Tag Archives: WiFi

The “Internet Of Things”, or simply IoT, what’s it good for?

Internet of Things

Internet Of Things, the IoT

We’ve all heard the hype about the IoT, the Internet Of Things, but is it really a hype? Back in the dark ages (the 90s), a company called Novell already claimed that coffee machines and refrigerators would be equipped with a mini OS and an IP address, so automatic ordering systems could make sure you always have specific foods (or beer) in your fridge.

But at the same time the world was running low on IP addresses, so actually providing all these electronic devices with a unique address was a challenge. The solution was IPv6 which provides a few more addresses than IPv4 does.

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Enhance your WiFi by using beer!

Beer can WiFi booster

Bad WiFi reception

Bad WiFi reception is one of the most common annoyances these days. Especially in residential areas where every house has at least 1 access point and each family is working hard to fill the ether with their own signals. A quick fix can solve this problem relatively easy by using an empty beer can (a soda can also works).

The aluminum of an empty beer can enhance the WiFi-signal significantly. You could buy an expensive repeater, but a beer can is immensely cheaper (and is more fun to get too). Our good friend youtube shows us this instructional video.

Step by step

  1. Go to the supermarket
  2. Buy (at least) 1 can of beer (a premium brand will do better than some random cheap brand)
  3. Empty the can (don’t throw the beer in the sink at all times! Drinking is the preferred method!)
  4. Clean the inside of the can by flushing it with some water
  5. you will need a knife or scissors to open up the can and some material to fix the empty can to your router
  6. Remove the lid, used to open the can
  7. Cut off the bottom of the can
  8. Cut off the top of the can, leaving a small piece near the old drinkingĀ opening
  9. Cut the can from top to bottom at the opposite side from the drinking opening
  10. Carefully bend the metal so it (sort of) looks like a satellite dish
  11. Place the brand new dish shaped beer can on your access point, by sticking the antenna through the old drinking opening
  12. Fix the “dish” so it doesn’t fall off

steps

This little trick should enhance the signal strength by a factor 2 or 3. This only works for access points equipped with an external antenna. For antenna-less models you could try creating a somewhat larger dish and placing the whole access point on the bigger dish, but I don’t guarantee this works. You could for example use a keg, but I doubt that you can cut it by using scissors šŸ˜‰

 

EMC World 2014: short week and too much to do

EMC World 2014

It’s that time of the year again: EMC World

15 Thousand nerds gathering in Las Vegas for the yearly week of EMC propaganda. That’s what a lot of people might think it is anyway. It’s the 2014th edition… that doesn’t sound right. Ehm, oh well, you get my drift. Well, maybe it is nerd-week, but hey: every vendor who thinks they’re the best in something is doing this sort of events and besides that, it’s a great event to meet people you haven’t seen in a year or so.

Social networking in real life

Social networking, gathering knowledge of things to come, looking for solutions to challenges you already have in your normal day jobs, looking for insights in things on your wish list. Bacon, unicorns, hardware and a loooot of “software”, since that’s the trend since a few years. No matter how you explain it:

IT is in Las Vegas, baby!

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WiFi – San Francisco International Airport

Free WiFi

SFO – San Francisco International Airport

Ok, Dublin was a good experience, but SFO is good and easy too! After looking for hot sport, I selected the “#SFO FREE WIFI”, opened a random website, got the following page:

WiFi

I selected “Accept the Terms” and that was pretty much it. No forms to fill out and so far I’ve seen no time limit. Good to go!

WiFi – Dublin Airport

Free WiFi

Free WiFi

DUB – Dublin Airport

Well, I wish all hot spots were like this! After I got off the airplane, I enabled WiFi again and voila, I selected the “Dublin Airport Free Wifi” hot spot. After clicking it, I got a new page:

DUB Free Internet

Click to accept and I was ready to go! This was really easy! No limits, not forms to fill out. Fantastic!