I thought I’d start this new year with a different kind of post, that being there is a new post, and secondarily one that is not the ubiquitous and obsequious type that is normally prevalent at this time. Most everyone has some story or turning point in their respective lives that brings on change or a new, clearer view of things. I have to admit I was one of those who never had that, whereas some people are endowed with many occurrences of it.
I finally came across some words that have caused me to pause and invest quite a bit of thinking. I was listening to a talk radio show, and the story that was being recounted was only partially heard since I caught the last bit of it. That last part was my Rosetta Stone of a sort, and made a lot of things fall into place. It was about a friend who was eulogizing a fallen friend of his who was a soldier; he made a remark specifically about the hyphen which was between his birth and death year. The point he made was how small a thing the hyphen was yet how much it stood for, particularly in this man’s life. It was the moment that others have had which I finally experienced. It really caused me to experience the last 20 or so years of life, successes and failures, things over which I had no control, and the things which I could have shaped differently.
So in essence I didn’t make the list, but instead gave myself a mandate in which to keep; and that is to make the hyphen, when it occurs, to have real substance and give meaning to the phrase one man can make a difference.
Once again, my unused database for my blog went the way of the tasmanian tiger. So again I reinstalled wordpress, perhaps I need to simply be more diligent about maintaining an influx of textual ideas.
It’s a good post to kick off this phoenix from from the ashes event. I’ve been keeping an eye on a little project called DD-WRT for some time now. I was doing some research looking for ways to improve my Linksys router when I came across it google style. DD-WRT is a very streamlined linux kernal that is the new OS for your router, it has many improvements, and a wide variety of features over the OEM software that comes with your shiny new blue Linksys. Of course though, there is a bit of risk in running something like this, there is the possibility of bricking your router and thus rendering it useful for the task of keeping your papers in one location ^_^.
I wanted to try DD-WRT out but the particular router I use for the wireless is a little more costly than the typical version most folks use; so I didn’t really have a need to try it other than “I wanted to”. The need finally came around, when the room I am living in couldn’t pick up the signal with efficiency from the router given the the thick wall construction, and the amount of steel in the house. I had read that DD-WRT can also serve as a Wi-Fi repeater(takes a weak signal, boosts it, then rebroadcasts it). I now had a real reason to try it out. Bearing the price of the current router in mind, I picked up a used WRT54G Linksys vs. 5 for about 30 bucks. A) this was a third of the price of the other router if I nuked it B) this particular model is difficult to brick, c) I had to do it! So I followed the directions, went through the configurations, strategically placed the router, and presto……I went from a weak 2-12Mbps signal, to a very strong 54 Mbps signal. After doing this, I was also able to get my Ubuntu box Wi-Fi working as well, it appears that the previous weak signal was the real culprit for the inoperability for connectivity.
If you’re the tinkering sort go give them a visit http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/
