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WRT54G P2P problems?

I noticed that I’ve been getting erratic behaviour with my router whenever I had bittorrent running. After a while it would always slow down to a crawl – where I had to reboot the router to get things back to normal. While rebooting the router manually (or via GUI, after much waiting) solves this. The problem always returned, which suggests that there’s something wrong with how the router handles P2P connections. I decided to look around for cases of the same problem.

The default firmware for Linksys and most routers track old connections for five days, then start to clear dead connections – which causes the router to hang when using P2P apps, or any software that generates a lot of connections which the router can’t take. DHT only aggravates the situation because of the number of connections it generates.

Linksys has yet to address this issue, but there is a fix. If you use alternative WRT54G firmware, you can put in a start-up script to fix this problem.

I just applied the fix they mention down this post, only time will tell if it actually worked. Read More

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A [not so] definitive guide to common audio interconnects

Here’s a very useful post for the travelling audio person.

In BukasPalad, whenever we have performances we usually are dependent on whatever soundsystem the venue has. Knowing how 3rd-world countries work, most of these soundsystems’ equipment and technicians are far from professional. But we’re broke so we just have to live with it I guess.

Aside from worrying about what microphones we have available, the next most important thing was always to make sure their system can play our minus-ones (if need be). This usually meant we had to conenct our iPods (cuz were high tech hahahaha joke) to the PA – and that’s were everything can get lost in translation. I remember the trouble we had in finding the correct plugs and jacks to connect whatever we had, to whatever they had. There were times I would say “yung malaki” (the big one) when I referred to the 1/4″ plug, or “pang-headphones” (for headphones) when referring to a 2.5mm plug; just so I could make them understand the type of adaptor I wanted.

So with that, I’ve taken the liberty of distilling the long text from wikipedia articles and explain what you need to know to communicate what you need to whichever venue sound-technician you talk to. There are a lot of alternative names for these common audio interconnects, and I will attempt to consolidate in one post, the different names used – which I’ve come across over time.

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Some audio mumbo jumbo

After much research on the safety of trying to connect an unbalanced 1/4″ jack (TS) to a balanced, phantom power enabled XLR input on my mixer using a simple interconnect adaptor, I decided that I should just invest in a DI (Direct Injection) box – which will solve the problem beyond any reasonable doubt.

Considering mixers have 1/4″ jacks (which support both balanced or unbalanced inputs) anyway, you may be thinking why go through all the trouble of trying to connect a naturally unbalanced instrument cable to a balanced input? Read More

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Now for some lovin’

I guess I’m having too much fun keeping the “apple fever” in check. People might start thinking I’m a PC fanboy. So let me post about my good Apple experience.

In case you didn’t know I do own a Powerbook… one that conked out on me just recently. I had recovered the files I needed and sent the unit in for repairs.

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Apple bang for buck

Better post this before someone else does:

The base price of the new Apple Mac Pro Quad Desktop ($2,499) might have some people reeling from sticker shock. But during the keynote speech today at WWDC, Apple compared the Mac Pro to an equivalent Dell workstation and found the Mac to be much cheaper. We figured we’d check their math, and sure enough, when compared to a similarly-equipped Dell system, the Mac Pro comes out looking like an absolute bargain.

Take the Dell Precision Workstation 690, for instance. When kitted out with two Intel Xeon 5150 2.66GHz dual-core processors, 250GB hard drive, 2GB of 667MHz RAM, and 16x DVD burner, you’ll end up paying $3,637. That’s over $1,100 more than the base Mac Pro, which has a similar configuration. And unlike the Mac Pro, which can run Windows XP via Boot Camp, I wouldn’t expect to see Mac OS X supported on this Dell any time in the near future.

from http://blog.dealnews.com/?p=45

While I do concede to these facts, I’m still not convinced as far as true value for money goes.

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