Wireless working  #
Friday, 09 Jan 2009 06:45PM
Excellent! After a bit of fiddling the wireless is working.

The existing ADSL modem has had it's DHCP disabled and one IP address set. I first connected the PC to it using that static IP address (instead of auto discover) and ensured the net worked with those settings.

I did it this way because the router and security in the newer wireless router is better than the old modem. So now the old modem just connects to my ISP and sends all data thorough one IP. All security and routing is controlled by the wireless router (which also has four ethernet ports on it, one of which the PC is plugged into).

I then followed the instructions of the wireless router setup exactly. For the internet settings I used the static IP address details as used above in the PC test.

Everything worked perfectly.

For the wireless I've got a freaky SSID, encryption enabled with a freaky password, I've set my SSID to be invisible and I've put MAC address filtering on (remembering to include the PC's MAC address first after forgetting the first time and having to reset the router). Everything you're supposed to have.

So now.... the Wii is connected to the internet! How wonderful. More on the Wii later.


Wireless  #
Friday, 09 Jan 2009 02:20PM
So silly me impulse purchased a Wireless N Router (DIR-615) yesterday.

The number one reasons I've never got into wireless before is that I've never had a wireless product before and I didn't want to bother with the time to set it up. I was right.

Was up all night trying to work out my problems. The main problem is that my ADSL2 modem is also a router, and it only has one LAN plug on it.

I managed to get the PC working and the wireless router connected so my PC could see it. I also managed to get wireless devices connected to the wireless router, but the wireless router couldn't see the internet so they had no where to go.

I think I've figured out the problem and I'll hopefully get it going tonight. I'll post about what I did when I'm done because the web isn't exactly full of clear explanations of my network situation.

For reasons I can no longer remember, I turned off DHCP on the router in my ADSL modem. I think it was a bit flaky and my connection worked better on a static IP. I only had one PC connected to it so it didn't matter.

Because of this, all the instructions for "if you have an existing router" were wrong because they all assumed the existing router was providing dynamic IP addresses. They all assume you want to turn your new wireless router into a dumb wireless access point. This won't work if your existing router isn't set up the way you/they expect.

Life would have been easier if I'd had an ADSL modem without a router, or I'd bought a new ADSL modem with a wireless router in it.

Oh well. I've decided that I would be better off using the routing of the new wireless router as it's newer, shinier and has more security features.

I do the following tonight:

  • Existing router set as it was, with DHCP turned off, one Static IP address provided.
  • Existing ADSL router LAN plug to new wireless router "internet" plug.
  • Set wireless router's internet connection to Static IP, using the details I currently use for my computer. The ADSL router becomes the wireless router's ISP.
  • Use the wireless router's DHCP for the PC and wireless devices.

This effectively mean my ADSL router will be just logging into my ISP for me and serving that data via a single IP address, which is what it was doing anyway.

I actually tried this last night, but had the existing ADSL router plugged into one of the LAN plugs of wireless router (as per most instructions that assume the ADSL router has DHCP on) instead of the internet plug.

Nerding over.


NIN best seller on Amazon MP3 in 2008  #
Friday, 09 Jan 2009 10:57AM
The main story floating around the net is that the best seller on Amazon MP3 in 2008 was Nine Inch Nail's "Ghosts I-IV". This is a big deal because they say "it was given away for free".

My memory may be faulty, but this isn't true.

"Ghosts I" was given away for free, and you could buy the other three for $5.

Amazon MP3 was selling "Ghosts I-IV" for $5, just like Trent was on his website.

Update: Whoops. I forgot, he licensed it as Creative Commons so you could download it legally via P2P. So yeah, it was free. Um...End Update

The real reason the Nine Inch Nails album was Number 1 is that it was:

  • $5 for 30+ tracks
  • Nine Inch Nails
  • Had LOTS of advertising because he gave part of it, and the next album ("The Slip") away for free.

A biggest story would have been if "The Slip" was the top seller because that was given away 100% free, in a lossless format. If people were still willing to pay $X for it on Amazon MP3 in MP3 when they could get it for free in lossless...

As a side note, I heard a couple of people behind me in JB HiFi yesterday talking about Nine Inch Nails. They would have been 20 a the most.

She: "What's with Nine Inch Nails" He: "What?" She: "You've heard of Nine Inch Nails?" He: "Yeah" (kinda offended sounding) She: "What's the big deal?" He: "I dunno."

I wanted to turn around and say "listen to their early stuff" but I couldn't do that...

The guy also said something about a song he thought was "really old" but turned out it was new and "trying to sound retro". He said, "I totally thought it was, like, a mid-90s song or something. Totally retro.".

They actually spent most of the time talking about computer games. As did another couple of people in an elevator and some kids I passed in the street on the way back to work. No-one was talking about music. One of them mentioned a movie they'd downloaded.

They were all talking about buying and games.