fedora magazine

last week, this interview with fedora magazine (online) was published. thanks to charles profitt for the write up.

https://fedoramagazine.org/mark-mcintyre-fedora/

read 'em and weep

well, i am finally getting to the point of needing reading glasses.

i recently had my contact prescription adjusted to re-calibrate one eye handling objects less than arm's length and the other focusing at a distance. the focal lengths left a big transition between the two. the adjustment shortened that gap.

the result is a decent, unaided distance focus, but the cost seems to be my reading the closer things. of course, my age plays a factor in this too. i am not dismissing that. i think even if i stopped wearing the lenses at night, i wouldn't regain enough of my near-sightedness to avoid the readers.

as such, i have purchased reading glasses which are compact enough for the case to fit in my pocket. unlike some colleagues, i have no problem accepting this sort of thing in my life. if i need them, i need them.

here's the amazon like to what i picked up:

Reading Glasses 2 Pair Black and Gunmetal Readers Compact Folding Glasses for Reading for Men and Women Case Included +1.25 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DKW5P9U?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

nice and compact!

i knew it was coming. gotta learn to adjust.

grammar and geeks

ok, let's get a few things straight.

( ) - these are parentheses. no one questions the name of these characters. no one calls them "rounded brackets," for obvious reasons.

[ ] - these are brackets. not square brackets, which is redundant. they are not square braces, if anyone actually calls them that. they are brackets!

{ } - these are braces. not curly brackets. definitely not curly braces (more redundancy).

why is this so confusing for my fellow geeks who pride themselves on being so precise about every other detail in their lives? it's time to learn the proper names of the punctuation which is so commonly used in our lives everyday in order that they don't appear as idiots.

it's not hard. we are not idiots. these are the names. let's use them.

published older posts

i had imported my older posts from my wordpress blog into this blog in the middle of last year. but when i had imported them, the publish dates all ended up being the day of import rather than the original date. so, i spend a few hours this past sunday getting the dates fixed by hand.

i resized all the pictures to fit the format of the current theme. i still need to fix a few links in several posts to have them reference other posts within this blog now. i'll tackle that later.

i'm also considering hosting my own site again using mezzanine (python). that might take some time to set up as i learn the environment. until then, i'm here!

return of the 5GHz

i finally was up and running on saturday with a new and different router to provide mock manor with 5GHz frequencies. streaming video is noticeably slower over 2.4GHz. i opted for a netgear nighthawk x4s. someone i work with has talked this router line up.

the setup was easy and all is good. i actually like the design on the router, specifically the lights on the front kinda top of the router. my others had a flatter face on the front which hid them a little.

now, i still have a little follow up with linksys about getting the wrt-1900acs working. they had contacted me about working through some steps to get it working. there is probably a chance to get it back to a happy firmware version. i just need to plug it in and troubleshoot it. if i can get it working, it will be my backup router.

in my many years of working with routers, i've not had this much trouble with these devices. and my queries with others surfaced two independent responses for pfsense and unifi devices. i even looked at some more high end hardware feeling that now might be the time for something like that. however, i don't have the closet in which i can install a rack to mount a switch or other metal.

i hope this concludes this adventure.

bad routers continued

after last night's rant which included a few frustrated posts on twitter, i received a reply from linksys's support account, @linksyscares. i responded with some information but never really heard back from them.

in the course of my checking, i realized that v1 firmware on my v2 wrt-1900acs router. i had never used a file to flash the firmware. i opted for the automatic stuff. so, this v1 firmware was on it out of the box. hope, maybe!

i got home, downloaded the v2 firmware, and did the hard reset on the router to dump the dd-wrt. i got the firmware installed after a little bit of wrestling and proceeded to start the configuration. this is where things got bad again.

the wrt-1900acs with the right firmware continued it pattern of restarting every few minutes. i never actually got the setup completed because the restarts would stymie my attempts to adjust any settings. after spending yet another hour of this repeated madness, i shut down the linksys, powered up the asus, and will now wait until my replacement netgear nighthawk arrives tomorrow to (hopefully) put an end to this horrible experience.

i really had hope there might be a positive end to this with linksys. asus has been average when responding to email but never on twitter. the lack of follow up after two tweets from @linksyscares made me think i would have it resolved better than ordering more hardware. they seemed sincere.

but now, i need to go play some xbox. i think i can do this with a hardline even. draw your own conclusions here. i know what mine are.

reliable routers?

these are the horror stories you only hear about in other blogs but your own.

i have an asus rt-ac87u router which i have been mostly happy with for over a year now. middle to late last year, the firmware update on the router caused it to just drop the internet connection randomly. not the whole network or a restart, but just the connection to my internet modem.

last night (or early this morning, rather), i woke up for other reasons, but i watched as i was browsing on my phone the network switch from my 5GHz network to LTE. ugh! but i'll deal with it in the morning. 

i woke up and started a few things around the house. i rebooted the router to find no restoration of that band. (the 2.4GHz band was fine.) i didn't have time to deal with it then, so i set aside for when i got home. i was thinking it was the radio for 5GHz.

and upon entering my house, i started the effort to replace the router with a backup device of exactly the same make and model. needless to say, the results were exactly the same. after upgrading to the latest firmware, the 5GHz band disappeared. i am now not thinking it's hardware. so, i flash an earlier version. same problem. i flash the latest merlin image. i do get a new option to enable the radio, but the 5GHz led just flashes at me like it's confused about what to do. it shows up on the available wifi lists, but you can't really connect to it.

i pull out my linksys wrt-1900acs, which i had purchased when the firmware problem on two asus routers was dropping my internet connection. it seemed like it would work for the foreseeable future. oh, look! a firmware update. i update...and it started a reboot cycle which is worse than the asus.

i plugged the asus back in, pulled a copy of dd-wrt down for the linksys, and installed it. after the configuration was good, i thought i was set. all seemed to be working. i fired up the xbox and midway through my second crucible match in destiny, the router reset. seems the cycle persisted through the dd-wrt image as well.

three routers of two different brands go belly up in one night. i think these are high odds, but i have lost respect and confidence in both these companies. i mean, asus: if the firmware is to blame for the 5GHz radio failing--and it think that it is--then why? how could this not somehow come up in testing? there is a whole thread about asus routers suffering from this problem. and no remedy?

and linksys: the reboot cycle is a known problem for you too. why is it not fixed already? all the info about how to deal with this is about six months old. why is there not a solution?

i guess the solution is to buy another router. this has been a very expensive lesson in product review. and it's not even over yet! i am normally very loyal, to a fault even. but in an age when a good network connection has become a dependency, i need to find one that will be there for the long haul.

i am disappointed.