Virtualization, EUC, and Computing in General
One of the primary uses for our Intel NUC is as a cable box replacement HTPC – so that means there’s always movies, recorded TV or live TV streaming to it over the network. In the past, I was able to direct wire and use the ethernet port giving 1Gbps speed which is more than enough. But now that we moved, that is no longer an option – fortunately, I installed an Intel AC-7260 wireless card … Read more…
It may seem a bit ironic to use a Citrix NetScaler to load balance plain vanilla RDS, but the NetScaler wasn’t always a Citrix product and it certainly has a thousand more uses than just an Access Gateway appliance. So today we’ll be using it to load balance and content switch our Remote Desktop Gateway server(s). First, I’ll assume that you’ve already got RD Gateway up and working with a publicly trusted cert. Next, we … Read more…
For the last few years wireless in our house was provided by a Cisco AIR-AP1252 dual band A-G-N access point – as seen here: Let’s just say that it’s not the most attractive thing in the world. I was given two choices by “the board”: either find a different solution, or put it somewhere out of sight. I first chose the out of site option and moved the AP to the basement. This worked for … Read more…
Comcast has been touting a new “feature” to try to keep up with Verizon FiOS – it is all over radio ads and TV commercials…they have ‘The fastest In-Home WiFi’! Way to go, Comcast – let’s make a bogus claim, not back it up and confuse customers while you’re at it! First let’s compare the most common Internet speeds from both providers: Comcast: 50Mbps down, 10Mbps up – $75 per month FiOS: 50Mbps down, 20Mbps … Read more…
I recently upgraded my wireless AP in an effort to stream live TV wirelessly (more on that later). The new AP is a dual-band N capable model from Cisco – it replaced a G model from NetGear. Ever since then I noticed that our phones would CONSTANTLY disconnect then reconnect to the wireless in our house. This only happened at home – it didn’t happen in the office. Looking at the configurations I noticed the … Read more…
My home lab environment (or home datacenter as it is starting to become…) started several years ago. First I had just a Server 2003 box that was a DC, file server, RAS server…then Server 2008 and Hyper-V beta came out. A few more disks were purchased to store virtual machines – but 2 spindles and limited RAM only goes so far. Then Server 2008R2 was released so the host received an upgrade – both the … Read more…
With the recent purchase of the HDHR3-CC, I had been hoping to eliminate one of the cheap-no-HD-no-guide cable boxes and replace it with an ultra-fast, SSD based PC. The PC works great….the problem is the network – or more specifically, the lack of a wired network to the PC in question. So I purchased a wireless adapter…then I realized that I still have a Wireless-G access point, and I am therefore limited to 54Mbps (if … Read more…
Thanks a lot, Verizon. Now I REALLY need to upgrade my network hardware. The new speed tiers from Verizon FiOS are pretty much amazing: I currently have the 35/35 tier, which I don’t see here…I’m wondering if it will be bumped to the 50/25 tier? I’ve seen downloads at 5MBps (40Mbps) already, so maybe I’ll start seeing downloads hi 6.25MBps? Sweet. Granted, I have been planning on upgrading the wireless access point for some time … Read more…
In an effort to replace lost functionality, I recently upgraded the AV Receiver to a network capable Denon AVR-2112CI. The full documentation is here, so I’ll spare those details. Going from a receiver with no HDMI inputs to one with several was a major bonus. Plus it is network-capable, which makes it that much better. After 2 firmware updates, everything is working great. The Pandora Radio app, internet radio, and DLNA music are great – … Read more…
Previously, when using a Cisco PIX firewall, VPN 3000 (Altiga), or other VPN hardware as an endpoint for a L2L or remote access VPN connection over the internet, 2 explicit internet facing interfaces were needed to allow internet access for these VPN connections. This was due to the fact that internet traffic would need to leave the internet interface (unencrypted)…..which is the same interface that the original encrypted traffic came in on. So it was simply … Read more…