Settop Boxes, Phones, Internet Modems & Firewalls

WARNING : Geeky story with a happy ending and a product recommendation

The past couple of weeks we seem to have changed all of the communication boxes in this house due to one reason or another and finally today (fingers crossed) everything is running as it should.

When we moved to this house back in 2005 we moved all of our communications (Phone, Internet & Television) over to Cablecom, the big cable provider in Switzerland. So we became classic "Triple Play" users. The idea being that we would only need to deal with one provider. Little did we know at that time that it would still be like dealing with three providers with separate helplines for each of the Phone, Internet and TV even when the Internet & Phone are handled by one box (still called a modem even though it doesn't modulate or demodulate anything).

Anyway a few a few weeks ago almost simultaneously the Phone and Digital TV started playing up, The phone sounding like we were being switched on and off rapidly as we were talking and the DTV being switched on and of a little more sedately, but just as annoying.

The Phone

First we (Carol actually) attacked the Telephone helpdesk and after long queues and listening to music that seemed to have been recorded through our telephone and of course accentuated by being played back through our faulty line we convinced them to send us something. A power supply! This seemed to fix the problem for a whole day.

The TV

That was DTV escalation day, no more on and off problems, now it was just OFF complete with slightly charred security card. So we (Carol actually) tackled the TV Helpdesk, analog and digital on one line!! And after after long queues and listening to music that seemed to have been recorded through our telephone and but this time NOT accentuated by being played back through our faulty line we convinced them to send us something. A new DTV box.

The Internet

Meanwhile our phone line had gone back to its flickering state and the Internet seemed to have slowed down to the point the VPN I use for work couldn't manage to hold itself up (not good). A quick measurement (using speedtest.net) confirmed the suspicion of around 2Mb/s on a line I pay for 25Mb/s on (although I wasn't getting ever getting it --- but more of that later)

So Carol took the Telephone helpdesk and I took on the Internet helpdesk simultaneously . This dual pronged attack seemed to have the desired effect they even made the almost unheard of Telephone Internet Helpdesk link-up and decided to send us a new (non modulating) Modem in which to plug both Telephone and Internet connection into.

The Happy Ending (almost)

So within a couple of days with all the new boxes plugged in:
The DTV looked clear and uninterrupted
The Telephone stopped jittering
The Internet speed was up to 5Mp/s

The Product Recommendation

So all was well..... except where is my 25mps
At this time my memory drifted (as it does) back to a conversation with an old friend, even more geeky than I am, that mentioned my Firewall (the trusty old Zyxel Zywall 10) was limited to the WAN Ethernet Performance of 10mps which I just realised that meant a full duplex rate of 5mps. AHA, not Cablecom's performance this time but my aging hardware.

So off to find a good, but low cost, Firewall product.
Starting with the devil I know I looked at the Zyxel Zywall 2 plus with a throughput of 25mps max at CHF269 but I wanted something with some spare capacity and that took me up to at least double the price. So what to do?

As before my memory drifted (as it does) back to a conversation with with the same old geeky friend who mentioned some small computers that you could stick in a 150mm square box (Alix) and run freeware software (m0n0wall, yes they are zeroes) on them to get 100mps throughput.

So last Friday with itchy fingers I ordered an Alix 2D3 System Board, Box (mine is a very nice Red not the Pink shown here, but also available in Black) & PSU (also available for UK) for the total cost of CHF160 (you can do it cheaper with a cheaper board).

They arrived today so I downloaded the m0n0wall image loaded it on to an old CF Card as instructed (it needs just 16MB, mega not giga), plugged it in the system board and stuck the system board in the box. Luckily the default local network was the same as mine so I replaced my old firewall "dragon" with the new "redwall" plugged in the power and et voila.

If it keeps running like this I'll be well chuffed.

The REAL Happy Ending
Maximum Download speed : 25.49Mb/s (2am to Dusseldorf)

The Lights were Off

Sharing darkness with Friends, Mexican/Spanish Food, "Dark" Music and thinking on the World's situation.

The Music:
Mercury Rev - The Dark is Rising
Handel - Messiah, For behold, the darkness shall cover the Earth
Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark
A-Ha - Dark is the Night
The Pogues - Dark Streets of London
EchoBelly - Dark Therapy
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Darker with the day
Peter Gabriel - Darkness
Over the Rhine - I will not eat the Darkness
Rare Bird - Her Darkest Hour
Nits - Home before Dark
Jesse Cook - Into the Dark
Meat Loaf - Left in the Dark
Blind Willie Johnson - Keep your lamp trimmed and burning
Blind Willie Johnson - Let your light shine on me
------ Time to turn on the lights
Genesis - Turn it on again
Del Fuegos - Headlights
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Shine on you Crazy Diamond


Alternative for Pete Gabriel: Bjork - Scatterheart (if your wife doesn't loath Bjork)
Kind of Ironic really I always have to listen to Bjork in the dark.

Earth Hour - Turn off the Lights

MRI News, No Change or may be not

Finally got the results of the MRI from 16th February.
Only seen the report so far so no pictures yet. So how does it look?

Befund:
Zum Vergleich liegt die letzte Kernspintomographie des Schädels vom 14.11.08 vor.

or
Looks the same as it did on the last MRI of the skull from November 2008.

Don't you love the German word for Magnetic Resonance Imaging - Kernspintomographie, much more "Nuclear Age" rather than the "Magnets" of MRI don't you think.

In the detail of the report we can see a little more:
No signs of Atrophy or Vascular (vessel) disease around the Biopsie scars. Good start.

At the end of the biopsy canals (from where they stole a bit of brain from me) there are two licorice intensity defects of 8x5mm and 3x7mm (ie. my sharp looking tumour has become a couple of fuzzy blobs). On the larger of these there is an un-sharply bordered, anomalous, discrete enhancement that might indicate a very light tumour growth.

That is not something I wanted to see, but at least they recommend another 3 month before the next check up so that must be good, or may be they want me to have a little bit more fun before the onslaught.


P.S. Anybody interested in looking at a full MRI report (in German), just put in a vote and I will put one up with all the names and stuff to protect the innocent.

Still Waiting & Lunch

Still had no results from MRI... Oncologist on holiday.... Appointment next Monday.
Also noticed that I forgot to publish a whole load of blog entries so you might want to check backwards.

Had a nice Lunch today. Thank you Uwe for allowing me to bore you silly for a couple of hours.

Kosher Dream

I do seem to have a more varied set of dreams nowadays than I used to have, As always they are quite surreal, but I have to say none quite so strange as one I had last night. And surprisingly I can still remember much of it.

The Kosher Food Factory

We enter the dream as I am walking across the Pennines with three of the four guys (Mike, Stephen & John) with whom I spent my second year at Salford University. We lived in a big old house in the Monton area of Eccles in Salford but that was not featured in this dream. We were all wearing long coats and Salford scarves.

We were walking through some woodland and on exiting the trees found ourselves looking at the sprawl of of a somewhat smaller and older Manchester than I remember. I would place this as Lowry's Manchester (early 1900's) as evidenced by the many belowing chimney stacks and, once we entered the city, the cobbled streets.

We walked down a steep slope into the city and met up with our fourth comrade (Steve) who was standing on the top of a small hill (slag heap?), he joined us and we continued down into the winding streets of the city. One by one my comrades disappeared down different side streets until I was left alone. By now a fog had crept in and I could see very little, the streets were (or seemed) deserted. Suddenly a man wearing a Bowler hat appeared out of a side street and turned quickly in front of me. Fearing that I had got lost I followed him thinking he might take me to somewhere more familiar. Unfortunately he entered a building.

For some reason I followed him in to the building but he had now disappeared out of sight and I was left in a fairly long hallway leading to a raised circular steel door with a sealing wheel in the centre. I walked to the end of the hall, up a couple of steps and turned the sealing wheel which gave out a gentle hiss.

I heard somebody coming up behind me singing a song, I joined in with him (I wish I could remember what the song was) I pushed open the circular door and stepped in to the room beyond, I don't remember if my singing companion followed me in or not but I turned and shut the door without having seen him.

I found myself in a very large (but finite) compartmentalized hall that I could best describe as a Kosher food processing plant. In each sealed glass compartment some kind of food preparation was being carried out. In one compartment flour was being milled from grain, in another, baking was taking place and in yet another fish was being prepared and in another Cheese was being made. At the end of the main hall animals were being slaughtered and a long drain running from one end of the hall carried the blood from the animals to the other end of the hall from where it disappeared downwards. There were two "uniforms" looking after the hall; one in, typical food processing togs, White Dungarees, Tee Shirt and Flat Cap (operational workers). The other was that of an Orthodox Jew (Inspectors).

I spent a little time wandering around the hall until I was spotted by one of the Inspectors who had been previously busy inspecting the blood drainage system. He raised the alarm and I headed out the way I came in.

As soon as I was through the door I noticed an old lady touting a machine gun and screaming at me in a language I didn't understand (Hebrew?). She opened fire at me but I was able to duck out of the way. Off to the right I was beckoned to leave via an alternate route by the man in the bowler. He led me out of the building and then gave me some instructions towards safety.

I ran through the streets until I thought I was safe and sat down on the steps of a very old church to catch my breath. After a short time the man in the bowler arrived singing the song from earlier (I know knew who was behind me at the factory door). He sat down next next to me looked at me straight in the eyes and asked me if I was gay (wrong word for the early 1900s I think). I replied no. He seemed a little disappointed but stood up shook my hand and disappeared back the way he came.

I WOKE.

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Anybody want to have a go at the significance of any of that.
I have a few ideas, but you first :-)

Amber's Quarter Century

Today was Amber's 25th Birthday, finally reached half my age (scary). She will have caught up before we know it :-)

Happy Birthday Amber.