Google Music Is A Real Beta

May 28, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I have spent a great deal of time this week working with the new Google Music Beta. And I am finally at a point where I can speak with a degree of confidence. What do I think of the new Google service? I think it is a real beta. It has some very rough edges. But it is chock full of promise. It has some unique and innovative features. And there are some things that are simply undone or they are incomplete.
The Good
There are a lot of outstanding features in the Google offering.

The current Google offering provides for storage of up to 20,000 songs. This is outstanding. If this model is carried forward, Google Music will destroy the competition by starving the market. My song base alone is over 12GB. So if I stay with Amazon, I will need to pay for a 20GB allotment. That will mean ~$20 per year. That’s not much. But when it’s compared to a free product, I will always take free – unless free doesn’t meet my minimum feature requirements. [Note: Google may get themselves into some trouble with such a generous storage limit. The government might choose to bring a case against Google for anti-competitive practices. I don’t think that I’d agree with such a claim. But I can see where Amazon and Apple might support someone else bringing such a claim to the federal courts.]
The service itself is stable and the music streams reliably. While I have had some challenges with streaming to my phone, most of my experience has been outstanding.
The user interface on the phone is beautiful. It is a joy to work with the mobile tool. While the “look and feel” of the Amazon tool is eminently functional, it is positively clunky. Google has obviously spent some time making the mobile experience very appealing.

The Bad
Despite all the good features, there are some serious shortcomings in the initial offering.

The tool that loads music onto the service is positively anemic. As noted in my previous post, loading music is an all-or-nothing proposition. To load individual songs (or new sub-folders in a nested hierarchy), you have to reconfigure the music loading tool to point to specific folders. Then you have to find the option in Settings that allows you to manually load music. Then you have to push the Start Now button. Google really needs to spend some time working on this process. You can “stretch” the tool to do your bidding. But ease of use in music loading is a definite weakness.
The view options are really limited. Yes, you can navigate around in the web client. But it is not a beautiful and robust client: it is a functional client. That said, the Android client is beautiful. And it has some of the view options that I like. But it would be nice to have similar options between dissimilar clients. Whether for good or ill, the Amazon client has a common appearance across every platform – including the Apple platform.
There is no music store interface. When I went through the process of loading files, I noted that some of the songs (that I had on my hard drive) came from questionable sources. In my case, I had gotten a copy of “Riders on the Storm” (by the Doors) from the web. I had used the song for a video that I had made for my son a few years ago. But I had never gotten around to buying a copy of the song. So I used Amazon’s service to buy the “Best of…” album from The Doors. Having an integrated service (from any vendor) would be most welcome. I have found that since using the Amazon client, I’ve probably purchased a half dozen albums that I would have otherwise not purchased. This is especially true of impulse purchases. Having an electronic wallet and an “always on” connection has allowed me to experience impulse buying in a whole new light.
There are no tag searching or tag editing options at all. For some folks, ID3 tags are vitally important. And there is no attention to this subject at all.
There is no support for scrobbling music to Last.fm. Yes, there are ways of scrobbling when using the web client. Dan Slaughter has put together some excellent scripts that work with both Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive. You can find information about these tools here. But it must be noted that there is no support currently available for the mobile (i.e., Android) client.

The Ugly
Finally, there are some ugly issues that really need to be resolved before this product can become a traditional Google beta (i.e., a complete product).
It took me almost a week to get the product to work on my phone. The product would install successfully. And I could see all of the local music, but I couldn’t see anything that was on my cloud drive. At first, I thought that this was a problem with my custom ROM. I use Liberty 2.0. And some apps have trouble with some of the things that jrummy does with the ROM. But that was not the case.
I was about ready to give up on it when I had an unforeseen (and problematic) product upgrade for LauncherPro. My entire LauncherPro config was wiped out and needed to be rebuilt. Once I solved that problem, I went back to the Google Music service. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, but my music collection (but no tiny reindeer). I have to assume that the cleanup of LauncherPro solved my issues – though I have no way of proving it. Either way, the Google Music product now works superbly – though I wish I really knew what caused the trouble in the first place.
But to me, the most troubling aspect of this service (as well as the Amazon service) is the issue of privacy. It is one thing to believe in the safety and security of your own home. But when you store your media on an external service that is not within your home, do you have any degree of privacy? Perhaps you do. Then again, perhaps you don’t.
Part of me is very troubled that I have my musical tastes (and my reading tastes) exposed to any corporation. But it would be even more troubling if that same corporation made my content tastes accessible to the government. Do I have anything to fear currently? No, I really don’t. I try to ensure that all of my content is licensed. And I am pretty darned pedestrian in my reading and musical tastes. In fact, most people call me a prude. But I don’t want the government to know what I think. It’s none of their business. Finally, I broadcast (via blog, tweet and scrobble) all of my media-related activities. So am I concerned that anyone will use this information against me? No, I’m not. At least, I’m not concerned currently.
But what happens if corporations (or the government) change and become more insidious? Or what happens when they try to use my data for their own selfish marketing needs? For me, this possibility is real. And it gives me reason to pause. I don’t want to see the firemen break down my front door and seize my copy of the Bible (or the sonnets of Shakespeare, or the music of The Doors).
Bottom Line
I am impressed with the Google service. I really like their Android client. I hope that they will create a common client interface across all platforms (including Apple’s iOS). And I really hope that they take time and care in developing their EULA. There are some real challenges that must be solved. Nevertheless, the “all you can drink” service is far more compelling than a “pay per gigabyte” service.
But for now, I’m leaning towards the Amazon platform. It is a little more polished and a lot more ubiquitous. Moreover, the Amazon case for privacy is a little more comforting (given Google’s historic willingness to work with the repressive Chinese government). Finally, Amazon’s integration with a working retail channel is far more compelling. But if Google can overcome some (or all) of these hurdles, they do have a chance to win my business.
-Roo

Quick Takes on Music Beta (by Google)

May 22, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After spending quite a bit of time (and devoting a little coin of the realm) to the Amazon Cloud Drive, I received an email informing me that Google has requested me to participate in the private beta of their new music service. I am more than a little surprised that I was included. But who am I to complain. It’s that much more tech to play with.
But don’t expect this post to be a complete review. This is just a few quick takes from what I’ve seen so far.
Here are my first thoughts (in order of relative importance to me):

Google is offering this service for free. And that means free. I can store up to 20,000 songs free of charge. Period. This simple truth is more than worth the price of admission. And it surely beats the pricing that Amazon is offering. [Note: I do wonder how Google will monetize this. I suspect that it will be context-driven ads. But without a retail engine, where will they drive the traffic to?]
The music selection and loading tools are blunt instruments, at best. You can select everything from iTunes or everything from Windows Media Player. You can also select everything in a directory. This is hardly a precise instrument. You can take a big swing at everything or take no swing at all. The crudity of this method is heart-wrenching. With the Amazon Cloud Drive, you have far more options to selecting and loading your music. But both tools really need to take advantage of metadata that you may already have in your music. I want to do complex Boolean searches on tags and have the selected files loaded.
I really want to control the loading of all files onto the service. I still have a bunch of files that came from unclear origins. Don’t get me wrong, I own all the music that I have on my hard drive. But sometimes I have downloaded songs rather than record them from LP. And after spending years of using tools like MusicBrainz and MP3tagger, I have files with some really oddball ID3 tags.
I would really like more social media tools. Thee is no Last.fm integration. There is no way to comment and tweet those comments to my followers. And there is absolutely no interaction with Facebook. I really want my cloud music service to be more social. After all, music is a community affair. Sharing occurs within fan groups. Even the folks at Myspace knew that. I really think that Google should link this offering to Buzz, Wave, Facebook and Twitter.
Finally, where is the integration with a music retailer. Apple (and iTunes) integrate with the Apple iTunes Music store. And Amazon integrates with their well-established MP3 sales channel. Without a retail engine or agreements with the labels, I am skeptical of the overall success of this offering. I am sure that these things will be added. But their absence in the initial product is rather troubling.

I will write a much more comprehensive review when all of my songs are loaded. Right now, I am +4,000 files of my +6,500 song iTunes library. Let’s see how this car drives when I have all of my clutter on board. But for now, the truck is a good one. It will haul my stuff. I just need to drive it around for a while to see how it handles.
-Roo

Pirates and Sirens and Children – Oh My!

May 14, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Last week’s episode of “Doctor Who” was a fun little romp. It featured a few very cool hat tips to one of my favorite themes: pirates. The Doctor, Amy, Rory and the Tardis land on a pirate vessel that has been “becalmed” and is beset by a vengeful siren. So this episode is a classic Doctor Who: a unique historical setting (including swordplay and a cute girl in pirate garb), a classic myth that is finally revealed, and an important moral.
Today’s moral is simple: don’t fear the unknown (a classic Doctor Who theme). The very thing that is an ominous bogeyman can also be a beautiful blessing. In this case, a siren can be a very effective holographic doctor.
But the classic moral and the stirring pirate motif aren’t enough to save this story. Yes, it’s a fun episode. And I’m sure that it is moving the season story forward – at least a little bit. And you have to like the fact that a group of seventeenth-century pirates get a cool new pirate ship.
Unfortunately, there are a few things about this episode that just drag on. The ending scene with the pregnancy scan vacillating between between pregnant and not pregnant is so contrived. And the reminders of the Doctor’s “impending doom” are curious, but not compelling. Finally, the underlying question of “who does Amy love” is never really advanced any further.
At least one thing is emerging clearly: every story has a key child in it. First there was the child in the astronaut suit. And this episode brings us the captain’s son. Similarly, we can all see the importance of the Amy/Rory child-to-be (if he/she ever happens). Who knows where this arc will end. But I’m looking forward to each new episode.
-Roo

Only British TV Could Do This

May 14, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

Television programming in the US can be very innovative. But sometimes, domestic issues can only be discussed in foreign media. And so Steven Moffat (a writer for “Doctor Who”) chose to include President Richard M. Nixon in two episodes of the series. When I watched these episodes, I marveled at the fun (and the respect) that Steven Moffat showed to this former President.
Here in the United States, very few people even talk about Richard Nixon. Yes, he is discussed in history texts. But I can’t think of a single time that I or my contemporaries have included this President in our discussions. He is either reviled or simply ignored in America. I know of no one who is kind, gracious or even the least bit deferential towards this man.
But a Scottish writer of a Welsh production company dared to make President Nixon a featured character in two episodes of their flagship series. And they did a really fine job of it as well. The character (as written by Moffat) was a reasonable representation of a man who was being swept away by an extraordinary situation. And Moffat decided to go a step further: this characterization of Nixon dealt with aliens. And this version of President Nixon is now a “companion” of the Doctor. I NEVER would have imagined Nixon as a companion. But there he was.
The story was a middle-of-the-road Doctor Who narrative about aliens and the Doctor’s love for humanity. It had the typical forward references to whatever the culminating episode will be this year. And it had the obligatory Steven Moffat fascination with silence as a conduit for fear. [Note: I really like this theme being woven in many Moffat stories. But I really wonder why Moffat has such a fascination.]
But I am not a TV critic. I am a Doctor Who fan and I am a student of history. For me, I find it exhilarating that people are talking about Nixon after all these years. And they are talking about him as a man – not as a humiliated President. I love the “in jokes” about tape recording things. And I really like the implied (but never stated) consideration of the missing minutes of audio tape.
Bottom line: This was a respectful and innovative consideration of Richard Nixon, the man. Unfortunately, it was only an average Doctor Who episode.
-Roo

Amazon Cloud Drive Musings

April 2, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

After uploading all of my Amazon MP3 purchases to my Amazon Cloud Drive, I used almost all of the 5GB that Amazon provided. I felt a little cheated because I made these purchases through Amazon. Amazon is even making you offers of additional storage for new MP3 purchases. Since I can see the record of all of these “legacy” transactions on my Amazon account, why couldn’t Amazon honor these purchases?
And then it struck me: Amazon is killing many birds with a single stone.

If you purchase and leave your music on Amazon, then Amazon saves a lot of money. They can keep a single copy of the song in their storage farm. And then they just point your Cloud Drive pointer to this original content. If you have a really popular album, then they save multiple instances of storage. And these savings apply to transmission costs as well. Why download 100 or 1,00 or 10,000 copies of a song to thousands of customers? Cut out the storage costs and cut out the download costs. [Note: The transmission costs do occur on the back-end whenever you listen to the music. In fact, each time you listen to the music, you and Amazon are incurring that download.]
Amazon can layer any number of services back into this offering. They can include cover art, and all sorts of other metadata. And they can add things over time.
Amazon is storing the content – so they control it. This may not sound like much. But I suspect that this is a big deal to their content partners. For content that Amazon vends and stores, there is no real issue. But if a customer uploads content and it turns out that the content is obviously unlicensed, then Amazon has rights regarding content embargoes, content filtering and even content elimination. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon does content analysis on behalf of their content partners.

And none of these benefits accrue for older purchased content that would need to be reloaded back to Amazon.
But Amazon is risking very little by not addressing legacy purchases. They have a much bigger issue that they must address head-on: customer perception. Amazon is risking a lot based upon their belief that customers won’t mind having their content stored for them. I’m not certain if this is a good bet or not.
People get positively possessive about things that they have purchased. They want to use it in all sorts of ways. For example, I like to include song snippets in videos that I’ve bult for the kids and their sports teams. I would be upset if I had paid for content and couldn’t use it. In fact, I would consider that a violation of fair use. Not having access to this content in any way that I want (and at any time that I want) may result in some very dissatisfied customers.
For my part, I am still unsure about having “rights” to something without having anything substantial. Thus far, I only have two movies purchased via Amazon Video on Demand. [Note: I’ve also completed my first Amazon MP3 purchase that is stored exclusively on Amazon’s servers.] Yet I have dozens of digital movies on my media server. And I have hundreds of DVD and Blu-Ray discs in a cabinet. And I have thousands of digital music files on my media server. I could certainly buy more “rights” to other content that is stored off-site. But it just doesn’t seem the same to me. Proximity equals control and control equals confidence.
As I think about it, I like the Amazon Kindle model a little bit better. I do have the rights to books I’ve ordered. And I can view them anywhere – as long as I download them first. [Note: I do wonder why Amazon isn’t streaming book content as well as music content as it is less bandwidth intensive.] Either way, I feel very connected to the Kindle content – wherever it is. I think that this is because I have something to touch – i.e., the Kindle itself.
But I’m sure that Amazon customer studies have been through all of this. I am sure that they have recent data that suggests that younger customers are more comfortable with less concrete content. It’s just old farts like me that want to have something that is a little more tangible.
In a few years, all of this will be moot. Content will be stored in the cloud. And you won’t have direct and personal access to it – except via a technology broker (like Amazon). And that situation has the little “Lost in Space” robot (that is inside my head) screaming “Danger, Will Robinson.”
I am also reminded of the Doctor Who episode entitled “The Long Game.” In this episode, people have to pay for “access” to important information. The more you pay, the more “access” you receive. Surely this is not the future of computing. I certainly hope not.
-Roo

Does Amazon Have the Whole Enchilada?

April 2, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

For those who have read my musings for some time, you’ll know that I use a lot of Amazon services.

I have purchased music from Amazon for many years. Why would I use Amazon’s music service when iTunes owned the market? Because I really believe in competition. And I really believe in good prices. And I really believe in digital freedom. Consequently, I’ve bought many dozens of albums from Amazon’s music service. And recently, I’ve purchased from both my home computer and my Android phone.
I’ve also used Amazon’s Video service for a few years. Amazon decided that they would boldly venture into the same market that Netflix and Blockbuster had already captured. I originally chose Amazon because they weren’t Apple. But then I began to use their service more fully. And I realized that because they weren’t Apple, they were intrinsically better.
Yeah, that’s an exaggeration. But not by much. I bought a Panasonic Blu-Ray player. And it included streaming from Amazon VOD. Because both Amazon and Panasonic had an established history of leveraging open source technologies, it was a natural harmony. And as my Viera Cast capabilities grew, so have the Amazon VOD capabilities – especially with the Amazon prime membership that my wife has.
But while I’ve had Amazon VOD for about two years, I haven’t really exploited it much until I had the right wireless infrastructure at home. Now that I have that in place, it’s been wonderful using the Amazon service. I can get almost any video I want whenever I want it. And if I choose to buy it, then Amazon has provided a video locker to store the digital content in.
Since getting my Android phone last year, I have been waiting for Amazon to open up their own Android market. This week, they finally made it official and started vending apps using their retail purchasing engine. I haven’t bought a lot of apps from them yet. But if they provide the same application re-installs that the Google market does, then I may switch my purchases to Amazon. [Note: I really love automatic reinstallation of apps from the Android market. Every time that I switch ROM’s, I need to reload my system. So this is a sticking point for me.]

I’ve used a lot of “cloud-based” storage in the past. While at Microsoft, I tinkered with SkyDrive. BTW, this was a revolutionary concept that suffered from a horrible implementation. [Note: That is quite typical for many Microsoft technologies. They can always out-market you on technology that they acquire. And they can almost always build really cool new things. But they oftentimes have trouble building and marketing first-generation technology.]
But when SkyDrive didn’t seize the market, the most notable cloud-based storage tool in the market became DropBox. DropBox got a lot of the technology right. And they really captured a chunk of the geek market. Indeed, Cindy and I have used DropBox for several years. And it has been a wonderful success whenever she has needed a collaborative storage platform for her master’s degree classwork. But like SkyDrive, DropBox never made a big enough splash in the market to begin to seize the consumer marketplace.
And now it’s Amazon’s turn.
I REALLY love the cloud storage offering that Amazon released this week. If you’ve had your head in the clouds (or had your head stuck somewhere else), then I will tell you that the Amazon service is called the Amazon Cloud Drive. I love the name. It leverages the notion of the cloud (as popularized by Microsoft ads) and adds to it the simple and well-understood notion of the “drive” as storage. Hence, Cloud Drive may well be a marketing winner.
And the Cloud Drive offering is fairly complete. You can use it on your PC or Mac. And you can use it on your phone. And you can use it on a tablet. So far, it seems to really “sing” with music-based files. Of course, that makes sense as music files are the largest commodity that will be stored. It will be months (or maybe even years) before videos will become a ubiquitous on the service. So adroit mastery of music files hits the Amazon sweet spot.
And they have chosen a good niche for the amount of free storage. It is larger than either DropBox or SkyDrive. The current offering is 5GB for free. I suspect that Apple and Google may try and best this with a 25GB offering. But we’ll have to see. The folks at Forbes think that the first major reply will be to up the storage limits. If that happens, I would bet that Amazon will respond. That might be a fun price war to watch.
So far, I really like the first volley in the impending digital storage wars. Like the folks at Forbes, I see Apple and Google jumping in on this. And I think that Google may just buy DropBox. They don’t need the DropBox tech. But they may want the customers and the buzz. But I also think that you may see some other folks jumping in. I do believe that Microsoft may burnish and re-launch SkyDrive. If they do, this might be hella fun.
And I really think that storage vendors and media player vendors are going to want to get in on the action. While they may not be able to make a complete offering themselves, it will be nice to see how they are used as channel providers to the bigger players.
So what will it take to win? Winners (and survivors) will need the following:

They will need capital to purchase and implement the vast quantities of storage that may be required.
They will need established data center management skills to make the cloud-based storage initiative viable.
They will need marketing to get the message to customers
They will need partners for channel depth and diversity of correlated features/capabilities.
They will need digital content.
They will need a retail channel (with a strong purchasing and delivery engine).

Google has many of these. I do think that they lack diverse content – although YouTube does help. What they really need is some content partners – like Sony???
Apple has some of these. Nevertheless, they lack a robust and diverse partner ecosystem. Yes, they have lots of partners. But they re so closed that they are technologically inbred. And they don’t have a lot of online storage already in their pipeline. Yes, they sell content. But they don’t really store it for their customers. They move it to their customers’ devices.
Amazon has most of these (except for the brand identity across many markets). They do have all of the pieces in place. But no one knows that. They have content. They have storage. They have the retail channel. But they need critical mind-share in the consumer marketplace
I think that the market can bear all three of these big players – for now. And Amazon is first out of the gate. If they can capture enough early market, they may be the big winner.
I just wish that I could get “credit” for all of the Amazon MP3 purchases I’ve already made. I hate to move all my stuff right back to them – and then have to buy additional storage. It’s not fair! Wah! Wah! Wah!
-Roo

Who Needs Newgrass When There's Great Bluegrass?

March 27, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

In December 2009, I purchased a very nice mandolin for my wife. I did this because my wife Cindy is a fabulous musician. I had heard her play the ukulele earlier in the year. She played wonderfully – especially since the ukulele was a new instrument for her. So to assist her with the motivation needed to conquer yet another new instrument (i.e., the mandolin), I figured that I’d buy her an album of good mandolin music. Several people recommended Sierra Hull’s premiere album (entitled Secrets). I was blown away by the musicianship and the poised maturity that the then 16-year old Hull exhibited on the album.
So when I heard that she had released a sophomore album (entitled Daybreak), I just had to download the album. And like the first album, this one is magnificent. From the very first track, Hull distinguishes herself as an amazing mandolin player. More importantly, she has really extended her vocal capabilities. She is no longer the little child with a nice voice. She is a woman with a wonderful voice.
And her mandolin prowess has grown. She handles instrumental tunes (like “Bombshell” and “Chasin’ Skies”) with an easy grace. You can really sense her skill (and her love of the instrument) in both of these works. At the same time, she seems equally comfortable blending classic bluegrass themes (like faith and family) into modern musical harmonies.
My favorite song is “The Land of the Living.” This song expresses a simple and well-worn faith that is honest – and not trivialized. I would love to hear her sing and play an entire album devoted to her faith. But in many ways, the simple and understated faith motifs throughout this album may be even more catching for people who did not grow up in the church community.
Finally, this album makes no apologies for its traditional bluegrass appeal. She doesn’t hide the instruments. She doesn’t hide the messages. But she doesn’t bludgeon the listeners with them either. She simply sings and plays about what she has seen and heard. This is a remarkable album from a very remarkable young woman.
I can’t wait for her next album. But until then, I think this one is going to get quite a bit of play around my house.
-Roo

Who Needs Newgrass When There’s Great Bluegrass?

March 27, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

So when I heard that she had released a sophomore album (entitled Daybreak), I just had to download the album. And like the first album, this one is magnificent. From the very first track, Hull distinguishes herself as an amazing mandolin player. More importantly, she has really extended her vocal capabilities. She is no longer the little child with a nice voice. She is a woman with a wonderful voice.

And her mandolin prowess has grown. She handles instrumental tunes (like “Bombshell” and “Chasin’ Skies”) with an easy grace. You can really sense her skill (and her love of the instrument) in both of these works. At the same time, she seems equally comfortable blending classic bluegrass themes (like faith and family) into modern musical harmonies.

My favorite song is “The Land of the Living.” This song expresses a simple and well-worn faith that is honest – and not trivialized. I would love to hear her sing and play an entire album devoted to her faith. But in many ways, the simple and understated faith motifs throughout this album may be even more catching for people who did not grow up in the church community.

Finally, this album makes no apologies for its traditional bluegrass appeal. She doesn’t hide the instruments. She doesn’t hide the messages. But she doesn’t bludgeon the listeners with them either. She simply sings and plays about what she has seen and heard. This is a remarkable album from a very remarkable young woman.

I can’t wait for her next album. But until then, I think this one is going to get quite a bit of play around my house.

-Roo

Zombie "Kill of the Week"

February 19, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

There is a time and a place for everything. This week was the time to upgrade my infrastructure. I’ve had a wireless router since the beginning of the last decade. My first WiFi router was a 3Com device. It supported 802.11b. My next router(s) was a Linksys WRT54G that supported 802.11g. So now that the new wireless standard has finally been approved, it was time to upgrade to a device that supported802.11n – or whatever draft specification is currently under review/consideration/implementation.
I tend to be a thoughtful man when it comes to buying technology. So I considered the following:

A desire to stream video content
A multimedia infrastructure that used Ethernet connections to the TV, the Blu Ray player, and a game console
A room location that did not have Ethernet but needed a wireless Ethernet bridge
A need to link the high-speed infrastructure and a low-speed camera infrastructure (featuring an 802.11b access point)
My past experience with firmware (which included three years of using DD-WRT)
A desire to use open source components wherever possible
A need to upgrade my broadband bandwidth to support simultaneous streaming and web browsing
A desire to switch ISP’s in order to save some money

This was a daunting list. And I tried to meet every objective on the list. I think that I may have succeeded – but not without paying a price.
My first choice was to replace the wireless gear that I had. So I selected a Buffalo wireless router. In particular, I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as my new router. It uses the Atheros chipset for the radio. So I knew that it would provide the signal coverage that we need. It also ships from Amazon with DD-WRT. At the same time, I was tired of running a home-built wireless Ethernet bridge for the entertainment center. So I also purchased a Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N as a replacement bridge.
I installed that infrastructure last weekend. And it worked flawlessly with my Time Warner cable connection. But I still needed more bandwidth from my ISP – and I wanted to save a few bucks on my monthly cable expenses. So on Tuesday, I worked from home while my “cable guy” switched my infrastructure from Time Warner to SureWest. Why SureWest? Because we had used them many years ago when they were Everest. And now that I no longer needed any exclusive content from Time Warner, it was time to change.
The change was not as simple as I would have liked. First, SureWest needed to string new cable. OK, I could live with that. But then SureWest felt compelled to change the cable modem to a Cisco DPC-3010. This is a fine device. And I am sure that SureWest got quite a deal with Cisco. And I know that the Cisco gear is very manageable for the provider.
But the customer experience was awful.
I went from a 15-30mbs service to something quite a bit less. Yes, I had contracted for 25mbs. But my experience (as measured by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was only about 11-12mbs. I was horribly disappointed. Indeed, I felt like the corporate zombies had stolen a good thing and replaced it with something less appetizing.
The cable guy had me test a direct connection between my new cable modem and my PC. In that configuration, I could get ~25mbs. Shoot! That meant the issue was with the router when I put it between the cable modem and my PC. I expected some performance loss. But 50% is just plain unacceptable.
So I went off to the forums to seek information – and a little solace. Based upon recommendations from forum gurus, I updated the router firmware to the latest DD-WRT versions. I first tried build 16144. I then moved on to build 16214. But the results were always the same: I was seeing about a 50% bandwidth loss.
I thought the issue might be the cable modem. So I contacted both SureWest, their outsourced technical support staff and I even checked with Cisco. It seems that SureWest will not support any modem except their customized and re-branded Cisco.
Consequently, I had but one alternative: change the router. But I didn’t want to get rid of my shiny new router. And it had performed so well before the ISP change. Therefore, I decided to switch to the default Buffalo firmware before I just swapped the whole thing out. This meant that I would be abandoning one of my requirements: i.e., using DD-WRT. But I had to test this in order to really determine where the problem was.
After a few minutes of downloading code and a few minutes of uploading the firmware to the router, I had the new/old Buffalo firmware running on the device. And what was the result? I started to see performance approaching 25mbs. Conclusion: DD-WRT, the Buffalo router and the Cisco DPC-3010 don’t work well together. It could be any number of things. And I will still pursue a DD-WRT solution. But for now, I have met all of my customer requirements – while compromising on one requirement from the infrastructure team.
In order to get what you want, you may need to abandon a well-worn rule or two. For me, I decided to meet my family’s requirements – and defer my geek requirements.
And what was the first movie I streamed using the new infrastructure? You guessed it: Zombieland.
-Roo

Zombie “Kill of the Week”

February 19, 2011August 22, 2018 Lorin Olsen

I tend to be a thoughtful man when it comes to buying technology. So I considered the following:

A desire to stream video content
A multimedia infrastructure that used Ethernet connections to the TV, the Blu Ray player, and a game console
A room location that did not have Ethernet but needed a wireless Ethernet bridge
A need to link the high-speed infrastructure and a low-speed camera infrastructure (featuring an 802.11b access point)
My past experience with firmware (which included three years of using DD-WRT)
A desire to use open source components wherever possible
A need to upgrade my broadband bandwidth to support simultaneous streaming and web browsing
A desire to switch ISP’s in order to save some money

This was a daunting list. And I tried to meet every objective on the list. I think that I may have succeeded – but not without paying a price.

My first choice was to replace the wireless gear that I had. So I selected a Buffalo wireless router. In particular, I chose the Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH as my new router. It uses the Atheros chipset for the radio. So I knew that it would provide the signal coverage that we need. It also ships from Amazon with DD-WRT. At the same time, I was tired of running a home-built wireless Ethernet bridge for the entertainment center. So I also purchased a Buffalo WLI-TX4-AG300N as a replacement bridge.

I installed that infrastructure last weekend. And it worked flawlessly with my Time Warner cable connection. But I still needed more bandwidth from my ISP – and I wanted to save a few bucks on my monthly cable expenses. So on Tuesday, I worked from home while my “cable guy” switched my infrastructure from Time Warner to SureWest. Why SureWest? Because we had used them many years ago when they were Everest. And now that I no longer needed any exclusive content from Time Warner, it was time to change.

The change was not as simple as I would have liked. First, SureWest needed to string new cable. OK, I could live with that. But then SureWest felt compelled to change the cable modem to a Cisco DPC-3010. This is a fine device. And I am sure that SureWest got quite a deal with Cisco. And I know that the Cisco gear is very manageable for the provider.

But the customer experience was awful.

I went from a 15-30mbs service to something quite a bit less. Yes, I had contracted for 25mbs. But my experience (as measured by Speedtest.net and Speakeasy.net) was only about 11-12mbs. I was horribly disappointed. Indeed, I felt like the corporate zombies had stolen a good thing and replaced it with something less appetizing.

The cable guy had me test a direct connection between my new cable modem and my PC. In that configuration, I could get ~25mbs. Shoot! That meant the issue was with the router when I put it between the cable modem and my PC. I expected some performance loss. But 50% is just plain unacceptable.

So I went off to the forums to seek information – and a little solace. Based upon recommendations from forum gurus, I updated the router firmware to the latest DD-WRT versions. I first tried build 16144. I then moved on to build 16214. But the results were always the same: I was seeing about a 50% bandwidth loss.

I thought the issue might be the cable modem. So I contacted both SureWest, their outsourced technical support staff and I even checked with Cisco. It seems that SureWest will not support any modem except their customized and re-branded Cisco.

Consequently, I had but one alternative: change the router. But I didn’t want to get rid of my shiny new router. And it had performed so well before the ISP change. Therefore, I decided to switch to the default Buffalo firmware before I just swapped the whole thing out. This meant that I would be abandoning one of my requirements: i.e., using DD-WRT. But I had to test this in order to really determine where the problem was.

After a few minutes of downloading code and a few minutes of uploading the firmware to the router, I had the new/old Buffalo firmware running on the device. And what was the result? I started to see performance approaching 25mbs. Conclusion: DD-WRT, the Buffalo router and the Cisco DPC-3010 don’t work well together. It could be any number of things. And I will still pursue a DD-WRT solution. But for now, I have met all of my customer requirements – while compromising on one requirement from the infrastructure team.

In order to get what you want, you may need to abandon a well-worn rule or two. For me, I decided to meet my family’s requirements – and defer my geek requirements.

And what was the first movie I streamed using the new infrastructure? You guessed it: Zombieland.