The Pre-Weekend Post-Weekend Report

Last weekend, my wife, our two dogs and I escaped to our little slice of thin-air heaven. I spent much of that time catching up on email, but I won't dwell on that point….

Anyhoo, I thought I'd update you on a few previously introduced tech aspects of this particular abode. First off, I went ahead and replaced the Rocketfish 2.4 GHz wireless speaker kit with Amphony's 5.8 GHz alternative system. As one commenter to a past post of mine mentioned, the Rocketfish setup does seem to be adaptive in its spectrum consumption behaviour. After leaving the Rocketfish gear turned on for several hours in the presence of an active 802.11g (channel 11) network, my laptop reported a 24 Mbps Wi-Fi link when I was sitting on the couch in-between the audio transmitter and receiver (in prior tests, the Wi-Fi link was essentially unusable when I was in this particular location….24 Mbps isn't 54 Mbps, but it's better than 0 Mbps!). However, as another commenter to a past post mentioned, the Rocketfish receiver emits an annoying hum in the absence of a valid signal from whatever audio gear's connected to the transmitter. The Amphony 1520, conversely, goes into auto-standby mute mode when the audio feed ends, and it fires up again within a few seconds of detecting the resumption of a surround speaker-intended signal.

Now that I've successfully updated the Toshiba HD-A1 player's firmware, I brought along a HD DVD 'trophy' title (King Kong) to enjoy on our plasma TV. After a few minutes' worth of viewing, I turned to my wife and said 'something's wrong'; the detail I'd expected to see just wasn't there. I peered at the player's front panel and realized that the HD-A1 was set at its 480p output mode option; toggling it to the optimum 1080i setting delivered the quality I was anticipating. So I guess that even in the absence of a standard-definition DVD alternative for side-by-side comparison purposes, it is sometimes possible to discern a resolution advantage with a high-def video presentation….although I feel compelled to point out that the combination of our 42" widescreen display and the ~6 foot distance we sit away from it is by no means a typical viewing setup.

Finally, here are a few router thoughts. I'd initially hooked up a D-Link DI-524 (which I'd obtained as part of a low-priced after-rebate networking kit) to our dynamic IP DSL line, and generally speaking it worked well. However, it was a first-generation Revision A hardware model whose firmware hadn't been updated since last August. Judging from the fact that both no-ip.com and DynDNS.org ignored dynamic DNS update requests coming from its generic built-in DDNS client, and that NTP (network time protocol) also didn't seem to work, I suspected that its firmware was still misbehaving (and therefore being banned). So I swapped it out for a Linksys WRT54GC, which has quite impressive coverage range given its ultra-small size and internal antenna. And, as you’ll see below, it handles my AT&T DSL link with aplomb:

Unlike most Linksys routers, which employ Broadcom chipsets, the WRT54GC is built on a Marvell silicon foundation. But its user interface is just as robust as that of its bigger brethren, and its built-in DDNS client has explicit DynDNS.org support (which so far is working like a charm). By opening up appropriate firewall holes and making necessary NAT forwarding entries, I can monitor my DCS-1000W and DCS-5300W webcams from the WAN. And once my IPP-capable print server arrives, I'll be able to print from the WAN, as well.