speed was fantastic. Not so much in the new home.  The distance from the router to the computer is roughly 50 feet, which is not a great distance. However, the line of sight is apparently far more incredibly important then I originally thought.  Going in a straight line from the router to my computer, the signal must pass through 4 of those heavy duty plaster lined walls.  The Belkin failed to achieve this feat.

Next up on deck was the Apple Airport Extreme. 

I figured, why screw around with anything in the Belkin Play category, let’s get right into the big leagues.  So, off to Best Buy to purchase the Apple router. 

Before I continue, I feel it is necessary to inform you that another major disadvantage going for me is my internet service provider – Cox Communications.  Simply put, they stink on ice.  On most days, two tin cans and a string work better then anything Cox can offer.  As a matter of fact, if you have an alternative service provider in your area, then use it. 

Unfortunately, Cox Communications has somewhat of a monopoly in the area, so I have to use them. Cox’s modem of choice is the Motorola SURFboard SBV5422 Digital Voice Modem and Integrated DECT Cordless Phone System.

 

This thing sucks, too. I have been through 3 of them.  I mention all of this because while all of the routers that I will be discussing have had issues in one form or another, there is a good chance that my ISP and modem are to blame as well, so take all my reviews with a grain of Cox Communications’ provided salt.

Anyway, back to the router. The set up was fairly simple – my PC recognized it right away. My Mac, on the other hand, did not, due to the fact that I am still using Mac OS X v 10.4 operating system.  I know, I need to upgrade.  The Airport Extreme requires Leopard at least to operate with maximum efficiency.  However, the Mac was able to connect despite the lack of a software upgrade with the existing built in wireless card, it just had a weaker signal. I noticed that my signal on the PC was still very weak, and my connection was extremely poor, with a transfer rate of 13.5mb/s.  Unacceptable.  So, I went back to Best Buy and purchased the Airport Express – a device that is supposed to extend the range of the Apple Extreme router.

This did not happen.  My computer wanted to recognize the Express as the router, as opposed to the Extreme.  There was constant conflict between the two devices, and one would cancel out the other.  In addition to that, my signal was still extremely poor. Nope, Apple cannot contend with Cold War Era construction.

Next up: the Cisco Systems Linksys E3000.

 

Fail.  I mean all the way around, fail.  My computers could not connect with the router at all.  The signal was so weak that it could not get past the initial set up connection during the installation process.

Finally, we come to the winner, a Netgear N300 wireless router. 

 

Surprisingly, this is a middle of the road unit.  The reach of the signal is not as far as the Apple Airport and the E3000, but is markedly stronger.  I have to say, the installation process was a pain in the neck.  Not particularly hard or anything, just a pain in the neck.  I had to take my tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse to the router and run a hard-line Ethernet connection between the tower and the router to establish communication.  Once communication had been established, the rest was easy.  However, even though the signal quality was stronger, the router still had issues penetrating the walls of my house.  The signal was still hit or miss. 

Then, my tech savior, Rusty, gave me this handy little device called a Rosewill RNX-G1 antennae.

The installation of the antennae was extremely simple, and this ended up being the missing link, the solution to the problem.  The down side is that the maximum transfer rate is 54mb/s.  However, since the signal is strongest with this setup, I am able to use every bit of the 54mb/s.  Even though the other routers had a 300mb/s rating, the signal was so weak, I was lucky to get 20mb/s. 

With the stronger signal from both the router and the antennae, my signal has been strong, steady and interruption free.

Remember at the beginning of this post, I mentioned the chicken wire that supports the plaster?  Apparently, the chicken wire was dispersing the signal from the other routers to the computer; after all, the router’s broadcast frequency is just a radio signal.  Every router uses a different frequency to broadcast their signal.  Apparently, the Netgear Router uses a frequency that can penetrate the inner structure of my 1950’s walls.

For anyone trying to select a wireless router for their homes or office, I hope this blog helped. Something to remember that I did not in the beginning of my search for a router is the construction of the space around you and most importantly, the construction of any walls that may be between the router and the computer that it is serving.

Cavalier Freeway No. 1

Around June of 2010, my wife and I started looking for our first new home.  We decided to do a hard target search around central Phoenix, particularly in neighborhoods that were close to the Metro Light-rail and major access roads.  Sure enough, we found the house of our dreams in a cute little neighborhood, from 1955.

(My wife has done a fantastic job documenting the renovation of our house, and you can see those posts on her blog starting with this entry: http://flyingdivincenzos.blogspot.com/2010/07/this-house-is-just-right-rustilocks.html).

Seriously, if Mayberry could be transported into the future, this little area would be it.  Most of the houses are to their original design specifications from when they were built.  One of our neighbors, Mary, has been the original owner of her house since her husband helped build them.  It is rumored that the Doyle’s (my wife’s family) may have even helped with some of the plumbing for the houses in this neighborhood.  All of our neighbors know each other and keep a watchful eye on the street.

So, when my wife and I saw the “Cavalier Freeway No. 1” sign lying on its face on the freeway entrance side of our little community, we resolved to save it, starting with chasing down a guy trying to take it for scrap at 11:30 at night.

Yes folks, that’s right, we are weird.

Cavalier Freeway No. 1 is the designation for this neighborhood when it was built in the 1950’s, and part of that design for the planned community was a massive wrought iron sign with the name of the development.  Well, for many years, it stood in this one particular corner lot yard until about a week ago, when it fell over. We don’t know what happened; whether it was a storm, or a drunk driver, or just some random act of God.  The elderly lady who owns the house who had no means of fixing the sign gave it up to the scrap heap, which brings us to 4 days ago, and the brief late night chase.

As I was bringing my wife home from the train station, we noticed a pick-up truck heading toward us with the sign strapped to the bed.  We immediately turned around, pulled them over, and had the driver return it to the yard from whence it came.  The next day, Allie and I tried to rescue the sign, only to see that it was way too big to fit into our Honda Element.  We also noticed that the sign had a note attached to it reading “free”.  We decided it was time to talk to the owner of the property.  After a lovely chat with Barbara, and learning that she really couldn’t do anything with it, we said we would take it for safe keeping, as we felt that we just couldn’t let a piece of neighborhood history die in the smelter of a scrap yard.  She lent us some flatbed dollies that she had, and my wife and I wheeled it down the street to our house, passing every neighbor we have on the way, explaining ourselves multiple times to our befuddled fellow homeowners.

As we speak, the sign is sitting pretty in our backyard, for now.

We are not sure what to do with it; I think we are going to attempt to restore it with a fresh coat of paint.  However, after that, we have to see if the city has any interest in saving it; otherwise, it may just become a part of the history that is our home, Mulberry Park.

The "Repo Men - Design an Artiforg" Contest

Every now and then, a contest comes along that looks really exciting and interesting to enter into.  One of those contests was hosted by DeviantArt.com (www.deviantart.com). The contest was held at the time that the movie “Repo Men” was due out in theaters.  The parameter of the contest to design an artificial organ for the movie called an “Artiforg”.

After thinking it over for a while, and looking at some of the entrants that had been posted on the site, I decided that I would tackle the human spine.  Most people had posted smaller, less complex organs, like kidneys, livers, or eyes (lots of eyes).  I figured I would try to create something larger, more complex and original.  So, off I went to work on the spine.
It was quite a complex project, beginning with researching the actual layout and physiology of the human spine.  I had to research tons of medical drawings just to find enough usable images to begin modeling my spine in my modeling software.  

After researching spinal images, I had to come up with a way to convert the human, biological form into a mechanical, fluid form that would look like a biomechanical version of a spine.  Not an easy task.  It took several days to model each piece of the human vertebrae.  After that, I had to model wiring, hydraulics, tensions springs and other details to make this model look realistic. 

 Finally, it came time to render this thing.  After another 2 days of coloring, texturing and creating a custom lighting design, it was done.  After much tweaking and trepidation, I final posted my design on the DeviantArt.com site.

 Sadly, it did not win.  However, working on this project taught me more about how to better use my modeling and rendering software and expanded my knowledge on texture and lighting design, so it was definitely worth the time and effort.  I also walked away with a better working knowledge of the human spine.

If Lone Wolf Drafting and Design goes under, maybe I will try my hand at spinal surgery.

Thanks for reading!