A Lucky Find

I love second hand shops. I can spend hours in them sifting through stacks of records and rummaging through boxes of bric-a-brac. You never  know what you might find from one week to the next. It is also important not to dismiss the humble box. Open it and look inside, you never know what it might contain. It was just such a box that caught my eye this morning in Long Sutton. The box in question was quite blank apart from a BT label. Opening it, I found two mains plug adaptors, both wrapped and an Ethernet cable. There were no instructions but on closer examination, I realised what they were.

A few years ago, I had read an article about how someone was experimenting with the mains circuit in a house and using it to transfer data from one point to another. In effect, it was being used as a data network as well as carrying domestic power to sockets. The idea seemed to me a little fanciful at first and the thought of high voltage and data mixing wasn't that appealing but as I thought about it a little more, it did all begin to make sense. It occurred to me that every home does have its own ready made network. It's primary use is to get electricity to every room but in theory, it could certainly be used to carry data if the current could be separated from the data stream.
Holding the adaptors it became clear that someone had in fact made the idea a reality - I had to have them! Looking at the box more closely, I could see that £5 had been written on the lid. I know for sure that they are worth a lot more than just £5 and to be honest I doubt if they have ever been used. I bought them instantly and was eager to get home so I could try them. As I drove home, I thought about how I could put them to practical use. I already have a good wireless network covering the house, well three in fact - each for a different type of data. But there is one gadget that would benefit enormously by being 'hard-wired' to my data network. We have a wireless media centre that streams video and TV programmes from a set of hard drives to our TV set. It's a few years old, but works very well. Not having a cable long enough and being loathed to drill a hole through our lounge wall, we have plumped for the wireless option but I've always been aware that the device can be hard-wired. Wireless is brilliant, but it can be subject to the odd stutter and this can be quite frustrating when watching a film.
I set about plugging in the adaptors, connecting data cables between the 'access point' adaptor and my data hub and between the 'receiving' adaptor and the media centre. A button on the front is all that is used to configure the devices and in a few minutes they were talking to each other. This was a very good sign so I tested the media centre and it worked perfectly, markedly quicker than it is on WIFI.
I always set out hoping to find something different, unusual and 'gadgety'. I was lucky today, doubly so as I was able to put it to really good use. I like days like this.

The Two Fingered WIFI salute

I was very amused to read on BBC News Online this afternoon an article about 'aggressive passive WIFI naming'. It turns out people have been naming their WIFI networks to give messages to neighbours and others who stumble across them. Some of the names include 'keep_your_cats_off_my_lawn' and 'stop_moving_furniture_at_night'. Others have referred to neighbours noisy sex sessions.
In addition to thinly veiled rants, some names warn would be WIFI hijackers to steer clear and not to even attempt connecting.
How wonderful it is to read of a very clever modern day equivalent of sticking a sign up outside your house to dissuade any unruly neighbour or would be thief. I do like this :-)

(Moodscope rating today is 24%... getting better)

Supporting People & Their Tech

I support technology, and I have done for a long time. This does have its benefits but more often than not, it makes you the repository for everything computer and Internet related. Now this is of course fine provided that the tech does what it's supposed to. Unfortunately too much of it is designed to go wrong. The upside is that it keeps people like me busy - not than I earn a penny from it - and countless IT engineers charging huge amounts per hour to resolve faults easily understood by them but perplexing for the average user. There is good money to be made from it, but none of it comes my way.
Of all the forms of support, help by phone has to be the worst. You are blind and are expecting the person at the other end to see what you need them to. This seldom ever works and is a constant source of frustration. I know only too well how difficult it is to talk someone through reconnecting their WIFI or installing a new device. It is painful and made all the worse as the pain has to be suppressed for the length of the call and no sign given of your frustration with the person at the other end. I have years of practise to rely on and I think I do it quite well.
The advances in technology over the last 10-20 years have been fantastic. We are able to do things now that could only have been dreamt of then. What we haven't done so well is the user help side of things. When a device disconnects itself from a network, the process for reconnecting it is not easy. It should be - especially for the user. For me, the process is relatively straight forward and something I can normally do within a few minutes. I've learnt to spot the signs and indicators. For the user, there really isn't much to help them and certainly nothing that will resolve the fault. The Help System is useless, even in the latest versions of Windows often stating the 'bleedin' obvious', things like 'is it plugged in?' or 'have you installed the correct driver?'. What's needed is inbuilt fault resolution, the ability for a device such as a WIFI adapter to work out what's wrong for itself and actually attempt to apply a fix. I've singled out WIFI as this is probably the most common source of faults nowadays and certainly one that I constantly find myself fixing.
I know that WIFI works and works very well if it setup correctly and not tampered with. I have two wireless networks - one I use for gaming and media, the other I use for Internet browsing and file sharing. This setup works very well. It is stable and very seldom ever causes me problems. The hardware isn't particularly new, I've had it for several years. It isn't the best and certainly not the most expensive, but it does the job.
Most of what I hear when I am asked to fix problems is 'it was working fine yesterday' or 'it started snowing and it stopped working'. The inference that the weather is in some way to blame for the problem is wrong, but it is something that on occasion I've been known to go along with, in the interests of my own sanity.
It is hugely frustrating to me when something I've spent time designing or installing suddenly goes wrong and stops working as it should. It's even worse when having spent half-an-hour on the phone trying to resolve a problem, the fault persists.I hate leaving things like this but having exhausted every telephone skill, I have little option. A visit is now required. I know that within just a few minutes, I will have it working again. It always happens. The shock and surprise etched into the face of the user is something I've grown used to. It's as if I've worked some kind of magic. In almost all cases, I have done exactly what I had described over the phone. I am reluctant to claim any special powers or to suggest ignorance on the part of the user, and I will normally just put it down to gremlins or simply admit that I'm at a loss to explain what had gone wrong. Perhaps the weather at the time had caused it to fail.
I grit my teeth so much that they are now in a terrible state. I find myself doing it more and more, the older I get. It simply isn't worth the hassle to do otherwise. I could explain how it is that I managed to reconnect the laptop to the wireless network in under a minute, but I choose not to. I instead accept explanation from the user as fact and show sympathy that their efforts were in vain.
And then there are those who claim to know far more than you. They confidently boast that they have bought a new drive for their modem or carried out an upgrade of the processor. These people can never be argued with, I know this from experience. I've tried and failed. When it's family members, you have no chance. Again I choose just to go along with them, my sanity intact.
Sometimes I wish they would call on someone else, but I just know that isn't going to happen...