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Other What currently makes your life awesome?

Discussion in 'General' started by Brooxy, 28 Oct 2009.

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  1. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    [HMRC has joined the chat.]
     
    boiled_elephant, 31 Aug 2021
    #23241
    Fizzban, spazmochad, spolsh and 7 others like this.
  2. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Haven't actually hit the button yet, but:

    upload_2021-9-1_21-4-51.png

    That six months free is without a contract period, too. You can cancel at the end of the six months and not pay a penny - it actually encourages you to do just that later in the email, saying that if you're already in a contract with another provider you can sign up for the free six months, run the two services side-by-side, and cancel at the end.

    Tempting, very tempting. £49 a month when you start paying for unlimited gigabit, or 500Mb at £39 or 100Mb (which is still faster than my current 80/20) at £33.

    EDIT:
    Screw it, signed up. Now to wait to see if the promised installation actually takes place. Synchronous gigabit would definitely be nice...
     
    Last edited: 1 Sep 2021
    Gareth Halfacree, 1 Sep 2021
    #23242
    IanW and Byron C like this.
  3. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    Hard to beat that offer. Sadly the service area is halfway across the country from me! :grin:

    Is that gigabit down and up? I'm on Virgin gigabit and while the download speed is incredible - literally as fast as my gigabit ethernet can handle - the upload speed is a paltry 50bit.
     
    Byron C, 1 Sep 2021
    #23243
  4. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Yup, fully synchronous - they say the average achieved on the gigabit service is 900Mb/s download and upload.

    upload_2021-9-1_21-29-29.png

    Might need to upgrade the old Powerline adapters, though - they're only "1200Mb/s" ones, which probably means something a lot lower in real terms. Never had to worry about it before, as they only had to do 80Mb/s!
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 1 Sep 2021
    #23244
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  5. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    It's analogous to buying a pair of decent headphones. Suddenly you realise every other part of your setup is now a bottleneck...
     
    boiled_elephant, 1 Sep 2021
    #23245
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  6. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    Well that's an absolute bloody steal of an offer!

    Sadly I have bugger all choice around here: ~70mbit ADSL or put up with Virgin... To be fair though, I make it sound worse than it is. Once you put that PoS router of theirs into modem-only mode and substitute your own router/networking setup, the reliability of the connection absolutely skyrockets.

    I've thought about upgrading to 2.5GbE, or even 10GbE, at home but honestly I can't see the point at the moment. I can hit ~90-100MB/s (as in, megaBYTES) when I'm downloading games from Steam and that tends to be the most intensive downloads that I do these days. I'd certainly benefit from moving to high-speed WiFi 6, I think; I don't think I have any WiFi 6 capable devices, but my current access point is only 600Mbps.
     
    Byron C, 1 Sep 2021
    #23246
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Bugger. Found the USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter for the laptop and took it downstairs so I could run a bandwidth test across the "AV1200" Powerline adapters. ~150Mb/s.

    Guess there's not much point in me getting gigabit broadband, then!

    Oh, why is this in the "awesome" thread, you ask? Well, that means I can sign up to their cheapest 100/100 package instead - still getting a 20Mb/s boost in downstream and 80Mb/s(!) boost in upstream throughput, but saving myself a chunk of change.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 2 Sep 2021
    #23247
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  8. IanW

    IanW Grumpy Old Git

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    Is there no option for you to run full CAT6 around the house? Or maybe get one of those mesh wifi kits instead of the powerline?
     
    IanW, 2 Sep 2021
    #23248
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Mesh Wi-Fi's a possibility, but a cable run would be very awkward. The outside world comes into the house at the front wall, ground floor; the office is against the back wall, second floor. I wouldn't want to do a run, that's for sure. Best approach would be punching outside, running up the wall, and punching back in - and I'd need to get the professionals in for that.

    I used to have a CAT5e cable running across the room, up the stairs, then round the corner into my first-floor office - until I had to move to the second floor. I *might* be able to snake a longer cable across the room, up the stairs, across the landing, up the other stairs, then across the bedroom into the office - but it'd be really indirect, 'cos it'd have to do things like loop from the left-hand side of the stairs to the right-hand side, up over the doorframe, before going across the landing...

    For now I'll just downgrade to 100/100. The extra upstream's the biggie anyway - it'll really come in handy when I'm submitting work to clients.

    EDIT:
    Actually, it's not as bad as I thought. Guesstimating by quickly running metre lengths of a cloth tape measure around the route, I'd be looking at about 28m. Call it 30m for safety. Well within the length limit for gigabit...

    EDIT EDIT:
    £13.75 for 40m of pre-made-up grey CAT6 on Amazon, mostly 'cos I have no idea where my crimping tool is these days, delivery tomorrow. Might as well risk it for a biscuit - wouldn't be sad to see the back of those Powerline adapters, they have a tendency to stop working three or four times a year and need to be unplugged and replugged to reconnect.
     
    Last edited: 2 Sep 2021
    Gareth Halfacree, 2 Sep 2021
    #23249
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  10. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

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    Speaking of running cabling.

    I've been trying to figure out how to hide some hifi kit in the lounge (aside from the purdy amp) and struggling to find something that fits the stuff and doesn't look like a hifi stand. Then the brainwave hit that the lounge is immediately under a comms/AV cupboard upstairs, so I could put most of the kit in there and run cables down.

    Even though the "proper" way to do it would be to either channel conduit down the wall, or build a false wall to run cables down, since that was shedloads of work I didn't want to do I settled on being lazy, going directly through the ceiling in the corner, some conduit on the surface and then probably putting a tall bookshelf in front of it eventually.

    I go to start the work, figuring out where to start cutting... lo and behold, it's already a false wall... around 15cm behind is hollow, which looks to be so that the inset on either side of the fireplace is the same depth. So what was going to be a massive job, turned into a cut-corner but still moderate job, has turned into a piece of pee for doing properly tidy.
     
    Mister_Tad, 2 Sep 2021
    #23250
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  11. IanW

    IanW Grumpy Old Git

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    [​IMG]
     
    IanW, 2 Sep 2021
    #23251
    trigger likes this.
  12. ElThomsono

    ElThomsono Multimodder

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    I thought your house was exclusively wired for Cat6 and everything in it (switches, lights, toaster) all ran off PoE?
     
    ElThomsono, 2 Sep 2021
    #23252
    MLyons likes this.
  13. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Pfft. My network is primarily baling wire and string.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 2 Sep 2021
    #23253
  14. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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    No air bricks?
    If so then a quick hole in the floor, poke out cable, run in / under or over the guttering, then in through another air brick
     
    mrlongbeard, 2 Sep 2021
    #23254
  15. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

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    FWIW, I ran 10Gb on a 25m run of Cat5e temporarily with no issues, so with 1Gb that might cut it.
     
    Mister_Tad, 2 Sep 2021
    #23255
  16. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    The house is over a hundred years old, so no air bricks beyond the one single one in the cellar added alongside indoor plumbing(!), and the office is a loft conversion above the level of the guttering. Well beyond the reach of most ladders, too - they're crazy-tall, these terraces.

    I'mma just snake it up the stairs, it'll be fine. Pretty, no, but functional.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 2 Sep 2021
    #23256
  17. DeadP1xels

    DeadP1xels Social distancing since 92

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    While I appreciate this is a joke and hopefully not accusatory, I feel oversensitive today so have this overbearing need to be a grumpy old man and say this now, to later reread once again and realise how unreasonably grumpy I in fact was.

    For the avoidance of any doubt, everything has always been, and always will be 100% above board in regards to my obligations to pay tax on any profit I make as a registered reseller on eBay. *incoherent grumpy man grumblings*

    In other news, I slept a bit last night and that is a success. rejoice.

     
    DeadP1xels, 2 Sep 2021
    #23257
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  18. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    Weirdly, I have been enjoying going in to the office the last couple of days. Having to get up earlier really does suck though, but it feels like it's adding a bit more structure and routine to my day.
     
    Byron C, 2 Sep 2021
    #23258
  19. spolsh

    spolsh Multimodder

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    Yeah, you was being grumpy, was just meant as a funny I'm sure. Has to be said, not sleeping is not ideal for picking up on humour and is conducive to grump-ing, so I'm sure we're all still friends Certainly I'm sure the few of us that liked it meant no sleight to you,
     
    spolsh, 2 Sep 2021
    #23259
  20. Fizzban

    Fizzban Man of Many Typos

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    It was a joke. And you knew it was a joke. But those pesky tax inspectors.... you gotta play it safe.
     
    Fizzban, 4 Sep 2021
    #23260
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