’94 for me when I decided to try with a Demon account, as I got hold of a TCP/IP stack, dialer and browser for my Amiga 1200, after using BBS’s for a few years on my various Amigas.

1: Yes ideally you should have the wifi turned off on the broadband router.

2: Rough rule of thumb have one wall (or floor) between mesh units, so might be worthwhile looking at where they are currently sited. Noting that with wifi in general its best to have the APs/Wifi router/Mesh higher up that way you have more chance of direct line of sight between the AP/router/mesh and the end device

3: Whilst 1 above will help, what is the wifi like in the area, for example are your next door neighbours using wifi on the same 2.4ghz and 5ghz channels?

4: Not all mesh systems are equal. I cant tell from the Tenda MW6 specs, but I’m guessing that they are using the same wifi frequency bands for the backhaul between the mesh as they are for access to the mesh, so there’s some time sharing going on, resulting in lower bandwidth.

5: What speed is the Ethernet cable between your router and the main mesh unit? ideally it should be 1Gb full duplex, if it’s 100Mb full or half duplex there’s your problem!

6: If you want to upgrade your mesh, consider something that supports wifi 6 (802.11ax) and that also uses a dedicated 5.8Ghz band for the backhaul around the mesh, leaving the 2.4/5ghz just for the access.

Had a Lenovo Duet for a few months now, to be honest in tablet mode I haven’t noticed any difference from my prior Android tablets. Saying that I’ve been mainly using Chrome OS native apps and only a handful of Android apps on it. It’s of an ok thickness as a tablet, add in the the cover and keyboard and of course its a bit more bulky.

At the price (with Student discount) it was a steal. A major advantage of it over most Android tablets, is the regular OS update cycle with updates until June 2028, how many devices apart from Apple get that.

Performance wise I’ve no complaints, noting that my bar is set high using an Ipad Pro for a lot of my work.

These https://www.poly.com/gb/en/products/headsets/voyager/voyager-focus-uc

You can be in a battery farm call centre and with the noise cancellation it removes the background noise not only in your ears but in the recipients of your audio.

Latest AMD x570 chipset drivers for some reason have the ‘balanced’ power profile set to minimum CPU @100% and max at @100%, so worth setting minimum to 5 or 0 for a quieter PC. To drop about 10 degrees on average set PCI link power management to off, min CPU to 0 and max to 99%.

Another thing to look at is Clock Tuner (CTR) by 1usmus, overclock and undervolt at the same time, its pretty slick in its operation, working on getting the best for your CPU. But.. an overclock across all cores is prob best for productivity but not gaming where leaving the CPU controlled by PBO may be better.

37 years of telecoms and RF here, taking a break for a couple of years for a MSc, then I’ll be back into it, well if anyone will have me then :-) job hint!

My mantra I guess, passwords, patches, policies. If people (not systems) got those right things would be in a much better place. Well okay listen and pay notice to the battle worn techie when they do that in-drawn breathe when asked a question….

There’s too much knowledge in the collective to be posted up here I guess.

I come from a networks background, deploying WAN/LAN+WiFi/NAC etc.. on a global basis, mainly utilities and production. Doing design and deployment from sites where you get followed round by some nice people with machine guns, right thru to happy go lucky flip flop wearing IT teams responsible for prod lines, where multi million Euro robots were run off hubs on a LAN.. (sigh)

If I had my way, it would be a locked down switch network with no WiFi, all devices replaced with Raspberry Pi’s used to access network based apps. For a quick and cheap(ish) deployment.

What are the endpoints used for? do they even need USB ports? For example a lockable case around the PC, or even just epoxy resin the ports on the PC’s

Without understanding how they are used, what network resources do they need. What’s to stop someone plugging in a hub/switch/wireless AP into a switch port, or even having another internet connection coming directly into an endpoint that’s then shared with the rest of the network. You will see all sorts of crap on production networks that have ‘evolved’ rather than being deployed to a set of design/security standards.

Work on a full set of requirements, understand all of the various use cases. Eg manager with laptop on WiFi that uses it at home and gives it to their kids to use for their school homework (that must be why there were dodgy sites in the browser history) grungy PC’s dotted about warehouse used for XYZ app and pirated games for the nightshift, unsecured WiFi devices used by stock pickers that don’t even support any sort of WPA…

There’s a view developing that you should not trust any device connecting to the network and treat it as such, before allowing it granular access to the resources specific for that device/user. But in the real world how the heck do you go about supporting all the crap that’s been stuck on the network for the past 20+ years…

Even the Network Admission Control can be a nightmare.

For a quick dirty job, format everything, fresh patched install, stick something like Bitdefender on, lock down any unused switch ports, change all the password and don’t let anyone have admin access.

Or howabout dumb terminals rather than PC’s?

So work on a full set of requirements/use cases, work out how to address them, get sign off then implement, test and have some process in place for moves/add/changes, patching, who monitors and does what for security alerts etc..

There’s so many options, But in the real world I’d side with Kula as most likely budget/time constraints, odd devices will be king.

Like a Leatherman but not, howabout the Leatherman tread?

https://www.leatherman.co.uk/collections/wearables/products/leatherman-tread-metric-stainless

Another vote for Protonmail

All sensible replies, but when I was still on the tools in my BT days, if I attended a domestic line fault usually a short circuit (perm engaged tone) or rectified short circuit (ringing tripping out) and saw new window frames I knew exactly where to look for damage on the cabling and it would be there every time.

There’s lots of types of cabling, depending on if its overhead (from a pole to the house) if its black then it’ll be pretty tough and you’ll be good, if it’s grey then treat if like you are doing a archaeological dig, as it will be dammed old and will have real brittle insulation. If the cable is from a small box somewhere on the outside of your house then it could be cabled with internal or external cabling, again it should be black, but could be grey or white. For this be careful as the conductors will be a lot smaller diameter and will be a lot more sensitive to bending, some of the real old stuff could be aluminium cores and will turn to dust given the slightest nudge.

I had an RS1600i which handled amazing at the time, undertake, overtake it would do it, close ratio box as standard 5th was prob 4th on the XR3i, with about 10bhp over one so would beat one right at the rev limiter. Used to eat valve stem oil seals.

My S2 RS Turbo had a 2 litre conversion only about 250bhp but a lot smoother than just a standard overboost/ecu job. Owner before just turned up the boost without working on the fueling so I burnt out some valves :-( ABS belts were a pain keeping at the correct tension. Torque steer, sideways in the wet in 3rd on sliproads, didn’t stuff it but glad I went for the larger motor rather than a larger turbo and silly boost.

They have been taking the P for ages, on call all the time isn’t sustainable or right. Feeling sorry for the people left as you have been short handed for a while, not in any hurry to get people in. Hmm the business has been doing well, getting people on call all the time, working on their holiday’s and so on, making targets while short handed perhaps?

I learnt my lesson on this about ten years ago, don’t pay me to be on call, don’t expect me to even to speak to anyone in work over a weekend or my time off, my line manager and direct cover has my personal number and if anyone but them call’s me it’ll be hell to pay.

N, give me a call, I’ve been thru some major changes myself over the past couple of years as you know and perhaps we can share some advice with each other.

R

Said OP is 52 so escaped Blair’s education system by some margin and it was an engineering apprenticeship rather that A Levels and Degrees, luckily said apprenticeship was in Telecommunications and having worked in that same sector for the last 36 years he know’s a little bit about the internet :-) Unluckily for some presently designing and delivering some of the Telecoms and internet services you rely on today.

Thanks, I expected answers both ways without explaining why, just that we do really do need to.

I use a tuneable magnetic loop its only about 90cm in diameter, works suprisingly well. I took down my 28mhz yagi ages ago

GW1RVC

There’s a 20min Strontium Dog fan film that’s okay

Before you try graduated filters on the sky, just try the magic that is the dehaze slider

I loved my Spesh Adaptalites, Endura’s big thumbs down broke an arm on a pair after six months rang em up and they don’t do spares!

Now I go on Amazon and spent £20 on a pair https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078BRZ6DL/ref=pe_3187911_189395841_TE_dp_1 generic brand but when I kill them I wont be stressed about spares

Look at one of the Elite Crono Elastogel fluid trainers, you clamp the bike in and it rests on the roller using weight rather than the more traditional way of pushing the roller into the tyre which results in more tyre wear/noise etc.. With the fluid the resistance increases with the rear wheel speed so want more resistance or less, just change gear. Really quiet too. Use a rear wheel speed sensor and a cadence sensor and you are sorted.

I’ve got a Powertap hub built up into a rear wheel, lasted six years so far with just the odd battery change maybe once a year. Also got a pair of the Powertap P1 pedals, batteries don’t last that long in them perhaps 60  hours, really easy to swop between bikes as no funny torque settings for them etc… left/right power and thru the entire stroke measurement a bit meh to be honest, Look Keo cleats yup I prefer the Shimano ones too.

Main thing is you have a reliable power measurement, remembering with Powertap to calibrate before each ride.

Big BIG tip…… a lot of Cycle2work schemes count pedals as accessories…. just saying like ;-)

Spent a v/nice weekend here http://www.titanichotelliverpool.com/ a few months back, it’s not cheap thou.

Once worked in a team for a few years that contained five Daves, the boss to save on confusion started to call them all by their surnames. My sterling effort was to call everyone on the team including the boss (a Craig) Dave, saved on mental effort and also really wound the boss up.

Had the original Fenix3 non HR for nearly three years, got a little bonus in work last month so splurged out on the Fenix5X, looking around for a Sapphire glass 5 (after living with a screen scratch for years on the 3) and finding that with a deal at Blacks/Millets there was no difference on price between the 5X and the 5 Sapphire.

Its the same size as the 3 but packs in a hell of a lot more functionality and battery life. Ditched the maps on it as I use the Talkytoaster ones instead which come with a lot more detail and contours.

As previously stated the DC Rainmaker review is worth a read.

Cold Waters has a very active modding community on it, you can get mods to change it so you can play as the Russian subs, even some of the warships too.

Oh forgot for that Harpoon feeling why not Cold Waters?

After EA gutted Westwood (devs of C&C) some of the team went off and created another company, they have just released Forged Battalion on early access and it has that feel with a lot better AI.

They are Billions is quite fun when the hordes attack.

But for that Total War feel why not the Total War Warhammer 1 & 2

It exceeded my expectations, they have done a brilliant job at transferring the book onto the screen. Looking forward episode 2 tonight.

Got an early bird code too, so be in since Wednesday. For me its a challenge and something to aim for after spending a big chunk of 16/17 unable to ride due to various things.

Let me put my thinking head on

Good spot, the bunch that eventually morphed into supplying the nails.

Give the car a good rocking till the alarm goes off, when the responsible person comes out do your rant. If not the trolley jack trick works really well once you know which are the braked wheels.

I’ve had the 24 hour access signs ignored, by church goers on a Sunday. I needed access to a telephone exchange, with an entrance that needed three cars to totally block. Whole pile of equipment that I needed to move, so walked across the road into a packed church gave a bloody loud announcement (and I do real loud) gave it 15 mins, called the local copshop and had all three cars towed away none too gentile.

Don’t know if its a lift or not but getting it off my chest will help
2015 – split up with the Missus after 26 years together
2016 – started to get my mojo back then managed to pop my shoulder that bad that I spent 7 months off the bike slowly descending into myself
2017 – April got the all clear on my shoulder started going out starting to feel fit, June my Mother got taken into hospital and dead 5 days later, which knocked us all sideways. To date dealing with a bewildered 81yr old father, trying to cope with major crap in work, sorting out the financial mess my mother left, having him move in with me (otherwise he’d go lala on his own)

I don’t know how I have managed to even get out of bed in the mornings all I can do is look forward to the New Year and I am trying to create a plan to get me out, get me thin and get me quick again. First step is always the hardest but I am trying to make myself excited about it.

Heck even admitting it all is a good step.

Zelda – the level of detail and thought in this game is astonishing
Mario Kart – yes they’ve kept the magic
Mario Odyssey – dammed good
Skyrim – no more being billy no mates in hotel bars when travelling with work, too busy in my room re-visiting a true classic game

Get a screen protector on it, they have been known to get scratched screens from heavy handiness inserting into the dock.

@Alex @z1ppy Trust The Awesomeness

Neal Asher the Polity Agent Series, The Skinner and following books in that line.

Richard Morgan the Kovacs novels starting with Altered Carbon (being made into a TV series)

Joe Abercrombie the First Law series “I’m still alive” Logen Ninefingers, Inquisitor Glokta brilliant characters.

I used to be into CCM Tacks and then Ultra Tacks, I then discovered Daoust and when I couldn’t get the 501’s anymore moved to Micron Mega 1090’s with the Power Clips which have been my annual visit to the rink skates for about the last 20 years, so god know what they are worth with the TUUK blades in them hardly worn as I have always used a really shallow grind on them.

Needs the Downing St cat covered in Sudocrem

Perhaps one of the optical fibre into the premises providers that have sprung up in London, the likes of Hyperoptic?

Oreo has just landed on my 3T can’t fault them on all of their updates.