Aug
2011

Connecting Sky HD box to Wifi

Since I moved to Sky for my phone and broadband we were offered the ability to have Sky Anytime+ I duly signed up but was told the Wireless adaptor would cost around £60 and as the broadband router is nowhere near my Sky box I needed to find an alternative and hopefully cheaper solution that does not involve running CAT5 cable through two rooms.

Doing a search on Google and eBay I found that there were several USB powered wifi bridges I could use, a quick test of my Sky HD box shows that the USB port is inactive and provides no power. Back to Google I went and found that quite a few people were using a TP-Link Wireless Access Point.

So I opted for the TP-Link TL-WA701ND 150Mbps Wireless Lite N Access Point which was only £17.99 from Amazon.

 

TP-Link WA701ND Wireless Access Point

In order to set up the TP Link you need a computer. I connected the device to my MacBook Pro via the supplied ethernet cable and configured my Ethernet Network settings as follows :

Manually
IP : 192.168.1.100
Subnet : 255.255.255.0
Router : 192.168.1.254

Fired up Safari and connected to 192.168.1.254, entered the admin username and password (which is admin by default). As Sky configure their broadband routers to be on the 192.168.0.1 – 192.168.0.255 range you need to change the IP address of the TP-Link Box.

To do this you need to click on the Network link on the left hand side and change the values on that page. I configured mine as follows and clicked save.

Network

Type : Static IP
IP : 192.168.0.254
Subnet : 255.255.255.0
Gateway : 192.168.0.1 (This is my Sky router IP address)

Once the device rebooted I logged back in to the admin pages (the device should automatically refresh to 192.168.0.254) and continued to set the wireless part of it up.

Wireless

I elected to set it up in Client mode with the following settings :

Enable WDS : unchecked
SSID : My wireless network name
Region : United Kingdom
Channel Width : 20/40Mhz
Enable Wireless Radio : checked

I then clicked Survey, clicked connect on my wireless network from the list of wifi networks that it had found.
This then put the MAC address of the Sky broadband router in the MAC of AP box and finally I clicked save. At this point I was offered to reboot, you can at this point but there is no need as you will have to reboot it later.

Wireless Security

Selected WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK
PSK Password : entered my wireless network password, everything else was left as is and I clicked save. Again I was offered to reboot, do not reboot yet.

DHCP Settings

In the DHCP setting page I set it up as follows and clicked save. At this point I rebooted the device.
DHCP Server : Enable
Start IP 192.168.0.100
End IP 192.168.0.101
Default Gateway : 192.168.0.1
Primary DNS : 192.168.0.1

Once the TP-Link device had rebooted I then plugged the Ethernet cable in to the Sky HD box

On the Sky HD Box

From the TV Guide I selected Settings -> Network -> Select
The Sky box then performed a Network search and came back with the following
Local Connection : OK
Service Connection : OK
IP Address : 192.168.0.100
DHCP : ON

That’s it,  Sky Anytime+ is now working great.

Apr
2011

Airport Express Woes

I have two Apple Airport Express devices. One in the loft with a USB printer and a set of speakers then another one in the living room with a set of speakers connected to it. However, the printer was randomly vanishing from the network and the speakers would cut out from time to time.

So I reset both devices and swapped them around. I noticed that the printer would remain on the network on one of the AE’s but vanish on the other. So I put the working one in the loft and just disconnected the second one assuming it was just faulty. Well today I tried resetting the suspect one and it appeared fine but iTunes would not connect to it yet my iPhone would for about 30 seconds before it decided to vanish. Both AE devices are running 6.3 which is the latest version.

Doing some research it was suggested to try downgrading the firmware then upgrading it again so that’s what I tried but it made no difference. After scouring Apple  discussions one person reported similar problems until they changed their Wireless channel to 12. I have mine on 6 as there are no other wireless networks in my range with that number.

I logged into my Sky router and changed the channel from 6 to 12 and also changed it so that it was set to 802.11g only and lo and behold it works!!

So if you have an Airport Express with the following issues :

Airport Express sound cutting out
Airport Express vanishing from network

Then try the above changes on your wireless router. You never know it may work for you 😀

Jan
2011

Moving to Sky….

Last year Sky installed their LLU equipment in my telephone exchange. I had thought about moving to Sky but with reports of poor connections and the fact that I was more than happy with ADSL24 I elected to just leave it as is.

However, after a recent phone bill from BT I decided to look at LLU providers again. I cannot and will not ever move to BT Broadband due to their traffic shaping policy. I am not what I would call a heavy broadband user but BT classed me as one as I downloaded around 14Gb per month – which is nothing compared to many.

The companies on my exchange are as follows :

  • Sky
  • Orange
  • Talktalk

As I do not have a mobile phone with Orange and don’t want to be with Talk Talk I decided to look into Sky. Being a Sky customer already, Sky offer Unlimited broadband for £12.50 per month or £7.50 per month (free for first 3 months) if we sign up to their Sky Talk service.

Their online checker reported my line being able to support a maximum of 0.5Mb which concerned me considering I already had a 2.8Mb connection but I decided to take the risk and duly signed up for Sky Broadband, Sky Talk with line rental.

My activation was 14th January 2011.

I am a few days into my 10 day line test and so far my connection has risen from just under 3Mb as shown below

to just over 5Mb!

So far in my limited tests I am really impressed with Sky. No speed slow downs, not too much lag in online games (though ping is not as low as it was I plan on moving to a gamer profile later if it does cause me a problem) and web pages are displaying instantly.

My phone line transfers to Sky on 31st January 2011 so I will know a lot more then on how things are going. However, with saving at least £12.10 on broadband costs and the saving compared to BT line costs I really think I made the right move 🙂

Time will tell 😉

Mar
2009

Apple and their Quality

What is it with Apple and their quality?

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I am jinxed. Here is a list of Apple equipment I have bought 

PowerMac 6100 no faults
PowerMac 6400, no faults
iMac, no faults
iBook Clamshell – Off ebay, no fault.
PowerMac G4, Hissing sound from speaker, not replaced/fixed
White iBook 500Mhz, No fault
Titanium G4 PowerBook, No fault
Aluminium PowerBook G4 LOADS of faults

  • Screen faulty, faded one side
  • Keyboard problems
  • Trackpad issues
  • Cracked plastics after repair
  • Second screen, faded issue again
  • Pixels faulty after it came back from repair
  • Further problems with keyboard at this point Apple replaced it

Aluminium PowerBook G4 Second machine, 4 dead pixels and further screen issues (was sold on and Superdrive since failed)
Apple TV, died under warranty
Mac mini 1, no faults
Mac mini 2, no faults
iPod’s, iPhone and iPhone 3G no faults
Several xServes, couple of hard drive failures
Aluminium MacBook Pro, paint peeling under space bar and apple key, pitting
24″ Aluminium iMac, Defective glass replaced under warranty
Unibody MacBook Pro 1, was sent an opened and damaged machine

So, quite a few problems and now my replacement MacBook Pro has a dead pixel. I must be so unfortunate with Apple kit.

Here are a couple of photo’s of the pixel. They are being sent to Apple so they can evaluate the issue. But seriously, why do I love Apple kit so much even though there are quality issues!

 

Ok, after reading the above I see that most of the kit I have bought have not developed faults. However, last 3 machines have. God knows what Apple is going to say but I reckon it will be a case of  “Sorry, one dead pixel is within the acceptable failure rate for screens”.

Mar
2009

In with the New…

Yesterday I placed an order for a MacBook Pro which Apple stated would ship within 2 days. However, to my surprise Apple shipped it yesterday and it has arrived already!

What hit me the most was the size of the box! It’s a lot smaller than the previous MacBook Pro box yet the machine is slightly wider, I would do a comparison photo but the original MacBook Pro box is in the eaves.

The glass screen looks AMAZING, I rarely need to use my MacBook Pro outdoors and if I did do I imagine this type of screen would be a nightmare as it does have quite a reflection on it if the background is dark.

Interestingly enough the box had been opened and re-sealed so I was a bit cautious as to what I might find inside. Someone thinks maybe it was upgraded, could it be that the chip is actually clocked using software in order to be the higher 2.66 instead of the 2.54 it recently replaced? The MacBook Pro itself was wrapped in the protection plastic cover, but the unit has had something done to it, what I just don’t know. The screen had part of a hand print on it and it’s obviously been wiped so I wonder if something was replaced in the machine or if this is a unit that had been returned back to Apple? I am not sure.

Just beneath the trackpad there is an indentation where it looks as though something metallic had been dropped on it, such as a dart or screwdriver or something. However, this is only visible in certain light conditions (it was really hard to take a picture of it, the iPhone was the only camera that would pick it up and it’s the smudged part on the image above.

I absolutely love the machine but I am so torn as to wether to keep it or send it back as defective/marked and take the risk that maybe the next one I get has a dead/stuck pixel which this does not. Surely it if was brand new the machine would not have part of a hand print on it.

I think I may have to call Apple and discuss this issue.