Tag: VoIP

Windows Home Server Upgrade – Progress Report

Just wanted to share with you my “upgrade” experience going from the original Windows Home Server to Windows Home Server 2011. This morning I made some hardware upgrades, specifically: adding another 4GB RAM, replacing the existing four hard drives totaling 3TB of varying sizes with three 2TB hard drives. This part didn’t take so long …

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Diagnose Dataflow Problems: The Traceroute

Traceroute with Unresponsive Hop

Leading on from yesterday’s post about how to do a ping test we move on to another test which might uncover more information about where dataflow problems may be occurring. In a nutshell, a traceroute shows you all of the various entities (also known as “hops”) on the Internet that sit between you and a …

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Internet Plans – Get Bang For Your Buck

These days, ISPs refresh their internet plans more regularly compared to six or seven years ago – competition is certainly more intense to say the least. However, not everyone pays close attention to this fact and, if you have been on an old grandfathered plan, you may be unaware that you could be getting far …

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Skype 5 Officially Released

Another quick one for tonight (running the university assignment gauntlet again). Skype 5 has been officially released today and still retains the group video call feature. It is still worth nothing that the feature itself is still in testing despite the software now being out of testing. A new feature has also been incorporated called …

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NZ: Double the Fibre to the Home – Wise or Wasteful?

Across the ditch in New Zealand, the Kiwis are planning their own fibre network but in an interesting twist, homes will have not one but two fibres entering the premises. The idea behind this approach is to have retailers battle it out in the home but not for the home. Now, I’m not privy to …

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Keep Track of Friends and Loved Ones with Foursquare

A quick one before I head back to the airport to fly back to Sydney. With the rise of location services in recent years people have been able to find places close by when the time suited. In an earlier post, I wrote about WorldSurfer which allows you to use sources such as Google or …

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No Static IP? Use DynDNS!

Some of us aren’t blessed (or perhaps cursed depending how you look at it) with a static IP address. For me, it’s a blessing that I do have one because I can run a whole bunch of servers (for VoIP, web servers, TF2 and VPN for instance) without having to keep updating an IP address. …

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So Many Clocks – Which One is Right?

A lot of devices these days have a clock built into them like mobile phones, desk phones, microwaves, televisions, digital video recorders, computers as well as in our cars. With all of these clocks, which one is the most accurate and how can you ensure that your time is kept in sync with the rest …

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Circuit vs Packet Switched Networks – Packets are the Future

Having studied data network and telecommunications concepts and principles at university, I know the difference between circuit and packet switched networks but I suspect that the regular person on the street does not have the same level of knowledge or awareness. As such, I thought I would flesh this out a bit so that people …

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Windows Home Server – A Great Backup & Storage Solution

Home Server Console (Home Network Health)

In an earlier blog entry, Erratic Electricity – The Silent Killer, I mentioned the fact that I use Windows Home Server in conjunction with offsite backup and a UPS to keep my data safe and sound. Windows Home Server (WHS) is basically a cut down version of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and is …

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