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This past month I have upgraded my router to one with Wi-Fi (802.11n, a Cisco\Linksys with DD-WRT installed). I installed a wireless card compatible with that standard into my family's desktop. Up until today my sister was here so I wasn't in a hurry to move that computer upstairs since she was keeping the living room a disaster area.. but after she left this afternoon I went ahead and cleaned the living room and moved their desktop up there. The wireless card gets all bars and 270Mbps to the router down here. The other computers we have don't have wireless cards including my Mac (no Airport) but it's nice to have at least one computer untethered. Later on I plan on getting a wireless card for the other computer of my family's. Right now both my Mac and the other PC (a dell laptop) are hooked to the router via ethernet cables (using a long one to reach the other room where the other computer is of course).
I used that connection to listen to my shared iTunes library upstairs on that computer while I was cleaning. That was pretty cool to me. I would like to add on stuff to the network like network storage, perhaps media servers, devices that hook to the TV and allow one to access networked media there, backup stuff over the network, etc. The sky's almost the limit. Overall I'm pretty happy with our new setup so far though. It's exciting to me that I have a computer upstairs hooked up with high speed Wi-Fi to our network. Sharing media over the network is awesome. Back in the day we used to share MP3s over the network. I used to have a shared folder mapped as a drive on my sister's computer. It was the "MP3 drive"... I did that because my computer had more hard drive space than hers and I couldn't get an ugprade for her computer. It worked well for her back then we used winamp and she simply made a winamp playlist using that drive as if it was a local one. Speaking of back in the day...
Overall we are in a lot better shape network-wise than we where when I last moved out. Back then I only had a Pentium II PC.. and the other PC in the network was a Pentium 133. We had earthlink dial-up which I had shared via ICS and 1.5Mbps HomePNA 1.0 network adaptors. It wasn't totally bad. It served its purpose. It wasn't as bad as the printer port direct cable connection we used before it. It's not nearly as good as what we have now though. For one it wasn't nearly as fast... and for another thing it relied on my computer being on and connected to the internet as it was also pulling server\router duties. If something went wrong with my computer my sister would be coming downstairs and complaining that the internet is not working.
A thing that was nice about HomePNA 1.0 was that it worked like DSL and it turned every phone jack on the same extension into a network jack.. it worked even if phone service was shut off... so we could do networky stuff even when we had no phone and thus no internet. Things such as multiplayer games (stuff like Quake 1\2) and share files. Yeah, at one time my sister used to play computer games with me. Anyway, I'm sure the newer standards are nice with their 320Mbps and choice of either coaxial (for those houses all wired up for cable) or good old phone jacks. You could use both it and DSL over a single line and still be able to make phone calls at the same time since they both operate on other frequencies. But as for me I'm going with wireless or ethernet cables.
I'd only consider it again if my sister comes home and wants a computer in her room but the wireless doesn't reach there so good. I'd get a HomePNA 3.0 bridge and an adaptor for her computer and do it that way. Wi-Fi is definitely the new hotness however. So If and when we get new computers I want to be sure that they include 802.11n network cards by default. I know all the new Macs I'd get do.
Now that I'm still on the subject. My phone company had messed up this weekend and thought we hadn't paid our bill but it turns out the money went into some other account. They had shut off our phone and DSL all weekend and I was starting to think it was because we had fell behind on our payments and we might have to do without either. My family didn't even know it was off until they tried to call us today to tell us they are on their way home to take my sister back to the out of town school she's going to. When I heard the phone ring that (July the 14th) morning I was like.. YES!
That's it for now I'll write some non-computer related stuff later.
I used that connection to listen to my shared iTunes library upstairs on that computer while I was cleaning. That was pretty cool to me. I would like to add on stuff to the network like network storage, perhaps media servers, devices that hook to the TV and allow one to access networked media there, backup stuff over the network, etc. The sky's almost the limit. Overall I'm pretty happy with our new setup so far though. It's exciting to me that I have a computer upstairs hooked up with high speed Wi-Fi to our network. Sharing media over the network is awesome. Back in the day we used to share MP3s over the network. I used to have a shared folder mapped as a drive on my sister's computer. It was the "MP3 drive"... I did that because my computer had more hard drive space than hers and I couldn't get an ugprade for her computer. It worked well for her back then we used winamp and she simply made a winamp playlist using that drive as if it was a local one. Speaking of back in the day...
Overall we are in a lot better shape network-wise than we where when I last moved out. Back then I only had a Pentium II PC.. and the other PC in the network was a Pentium 133. We had earthlink dial-up which I had shared via ICS and 1.5Mbps HomePNA 1.0 network adaptors. It wasn't totally bad. It served its purpose. It wasn't as bad as the printer port direct cable connection we used before it. It's not nearly as good as what we have now though. For one it wasn't nearly as fast... and for another thing it relied on my computer being on and connected to the internet as it was also pulling server\router duties. If something went wrong with my computer my sister would be coming downstairs and complaining that the internet is not working.
A thing that was nice about HomePNA 1.0 was that it worked like DSL and it turned every phone jack on the same extension into a network jack.. it worked even if phone service was shut off... so we could do networky stuff even when we had no phone and thus no internet. Things such as multiplayer games (stuff like Quake 1\2) and share files. Yeah, at one time my sister used to play computer games with me. Anyway, I'm sure the newer standards are nice with their 320Mbps and choice of either coaxial (for those houses all wired up for cable) or good old phone jacks. You could use both it and DSL over a single line and still be able to make phone calls at the same time since they both operate on other frequencies. But as for me I'm going with wireless or ethernet cables.
I'd only consider it again if my sister comes home and wants a computer in her room but the wireless doesn't reach there so good. I'd get a HomePNA 3.0 bridge and an adaptor for her computer and do it that way. Wi-Fi is definitely the new hotness however. So If and when we get new computers I want to be sure that they include 802.11n network cards by default. I know all the new Macs I'd get do.
Now that I'm still on the subject. My phone company had messed up this weekend and thought we hadn't paid our bill but it turns out the money went into some other account. They had shut off our phone and DSL all weekend and I was starting to think it was because we had fell behind on our payments and we might have to do without either. My family didn't even know it was off until they tried to call us today to tell us they are on their way home to take my sister back to the out of town school she's going to. When I heard the phone ring that (July the 14th) morning I was like.. YES!
That's it for now I'll write some non-computer related stuff later.
