New Comcast feature
 

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:
On 11/23/2013 5:42 PM, Califbill wrote:
KC wrote:
On 11/23/2013 2:00 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 13:34:45 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Before the drywall in this house was installed, I ran CAT cable from
where the high-speed cable service entered the house to the third floor
bedrooms, the family room and the kitchen.


This is a single story so I have pretty good access to the walls from
the attic
When I was having the roof replaced I snaked conduit down the outside
walls in a few strategic places and that helped a lot.
My wife has a "I don't want to see any wires" policy on everything I
do.
We have done enough renovation here where a lot of the walls have been
open that I got the base infrastructure into the computer room fairly
well established. I am running a Cat5 and some low voltage cabling out
to the new bump out in the screen cage too. I am sure there will be a
PC out there.


The first time I snaked wires from the attic to the basement, I pulled a
few extra lengths of nylon cord though the "channel". Years later I
wanted to add a couple circuits, made things easy...

I have done the same thing in the wire runs in my boat.



I suppose that if I got energetic I could use the existing RG6 cables
that are already run to pull a new RG6 and computer cable to each room
that we would want a hard connection for a computer. I'd have to move
the modem/router down to the utility room in the basement where all the
power and utilities come in the house from underground. It would still
be quite a project though. House has three floors above the basement and
some of those RG6 cable runs are pretty long.

Nah. Too much work. I'll stick to the wireless WiFi. It's working fine.

I think I will run an RG cable under the house and install one of my wifi
routers in the family room. Back of the house gets no wifi near the BBQ
area. But the house is a 2500' 2 story. With the 30' family room single
story and towards the back of the lot.

New Comcast feature
 

On 11/23/2013 7:40 PM, Califbill wrote:

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:


I suppose that if I got energetic I could use the existing RG6 cables
that are already run to pull a new RG6 and computer cable to each room
that we would want a hard connection for a computer. I'd have to move
the modem/router down to the utility room in the basement where all the
power and utilities come in the house from underground. It would still
be quite a project though. House has three floors above the basement and
some of those RG6 cable runs are pretty long.

Nah. Too much work. I'll stick to the wireless WiFi. It's working fine.



I think I will run an RG cable under the house and install one of my wifi
routers in the family room. Back of the house gets no wifi near the BBQ
area. But the house is a 2500' 2 story. With the 30' family room single
story and towards the back of the lot.


Why not just use an extender? They are not expensive and work great.
I got one made by NetGear. Installation took about 2 minutes. Only
problem I had was the first location I put it in that did some weird
thing. I moved it to another room and it has worked fine since.

New Comcast feature
 

On 11/23/2013 7:51 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 17:24:46 -0500, KC wrote:

On 11/23/2013 2:00 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 13:34:45 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

Before the drywall in this house was installed, I ran CAT cable from
where the high-speed cable service entered the house to the third floor
bedrooms, the family room and the kitchen.


This is a single story so I have pretty good access to the walls from
the attic
When I was having the roof replaced I snaked conduit down the outside
walls in a few strategic places and that helped a lot.
My wife has a "I don't want to see any wires" policy on everything I
do.
We have done enough renovation here where a lot of the walls have been
open that I got the base infrastructure into the computer room fairly
well established. I am running a Cat5 and some low voltage cabling out
to the new bump out in the screen cage too. I am sure there will be a
PC out there.


The first time I snaked wires from the attic to the basement, I pulled a
few extra lengths of nylon cord though the "channel". Years later I
wanted to add a couple circuits, made things easy...

I rare earth magnet from a bad disk drive and a piece of bead chain
makes a handy snaking tool.
Drop the chain down from the top and fish with the magnet from the
bottom. If you trim all extraneous metal off it will even fit through
a 1/2" KO in a device box so you can fish right into an existing box.
Use a "button" to clamp the cable.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/fishing%20magnet.jpg


Huh... never busted one open before..

New Comcast feature
 

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:
On 11/23/2013 7:40 PM, Califbill wrote:

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:


I suppose that if I got energetic I could use the existing RG6 cables
that are already run to pull a new RG6 and computer cable to each room
that we would want a hard connection for a computer. I'd have to move
the modem/router down to the utility room in the basement where all the
power and utilities come in the house from underground. It would still
be quite a project though. House has three floors above the basement and
some of those RG6 cable runs are pretty long.

Nah. Too much work. I'll stick to the wireless WiFi. It's working fine.



I think I will run an RG cable under the house and install one of my wifi
routers in the family room. Back of the house gets no wifi near the BBQ
area. But the house is a 2500' 2 story. With the 30' family room single
story and towards the back of the lot.


Why not just use an extender? They are not expensive and work great. I
got one made by NetGear. Installation took about 2 minutes. Only
problem I had was the first location I put it in that did some weird
thing. I moved it to another room and it has worked fine since.

I have an extra router. And probably cat cable in the garage. Thrifty.

New Comcast feature
 

wrote:
On Sat, 23 Nov 2013 20:17:00 -0500, KC wrote:

On 11/23/2013 7:51 PM, wrote:

I rare earth magnet from a bad disk drive and a piece of bead chain
makes a handy snaking tool.
Drop the chain down from the top and fish with the magnet from the
bottom. If you trim all extraneous metal off it will even fit through
a 1/2" KO in a device box so you can fish right into an existing box.
Use a "button" to clamp the cable.

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/fishing%20magnet.jpg


Huh... never busted one open before..

I threw a lot of them away before I decided there might be something
worth saving.

I shot this one with a .380 and the bullet just bounced off (hit the
spindle)
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Bad%20W-D.jpg
This one was a genuine head crash
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/disk%20platter.jpg
This is an assortment of disk platters from 14" to 2,5"
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/clock.jpg

Still have a bunch of the magnets in the garage someplace. An RK04 platter
in the attic. 14" disk. Working for Maxtor, we saw lots of bad discs. As
we disassembled them to check inside. Surprising how durable they are. We
might have 6-7 disks setting on a cabinet top running tests and one would
fall off sometimes. Don't think we ever had one crash from the fall.

New Comcast feature
 

On 11/23/2013 11:02 PM, Califbill wrote:
"Mr. Luddite" wrote:
On 11/23/2013 7:40 PM, Califbill wrote:

"Mr. Luddite" wrote:


I suppose that if I got energetic I could use the existing RG6 cables
that are already run to pull a new RG6 and computer cable to each room
that we would want a hard connection for a computer. I'd have to move
the modem/router down to the utility room in the basement where all the
power and utilities come in the house from underground. It would still
be quite a project though. House has three floors above the basement and
some of those RG6 cable runs are pretty long.

Nah. Too much work. I'll stick to the wireless WiFi. It's working fine.



I think I will run an RG cable under the house and install one of my wifi
routers in the family room. Back of the house gets no wifi near the BBQ
area. But the house is a 2500' 2 story. With the 30' family room single
story and towards the back of the lot.


Why not just use an extender? They are not expensive and work great. I
got one made by NetGear. Installation took about 2 minutes. Only
problem I had was the first location I put it in that did some weird
thing. I moved it to another room and it has worked fine since.

I have an extra router. And probably cat cable in the garage. Thrifty.


Gotcha.

New Comcast feature
 

On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 12:59:45 -0500, John H wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:38:18 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


Comcast just enabled a new feature on our home wifi system. You have
to have the new, updated equipment and modem/router that is provided by
them for it to work.

What they do is enable your wifi router to transmit and receive another
independent signal. It shows up as "XFINITYWiFi" on your computer
available networks list, iPad or cell phone. It is unsecured and doesn't
interfere with your existing, secured connection, nor does it slow
anything down. Anyone signed onto it is *not* connected to your
existing, secured network, so they can't access any file sharing or
anything you have set up on your network.

It's designed to allow guests, visitors or anyone within receiving range
of the signal to access the Internet and email virtually anywhere as
long as you are a Comcast customer. It means that once they upgrade
everyone, you could drive down the street and access the Internet
anywhere there is a home WiFi system provided by Comcast. That's a lot
of free "hot spots" in our area since Comcast dominates the cable TV and
Internet market in our area.

In our case nobody driving on the road will benefit from our house
because we are too far from the road for them to get the signal. But
in most areas with houses close to the road, you should be able to
access the internet everywhere. It can also be used by house guests and
visitors as long as they have a Comcast account.

When you first connect to it, it doesn't indicate that you have Internet
access. Says "local only". But, if you open a browser, it takes you to
a Comcast page where you enter your user name (or Comcast email address)
and your password. You only have to do this once per device. Once
you've done that, you have full access to the Internet.

You can also request that this capability be disabled on your
modem/router if you don't want it. Personally, I think it's pretty cool
and a clever way to make Internet access available to Comcast account
holders almost everywhere.

Funny, not too long ago it was a big deal to be "stealing" someone
else's WiFi connection. Now they are encouraging it.





Sounds like socialism, to me.
John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!

Spoof.

John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!

New Comcast feature
 

wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 01:19:00 -0600, Califbill
wrote:

Still have a bunch of the magnets in the garage someplace. An RK04 platter
in the attic. 14" disk. Working for Maxtor, we saw lots of bad discs. As
we disassembled them to check inside. Surprising how durable they are. We
might have 6-7 disks setting on a cabinet top running tests and one would
fall off sometimes. Don't think we ever had one crash from the fall.

IBM did a lot of tests in the 90s and 90s for the Army, trying to find
out how tough disk drives really were. They figured out they actually
were better running than shut down and bouncing around in a tank or a
HumVee would not hurt one.
As I have said before, I had regular P1 desk tops running in a car and
a pickup for many years as MP3 players. I never had a disk problem in
spite of cranking up in a 140 degree car a couple times a day, cooling
down to 70 or so, then heating back up when I stopped.

When I worked for System Industries, the only drive we would not warrantee
was a Fujitsu 160 Mbyte, we sold to the French solar observatory in Hawaii.
Was installed I think 3000' above the highest recommended altitude. I do
not think the drive ever crashed.

New Comcast feature
 

On 11/24/2013 3:06 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 12:59:45 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:38:18 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


Comcast just enabled a new feature on our home wifi system. You have
to have the new, updated equipment and modem/router that is provided by
them for it to work.

What they do is enable your wifi router to transmit and receive another
independent signal. It shows up as "XFINITYWiFi" on your computer
available networks list, iPad or cell phone. It is unsecured and doesn't
interfere with your existing, secured connection, nor does it slow
anything down. Anyone signed onto it is *not* connected to your
existing, secured network, so they can't access any file sharing or
anything you have set up on your network.

It's designed to allow guests, visitors or anyone within receiving range
of the signal to access the Internet and email virtually anywhere as
long as you are a Comcast customer. It means that once they upgrade
everyone, you could drive down the street and access the Internet
anywhere there is a home WiFi system provided by Comcast. That's a lot
of free "hot spots" in our area since Comcast dominates the cable TV and
Internet market in our area.

In our case nobody driving on the road will benefit from our house
because we are too far from the road for them to get the signal. But
in most areas with houses close to the road, you should be able to
access the internet everywhere. It can also be used by house guests and
visitors as long as they have a Comcast account.

When you first connect to it, it doesn't indicate that you have Internet
access. Says "local only". But, if you open a browser, it takes you to
a Comcast page where you enter your user name (or Comcast email address)
and your password. You only have to do this once per device. Once
you've done that, you have full access to the Internet.

You can also request that this capability be disabled on your
modem/router if you don't want it. Personally, I think it's pretty cool
and a clever way to make Internet access available to Comcast account
holders almost everywhere.

Funny, not too long ago it was a big deal to be "stealing" someone
else's WiFi connection. Now they are encouraging it.





Sounds like socialism, to me.
John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!

Their plan is that you are still paying for that hot spot by being a
comcast data customer. They want a monopoly in data sales


I am not defending Comcast, but I recall years ago that the future
promise of Internet access was to have WiFi access accessible virtually
anywhere in the country. If each Internet access provider does
something similar to this, that may become a reality. Otherwise, some
DC Congress member will decide it would be a wonderful Federal project
to take on, using taxpayers' money, farming out the software development
to CGI Federal.

New Comcast feature
 

On 11/24/13, 4:02 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 11/24/2013 3:06 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 12:59:45 -0500, John H
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:38:18 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


Comcast just enabled a new feature on our home wifi system. You have
to have the new, updated equipment and modem/router that is provided by
them for it to work.

What they do is enable your wifi router to transmit and receive another
independent signal. It shows up as "XFINITYWiFi" on your computer
available networks list, iPad or cell phone. It is unsecured and
doesn't
interfere with your existing, secured connection, nor does it slow
anything down. Anyone signed onto it is *not* connected to your
existing, secured network, so they can't access any file sharing or
anything you have set up on your network.

It's designed to allow guests, visitors or anyone within receiving
range
of the signal to access the Internet and email virtually anywhere as
long as you are a Comcast customer. It means that once they upgrade
everyone, you could drive down the street and access the Internet
anywhere there is a home WiFi system provided by Comcast. That's a lot
of free "hot spots" in our area since Comcast dominates the cable TV
and
Internet market in our area.

In our case nobody driving on the road will benefit from our house
because we are too far from the road for them to get the signal. But
in most areas with houses close to the road, you should be able to
access the internet everywhere. It can also be used by house guests
and
visitors as long as they have a Comcast account.

When you first connect to it, it doesn't indicate that you have
Internet
access. Says "local only". But, if you open a browser, it takes
you to
a Comcast page where you enter your user name (or Comcast email
address)
and your password. You only have to do this once per device. Once
you've done that, you have full access to the Internet.

You can also request that this capability be disabled on your
modem/router if you don't want it. Personally, I think it's pretty
cool
and a clever way to make Internet access available to Comcast account
holders almost everywhere.

Funny, not too long ago it was a big deal to be "stealing" someone
else's WiFi connection. Now they are encouraging it.





Sounds like socialism, to me.
John H. -- Hope you're having a great day!

Their plan is that you are still paying for that hot spot by being a
comcast data customer. They want a monopoly in data sales


I am not defending Comcast, but I recall years ago that the future
promise of Internet access was to have WiFi access accessible virtually
anywhere in the country. If each Internet access provider does
something similar to this, that may become a reality. Otherwise, some
DC Congress member will decide it would be a wonderful Federal project
to take on, using taxpayers' money, farming out the software development
to CGI Federal.




Government regulation in Europe gives citizens there high speed
broadband TV, internet and telephone for between $50 and $100 a month,
less than half of what similar service in this country costs.

As usual, we're being ripped off by corporations.

There are many cites about this. Here is one you might find interesting:

http://tinyurl.com/3s2hub6

There are also companies offering wifi on a month to month basis for $10
to $15 a month and there are plenty of free wifi hotspots.

--
Religion: together we can find the cure.