Category: Blog news

Notice about HomeNetworking01.info service outage

Hi everyone!

GoDaddy, who is the Webhost and domain-name provider for this site, just performed a major upgrade on this Website and it was out of action while this work was going on. It also involved me having to make sure the WordPress content management system was working as expected and in a secure manner.

Here, you may notice that some recent posts that I posted over the last six months have gone missing and I will be re-posting them from my originals so you can see them again.

But I will still be adding newer content as it comes along,

With regards,

Simon Mackay

Email subscription now FeedBlitz enabled

Hi everyone!

We are now on FeedBlitz and I have even set up a weekly digest feed option for those of you who would rather follow HomeNetworking01.info once a week or have reduced emails while on holiday.

When you receive an email, you can click on the modify email options to choose whether to have it weekly or daily.

With regards,

Simon Mackay

Work in progress on HomeNetworking01.info

Hi everyone!

HomeNetworking01.info is undergoing a few improvements. One of these is to have a new look that works well for mobile, tablet and regular (desktop and laptop) computers so you can still enjoy reading the good articles on whatever device you are using.

Soon, those of you who follow this website by email or RSS (Webfeed) methods will be moved towards the FeedBlitz system. This will be in order to benefit from better feed targeting and also newer email subscribers will benefit from an improved onboarding experience where you can catch up with previous featured articles.

It will take some time to iron out the bugs here and there but you will benefit when things become smoother.

With regards

Simon Mackay

Following the HomeNetworking01.info site–your options

Hi all!

You may have come in to this site either via a Web search, an email or from the URL that you may have copied from posters, cards and other offline advertising that I may have put up around town; and have found the site of interest. But you don’t have the time to keep checking on it for newer articles.

There are three ways to follow this site so you don’t miss the latest articles:

1. RSS feed (Webfeed) – You can subscribe to an RSS feed using your feed reader or online news-aggregator service. The feed reader can be presented as a function of an existing program such as your operating system, Web browser or office software; or available as a standalone desktop or mobile app. On the other hand, you may visit your news-aggregator service via its Web page or a dedicated app.

Your browser or other app may highlight the orange RSS icon to indicate that there is the Webfeed to subscribe to. Click on this to start subscribing with your browser’s feed-reading function.

For other applications, the URL is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/HomeNetworkingAndItInformationAndDiscussion

This feed is updated as and when new articles are published.

Those of you who used to use Google Feed Reader may find it useful to use Feedly and I have provided a “one-click” subscribe option for you to follow this site on Feedly. Here, you can view the feeds on your regular or mobile computing devices using Feedly apps that provide an optimised view for your mobile devices or using the www.feedly.com Website on your regular computer.

2. Your email inbox. There is an option to subscribe to this site so you have new articles appear in your email inbox. This will be provided in the form of a “Subscribe” form located in the sidebar on the right hand side of your page in the standard view and you fill in your email address, with a CAPTCHA-protected “opt-in” form popping up when you click the “Subscribe” button. Another way will be to visit this URL:

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=HomeNetworkingAndItInformationAndDiscussion

The confirmation message

When you fill in your email in either of these forms, you will get a confirmation email from Feedburner Email Subscriptions which has a link that you must click on in order to start receiving the latest articles in your email inbox.

Check both your inbox and your “junk-mail” or “bulk-mail” folder for this confirmation message because some junk-mail filters may treat this message as a “junk-mail” or “bulk-mail” message.

Sharing your email subscription or having the latest articles available in your organisation or workgroup

Some of you may want to share the subscription with other people, making sure it comes in their email inbox. Or you may want to have the articles come through your “catch-all” corporate or workgroup email address which will appear in everyone’s email inbox in your workgroup or organisation. Here, you fill in that other person’s email or the “catch-all” email address in the “Subscribe” form.

But remember to let this other recipient that you want to invite know that you are signing them up. Tell them to expect the confirmation email that is mentioned above in their Inbox and to click on the link in that email to get the ball rolling.

The recipient of that email will receive the above-mentioned confirmation message and they can click the confirmation link in that message to start receiving the articles in their Inbox. If the address in question is a “catch-all” address, the first recipient of that confirmation message who clicks the link in that message will cause the articles available in all email accounts able to receive email from that address.

The emails come on days where there are new articles posted and if two or more articles are posted on the one day, you will receive one email with all the articles.

3: Facebook Feed: If you are a member of Facebook, you can follow this site by either scrolling down to the “Visit this on Facebook” box and clicking the “Like” button in that box or visiting this Facebook page.If you haven’t logged in to Facebook at that point, you will be required to log in.

Subsequent articles will appear in your Recent Items Facebook list under “HomeNetworking01.info” and you will have the introductory text of the article as the copy so you can follow through and continue reading it at the site. This may not be feasible if you are checking your Facebook account from a device that doesn’t start a Web-browsing session when you click on a link.

These articles will appear as and when new articles are published.

At the moment, there isn’t the ability to start email or Facebook subscriptions from the simplified mobile user interface unless you click on the links in this article. You may have to click this link or click the “Go to Desktop View” option at the bottom of the page to open the regular view for creating an email or Facebook subscription. This will be a problem if you are viewing this from an Android or other tablet which shows the mobile view by default.

I hope this is of use to you as you keep following this site and reading the articles written within.

With regards,

Simon Mackay

300 Comments now up on the site

Hi everyone!

Hooray, We have now achieved 300 comments across this site with some lively discussion and questions even being asked about some of the reviewed products. In some cases, a few of you have raised your experiences with some of the products that I have reviewed like the HP Envy 100 printer and the Sony CMT-MX750Ni music system, while others had asked questions about their examples of the Compaq Presario CQ42 and Dell XPS L702x laptops that I reviewed.

Keep up the good work,

Simon Mackay

Why do I revise older feature articles on this site

I will be working through some of the feature articles and buyers’ guides on this site and refreshing the content in them.

Why I need to do this with these articles is primarily to bring the content up to date with the way consumer and small-business information technology is progressing. It has become such a situation that the technology that was referred to in an article may have been improved upon by newer and better technology.

Previously, I just revised the laptop computer buyer’s guide because of the new classes of laptop and notebook computers that had evolved over the past two years such as the Ultrabooks.  I will be releasing a revised version of the article about extending your wireless network due to the new capabilities that access points and wireless routers have such as dual-band 802.11n operation and WPS easy-setup functionality.

This is not an intention to regurgitate stale content but to bring advisory articles up to date with newer technology as is required of a technology-focused Website.

Links in email, web-feed and Facebook Page feeds now working properly

Hi everyone!

A close friend of mine had drawn attention to me about links to resources in this site not working properly when he viewed them from his email. Some of you may also have come across similar erratic behaviour when you are subscribing to these feeds and want to have a look at the resources.

What I normally do is that I create relative links to posts within this site as what would be expected for proper Web-site design and to assist with portability of this site’s content should I change server or run a different and improved domain. But the problem was that the relative links weren’t being presented as the full absolute links that start with https://homenetworking01.info .

I have now installed and tested a plugin that makes sure that the links presented in your emails, RSS Web-feed views and Facebook Page views are the fully-qualified links and point to the articles. This will work well when I use images of equipment that I have reviewed on this site as illustrations in other articles and I link to the appropriate reviews from the pictures so you can “find out more” about that laptop, printer or other piece of equipment.

Please continue to keep me in the loop if this fails by using the Contact Form. If you haven’t followed this site by Liking it in Facebook, subscribing to the Webfeed or having the emails delivered to your Inbox. please feel free to do so.

With regards,

Simon Mackay

Buyers’ Guides articles more accessible

I have moved the Buyers’ Guides articles from deep within the General Feature Articles page to their own page under Article Collections. This will make it easier for you to find the new Buyers’ Guide articles that you need to consult before you buy that piece of computing or networking equipment.

As well, I have classed the article list between computer systems and peripherals; and network equipment including Internet-enabled entertainment. There is also a separate article group for buyers’ guides dedicated to small-business and community-organisation owners. This layout will evolve as I add more buyers’ guide articles to this site.

Following the HomeNetworking01.info site–your options

Hi all!

You may have come in to this site either via a Web search, an email or from the URL that you may have copied from posters, cards and other offline advertising that I may have put up around town; and have found the site of interest. But you don’t have the time to keep checking on it for newer articles.

There are three ways to follow this site so you don’t miss the latest articles:

1. RSS feed (Webfeed) – You can subscribe to an RSS feed using your feed reader. This may be integrated in your email program, Web browser or operating system;’ or there will be many different applications for all the computing platforms that will show a list of articles in an RSS feed. Your browser may highlight the orange RSS icon to indicate that there is the Webfeed to subscribe to. Click on this to start subscribing with your browser’s feed-reading function.

For other applications, the URL is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/HomeNetworkingAndItInformationAndDiscussion

This feed is updated as and when new articles are published.

2. Your email inbox. There is an option to subscribe to this site so you have new articles appear in your email inbox. This will be provided in the form of a “Subscribe” form located in the sidebar on the right hand side of your page in the standard view and you fill in your email address, with a CAPTCHA-protected “opt-in” form popping up when you click the “Subscribe” button. Another way will be to visit this URL:

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=HomeNetworkingAndItInformationAndDiscussion

When you fill in your email in either of these forms, you will get a confirmation email from Feedburner Email Subscriptions which has a link that you must click on in order to start receiving the latest articles in your email inbox.

The emails come on days where there are new articles posted and if two or more articles are posted on the one day, you will receive one email with all the articles.

3: Facebook Feed: If you are a member of Facebook, you can follow this site by either scrolling down to the “Visit this on Facebook” box and clicking the “Like” button in that box or visiting this Facebook page.If you haven’t logged in to Facebook at that point, you will be required to log in.

Subsequent articles will appear in your Recent Items Facebook list under “HomeNetworking01.info” and you will have the introductory text of the article as the copy so you can follow through and continue reading it at the site. This may not be feasible if you are checking your Facebook account from a device that doesn’t start a Web-browsing session when you click on a link.

These articles will appear as and when new articles are published.

At the moment, there isn’t the ability to start email or Facebook subscriptions from the simplified mobile user interface unless you click on the links in this article. You may have to click this link or click the “Go to Desktop View” option at the bottom of the page to open the regular view for creating an email or Facebook subscription. This will be a problem if you are viewing this from an Android or other tablet which shows the mobile view by default.

I hope this is of use to you as you keep following this site and reading the articles written within.

With regards,

Simon Mackay

HomeNetworking01.info’s guide to the Boxing Day Sales

Hi everyone!

I am writing this special article which will help you get the most out of your visit to the stores during the Boxing Day Sales. No doubt, you will have enjoyed your Christmas celebrations with your family and friends and are about to see the New Year in. Concurrently, you will be bombarded with print, TV, radio and online advertising by the big consumer-electronics stores and department stores concerning the deep discounts that are offered on computer and consumer-electronics equipment during the Boxing Day sales that will be on this week.

Here, the usual price ranges that you expect for certain classes of equipment may change due to the deep discounting that these retailers do but it is worth paying attention to the features that the equipment offers.

Beware that the “doorbuster specials” and other highly-promoted specials may not offer a good return on their value because they may be low-end equipment that doesn’t have the necessary features that you want out of the equipment. In the case of printers, you may find that you have two ink cartridges that are costly to replace when they run out.

Printers

I have started with this class of equipment here because most people end up making mistakes when they buy printers on price alone. Here, the very cheap multifunction printer will typically end up being costly to run and may need new ink very frequently.

When you buy an inkjet printer, look for printers that use four or more ink cartridges. Here, there is one cartridge per colour and if you run out of one particular colour, you just need to replace that cartridge.

As well, some printer manufacturers, most notably HP and Brother, sell multi-cartridge inkjet printers that can take high-capacity cartridges. Here, you benefit from the fact that during low-demand periods, you could get by with standard-capacity cartridges but can run high-capacity cartridges during the high-demand periods like end of school term for example.

A printer that is fully network-enabled can be worth its salt in situations where you have multiple computers or a laptop connected to the Internet via a wireless network. This is more important for a multifunction unit because the network-enabled multifunction units provide network access to the scanner as well as the printer with nearly all of them offering the ability to scan a document to a particular computer from the machine’s control panel. In the case of most of the recent HP (Hewlett-Packard) printers, you gain extra functionality like email-to-print or "print-app” functionality because of the fact that you have network functionality.

Network Infrastructure

Be careful when buying a router for your home network. There are two major classes of routers – a router, sometimes referred to as a broadband router, which only has an Ethernet connection on the Internet side and is designed to connect to a broadband modem; and a modem router, which has an integrated broadband modem, typically an ADSL2+ modem, or, in an increasing number of cases, a wireless-broadband modem for the Internet side.

If you are buying to replace an ADSL modem or older / failed ADSL modem router, it would be preferable to buy an ADSL2+ modem router. Similarly, you could buy an ADSL modem router as the core piece of equipment when you set up a new broadband service in a built-up area and have that service as a “BYO modem” or “wires-only” service, which attracts cheaper setup charges.

If your Internet service uses cable-modem, fixed-wireless, fibre-optic or similar technology and the provider provides a modem or “ONT” as the customer-premises equipment, you could get by with a broadband router connected to the modem’s Ethernet port as the network-Internet “edge”.

As for wireless routers, you may gain a better deal by looking at the 802.11n equipment because you can have them run with existing wireless-enabled network devices by using an 802.11g “compatibility” mode. This may not achieve the full high-speed throughput that 802.11n is designed for but still has a very good operating range for wooden or brick-veneer houses. You will still need to consider the second access point and wired backbone for houses with double-brick or masonry interior walls, including interior fireplaces and brick-veneer extensions built on to double-brick or masonry houses. 

Speaking of which, if you are buying HomePlug powerline equipment, it would be preferable to go for equipment that is based on HomePlug AV standards. Here, this equipment will comply with IEEE 1901 powerline-network standards and work properly with the newer HomePlug AV2 standards. As well, you will get higher data throughput and improved reliability across the powerline network.

Games consoles, TVs and consumer AV

The Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft XBox 360 can work beyond just being a games machine that is hooked up to the TV. These consoles, especially the PlayStation 3, can become very powerful networked media terminals that can benefit from media held on your computer’s hard disk, a network-attached storage device or the Internet.

It is also worth paying extra attention to DLNA-compliant network AV equipment. Here, you can start slowly towards the networked-AV world yet be in a position to play your pictures, music and video collection from your Windows or Mac computer through the use of cheap or free software. You may be able to use your smartphone or tablet computer as a media controller even if the media files are held elsewhere on the network. This can be achieved through the use of DLNA / UPnP AV media-controller software that is ether supplied on your phone or available through the phone’s application store for a modest sum of money or, in some cases, for free.

As well, you may find that an Internet radio may be an entry point in to the world of networked AV and also give you a chance to hear radio from distant lands. This is especially more so if you “cottoned on” to a radio station that you had heard on your travels and were enamoured by its programming. There may be some bargains out there that are worth considering as manufacturers move towards newer models of these radios.

Laptop, Notebook and Netbook Computers

Make sure that you buy the right computer for its role in your IT lifestyle rather than on the price. A 14” or larger laptop would work well as an easily-transportable alternative to a desktop or all-in-one whereas a netbook or 13” notebook would work well as a secondary computer that you use when you travel.

If the computer is expected to be the primary computer, look towards increased hard-disk capacity and RAM memory. Dedicated graphics may be important if games, multimedia and graphics are important to your computing life. Conversely, a 15” laptop with low-tier processor specifications may be useful for retirees who are going to use it primarily for word-processing, email or Web-browsing.

Conclusion

When you plan to take advantage of the Boxing Day Sales to buy your computer equipment, it always pays to know what you want and where you envisage your use of the equipment over the next two to three years.