Reuse a router and turn it into a switch

I have moved into a new flat and at times due to it being in a block of flats the wireless connection is not always working properly due to conflicting channel use. I already optimised this, but I cannot get any further there. Therefore I wired the areas a network connection is required.

Problem: No switch but several spare routers. Could I reuse one of the routers as a switch?

Solution: Yes. Change settings and use it.

In my case I turned a Netgear WGR614 Router into a switch. I served the internet for several different solutions, but the following one worked easily and is well described:

• http://blog.devilzgsa.com/?p=40 – Thank you very much devilz.
  • uncheck Enable Wireless Access Point 
  • uncheck Allow Broadcast of Name (SSID)
  • uncheck Use Router as a DHCP Server 
• Netgear webpage

Outstanding question: Is this a sustainable solution – reuse is always good, but what about the power consumption? Shall I rather buy a new PoE (Power over Ethernet)  switch – which will use the power from the router and only if required?

Further research will be required, but for now I am happy to accept the 6W power consumption I found here:

• http://www.edho.com/power/ … Thanks Edward
  • 6W … means 144W/day; 53kW/ year … with 15 cents  per kW it makes about 8€ per year.
• The wireless network is disabled in the switch mode – this should consume less power.
• The adapter may use more power when it is in use with up to 3 devices connected (4th device is the source from the router).
• The adapter may use less power if no device is used.

Create a network cable for 1000Mbps/ 1Gbps/ Gigabit Ethernet

I need to set-up a home network. The flat we moved in recently has a media connection ability for each room, but not all rooms are equipped. This meant I had to fill the empty tubes and get the wiring done myself. Two problems:

1. How long are the tubes … how long does the cable need to be?
2. The tubes are narrow in diameter and have bends which made it impossible to pull through Ethernet cables with the plug.

Solution:

• Buy Ethernet cable
• Buy RJ45 plugs and the related tools
• Pull cable through
• Get plug on each end of the cable
• Job done

Sounds easy, but I wanted to be sure that I do the right thing – so I had the following questions:

• Which wires are necessary as a minimum to enable a 1000 Mbps network connection.
• What is the largest length allowed?
• What is the smallest cable quality?
• Which plugs need to be used?
• How should I connect the plugs?

Answers: 

• Always a good starting point: Wikipedia with information for Gigabit Ethernet
  • Max. 100m cable length, but the transfer quality of a patch cable is worse and therefore max. length is recommended to a max. of 70m.
  • Cable quality: min. Cat-5 cable, better Cat-5e!
  • Plugs: standard RJ45
• Very good private page: Manual Kanish hatte wohl das gleiche zu tun wie ich;-).
  • Use Patch standard: 568B diagram
  • Beware: Clip on button – contacts to the top … then orange cable – pin 1 is the first contact on the left.
• Another helpful page: Grundlagen Computernetz.
• And: Crimpen von RJ45-Netzwerksteckern

Think about your blog audience

I have visited many blogs, forums and web pages. Also following many RSS feeds as well as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn groups. It is overwhelming and too much at times.

I found a few nice tools make my content more digestible. This does not mean the blog entries are more useful or interesting ;-):

• Wordle (as published on this blog)
• Gobbledygook: check messages for jargon! – http://www.webinknow.com/2007/08/the-gobbledygoo.html
• Bull factor: Fight the bull – why business people speak like idiots?
• Fog or smog formulas – in linguistics, the formulas enable to measure the readability of English writing. I try to write in a style for less then 18 year old readers and use e.g. the gunning fog index.
• Readability Test Tool — test all or part of a webpage by web address or referer – provides age of reader as a result.
• Fog Index Calculator — a simple web page to cut-and-paste text and then calculate Fog Index.
• Online Fog Index calculator — suggestions how to improve readability, different measurements.

This blog entry will change over time. I intent to add useful tools or links to other pages over time.
The results for this entry are:
Wordle: 
Gunning Fog index : 8.99
Coleman Liau index : 7.60
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 6.93
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 4.98
SMOG : 9.65
This page has an average U.S. grade level of about 7. It should be easily understood by 12 to 13 year olds.

The secret of healing

I came across this topic through a business related tweet. This is a topic I have been involved with since almost birth. My parents were very active since more than 50 years in the field of healthy lifestyle as well as alternative healing methods. In general they were alerted to the fact that our western conventional medicine and its approach to health is far too technical and unfortunately excludes many proven as well as unproven, but often suspicious appearing approaches to health.

More and more people recognise the necessity that it is time to change – our planet, our societies as well as our health shows signs and many people find themselves in the position to accept alternatives to the current “mainstream” medical approaches – very often today they follow political and economic pressures, not necessarily humanitarian ones.

Anyway I came across this blog entry, which links to three German TV reports – ARD – HR.  The report is about health and thoughts which control us.  It shows examples where people used inner pictures and mental techniques to change their lives. Scientific awareness of neuro-linguistic programming are practised since more than 10 years and that is what makes this report so exciting.

Are we able to use these techniques to change ourselves in the work environment and which techniques could be used to change whole companies, industries and so on.

Beware the videos are in German:

Teil 1:

Teil 2:

Teil 3:

Bathing water quality in the UK

As the summer is coming soon and myself as many others will go to the beaches – even here in the UK 😉 – it is good to know what you get yourself into. The Environmental Agency has created a web site which everybody can use and find out in different ways if the beach they are planning to go to have a good water quality or not.

It is amazing  that a record number of beaches reached the highest European standards last year. These bathing water profiles will not make the water cleaner, but they will allow beach users to make more informed decisions about when is best to use the water and the information to know when it might be better to give it a miss due to pollution incidents.

• Environment Agency – Bathing Water

• edie.net – Bathing water quality profiles online

It is also nice to enjoy inland rivers and ponds. Here you can find out more about local possibilities – it is all at your own risk ;-):

• Wild Swimming – exploring Britain’s outdoor swimming places with their helpful Google Map: Open Water Swimming

• Freedom to enjoy open water – by Rob Fryer

Wordle

I just came across a nice little tool which creates word clouds from text provided. It certainly helps while writing a paper to see if the main message is actually reflected sufficiently in the text. Often the focus within text moves into areas and topics which were not intended – the word cloud at least provides you with an idea if the relevant words are used often enough. Let’s see what happens if I just put this paragraph into the word cloud.
Find more detail here on wikipedia – one of the on-line tools liked from there is wordle. Using the text on this page the following cloud would be created:



WWF’s Earth Hour

Everybody can take part – this is “just” a symbolic, but very powerful way to move forward – to evolve. We all need to understand what we can do to help ourselves to have a desirable environment to live in the long-term. What is Earth Hour you may ask – check out WWF webpage to get more information:

WWF’s Earth Hour

Hello Friends

Welcome to my blog. This is my 2nd attempt to become a blogger. My first attempt failed as I did not really understand what I wanted to do with it. I now know to have a reasonable blog I need to get a bit more wordy and express myself. Let’s see if I find interesting topics I want to share and blog about. I certainly love to get some feedback, which would then keep me going ;-).

See you then.

Jurgen