While wifi internet is easy to set up, cheap, and reliable, there are times when having a wireless network might not be an option. The first example that comes to mind is inside of a college dorm room. Many college dorms only provide you with an Ethernet cable on either side of the room, one being for yourself and the other being for your roommate. I struggled with this limitation myself during college being as I was one of the only people I knew with multiple computers. Sadly I was unable to find the answer then and suffered through it until my last year when I was able to get an apartment. I thought my days of dealing with such a closed network were over but then I moved to Korea. In Korean dorm room style apartments, the internet is set up in the exact same way as in most colleges. The difference is that it is much easier to stop by your IT department and have a word with someone than it is to even attempt communicating with your Korean landlord. I bought a wireless router and learned the hard way that I was not going to get wireless internet without buying an additional router from my service provider and paying extra. After many long nights and endless frustration, a friend suggested this quick fix.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Beauty of Ad-Hoc Networks
While wifi internet is easy to set up, cheap, and reliable, there are times when having a wireless network might not be an option. The first example that comes to mind is inside of a college dorm room. Many college dorms only provide you with an Ethernet cable on either side of the room, one being for yourself and the other being for your roommate. I struggled with this limitation myself during college being as I was one of the only people I knew with multiple computers. Sadly I was unable to find the answer then and suffered through it until my last year when I was able to get an apartment. I thought my days of dealing with such a closed network were over but then I moved to Korea. In Korean dorm room style apartments, the internet is set up in the exact same way as in most colleges. The difference is that it is much easier to stop by your IT department and have a word with someone than it is to even attempt communicating with your Korean landlord. I bought a wireless router and learned the hard way that I was not going to get wireless internet without buying an additional router from my service provider and paying extra. After many long nights and endless frustration, a friend suggested this quick fix.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Ins and Outs of XBMC
My XBMC dashboard with one of many custom backrounds |
XBMC is a program that originated on the original Xbox. It gave users with a modded Xbox the ability to turn a mere video game console into something along the lines of a real computer. With the death of the original Xbox, its developers quickly regrouped and released it as a media center which branches across Windows, OSX, Linux, and can even be run live off of a USB flash drive. I was lucky enough to experience XBMC during its first incarnation being as I was one of the lucky few with a modded Xbox at the time (I tried to mod my own, failed miserably, and ended up buying one from a friend). I quickly grew accustomed to its easy to use interface and even scoffed at the features included in it that were absent from the original release of the Xbox 360. Having recently re-downloaded XBMC and installed it on my windows machine I can say that I am quite impressed with the way the software carries over to one of the many new platforms it is now available on.
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