Monthly Archives: August 2013

Rocket-solid .za DSL setup

Posted by on 2013/08/09 No comments

After a couple of SOHO router iterations (not all my own, sometimes seen via other people), recurring problems:

  • overheating devices due to bad design
  • crappy stock firmware
  • bugs (that often never get fixed, or updates are never applied)
  • other assorted silly issues, like a 1000-connection session table, or small arp tables, or or or …

Much like the rest of the local linux community, I’d long just done DSL bridging and let a Linux box do the work of Real Internet Connection(tm), but that’s not the easiest pitch for Joe Average Home User. So I found an alternative set of things that works fairly well, and is solid enough for you to fire rockets at it. The recipe is as follows

  • 1x DSL bridge of some kind. Some Broadcom chipsets are excellent
    • I’ve had a hell of a lot of lifetime out of the DSL-2500U
    • if you want cheaper, this Tenda unit
  • 1x Non-shit router
    • A RB750 is pretty good for this. Gets your packets going without too much fancy. Has other benefits too
  • 1x Extra switch, because cheap gigabit is good
    • again, a Tenda unit
    • there are some cheap tp-links and HPs around too that I’ve had before

Cheap, effective, and just slightly annoying on amount of power sockets used. The power used is fairly low, too (we’ve had to test it on another project before, and it’s something like R20/month).

I’ll update the post a bit later with the basic tik config to apply.

Indulgence

Posted by on 2013/08/04 No comments

This is not a technical post. Nor anything of any consequential substance. I just felt like telling a story.

As mentioned before, I run a little project called Earnoms, which was started to find a place for people to share music, but (if I had to blurb it) in ways that are more social than the “social” music sites. Tonight was a mellow music night. Ended up with over 100 new URLs in the LinkDB just between a couple of people. Not bad, all things considered.

There’s an Afrikaans song called Lisa Se Klavier. I’m not sure if it was Koos Kombuis or Laurika Rauch who wrote it, and I’m sure a quick trip over via Google could answer the question, but I don’t actually care all that much right now. The best online version that I know of is this one. I should note that the statement is somewhat subjective, since I don’t like it when people go full-on drumkit with songs. Almost always it spoils the feeling. If that’s your thing, there’s another version on grooveshark that’ll suit you. There were a couple of other ones mentioned too, such as this track by aKING, and the version of Hallelujah by Karen Zoid which I discovered tonight.

But my story is more of history. Of a couple of years ago when I used to be in choir, at a time when choir was one of the few things of my life that I don’t want to rewrite (or at least, don’t consider wasted, unlike much else of the time then). Of a time when I knew three girls, all whose names started with L. All who could play piano (to varying extents), all who were in choir with me. All who were friends with each other, and loved to song. And I mean loved to sing. I don’t think I ever saw any of them sing without a smile on their faces. It was them who introduced me to some of my first tastes of slightly-specific musical appreciation, even way back then, entirely unintentionally. Unintentionally, because they were just singing to sing. But all things considered, it’s their version of Lisa Se Klavier that is my all-time favourite. Because between the three of them they covered soprano, alto, and contralto. Their version had them picking up the rises and falls from each other, toying with the sound, making it all the more playful (which, if you look at the lyrics, are oddly fitting in some ways). All the while still following on perfectly with each other, all the while smiling. That’s probably one of the memories I’ll carry with me for a very long time. Because it stands out brightly, lightly, and oh so very pleasantly.

All that waffled, I’ll leave you with this: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing Summertime.