The Spec Sheet

[wr250]

great show. perhaps you should do it on saturdays if possible. you seemed more relaxed, which is expected.

[Radio Activity]

Dammit. I missed it.

I'm in Texas and got totally screwed up on the show time. At least I have a fresh podcast to download. 

[jazmunda]

The Spec Sheet is postponed until tomorrow (Saturday) at 4PM Eastern, 1PM Pacific. 

Not very accommodating to your massive Australian audience by scheduling the show at 6am. I am boycotting this weeks show. You suck more today than yesterday.

[MV/Liberace!]

Not very accommodating to your massive Australian audience by scheduling the show at 6am. I am boycotting this weeks show. You suck more today than yesterday.

I did an Australian accent on today's episode, just for you.

[jazmunda]

I did an Australian accent on today's episode, just for you.

Are you just enticing me to listen now? I swear if you didn't and I listen for nothing I'm so gonna DMRN-verizongate you.

[MV/Liberace!]

...I'm so gonna DMRN-verizongate you.

Heh heh

[zeebo]

Not very accommodating to your massive Australian audience by scheduling the show at 6am. I am boycotting this weeks show. You suck more today than yesterday.

I'm on Pacific time, but since I'm basically nocturnal 1pm Pacific works out to about 6am for me too.  Thus I'm belatedly boycotting it as well.  (But will check out the podcast.)

[area51drone]

I was going to post something similar.  If you ever can do a late night edition, I'd listen live too.  I don't know how that works for you two, or most of the other listeners back east, but when you do your show at 5pm my time, most west coast people with normal lives are having dinner with their families or are out with their friends.

[Juan]

OK, you goobers convinced me I should pull my 11-year old Dell (XP) out of the closet and set it up as some kind of firewall/router.  What software do you recommend?  I see Smoothwall recommended a lot.  I'd need 32-bit for this machine.

[zeebo]

... at 5pm my time, most west coast people with normal lives are having dinner with their families or are out with their friends.

Yes and the ones with abnormal lives aren't even buzzed yet.   

[wr250]

OK, you goobers convinced me I should pull my 11-year old Dell (XP) out of the closet and set it up as some kind of firewall/router.  What software do you recommend?  I see Smoothwall recommended a lot.  I'd need 32-bit for this machine.

ipcop is another one .uses  web based configuration, similar to a router. 

[area51drone]

I'll have to listen to the show - maybe this comment is off topic - but why not mod an old linksys router you have laying around and throw DDWRT or something similar on it?   Far less power to run than a whole PC just for routing and a firewall.

[MV/Liberace!]

I'll have to listen to the show - maybe this comment is off topic - but why not mod an old linksys router you have laying around and throw DDWRT or something similar on it?   Far less power to run than a whole PC just for routing and a firewall.

I would guess the immediate answer is configurability, features, and speed. Also, while a PC surely uses more power, I'm not sure really how much more it uses, and if it's enough of a difference to worry about. Also, anyone serious enough to employ this rather than use a router is someone who probably has a long list of tech gear consuming power 24/7, and they just aren't bothered by the idea.

Edit: As Curtis said on the show, he had nothing but performance issues until he tried this.

[area51drone]

Edit: As Curtis said on the show, he had nothing but performance issues until he tried this.

Listening now.. yeah that's pretty amazing, 30 mbps to 57?  Wow.

With regards to office, I'm still running office 2003.

[wr250]

I would guess the immediate answer is configurability, features, and speed. Also, while a PC surely uses more power, I'm not sure really how much more it uses, and if it's enough of a difference to worry about. Also, anyone serious enough to employ this rather than use a router is someone who probably has a long list of tech gear consuming power 24/7, and they just aren't bothered by the idea.

Edit: As Curtis said on the show, he had nothing but performance issues until he tried this.

your average router uses ~25W . most consumer computers run into the 100+ watts range (at idle). you figure the power supply is probably 300-350W  constant output, it uses a few watts , 2-4 fans another 50 watts, hard drive 20 watts ,and so on.

however a pc used as a router can also be used for other things such as well ,that a router cannot do.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

your average router uses ~25W . most consumer computers run into the 100+ watts range (at idle). you figure the power supply is probably 300-350W  constant output, it uses a few watts , 2-4 fans another 50 watts, hard drive 20 watts ,and so on.

however a pc used as a router can also be used for other things such as well ,that a router cannot do.

I blaze inferno in here â€" I need to find a way to use power more efficiently.

[wr250]

I blaze inferno in here â€" I need to find a way to use power more efficiently.

setup a laptop with a spare network card then.or buy a router.

[steelbot]

Microsoft gives free group calling away now for all skype users on Xbox1, PC, Mac.

That's good news.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/28/skype-free-group-video-calls-on-desktop-and-xbox-one/

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Finally caught the show and it was good fun.
A couple of comments I had:

1) When you compare an Xbox to a computer, its fairly easy to resell an Xbox and hard to resell a computer. In some cases you can buy a used xbox and then resell it for close what you paid for it; maybe you end up losing $25-50 in the resell.

2) I think Google+ was intended to be more like LinkedIn than Facebook

3) Microsoft has an internal adversarial model with lots of competition (not cooperation) between all the internal departments and parts. It is probably why so many of their different things just don't work as well as planned.

4) Google Glass might move more of the product weight to the ear, similar to a hearing aid in its ergonomics.

5) Adobe has moved to the rental license/pay-by-year model and it seems people are ok with it.

[MV/Liberace!]

3) Microsoft has an internal adversarial model with lots of competition (not cooperation) between all the internal departments and parts. It is probably why so many of their different things just don't work as well as planned.

I assume you're referring to stacked ranking. MS has announced they're doing away with that system, but I'm sure the culture still sucks in that company and will for a long time to come. You can't change the culture in a company of that size overnight.

5) Adobe has moved to the rental license/pay-by-year model and it seems people are ok with it.

I think it's more because people just didn't have a choice if they wanted to continue using adobe's tools, some of which are a fundamental requirement in certain industries.

[area51drone]

5) Adobe has moved to the rental license/pay-by-year model and it seems people are ok with it.

I'm not.  I bought a used copy of CS4 master suite and it does everything I need it to.   I'll never subscribe!

[wr250]

I blaze inferno in here â€" I need to find a way to use power more efficiently.

if you buy a router, get one that is ddwrt compatible (ddwrt searchable router database). this will give you an enterprise level router at the cost of a higher end consumer router. ddwrt is linux based, so ssh and the command line is available.

[Juan]

I'm not.  I bought a used copy of CS4 master suite and it does everything I need it to.   I'll never subscribe!

And I got CS 5.5.  Fuck Adobe.  I'll eventually figure out some substitute for InDesign and I'll be OK.

[saxgod]

I hate being this guy but I saw this yesterday and now people are freaking as Cnet is pointing out. Stop using IE everyone lol.

http://www.cnet.com/news/stop-using-ie-until-bug-is-fixed-says-us/?tag=nl.e703&s_cid=e703&ttag=e703&ftag=CAD090e536

[Khameleon808]

Awesome post Sax.  I am glad that is one of the things I remove when formatting and reinstalling shit on a computer.  And to always uncheck it when doing updates.  Cause they will try and sneak that shit in like 4 times during the updating process.

[zeebo]

I'm not.  I bought a used copy of CS4 master suite and it does everything I need it to.   I'll never subscribe!

I must be old-school like you.  I just wanna buy it and own it and be free to do what I need to with it.  I don't wanna subscribe to some cloud-based thing that isn't really mine. 

Remember the old days when you actually got a Windows Install CD with a new computer?  And you could wipe the machine clean and reinstall from disks a plain vanilla version?  Now you get a recovery partition on your drive that only let's you revert to the version with all the pre-installed junk apps you don't want, and it only works on that machine so you can't e.g. put linux on that box, and transfer your license over to another machine.  So now what you get is a bloated broken Windows which is tied to that machine.  Friggin Microsoft.

[nooropathy]

if you buy a router, get one that is ddwrt compatible (ddwrt searchable router database). this will give you an enterprise level router at the cost of a higher end consumer router. ddwrt is linux based, so ssh and the command line is available.

I've tweaked "refirmwared" a couple of  Linksys WRT54g-TM routers (in my opinion best choice price vs. performance for DD-WRT with B and G --no N wireless)  you can get these on e-bay already set up in this manner as well.  It's an inexpensive way to get high level of router performance...especially helped to speed up the microprocessor 8%, i.e., running 216mHz up from 200 with no special cooling.   Also a good way to manage network if that geeked about traffic on your router.

[wr250]

I've tweaked "refirmwared" a couple of  Linksys WRT54g-TM routers (in my opinion best choice price vs. performance for DD-WRT with B and G --no N wireless)  you can get these on e-bay already set up in this manner as well.  It's an inexpensive way to get high level of router performance...especially helped to speed up the microprocessor 8%, i.e., running 216mHz up from 200 with no special cooling.   Also a good way to manage network if that geeked about traffic on your router.

i had a asus n300 and a higher end netgear that i flashed to ddwrt. ddwrt certainly unlocks all your router is capable of hardware wise, unlike the crippled OEM firmware. in the case of netgear i wonder if the only difference between the high end consumer and enterprise routers is simply the firmware.

[area51drone]

I must be old-school like you.  I just wanna buy it and own it and be free to do what I need to with it.  I don't wanna subscribe to some cloud-based thing that isn't really mine.

The absolute worst part about the adobe cloud software is, I've heard, that if you stop subscribing, you can't access your files!   I mean, maybe you can take away the ability to edit them or something, but you should at least be able to get them, look at them and send them to someone else - you'd think anyway.   I'm sorry, but I'll sit below the cloud and let open source rain down on me any day.

[area51drone]

i had a asus n300 and a higher end netgear that i flashed to ddwrt. ddwrt certainly unlocks all your router is capable of hardware wise, unlike the crippled OEM firmware. in the case of netgear i wonder if the only difference between the high end consumer and enterprise routers is simply the firmware.

I run a linksys e3200 stock as my main router, and then I have a couple more of them that were flashed to ddwrt, and they're set up as repeater bridges - so I have strong wifi all over the house, and I can plug multiple devices in to each bridge.   One behind the TV feeds my xbox, the TV pc, the tivo and the bluray player.