Inverted Reality

Is the Optus 3G network improving?

James — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:59:00 +0000

Is Optus really improving their network like they have been advertising?

Today I achieved probably the best speed test that I’ve seen ever on any Optus 3G service I’ve had. Reception/signal isn’t even that good in this building. I managed:

Using my new Huawei wifi modem and a $2 Virgin sim card. That’s some not-bad 3G speeds right there.

Pretty neat!

Mobile Broadband x2

James — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:05:46 +0000

I’ve had some good success with using my Sierra Wireless APEX 880 USB 3G device of late. But when I saw the new Huawei E5832 (dick smith listing as E6939), I had to have it! It’s a 3G modem and wi-fi router in-one!

some details:

Wi-Fi – You don’t need to plug it in to USB port
Wi-Fi range of 15metres
Up to 3 users can share the connection via WiFi
Connects with WiFi devices – games consoles, TV, cameras

Serious Landscaping

James — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:44:19 +0000

Not only am I attempting to get the entire inside of the house painted. I’m going bonkers outside with some landscaping.

The lads are going to pour limestone in a couple of days so I need to get the retic and gas line trenches dug and done!

shit coffee

James — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:50:57 +0000

got busy?

James — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:30:55 +0000

man, I haven’t updated the blog for a while now… just been flat out. Busy at home, busy at work with relocations, just all-round busy.

I promise I’ll write something decent up soon!

RAID fail

James — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:13:55 +0000

Early this morning my NAS reported disk errors, a disk dropped from the array. I did a bad-block scan, all good, although a second disk reported as being ‘ejected’. The array failed and was no longer recognised. A reboot later, and now I’m ‘rebuilding’ the array. Fingers crossed this works.

I blame the power outages here lately. I’ve just gone and bought a UPS, and more hard disk’s…

grrrr

Got RAID? Using WD disks? Enable TLER

James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:39:39 +0000

What the hell is TLER? It’s a feature on some Hard Disks from some manufacturers (like Western Digital Green drives)

I came across then when I put my NAS together. I have four 1.5TB WD15EADS disk’s in my NAS, and have turned TLER -on- for each disk before building it in to my array.

“It is important to understand that TLER should be “Enabled” for a hard disk if it is being used in a RAID array to prevent the recovery time from a disk read or write error from taking too long, causing the RAID controller to flag the drive as failed, which drops the drive from the array.”

Build an Apple-I

James — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:55:42 +0000

Yes that’s right, build an Apple-I, the machine Steve Wozniak invented and first demonstrated at the Palo Alto Homebrew Computer Club in 1976!

Check it out at computerworld

Westnet Bag

James — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:46:30 +0000

Want!

Virgin Wireless Broadband Shaped?

James — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:34:08 +0000

maybe… the best I’ve gotten is pretty much this:

This is on a $1 sim, with 300MB of included data. (using Sierra Wireless Apex 880 USB modem) Not bad, possibly shaped. I wonder what the speeds are like if I subscribe to their service? I wonder. The same? maybe… faster? maybe. I won’t be finding out either way. I’m just not using mobile broadband enough to justify the expense (yet)