Shaine Mata Blog

As a part of my experiments with open-mesh routers, I've decided to retask some of my units for personal use at home. We were using an off-the-shelf wireless router for our home devices, which also has a public open-mesh router sharing Internet with my neighbors. I have found that the stats provided are pretty insightful. The downside is that the stats are only for the public SSID. The private SSID use remains a mystery. So, I turned off the radio on the regular router and assigned a couple of mesh routers to run my home SSID on the public side with password protection. Why would I want data on my home wireless use? Mainly, I want to know how much bandwidth we are pulling from day to day when we watch Netflix, Youtube, or just browse the web. Having a rough idea of how much data a household of five uses on a day to day basis provides some knowledge about what a typical family might use. Another use is to know how much bandwidth a typical home can spare on a daily basis...

I have another blog that has several years of archives, more than this one. The blog at most, would get about $100 per year in revenue from Google Ads. Lately, that blog has seen a surge in traffic. This is a little perplexing because I have not done much as far as blogging goes. In the past few years, the other blog has been very low on my priorities; thus, I might update it less than 10 times per month. That's being generous. Even so, the blog has seen an uptick in the amount of visitors and ad revenue all of the sudden. Looking at the stats, the traffic is mainly coming from search engine results, primarily Google. What pages? That's just it. Nothing consistent. It is difficult for me to infer why the sudden surge without also knowing what ads are being displayed alongside the blog posts, which are likely different depending on the visitor. Perhaps Google is giving preference to their own properties? Perhaps launching a Google+ page for the blog was a good move? ...

Your mobile AT&T data plan is not the only thing that is capped. AT&T also caps your home broadband connection at 150 GB. If you go over, you pay overage of $10 per additional 50 GB, which isn't too bad, I suppose. I was looking for an option for my cable Internet connection today, even if it is a bit slower. I was a bit surprised to find that U-Verse can match my cable internet connection speed, and even surpass it a bit. Fortunately, they don't throttle your connection speed, as far as I can tell. My household might go over 150 GB/month; I'm not certain. We use Netflix quite a bit; 5 GB per day seems like it might just cover our needs. What I found interesting is that the 150 GB cap applies to whatever plan you choose, whether it be the low-end plan or the top notch plan. I think this is odd as a faster connection would most likely reach the limit sooner than a slower connection. I would have expected that along with a higher speed, additional data would be ...

I've been racking my brain on how to put together a temporary, non-penetrating antenna mast. I need to test WiFi coverage using a sector antenna on a flat rooftop using inexpensive materials. Tonight, I was inspired. This idea uses EMT conduit. Two pieces are bent 90 degrees. A long piece also has one end bent to 90 degrees. They are to be held down with 120 degree separation using EMT straps screwed into a sheet of plywood. They will be connected together using cut allthread that penetrates all three pipes in two locations. The entire thing will be weighted with concrete blocks. This design benefits in being made with readily available and inexpensive parts. In addition, the design allows me to use the top allthread as a pivot to make the mast a tilt-down design. The biggest challenge will be drilling through the pipes. I'll need to find somebody with a drill press. I am thinking about using at least 3/4 inch conduit. I'll need a pipe bender too.

Last night, I set out on another expedition to test WiFi connectivity using an OM1P Open Mesh router and a Ubiquiti Nanostation LOCO M2. There were two main objectives. The first was to test alien node connectivity, where an Open Mesh router from one mesh network connects to a nearby mesh router from another network. The other objective was to test connectivity with the Nanostation from a distance of roughly 270 meters. Alien Nodes One thing I expected from mesh routers was that they would look for a link to the Internet, even if on a separate SSID, and use that if the home network is not available. I'd asked if this could be done, and got a negative; so, I considered the matter dead. It turns out that an Open Mesh router will connect to another Open Mesh router with an open network if within range, even though it has a different SSID. In other words, if JoesWiFi cannot connect to the JoesWiFi gateway, it will jump to JudysWiFi and use that as a gateway. This is all provided ...

I was just thinking that saving money is like having a baby, in some respects. I don't know how far I can stretch the simile; bear with me. Tonight, I bought a money order to put money away in a brokerage account, specifically, ShareBuilder from ING Direct. It is not much; but, saving money is better than not saving. This got me to thinking about the similarities with having a baby. There Is Never a "Right Time" to Do It Early on, my wife and I thought about when to have children. When would be the "right time". As best as we figured, there really is not a right time. There are better times than others; but, considering it's a lifetime commitment, the good times and bad times average out. You could be on sound financial footing when you choose to have a child, only to struggle for a few years after losing your job or suffering some disaster. The key is not to have a great starting point. Rather, one should strive to have a good average lifestyle during...