Random Tech Questions you want answered.

Data caps and throttling the connection during peak hours. Perhaps inconsistency and connection issues in bad weather? Latency?

DoveBrown wrote:

So my OpenReach BT ASDL is 10Mb/s down 1Mb/s up and super flaky as we are far from the exchange on copper. My EE 4G mobile gets 25Mb/s and 8Mb/s up. An unlimited data EE 4G sim is the same price as my BT monthly payment (screw you charging for line rental for phone only called by spammers).

Is there a trap here for the unwary for using a 4G router to provide the home WiFi? Just me and Mrs Brown so fairly normal usage for Netflix and other video. FaceTime and the occasional Steam game download. My counter strike days are behind me so ping less important than it was.

OpenReach have been promising Fibre for years but no joy. Virgin aren’t viable either.

I've been using a 4g LTE router from T Mobile the past 5 or 6 months. For your use case it sounds like you would be fine. I've played rocket league on it and it's ok, but I see high packet loss in most matches. Rocket league mostly compensates for it but I think in a more twitchy game like a shooter it wouldn't work well.

Rykin wrote:
Vargen wrote:
Vargen wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
Vargen wrote:

I'm doing some work with the local Scouts BSA and they've asked me about having a looping promotional video in their summer camp store. What's the best way to go about that these days? Their TV set might have playback off a USB stick but I'm not going to bet on it. I know I can do it with a DVD but that definitely doesn't seem like the best answer. Is this a good time to learn about those Raspberry Pi gizmos?

My mid-range plasma from 2009 has USB video playback. I would assume any and all TVs should have that function. I would think a prudent course of action would be to ask them what they have available to connect to it and what the model # on the TV they have is determine it's capabilities.

So I finally got access to the hardware. It turns out that plasma TVs from 2007 do not have USB video playback. Or at least these don’t.

Managed to get a TV that's only a couple of years old. It plays the video just fine. It won't loop it. I asked customer service and everything. I've done a workaround by rendering a really long video that repeats the material several times, so now it only needs to be manually restarted every 2 hours instead of every 12 minutes. I would have made it long enough to cover the entire time the camp store is open, but that made it too large for the FAT32 file system that the TV requires.

This sounds like a good problem to solve with a Raspberry Pi. There are preconfigured images you can download and load onto them specifically for doing stuff like this.

*quietly bangs head on desk*

Vargen wrote:
Rykin wrote:
Vargen wrote:
Vargen wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
Vargen wrote:

I'm doing some work with the local Scouts BSA and they've asked me about having a looping promotional video in their summer camp store. What's the best way to go about that these days? Their TV set might have playback off a USB stick but I'm not going to bet on it. I know I can do it with a DVD but that definitely doesn't seem like the best answer. Is this a good time to learn about those Raspberry Pi gizmos?

My mid-range plasma from 2009 has USB video playback. I would assume any and all TVs should have that function. I would think a prudent course of action would be to ask them what they have available to connect to it and what the model # on the TV they have is determine it's capabilities.

So I finally got access to the hardware. It turns out that plasma TVs from 2007 do not have USB video playback. Or at least these don’t.

Managed to get a TV that's only a couple of years old. It plays the video just fine. It won't loop it. I asked customer service and everything. I've done a workaround by rendering a really long video that repeats the material several times, so now it only needs to be manually restarted every 2 hours instead of every 12 minutes. I would have made it long enough to cover the entire time the camp store is open, but that made it too large for the FAT32 file system that the TV requires.

This sounds like a good problem to solve with a Raspberry Pi. There are preconfigured images you can download and load onto them specifically for doing stuff like this.

*quietly bangs head on desk*

I did mention it back in April too ;)

DoveBrown wrote:

So my OpenReach BT ASDL is 10Mb/s down 1Mb/s up and super flaky as we are far from the exchange on copper. My EE 4G mobile gets 25Mb/s and 8Mb/s up. An unlimited data EE 4G sim is the same price as my BT monthly payment (screw you charging for line rental for phone only called by spammers).

Is there a trap here for the unwary for using a 4G router to provide the home WiFi? Just me and Mrs Brown so fairly normal usage for Netflix and other video. FaceTime and the occasional Steam game download. My counter strike days are behind me so ping less important than it was.

OpenReach have been promising Fibre for years but no joy. Virgin aren’t viable either.

Edit: This is in the U.K. ^_^

Is Starlink not available where you are? Might be worth a look. Apparently the service is getting better and better all the time. https://www.starlink.com/

Gaald wrote:

Is Starlink not available where you are? Might be worth a look. Apparently the service is getting better and better all the time. https://www.starlink.com/

Well I can see how Elon makes his money. £496 for hand ware and setup and £89 a month after that.

EE would be £55 a month and the router is “free” (24 month contract) or £37 a month bring your own router. Which to be fair is pretty much a £450 for that “free router”.

Ah ISPs the one thing we can all agree on hating.

I just got off the phone with my new ISP (AT&T) to schedule installation after our old one (Cox) almost doubled the price of our internet. Both companies offer fiber internet in my neighborhood and AT&T offers symmetrical 300 Mbps with unlimited data for less per month than Cox's asymmetrical 150/30 Mbps with a 1 TB data cap and the AT&T price is a fixed price not an introductory price (apparently we are a trial market for this) so the days of having to call my ISP every year to get a decent price that is always slightly higher than what I had before are hopefully over.

DoveBrown wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Is Starlink not available where you are? Might be worth a look. Apparently the service is getting better and better all the time. https://www.starlink.com/

Well I can see how Elon makes his money. £496 for hand ware and setup and £89 a month after that.

EE would be £55 a month and the router is “free” (24 month contract) or £37 a month bring your own router. Which to be fair is pretty much a £450 for that “free router”.

That dish is apparently super expensive, and they are taking a loss on it, even at the initial price. As for the monthly fee, it is pretty high yeah, but you get some pretty good speeds compared to the alternative options. At least this is what I have heard from people who live in rural areas that can't get internet wired to their home.

fenomas wrote:

Is anyone familiar with Chromebook specs? E.g. how much memory is enough/not enough for this or that model/screen size/etc?

You'll want 4GB to be able to comfortably use it, but more doesn't hurt. Other than that they're pretty frugal when it comes to CPU and storage, so most any model will work fine. It's really the screen, keyboard, and touchpad that you want to care about then.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
fenomas wrote:

Is anyone familiar with Chromebook specs? E.g. how much memory is enough/not enough for this or that model/screen size/etc?

You'll want 4GB to be able to comfortably use it, but more doesn't hurt. Other than that they're pretty frugal when it comes to CPU and storage, so most any model will work fine. It's really the screen, keyboard, and touchpad that you want to care about then.

Hmm, I was afraid of that. We're trying to buy a chromebook for an elderly relative, but can only really buy online without trying them out.

I don't suppose anyone has particular models they love/hate?

Gaald wrote:
DoveBrown wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Is Starlink not available where you are? Might be worth a look. Apparently the service is getting better and better all the time. https://www.starlink.com/

Well I can see how Elon makes his money. £496 for hand ware and setup and £89 a month after that.

EE would be £55 a month and the router is “free” (24 month contract) or £37 a month bring your own router. Which to be fair is pretty much a £450 for that “free router”.

That dish is apparently super expensive, and they are taking a loss on it, even at the initial price. As for the monthly fee, it is pretty high yeah, but you get some pretty good speeds compared to the alternative options. At least this is what I have heard from people who live in rural areas that can't get internet wired to their home.

And this is what drives me crazy. I live on street of houses built between 1947 and 1953 in Cambridge, two miles from the center. 100 yards away, over an old railway track, from a huge 2010s housing development where everyone has fibre to their front door. I am not in the middle of nowhere. Fibre has been coming for ages according to OpenReach (and local politicians). I have a chat with the guys doing a more local fibre network (Cambridge Fibre) and they have plans but it’s at least 12 months out. They need more people to order around me and they will eventually snake their way out. If this were rural I could understand it, and there would be a government grant. I am in a weird urban black hole.

DoveBrown wrote:
Gaald wrote:
DoveBrown wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Is Starlink not available where you are? Might be worth a look. Apparently the service is getting better and better all the time. https://www.starlink.com/

Well I can see how Elon makes his money. £496 for hand ware and setup and £89 a month after that.

EE would be £55 a month and the router is “free” (24 month contract) or £37 a month bring your own router. Which to be fair is pretty much a £450 for that “free router”.

That dish is apparently super expensive, and they are taking a loss on it, even at the initial price. As for the monthly fee, it is pretty high yeah, but you get some pretty good speeds compared to the alternative options. At least this is what I have heard from people who live in rural areas that can't get internet wired to their home.

And this is what drives me crazy. I live on street of houses built between 1947 and 1953 in Cambridge, two miles from the center. 100 yards away, over an old railway track, from a huge 2010s housing development where everyone has fibre to their front door. I am not in the middle of nowhere. Fibre has been coming for ages according to OpenReach (and local politicians). I have a chat with the guys doing a more local fibre network (Cambridge Fibre) and they have plans but it’s at least 12 months out. They need more people to order around me and they will eventually snake their way out. If this were rural I could understand it, and there would be a government grant. I am in a weird urban black hole.

so i live in cypruss at the moment where any ISP takes about a month to getting around to installing a physical internet line. i had to get it much sooner than that so i ended up getting a 5g hot spot like thing and am getting around 80 megabits with it. haven't tried gaming on it, but the latency seems decent enough for that.

Rykin wrote:

Ah ISPs the one thing we can all agree on hating.

I just got off the phone with my new ISP (AT&T) to schedule installation after our old one (Cox) almost doubled the price of our internet. Both companies offer fiber internet in my neighborhood and AT&T offers symmetrical 300 Mbps with unlimited data for less per month than Cox's asymmetrical 150/30 Mbps with a 1 TB data cap and the AT&T price is a fixed price not an introductory price (apparently we are a trial market for this) so the days of having to call my ISP every year to get a decent price that is always slightly higher than what I had before are hopefully over.

I keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting... for AT&T to provide fibre here where I live in Tulsa. In March of 2020 they laid fibre through my backyard and all of my neighbor's for "something".

I've used Cox Cable for my internet from the day they went live in Tulsa and never had a single issue with them, except for their pricing. I'm ready to move on, but there are no viable options for me.

At least it's not ComCast.

-BEP

bepnewt wrote:
Rykin wrote:

Ah ISPs the one thing we can all agree on hating.

I just got off the phone with my new ISP (AT&T) to schedule installation after our old one (Cox) almost doubled the price of our internet. Both companies offer fiber internet in my neighborhood and AT&T offers symmetrical 300 Mbps with unlimited data for less per month than Cox's asymmetrical 150/30 Mbps with a 1 TB data cap and the AT&T price is a fixed price not an introductory price (apparently we are a trial market for this) so the days of having to call my ISP every year to get a decent price that is always slightly higher than what I had before are hopefully over.

I keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting... for AT&T to provide fibre here where I live in Tulsa. In March of 2020 they laid fibre through my backyard and all of my neighbor's for "something".

I've used Cox Cable for my internet from the day they went live in Tulsa and never had a single issue with them, except for their pricing. I'm ready to move on, but there are no viable options for me.

At least it's not ComCast.

-BEP

We were running Cox Fiber for a year and it was great, but that was with an introductory price and now when I call them up to get a better deal it is basically $16 more per month for the same service as we used to have. Just the fact that I have to call them up every year to get a decent price on my plan has gotten very annoying.

Random Tech Question Time: Anyone out there using MoCA networking? What do you think of it?

My old wifi bridge is limiting my internet speed on my main PC now so I need to either get a new bridge or switch to some other connection type. Cost wise between a new wifi bridge and a MoCA setup is about the same and in theory the speed of either option is going to be about the same (wifi 6 is theoretically slightly faster than MoCA 2.5) so if MoCA is more dependable I think I might go with that. I have coax in the top of the closet right next to the fiber line (the home builder setup an area for networking in the top of our hall closet and I love them for it) and closer to my PC than the power outlet it is plugged into so that isn't an issue. Looking around my house I actually have coax in 4 of the 5 locations I would like to run ethernet to so MoCA might be a good solution for all of those.

Rykin wrote:

Random Tech Question Time: Anyone out there using MoCA networking? What do you think of it?

My old wifi bridge is limiting my internet speed on my main PC now so I need to either get a new bridge or switch to some other connection type. Cost wise between a new wifi bridge and a MoCA setup is about the same and in theory the speed of either option is going to be about the same (wifi 6 is theoretically slightly faster than MoCA 2.5) so if MoCA is more dependable I think I might go with that. I have coax in the top of the closet right next to the fiber line (the home builder setup an area for networking in the top of our hall closet and I love them for it) and closer to my PC than the power outlet it is plugged into so that isn't an issue. Looking around my house I actually have coax in 4 of the 5 locations I would like to run ethernet to so MoCA might be a good solution for all of those.

I do have a MoCA bridge between two parts of my house. Have had the hardware for over a decade and it just keeps working reliably so I keep using it. It's the old 200Mbit stuff and I only have the two endpoints. I haven't tried the new gigabit stuff but I'd like to if I found it at a good price. Mine has higher average latency than my wifi network (around 5ms compared to 1ms) but it never seems to drop packets or have latency spikes. I mostly use it for video streaming over network to that part of my house but I used to use it as a bridge for far more traffic. Lately I've been doing game streaming over it where it's proven to be more reliable than wifi.

If you do pick up some modern MoCA I'd be curious to hear the results.

This is the pair I am thinking about getting. It is Wire Cutter's pick for networking over alternative media as they found it out performed all the Powerline based stuff they tested. The price is pretty reasonable. I would probably start with the pair and then add on another one or two down the line if it works well.

At the same time I could also just add a wifi card to my PC. I am in a house so we don't have a ton of wifi congestion like I used to have in my apartment. I have 2 open 1x slots and an open USB header so I could get one of the combination Wifi 6/Bluetooth 5 cards and no longer have to use a dongle for Bluetooth. I have just had bad results from PCIe wifi cards in the past and this PC's case is a giant steel box (RIP CaseLabs) that would block line-of-sight between the card antenna and the router. Used to have an old Dell with a wifi card like that and turning it sideways would improve the signal strength like 3x, but my laptop still got a better signal farther away from the access point than it did sideways.

Rykin wrote:
Vargen wrote:
Rykin wrote:
Vargen wrote:
Vargen wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
Vargen wrote:

I'm doing some work with the local Scouts BSA and they've asked me about having a looping promotional video in their summer camp store. What's the best way to go about that these days? Their TV set might have playback off a USB stick but I'm not going to bet on it. I know I can do it with a DVD but that definitely doesn't seem like the best answer. Is this a good time to learn about those Raspberry Pi gizmos?

My mid-range plasma from 2009 has USB video playback. I would assume any and all TVs should have that function. I would think a prudent course of action would be to ask them what they have available to connect to it and what the model # on the TV they have is determine it's capabilities.

So I finally got access to the hardware. It turns out that plasma TVs from 2007 do not have USB video playback. Or at least these don’t.

Managed to get a TV that's only a couple of years old. It plays the video just fine. It won't loop it. I asked customer service and everything. I've done a workaround by rendering a really long video that repeats the material several times, so now it only needs to be manually restarted every 2 hours instead of every 12 minutes. I would have made it long enough to cover the entire time the camp store is open, but that made it too large for the FAT32 file system that the TV requires.

This sounds like a good problem to solve with a Raspberry Pi. There are preconfigured images you can download and load onto them specifically for doing stuff like this.

*quietly bangs head on desk*

I did mention it back in April too ;)

That would have helped if I'd seen it back in April. It seems trying to keep a tiny human alive has an impact on my ability to keep up with web forums.

Is there any way to get an in-site notification when somebody quotes you? I've seen that on other forums.

I have an old cell phone (Pixel 2) that won't power on. It also looks like it may be bulging now, I'm assuming that's the battery! Obviously it needs to go. I'm not entirely clear on whether I ever wiped the data from the phone (I'd give it like a 70% chance that I did, but of course I can't check now). What is the environmentally friendly way to dispose of this and should that method (and/or the phone's inoperability) moot any concerns about the phone possibly having data on it somewhere?

My first guess solution to this would be that my local Best Buy has an e-recycling stand I could just toss it into and hope they sort it out and assume its unlikely that if there's any data on the device that anyone in a position to touch my phone would have no interest in trying to steal data from it. My second guess solution would be to just smash the hell out of it with a hammer and toss the parts in the trash, but probably not the safest or most environmentally friendly thing considering the battery.

Don't smash it. You'll get battery innards and smashed rare elements all over when you do it, and those are *not* healthy.

If it has a SIM card, pull the card. If it doesn't, it probably doesn't have much recoverable data on it.

I'd take it to Best Buy and toss it. That swollen battery is a serious hazard.

I'd be inclined to remove the battery and recycle THAT, but then triple/quadruple bag it in ziplocs to contain the nastiness and smash that.

Won’t work. It’ll pierce the bag, even if it’s in small bits. Much better to recycle it.

I would probably try to CAREFULLY open it up to get rid of the battery and then try to power it up and see if it can power up without the battery.

Robear wrote:

Won’t work. It’ll pierce the bag, even if it’s in small bits. Much better to recycle it.

I dunno - I've taken a hammer to a hard drive that way and it was contained. Do it on a softer surface (I used my back yard lawn), and you won't be piercing the bag against concrete.

It's a trade-off, right? If information security concerns trump convenience, then you gotta destroy it (cos you can't power it on to wipe it). Otherwise, sure, recycle it.

This is based on my experience with a friend who did this very thing with similar batteries and contaminated his balcony, which was exposed concrete....

Robear wrote:

This is based on my experience with a friend who did this very thing with similar batteries and contaminated his balcony, which was exposed concrete....

Yeah, the FIRST time I did it, I made that mistake.

Second time on the lawn (with more layers of containment), job's a good'un.

Uff da I think I borked my computer. I decided to get a wifi PCIe card instead of the MoCA adapter since at some point in the future I want to build a new PC and let this one be just a server again and I want to hide it somewhere out of the way which probably won't be near a coax outlet. I tried installing it but my PC wouldn't recognize it as a wifi card, but the Bluetooth functionality was working (which is connected through a USB header). Looking online a lot of people are having similar issues with cards based on this chipset. Some of them were able to resolve the issue by using a different PCIe slot so I was messing around testing it in different slots and after testing all of my 1x slots I decided to remove my SAS card to test it in that slot and now the SAS card isn't being picked up. I moved my GPU into the SAS card slot and it worked, but the SAS card wasn't picked up in the GPU slot either.

I have basically spent the last two evenings working to resolve this and at this point I am running out of things to try. I brought the SAS card with me to work so I could test it in a spare PC I have here. If it works in that I guess I will be reinstalling Windows this weekend to see if that helps. At this point I don't even care if I can get the wifi card working. The SAS card was the second most expensive part of this PC (the case being the most expensive part) and is way more important than faster wifi.

Does your mobo have built in wifi that could be causing a conflict?

Does anyone have a recommendation for a Reddit iOS app, specifically for an iPad? I’ve been using narwhal for years, but somethings changed about how they render video recently and it’s absolutely maddening.

Previously, most videos rendered in an in-app player that was fine. Now it looks like a browser window to the YouTube page where half the time the video will auto play but freeze after a few seconds while the audio continues, or the video just won’t play at all. Very frustrating.

I've been using Apollo for a while (on iPhone; I haven't tried it on iPad), and like it.