Linksys RV016 and Motorola SurfBoard 5102 modem = sad network

A couple of weeks ago I added a second network service provider to my home. The idea was to improve my home office internet access speed and provide redundancy. My thinking is that it is unlikely that both a cable broadband service from Shaw and ADSL service from Telus would both be down at the same time. Things, unfortunately, haven’t worked out quite as planned…

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Site restructuring underway

You may noticed that some odd changes here during the past day or so. This is part of a long term plan I’ve had to tidy up and “rethink” the structure of the site.

The plan is to have easily accessible links to posts specific to each category as part of the main site navigation. The categories I’ve selected are:

  • Gear: Computers, video, hardware and general gadgetry
  • Games: computer and console titles, both reviews and general discussion
  • Girls: women that geeks who like women will like… I have work to do here, but expect to see Number 6, Seven of Nine, and others showing up here
  • Geek Miscellany: Science, advanced technology, and related topics that don’t fit in any particular category
  • Rants: My occasional (usually over the top) opinions on things like politics, the news, and other stuff
  • Life: what is happening in my immediate vicinity- family, around the house, and the like
  • Critters: News and information about the animals that share our domicile
  • Site News: posts like this one that talk about this blog

Each of these choices will lead you to a page that gives a brief description of the category and contains only matching posts. Once I get things working the way I want, the main or “Home” page will only list brief summaries of each post. At the moment, the categories are more or less in place, but some of the site navigation features aren’t working quite right yet. I expect to have the main details ironed out in the next couple of days, so bear with me.

A decade later, and Wireless networking still sucks

I would love to have a no-compromise wireless network in my home. In this imaginary scenario, I would be able to put a computer anywhere in the house, even carry one out onto the patio, and get something approaching gigabit Ethernet speeds. Heck, I’d even be happy with half that: 300 Mbps… or even a really reliable true 100 Mbps link- that would be nice.

Unfortunately, after about a decade of living with wireless, I can say that surprisingly little actual progress has been made. Using wireless still means giving up network performance…

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Website outage

I discovered a problem with my blog when I posted my rant about my Cisco RV016 earlier today. After all my network shuffling around, the website was loading very, very slowly. The WordPress blog was taking several minutes to render, whereas the other blogs on the server were behaving normally.

I tried a great many things, including running database recovery diagnostics and upgrading my WordPress version, before finally figuring out the cause. My network changes resulting in my server no longer having correct DNS settings: you could find it, but it couldn’t find the rest of the internet. I suspect the page generation delay was happening because of the Google Adsense stuff on the site, which wants to talk to Google… but I’m just speculating.

In any case, the problem appears to be solved now… five hours after I discovered it. I’m going to add this to the list of things I will blame on my Cisco RV016 router/switch…

UPDATE: I have uncovered and repaired more problems, but these ones I can’t blame on my much maligned Cisco RV016

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