04/16/08

Mike's Update

The latest news and information on the Nolan's.

4/16/2008

Well, its been a long Winter and it still doesn't feel like Spring yet. Kyle turned 16 at the end of March and is driving now. He's currently running track for BHS. Jacob started track as well for Washington and will start Pony Baseball this week. Jessica is still in Figure Skating and other fitness activities at our family gym. Kim and I are dong fine. We just put up a new trampoline for the kids and have the landscaping ready for Spring / Summer. We have a lot planned for the coming months so keep checking back...

2/4/2008

Today is a very sad day for the Nolan family. Our little buddy Rusty whose been a loyal member of our family for 12 years succumbed to kennel cough and a congenital heart defect. Rusty contracted kennel cough while being groomed at PETCO. His heart defect prevented him from healing and after three weeks of suffering, we had him put to sleep tonight. We tried many different treatments and he just kept getting worse. We love you and will miss you, you were a great dog.

1/12/2008

Happy belated New Years! I hope everyone is healthy and enjoying the new year. We all braved the snow storm and headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate New Years Eve with the Monson's. Then made it home in time to fall asleep on the couch before the ball dropped. We spend our Saturday Morning's at Eastview watching Jessica's basketball games. Jessica has had only two games thus far and has improved each week. Jessica is still in Figure Skating and Girl Scouts. BTW, if you need some cookies, give us call because its that time of year and we'll ship them to you... Kyle and the rest of the BHS Football team are in weight training four days a week and he's awaiting track season. Jacob is considering getting back into basketball and currently getting ready for the Pinewood Derby for Scouts. Kim is still teaching CCD classes at St. Mary's and active in Women's Bible Study at Eastview. She continues to watch kids before and after school and busy with numerous other activities. I recently moved back to the Wireless Networks team on the Wireless LAN vertical and was named the Strategy Lead for the Wireless Networks & Cable Design team. So now I split time 50/50 between architecture and enablement. I really missed the hands-on technical work.

Speaking of hands-on technical work, our home router (D-Link DI-808HV) died last week after three years of heavy albeit highly reliable 24x7 use. I typically get between 2 to 3 years use out of the SO/HO routers before they die unexpectedly. I have a lot of machines on my home network, run VoIP, and host 5nolans.com , so I definitely get my money out of them. We're on our fourth router now and I'm so impressed with it, I had to share more info here but first I want to caution everyone about the D-Link DIR-130. I'm very satisfied with D-Link (the company and their products), however I had high hopes for D-Link's latest VPN router, the DIR-130. I ordered it direct from D-Link Shop.com (where I buy all my home network gear) and received it this past Wednesday. Out of the box, the DIR-130 was defective. I'm not certain if it was defective hardware or firmware but from what I've found on-line, there appears to be firmware issues with this new device. I was also disappointed to find QoS missing from the product. I would recommend you hold off buying this unit until D-Link posts a firmware upgrade greater than version 1.10.

Due to the problems with the DIR-130, I was able to negotiate the overnight delivery of new hardware with the very flexible "management" folks at D-Link Shop. This time I opted for the D-Link DGL-4100 and D-Link DGS-2208 and I'm VERY PLEASED with both products. We move large files (music, video, and images) between laptops, desktops, and network attached storage. We also stream media from PC's to our home entertainment center and we're absolutely addicted to playing the PS3 on-line (COD4, COD3, RFOM, MOH:Airborne, & Warhawk, etc.). Not that we had issues before but everything runs much smoother and faster now. The delays with connecting to the Playstation Network are all but gone and the lag while playing on-line is gone too. Streaming media is very fast and responsive as well. I should point out that I used to connect the PS3 via 802.11g and now connect it via full duplex 802.3ab (1Gbps). Otherwise all my other wired NICs are 802.3u (100mbps) but with the QoS mechanisms and the 16Gbps non-blocking switch architecture of the new hardware, everything appears faster. I HIGHLY recommend both products!

I still haven't found a dual band 802.11n Access Point that meets my requirements. I'm looking for a stand alone 802.11n AP that uses 40MHz channels on the 5 GHz band and simultaneously runs 802.11g on the 2.4 GHz band. I also want it to use 802.3ab for the backhaul (yeah, the Cisco 1250 fits the bill but way too expensive for the home market)... The only SO/HO device I've found that comes close is the Linksys WRT600N but it's a combo device (router/switch too) and I want a stand-alone AP... Maybe in a year or so one will come out...

Archived News

This site was last updated 04/16/08