[Dave Rice]

I mainly look at business solutions these days, which is why I use Drayteks. I also believe that separating devices is the best option and far more reliable and doesn’t cost more than a top all-in-one.

I’m hearing good things about Google WiFi but you still need a router for internet access can can get NAT issues. Multiple units soon ramp the price up. The same goes for all the “Mesh” kit.

That basically leaves you with the Asus and TP-Link Archer routers or the Synology RT2600ac (which would also need a VDSL modem).

The things is your TT router is probably just fine as a router, it’s the WiFi element that let’s if down. A Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR Cloud Managed UniFi Long Range AC1300 will cost you £96 fully set up then that’s the WiFi sorted forever.

The UAP-AC-PRO Cloud Managed UniFi AC1750 is £140 and the new UAP AC NanoHD 2033Mbps £160 For most houses the £60 UAP 300N is fine, or the £80 UAP-AC-LITE if you want 5Ghz.

Basically you get more MIMO antenna as you move up the range.

 

[Dave Rice]

Personally I agree with you, but the original post was about people in the public eye and specifically an Irishman and a Serbian. No-one will be holding us to account on national radio and I don’t think they should be either, but they are.

Should it be a post Brexit requirement that visiting workers should be made to adhere to all our traditions? (I bring Brexit in as it would be a chance to formalise this what with being Sovereign and all that). I’ve seen what people studying for British nationality have to learn and I’ll tell you now no-one here would have a chance of passing the exam. IIRC it doesn’t mention poppies either,  but it does Coronation Street and some other soaps and not just in passing in some detail.

Do you know why Matic got to be a 6 footer? It’s because his mother never hit him with a broom, accidentally or on purpose. That’s the sort of question you’d get in a Serbian nationality exam if it were like ours.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve been setting up the G6 Plus from Drezha and very nice it is too. In it’s case it’s only fractionally bigger than the G4 but with a larger screen (smaller bezels). The screen quality is very good but not tried it outside yet, nor have I tried the camera but it’s got to be better than the G4. I have a very small Lumix TM70 I use to take photos when travelling so it doesn’t really bother me.

It’s certainly nippy, just waiting for a nano sim from 3 then it’ll be out on the road. Looking forward to Google Pay.

[Dave Rice]

When I replace a socket now it’s with a USB charger enabled one like this for £11.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve moved all my “production” VMs onto a local ESXi server or into the cloud. Only use VB for a look at new things.

[Dave Rice]

It’s not a moral argument I want to get into as I can see both sides. These things go through fashions in what is socially acceptable and what isn’t. If I were in the public eye I’d go with the prevailing wind unless I had a very good reason not to. But then of course some may call you two faced with no moral conviction.

Probably a no win scenario, which is why it’s probably better to just go with the flow.

[Dave Rice]

If you force someone to do something like this it loses it’s value.

We were talking last night, Mrs and my 27 & 19 yo, about how much more popular poppies are this year. The poppy seller at Parkway station reckoned he took £1,200 yesterday afternoon. He thinks it’s to do with the WW1 celebrations but I also think we see far more of ex-forces now through things like Invictus. This means we see the scale of the carnage from places like Afghanistan and realise it’s not just a handful affected.

[Dave Rice]

Things have changed quite a bit and all for the better. A modern Pentium will probably do 95% of things as fast as your old i5. SSDs are now available as small boards that go on the motherboard (M2) and are even faster again. Windows 10 Pro and Office 2016 for a tenner each from E-Bay isn’t dodgy any more.

Let us know what you want to do and a rough budget.

[Dave Rice]

Long time no see ?

E-Bay will be your only source I’m afraid, but it’s still going to be the cheapest way to get the PC going again. However you are buying 6 to 7 year old parts that are working now, but for how much longer?

You say you don’t fancy doing a new build, but a motherboard swap includes all the fiddliest bits anyway. You could have a look at some of the motherboard bundles about or a whole refurbished machine. Micro Dream have a Dell OptiPlex 7010 SFF 3rd Gen Quad Core i5-3470 8GB 128GB SSD DVDRW Windows 10 for £229 and that’s very nippy.

[Dave Rice]

330ml is the European standard measure and I’ve got to like it now I can’t do the whole session thing. The days of loads of volume are gone for me.

Belgian beers cover a multitude of styles. Blonde (as in Duvel) are probably what we think of but they do Bruin versions as well which are more like ales and Dubbel and Tripel which are often brown as well. Trappist beers can be all 3 styles.

Then there’s Saison which is a sort of sour version of Blonde but not sour as in lemons, more not sweet. Wheat beers I think we know all about, but Belgian ones are usually white and have some sort of subtle orange peel background going on. Fruit beers are a class of themselves and the Lambic Kirk (cherry) are actually very good and not some sort of girly summer job.

The clue is often in the glass they’re served in – there really is a reason for the shapes. Blondes are served in “tulip” glasses as they are meant to have a deep head and the tulip shape holds the head in. “Chalice” glasses are for beers where the aroma is part of the experience and lots of the dubbels and Trappists are served in them too. Wheat and fruit beers are usually in straight up and down glasses.

All sounds terribly geeky but there are so many Belgian beers it’s a misnomer to think they are all the same. They are very different and the Belgians do take it seriously, but in that tongue in cheek way they have. They all love their local breweries and they all try to be a bit different, a culture we are getting used to but we have to call it “Craft”.

[Dave Rice]

First question, do you really need 16GB? Once you’re past 8Gb the gains are minimal unless you have a specific need.

As Nolan says, whatever works will be as good as anything else. If you have an Asus mobo pay particular attention to the manual as to what goes where as I find they can be picky.

[Dave Rice]

My Belgian beer turned up yesterday, tried a Vedett IPA (you can get this in Tesco now). Very nice if you like Belgian Blondes, like a cross between Duvel and Leffe and at 5.5% not as strong as either. I will be getting more of this.

[Dave Rice]

OK, that Zyxel won’t help I’m afraid. It pulls it’s MLPS trickery when linking to another Zyxel in a “HQ to branch” link. Even then you can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

There is absolutely nothing you can do to speed things up apart from getting the community together to get a third party to link the village up. There’s a lot can be done with wireless but you need a good feed coming in somewhere that can be shared. Given the lack of hills that could be a fair distance away (measured in miles) but trees in the line of sight are bad news.

I did this for the “5 Stokes” area before BT got ADSL sorted (the aerial is still on my roof), so if you need any assistance in this I’ve been there, done it. It’s a lot easier now!

[Dave Rice]

It’s good stuff.

[Dave Rice]

It doesn’t matter Steve. It’s all fingers in the ears, and no-one knows, it’ll be OK if only everyone believed etc.

They aren’t going to take any notice until it’s too late and then those that are worse off now will be even more worse off. Then which bogeyman will get the blame? But we’ll have the blue passport we could always have had anyway.

[Dave Rice]

OK, back home now. Yep that link works.

Question is why do the want one? This is a solution, what is the problem?

[Dave Rice]

I can’t get the link to work Bob. I gather it’s some sort of conversation on Google?

As a file store the Zyxel would probably be fine, but it’s a home product not a business one. I would always recommend Synology NAS for businesses. Either a DS216se (which I use) or the newer DS218j.

But these things have to be looked at in the round and I would like to know what plans he has and where and how he needs to access the data. May need to think about VPNs if there’s remote access, so that means a decent router, etc. Get the building blocks right on day one 🙂

This isn’t just about recommending kit to be plugged into each other, it’s more about business processes and how to use IT to enable or enhance them. That’s where business experience comes in rather than IT knowledge.

[Dave Rice]

I had a feeling it might be that. I’m not sure if it’s the developers who hold the customer to ransom over the cost of upgrades (some might say they are merely tweaks) or the customer who pays for a product in year 1 and expects it to still work in year 10. Somewhere between the two is the reality.

Then there’s conflicts between different apps. Say SAP will only work with Adobe current version -2 and the security team want everyone on current version as Adobe is like a swiss cheese. Then there’s back waters of the business that haven’t upgraded Adobe for years (as they were autonomous and now aren’t) and there is no upgrade path. That one gave me nightmares.

[Dave Rice]

I always like these sorts of pictures.

[Dave Rice]

All I can say is that if every update breaks Windows 10 like that it must be set up in a very strange way. I look after 50+ W10 PCs for various clients and this just doesn’t happen. There have been odd problems, usually with network printers and windows own sockets. Changing this to IP ports does the trick but I haven’t even seen this for a while now.

Windows 10 generally just works. It is the most stable version of Windows I’ve seen and I’ve been about since before Windows for Workgroups. If you are having that much trouble someone in your IT Dept needs to get their act together.

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