Home network stuff

This is another in the theme of "you may be interested in" ... :-) Sparked off by this Register article that's talking about improving how your network at home works.

Networking is getting into everything these days as Data and Information become ever more prominent in our society. We'd be lost without our Google searches ... Even some cars like the Nissan Leaf can have you able to interrogate it via apps on your phone. Mentioning cars, loving the Bluetooth integration on my CT. Getting urgent messages around is much easier with that, instead of fumbling with the handset to interpret or send a text, just call them with the speakerphone which lets me keep a hand on the wheel at all times.

The Reg article is a pretty decent one and well worth a look if you've been having trouble getting the machines on your network to talk to each other. While it is a bit techie, it doesn't get sidetracked into the black art of getting Windows machines to talk nicely. Although it helps there if the software ({cough} Krapspersky {cough}) doesn't get in the way.

I run a few devices here on my home network :
Acer laptop - this connects via wifi and is my main "looking at stuff" computer
Homebrew desktop - games + email in the morning
Littlewhitebox - this is an Apple Airport Express (I have an older model)
Panasonic bluray player - connects via wifi but to be honest it's a bit pointless it being connected
Phone - although not really because I have the wifi disabled to save battery
Xbox360 - if it ever sees games again I have a Long Wire for it
Linksys router - connects it all together

The network sees quite heavy use, as unless I'm watching something on the telly I'll be streaming music to my hifi. The laptop plays the music off iTunes, it'll chuck it over the network via the Airplay protocol and the Littlewhitebox will decode that and send it to the amplifier. It works extremely well. The quality is very good, outside of the crackles you'll get with certain music on mp3s.

When my amplifier breaks (I'm waiting for a dodgy HDMI board to break, although it hasn't misbehaved lately) I'll replace it with something that supports Airplay natively. I'm a firm supporter of the Airplay system and the Littlewhitebox. It'll expand the mp3 up to about 1.1Mbits/s, which is getting close to cd quality while still using a little compression. It gives you a portable box that can go anywhere and plug into anything with an audio input. I've even had it feeding music through a telly. The hifi mags always seem to ignore it though when they review network streamers.
 And I'm getting sidetracked again.

The wifi's been doing pretty well lately. It's been able to cope with the 1Mbit/s streaming audio, 360p video coming from the internet and occasionally massive file transfer when I send stuff between laptop and desktop.

What's it have to compete with ? I live out in the suburbs so there's happily no flats with 1 router per place to compete with. I can see 8 other networks at the moment but I know one of my neighbours had or has a scanner that likes to try hacking other people's networks. I have my router set to not broadcast its name, which stops that scanner from jamming my network.

No broadcast - trouble free for months
SSID broadcast - jammed within days

I think the intention of that jammer is to knock devices off the network so they have to reconnect. With WPA-PSK encryption, the connection phase is the only time when the key can be intercepted. (WEP is brute force hackable without that clue.) But ... it'll still take millennia to derive the passcode even if you intercept it. (tomshardware article)

My kit is a little old, so it takes longer to copy files than if I wasted cash on the latest and shiniest stuff. But when you really look at it, if you can stream audio at 1Mbit/s while copying massive files and watching video then 802.11g is perfectly adequate. But I am thinking of stepping into Powerline networking bits. If that amplifier breaks, I'll replace it with something that has Airplay built in but it'll need a wired connection. But that's the only reason I'd have to add Powerline networking bits.

Recommendations ?

Read reviews, sort through what they say to point yourself towards the best kit
(Belkin are on my Do Not Buy list for their predilection to having a gadget for everything but none that work)
If what you have works, you don't have a need to change
Make sure your wifi is encrypted (WPA-PSK if your bits support it)
Investigate router options for avoiding interference

I'm interested in Powerline network kit but I'll not buy anything until I actually have a need for it. The Xbox360 is effectively my dvd player now and the bluray player and audio streamer have a wifi connection. The desktop sits next door to the router where it can use a wire to get the best performance online. There's all my networking needs right there.