OK, we’re finally here. The NetSpot Site Survey is done. There is a bunch to unpack here. The pictures below show the results. First, my WiFi signal isn’t terribly good on the Signal to Noise front. For the uninitiated, there are a few weird concepts in WiFi that bear explanation, which I will try to explain so I understand them better myself. Please note that I am an enthusiastic layman, and not an expert in radio wave signal propagation, so I hope I get this right. Continue reading “A WiFi Site Survey of my Home With NetSpot”
How to Draw Floor Plans
Once I realized that I was missing some floor plans, I set out to draw some new ones. It’s pretty easy, but I’ll show you how to draw floor plans in case it’s not something you’re familiar with. Continue reading “How to Draw Floor Plans”
Drawing Maps and the WiFi Survey with NetSpot
The next step in my project is to survey my current WiFi to see what is happening there. My first task, using Lee Hutchinson’s guidance, was to buy a license to NetSpot so I could do a Site Survey and see what my WiFi was doing. I downloaded it, bought my license, and was on my way. Continue reading “Drawing Maps and the WiFi Survey with NetSpot”
The Inventory of the Equipment Attached to My Network
First off, I have to confess that it’s taking all my restraint not to start to tear open my new stuff and dive into this project. At work, life is all planning, but at home, I have the luxury of seeing how something works quickly then gradually getting it tweaked, but I feel that this is worth trying to do right. Also, I wanted to write down how I did it. First step is a network inventory. Continue reading “The Inventory of the Equipment Attached to My Network”
And We’re Back
It’s been a year since I wrote here, and now I hope I’m back. It’s been a busy time so now that I have a big home infrastructure project, I figure it’s a good time to write some more.
WiFi
I have long had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that my house’s WiFi isn’t what it could be, especially since I live in a 2500 sqft house and I have to use 3 Netgear APs to get somewhat spotty coverage. A large part of this is that my house was built in 1934, and it has plaster walls, and an addition in the back that is separated from the rest of the house by the original brick back wall of the rest of the house. Even with 3 APs, we have iffy coverage, and the Netgear equipment, while generally very good, isn’t really meant for this use.
Also, my network has grown a lot since I originally designed it, and I’m not sure it does all it ought to.
It is fortuitous, then, that I read Lee Hutchinson’s article (arstechnica.com) on his 3 years using Ubiquiti Unifi products. It was like he was speaking right to me, and I realized, on navigating to their site and seeing that the intro video is them wiring up a stadium, that this was exactly what I needed.
I read his article more than 10 times, working to tease out all the wisdom about what he had done, and also to see how I would approach a similar problem. I think I’m ready to jump. Continue reading “And We’re Back”
The Lookout! (Part 2)
So in my last post I got through the construction of the base of the addition to my lookout, and now I’ll conclude. As I said before, the original lookout was built for my kids because they liked Paw Patrol. My second observation about Paw Patrol (I’ve watched a lot), is that for a group of (mostly) pure-bred dogs, they really stay on message. There was one episode there rabbits infested farmer Umi’s fields, and the solution of Chase, the police dog, to the presence of undesirable animals in their area is to round them up, cage them, and then relocate them. Chase is a German Shepherd, you see, so I guess that the writers didn’t think the whole ‘Purebred German Dog rounds up, cages and relocates animals that he doesn’t want around’ narrative. Continue reading “The Lookout! (Part 2)”
The Lookout! (Part 1)
Sorry for the long delay in posting. The end of the school year has been busy. Sadly, for those of you who like software, this will be another post about me building stuff. I’ll get back to software in a bit.
Last year, I wanted to give my son a cool slide for his birthday, so I consulted him, and he wanted a slide ‘like the Paw Patrol Lookout’.
For those of you who don’t know, Paw Patrol is a children’s show about a poorly managed Canadian town most of whose problems are solved by a kid and a bunch of dogs. For some, it’s a lesson in civics gone wrong. For me (who thinks too much about this) I worry about other things. For instance, all the dogs are pure breeds, except one, Rocky, who is the recycling (trash) dog. I feel that this gives a lovely lesson in eugenics for our children. ‘Keep the gene pool nice, and Rocky will clean up after us desirable dogs, even though he will outlive us all by a decade’. I can see a warped Wrath of Khan tie-in movie, where Rocky sends the pure bred pups out on the Botany Bay…
Anyhow, the point is the Paw Patrol base is called ‘The Lookout’ and I built a jungle gym/slide for my son last year based on that ‘inspiration.. Continue reading “The Lookout! (Part 1)”
Getting Things Done With A Small Team
I took a brief break from writing about software to write about cardboard creations (there will be more), but now I’ll come back to writing about software. Specifically, I want to talk about the small team and how to actually get things done. Continue reading “Getting Things Done With A Small Team”
The Eagle Has Landed!
When I was a kid, I sadly was not showered with everything my heart desired. One object of desire for me was the GI Joe USS Flagg (now considered the greatest playset ever), which my parents somehow didn’t think was necessary to have. I really felt that my GI Joes needed the force projection that was an aircraft carrier, so I gathered the cardboard inserts from my dad’s laundered shirts several months and built my own of cardboard and wood. I subsequently used cardboard to build everything that my GI Joes needed. Now that I have kids, I love to use cardboard to make cool stuff for them. So today I’ll take a break from software and talk about building something else.
At the beginning of the year, my son’s PK teachers came to our house for their welcome interview and saw one of several cardboard space ships that I had made that was being housed in my living room due to having been made too wide to pass though doorways. Due, I suspect, to that, a few months later on I got a letter from my son’s class of 4 year-olds asking if I could come in and build something with them.
The PK class had just completed a unit on Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying machines, and I love space, so after some brainstorming for a good project, I thought that building a replica of the Apollo Program Lunar Module would be a cool and fun project to do with the class. Continue reading “The Eagle Has Landed!”
Lean and the Team
In my last post, I talked about comparative advantage and how it can aid you in developing your team and your members’ skills. Now, I’ll talk about another aspect that you need to consider in a lesson from Lean.
I have never described myself as a person who espouses any one single methodology for solving problems, so you won’t ever see me write about the one right way of doing things. Many processes and frameworks were originally designed for one thing, and I have had uneven results applying them to software development. One thing that I have found to be very helpful in developing a team is a specific subset of the Lean concept of muda, which I came to understand when reading the book The Goal.
If you haven’t read this book, it’s highly regarded and a bestseller for making certain business concepts very accessible to the reader. I highly recommend it.
The book has two great takeaways – first is the answer to the question: What is the goal of a company? The answer: To Make Money. It’s a very handy thing to keep in mind.
The second takeaway is the Theory of Constraints. This is the idea that production bottlenecks can take an assembly line and slow it to the speed of its slowest machine. Continue reading “Lean and the Team”