A very long while ago I was harping on about 21CN Broadband and FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet), well a BT engineer has just left my house and I am happy to say I’ve now got the new FTTC shizzle at Goat Towers.
FTTC Shizzle in proper terms is VDSL (or what BT market as BT Infinity) and I get it via my ISP – Zen Internet. In layman’s terms its ‘superfast internet shit’ of the highest order and as I’m so close to my street cabinet I’m getting some Brap Brap speeds…
One happy Goat…
My hosting company are shutting down the Blogware platform this blog used to run on so I’ve been forced to migrate the old blog to their new WordPress platform. This was done yesterday with minimal effort after wading through a 22 page technical document and I managed to export all the old crap and move it over here with no loss…..well maybe some loss (hence this post)
Four years of articles and photo’s came across seamlessely but I seem to have screwed up with my links to other blogs/sites so if I had a link to you on the old blog and it’s not there now it’s not cos I don’t like you anymore, it’s just that they got lost in the ether someplace and are now doomed to be shivvering in cold, black cyberspace for eternity.
So if you actually read this blog and I did link you previously then please hit me up in the comments section and I’ll re-link you 😉
Goat Dude – 2012
Second and most likely final part of this article. The hardware was put together in a previous post and this part is about setting it all up.
I jumped a couple of steps before I started taking screen shots but basically you plug the box into your network and run the utility on the supplied CD, it finds the box on the network and then you can start configuring it. I chose to have a static IP address for the box as I intend accessing it remotely and also if you only have a few devices on your home network then static IP is neat and tidy.
You use the Synology Assistant to access the box initially:
Here its formatting its own system partition on the disks
Now the initial config is done it asks you to log in properly
Your newly named and configured NAS box should now show up in the assistant:
Enter the IP address in your web browser and log in !!
Now you can set up your disks and create users:
Two choices on setting up disks, use Quick if you want it all done for you or Custom for manual RAID options
Here I’m using all the disks for one RAID volume
Going for RAID5
Surface check on disks (this will take FOREVER on big disks!!!)
These were my choices, you can pick whatever you like !!
Go find something to do for this bit…it takes a while
About 14 hours later……seriously!!
All up and running, this is the Main Menu with all the stuff this box does
Oh, don’t forget to get the latest firmware update for the DSM
That’s it all finished and ready to use, you can now create shares to backup your other computers or follow the wizards to have an iTunes server or a Mail Server etc.
I started digitising my life over a decade ago as I could see the way things were going, it started with converting all my music to high quality MP3, drifted into digitising TV recordings, DVD’s, movies etc. etc. I like the idea of having everything in one place, at my fingertips so to speak (via a Remote Control) and also the ability to copy stuff to my car, my phone or my MP3 player as I wished.
As a result of this it was only a matter of time before I reached Critical Mass and I ran out of places to store stuff, that time is NOW…
My Media Centre had 4TB of storage (1TB for films, 1TB for TV episodes, 1TB for music/photos and 1TB for recording TV) but the problem was I was running out of space AND it was getting too big to backup……enter Project DeathStar or in plain English – Network Attached Storage
I’ve had to wait a while to do this, mainly because I needed technology to catch up with my wishes, and that was for HUGE hard drives to be invented because what I wanted was something L-A-R-G-E. It needed to automatically backup and synchronise my Media Centre, my PC, my Netbook and two Android phones and still have some space for ‘future growth’ so I splashed for a Synology Diskstation DS411. This thing will do all of the above plus loads of other neat stuff like CCTV, Mail Server, FTP etc.
You buy this thing ’empty’ so you can stuff whatever hard disks you fancy inside it. In my world there is only one hard disk vendor and that is Hitachi Global Storage, they are always at the forefront of product design and their stuff never goes wrong (unlike Western Digital or other crap). I can speak with authority on this because I have personally built several hundred PC’s for corporate use that get spanked 8 hours a day and they are all still working years later.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with the techno babble, if you want to find out more about Synology go to their site, they make loads of different NAS solutions to suit every budget.
Here’s some pictures of Part One of my NAS build (Part Two to follow):
Nasty flash shot but I wanted to show you inside
Bags of storage 🙂
Disk Trays
Full of disks
The front panel lights
This little side project is still ticking along and I’m sure you’re bored of waiting for updates but finally some news 
I have decided to axe the original Server Cube that currently house my Media Center and go a bit more minimalist and sleek so I will be investing in one of these.
It’s about the same size as my Onkyo 607 so should sit under this just nicely 
What this will allow me to do is build the new Home Theatre PC offline and more or less move it into place once its done.
.
New delivery today, the CPU for my Media Center rebuild is here 
W-A-Y too much power really for what I need but I’m not a patient person so the new system WILL go fast if it wants to or not 
Next on the shopping list….a new chassis.
Geeky box shots…
I’m a speed king you go to hear me sing
I’m a speed king see me fly
If you are
in the UK then you might well have heard of BT 21CN, this is where
BT are finally putting some massive investment into UK telecoms by
changing their Core Network.
To minions like me it means the possibility
of 24mb DSL in my house as equipment in BT Exchanges get switched to the new network. Further down the line they will be putting Multi-Service Access Node’s into PCPs (in plain English this means the green street cabinet (PCP) that your phone line currently connects to will get its own mini DSLAM (broadband equipment) and hooking these back up to the Exchange with fibre (FTTC) and then finally there will be fibre to the home (FTTH) where you might need to go get a funky new router or at the very least have BT come and fit you a new linebox as you will have 100mb internet in your house! (this last bit could take a while with BT 
)
If what I just wrote above doesn’t make sense here is a nice picture explaining how FTTC will end up
Image Copyright – BT Openreach ©
This is a ‘new style’ DSLAM enabled PCP – If you see one getting fitted in your street its good!!
I’ve been with my DSL provider Zen Internet forever, they might not be the cheapest but they are without doubt the best ISP in the UK, that’s why I’m still a subscriber
So I’ve seen speeds go up over the years but have been ‘stuck’ on 8mb ADSL2 (ITU G.992.4) for ages now so I got real excited when they asked me if I wanted to be on the priority list for a free ‘Regrade’ to ADSL2+ (ITU G.992.5), this is supposed to take me from 8mb to 24mb (if the line quality is good and the line length is short) and will get me on the first step of BT’s 21CN
I said yes, waited for a bunch of time and finally this week the regrade took place, a few tweaks to my Router/Firewall later and here I am on BT 21CN.
Sadly even though I am very close to my exchange I cannot seem to connect any faster than 8667kbps and my bRAS Profile is flapping between adsl8000 and adsl7150. It is getting slowly better though as before the weekend it was adsl6000 so my current maximum download speed has gone from 6000kbps to 7150Kbps
So I never got my 24mb ‘Speed King’ internet connection…..back to waiting
If you can cast your mind back to February when I bought these toys for my Home Cinema, you might recall me talking about an issue I had with the Kef KUBE-2 Subwoofer….or maybe I never posted this up here .
Anyway, there is a fairly well known issue with Onkyo AV Receivers and KEF Subs, maybe other subs too (just try Googling ‘Kef Kube red light issue’) so I’ve been suffering with this for a few months. Basically you turn all the kit on, the Kef KUBE-2 sits there with a red light on it (not working!!) and about 20 minutes later it realises its purpose in life and starts delivering the deep rumbling bass it was designed to do. I roughly understood what was happening but I didn’t know how to fix it….basically the KUBE-2 was consuming lots of signal and the Onky amp wasn’t giving it what it needed.
Me being lazy just posted up a question on an internet AV forum and forgot about it after adding it to my ‘chores list’. You see, I have a Zen like approach to my chores list, just like every self respecting male should have. My chores list just ‘Is’ (If you have Zen figured then you will understand this phrase ), things appear on the list (normally added my Mrs Billy Goat !) and they just ‘are’ .
Eventually someone replied to my post and this is the official line from KEF:
In the test tone menu of your AV receiver, set the subwoofer output to
maximum, then you can come out of the AV receiver’s menu.
On the back of the subwoofer itself, set the crossover to maximum and
put the volume at a level which you are comfortable with as some people
prefer a bass heavy setup, but some prefer it more subtle, at the end of
the day it is personal preference. Set the phase to either 0 or 180,
whichever sounds the loudest. The ‘Bass Boost’ switch is also down to
personal preference and room conditions. What it will do is give you
either a flat response through the subwoofers frequency range, or give
you a raise of +6db or +12db at around 40hz.
This should then stop your subwoofer from going into standby as the
signal output from the AV receiver will be higher.
On the Onkyo 607 OSDÂ menu’s you go to Speaker Setup>Level Calibration, scroll down to the sub and up the db (try starting at +10), then drop the volume on the KUBE-2 itself. Well, this works for sure, in fact the way I first had it set was
insane…the whole house was shaking .
I’ll tweak the bass levels over the next few days and fine tune it but the problem is now finally over.
Just thought I’d make mention of some of the ‘weapons’ used to build this Blog, in case anyone is interested…
Prior to Christmas 2009 all the photo’s on here were shot with a Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Ultra Zoom digital camera, this is a fairly bulky 5 Megapixel camera with a 10x Optical Zoom lens (38 – 380mm equivalent) and a 1.8″ screen. It was a neat camera that took great pix but for the type of pictures I take (mainly out on a bike) it was too big and cumbersome and as a result it often got left at home. Based on this I was on the lookout for something better but smaller…
Enter the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ6….I picked up one of these over the Christmas break and ever since then all the photo’s you see on here have been taken with this little baby. It’s a 10.1 Megapixel ‘Ultra Compact Super Zoom’ camera with an f=4.1-49.2mm (25-300mm in 35mm equivalent) LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens and a large 2.7″ TFT LCD Display. The pictures are the the proof as all the pictures you see here have had no post-processing done whatsoever so are ‘as-is’, give or take the odd ‘crop’ (but that’s rare)
Size wise its perfect for slipping into a Camelbak or a jacket pocket at 103.3 x 59.6 x 32.8 mm so as a result it gets taken out on every ride.
For more info on this camera there is a full review here.
I’ve tried carrying this while out on the bike in a variety of ways, my preferred choice was in a Chest Pouch attached to my Camelbak straps but I couldn’t find anything suitable to hold the camera due to its small size, the closest I found was a Blackhawk ‘Tactical Ops’ magazine pouch which was the perfect size but offered no padding or weatherproofing.
My searching eventually led me to a Berghaus E-case Large which I believe is marketed at carrying GPS devices and is a hard protective case that you can open with one hand and has a pull out rain cover, plus loads of fixing options. I slung to one side the various straps and fixed it to the waistbelt on my Camelbak so it sits right on my hip and out the way of my legs while I’m pedalling but still staying accessible for those ‘out on the trail’ photo opportunities.
When I get back to the ranch the Lumix gets plugged into a Samsung NC-10 Netbook to dump and resize/rename the photo’s and also to write this blog with. The Netbook is neat, has a long battery life and great Wi-Fi and most importantly it matches my TV
The ‘Old Toy’
The ‘New Toy’
Berghaus E-case (Large)
Samsung NC-10 Netbook
I didn’t really want to without studying all the documentation and pondering over it for a while (I’m a bit like that 
) but I dived into this on Friday night and got everything lashed together then proceeded to run the Audyssey 2EQ ‘room calibration’ routine on the Onky.
Audyssey 2EQ is used to counter distortion created by walls, furniture, and other objects. This technology detects speaker distance, and then sets levels, delays, and crossovers, while also measuring room acoustics so your speaker system is set up for your specific room. Following from this while you are using the Onky to watch TV, movies etc it uses Audyssey Dynamic EQ to make constant correctional tweaks to the output.
Stunning technology but not if you overlook one small thing. If you are using a 5.1 system then you must ensure you wire up your rear speakers to the Surround Left and Surround Right outputs instead of the Surround Back Left and Surround Back Right Outputs (which would be the logical ones to use 
), if you don’t do this then Audyssey 2EQ will throw a Speaker Detect Error which basically means you’re stuffed 
.
It took me several frustrating hours to find this out so basically I didn’t get the damn thing working until Saturday night. Everything is now roughly in place while I figure out where to actually put all the kit, here are some pix
