The Blah . . .

Nothing is really happening these days. I guess it is the winter blues. The sun rises so late but sets so early -- if you can even said that; for about two weeks, I've only maybe seen the sun once. It's dreary, gray and wet. Sigh. One of the perils of living in Chicago, I guess. Can't say much for about the rest of the midwest as I've only lived in Indiana for a few years. I was in school then and we don't generally get to see the sun when we're in class and as the saying goes, "You don't miss what you don't have!"

Snowed for the first time the day before Thanksgiving this year. Snow persisted into Thanksgiving Day but nothing stuck -- I guess the ground is still too warm. I've got volleyball to sustain me for now, hopefully it will be enough to last me through the cold winter months.

Media Streaming using WiFi -- the sequel

So, thanks to the word of encouragement/comment from fico, I finally decided to upgrade my router to the NetGear WPN824. The router itself doesn't look too bad -- just a plain white box with blinking blue lights. There are no antennaes on the outside but according to the specifications, there are six internal antennaes. Since I was going to set up the new router, I took the opportunity to clean up my bedroom too and move everything (cable modem, router, wires, etc) to the office. Took a while to get the WPN824 up and running -- a little over 90 minutes. The installation software was a tremendous help. Thought I would be able to "plug and play" but I am not sure if it was the firewall or whatever but, using the Wizard, the router simply would not connect to the internet. I finally got it to work by turning off the firewall and using the installation disc. Don't see any marked improvements with the 802.11g laptop or the older 802.11b laptop but when I tried to connect the PS3 to the media server -- man! WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT. Songs and movies played continuously with no problems -- no buffering, no outages, etc. What a dream. So, for anyone who is having problems with streaming media, maybe you want to check into your router and see if it is rated for media streaming. The WPN824 works like a charm.

Why me!!!

Ok! This is definitely a RANT!!!! It seems to be that there are a lot of places that are near impossible to get to in the middle of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. While I understand the importance of providing necessary health care to the general population, why does it seems that I always get the god-forsaken places in the middle of nowhere. Ok -- come on -- Beckley, West Virginia and now, Pikeville Kentucky? It seems like there are so many sparsely populated areas in these New England states. I have to learn to shut my big mouth when accepting projects! Check Google Map first before you say you'll accept a project.