Pimp My Wifi - Solving Problems & Shopping at Sim Lim Square!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
3,161 words · ~15 min read
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So this is the place we're staying in Singapore with some of my wife's relatives.
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It's absolutely beautiful. We're talking, like, talking parrot, teak wood stairs, just gorgeous interior.
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Actually, it was designed by the owner and then built on this lot here in Singapore.
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Everything about it is just amazing and beautiful, except for one thing.
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The Wi-Fi is awful. I was getting disconnections all over the place.
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I was getting slowdowns. I couldn't even send hangouts messages half the time.
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So being me, I was like, okay, so what's your Wi-Fi solution?
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What's wrong with your internet? Because the speed test is fine.
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It's 50 down, about eight up, which should be plenty for all of that stuff.
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And he shows it to me and I go, oh, okay.
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So these guys are using the ISP provided modem, switch, router, access point combo unit.
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The structure of this place is pure, like, foot-thick concrete.
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And then they've got a repeater down on the landing for the second story that is supposed to provide better coverage downstairs.
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Awful solution.
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So it's time for us to figure out some kind of a networking home makeover while we're staying here.
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What the crap am I doing back here?
1:32
It's like I traveled through time to tell you guys that Intel's new 750 series SSD
1:37
utilized the NVMe standard providing speeds never seen before on consumer storage drives.
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Click anywhere to learn more.
1:45
All right, so we're here at the famous Simlim Square where I'll be trying to find some better wireless gear
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and just kind of generally checking it out because I've heard a lot of stuff about this place.
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Number one is that it's an awesome place to find pretty much anything electronics and computer-y.
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And number two is that it's a great place to get scammed with everyone giving different sorts of advice.
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But apparently Mobile 22 PTE Limited and Gadget Terminal PTE Limited have had a fair number of complaints
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as of the last period here, so I should watch out for those guys.
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Important notice.
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Yeah, let's head inside.
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They have everything here. That last place had, like, an entire rack of machetes.
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I wish they'd had this place when we lost our microphone in Taipei.
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I wonder if I need one of these.
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Probably not.
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I think there's five or six stories?
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They got all kinds of fun stuff on the second floor.
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RC stuff, some more computer-y type stuff, and ladders.
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Lots of ladders.
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I guess if it's an entire, I mean, Singapore's what, eight million people?
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So you're gonna have a third of the population of Canada all within driving distance of this place.
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What do you need online stores for?
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Whoa, look at this.
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It's like a sea of technology.
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Okay, so I think we found our first networking gear shop.
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Hello.
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Hi.
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I am looking for some wireless stuff.
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Oh.
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Lunch.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Okay.
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Do you know what time?
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Maybe 10 minutes, 20 minutes?
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About 20 minutes.
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About 20 minutes?
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Yes.
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All right.
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I will come back in 20 minutes.
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Okay.
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Thank you.
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Okay.
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Thank you.
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Hi.
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Yeah, I'm actually looking for, let's see, I think it would be about a 30-foot Ethernet
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cable.
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White?
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Oh, you only have bulk for white.
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So, the third floor looks like the place to be for getting the networking stuff we need.
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This is her shop where I was told to ask them about the fasteners and white cables.
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Oh, look at that.
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You're bringing everything.
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I need a 10-meter white Ethernet cable.
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No, only Cat 7.
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Only Cat 7.
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Okay.
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How much is that then?
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It's a little overkill.
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Oh, nice.
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It's like a flat one too.
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That's actually kind of awesome.
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$20 is a lot for a 10-meter Ethernet cable though.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It's a lot for a 10-meter Ethernet cable though.
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Okay.
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So, another question for you, do you have any fasteners, like adhesive, like sticky
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fasteners?
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Maybe you can make a bit more.
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If this fits, I will buy this.
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Deal?
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Yep.
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Still good.
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Okay.
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So, I need, let's say, three packs of that.
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This one, left one.
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Last one.
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You already made the sale and now you don't have enough of them.
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Okay.
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Well.
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Last one.
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I...
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Oops.
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I spilled them all.
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Fifteen?
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Okay.
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Okay.
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I'll make it work.
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So, I want this and this.
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$28 for our Ethernet cable and our fasteners.
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All right.
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So, let's head up to the fourth floor.
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Maybe we can find some more wireless stuff there before we head back to the shop on the
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third floor.
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Wow.
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Three laptop stores right in a row.
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More laptop stores.
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Okay.
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More laptop stores.
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Too bad I'm not shopping for a laptop.
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All right.
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Well, these guys are more like my speed.
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I need a 128-gig SSD and I need a two-gig stick of DDR2.
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$99 for my SSD and $46 for my RAM.
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I think I can do better on the SSD, but I'm not sure about the RAM.
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Thank you.
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Two-gig stick of DDR2.
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$55.
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$55?
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To DDR3, cheap.
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Yeah.
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How about the 128-gig SSD?
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$105.
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$105?
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Memory 1.
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$105.
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$105.
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$105.
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$105.
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$105.
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$105.
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How about the SSD?
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$139?
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Looks like we're back to the first store.
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You guys win.
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Everyone else's price sucks.
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Okay.
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DDR2?
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Hello.
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$800.
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DDR2, $800.
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Perfect.
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Yeah, I come all the way here to buy computer hardware, right?
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You want to be in the video?
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$145.
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All right.
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Everyone else gave me really bad prices, maybe because I'm white.
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We got our RAM and SSD, but we still need our networking stuff.
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Like all of these laptops are broken.
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Why do you keep them?
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Just in case.
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Oh good, yeah, this one does include
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both the PoE adapter and the unit.
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So in fact, I won't even need a PoE switch.
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That's excellent.
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Another option would just be to get like a Nighthawk X6
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and call it a day.
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You know, repeat things.
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Yeah, I don't wanna use a repeater.
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529, these things are like 300 bucks where I'm from.
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That's ridiculous.
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Yeah.
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I will have to, I will have to come back.
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No problem.
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Okay, another network specialty looking store.
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Cash price, 378.
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378, wow.
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Maybe this place has stuff.
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At least it's not a laptop store.
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Okay, there's nothing in there.
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What's pricing on the AC66U?
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243.
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243, okay.
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Not bad, so far you're the best option right now.
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245 for an AC66U, I'm gonna have to,
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no PoE, I have to get power to it somehow.
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This is ridiculous.
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Like I promised your uncle one cable to the pillar,
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not like two cables to the pillar.
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So you know what I think we're gonna do?
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Oh, I don't like this at all,
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but we're gonna go get one AP Pro
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and we're going to hope that the coverage is good enough
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from right in the center.
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And if it's not, then we're gonna need another one.
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Whatever they have there.
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I want to buy it.
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The first study cafe.
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This place is like a maze.
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I can't even find the stores we were shopping at before.
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AP Pro, 389.
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AP Pro, 408.
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Ah, we just saved 20 bucks.
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Do you guys have a UniFi AP Pros in stock?
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Okay, well, I don't have much more time to shop,
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so I don't think we have a choice.
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Yep, let's do it.
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Well, overall, I'm not happy about it,
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but at least they waived the 3% stupid credit card.
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I don't know.
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It's a pretty hard surcharge after I asked, what, three times.
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All right, so we're back.
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Let's unpack our spoils and get started here.
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So there's actually two projects
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because there was some complaining
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about the desktop computer upstairs.
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So for that, we need an SSD and a stick of memory.
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So we got that.
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And then for the Wi-Fi, we need our new UniFi AP Pro,
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our CAT 7 cable, and then these cable management tabs here.
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So let's get started, shall we?
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This is so not a CAT 7 cable.
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Well, I guess it could be CAT 6.
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So what's the easiest way?
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Well, this door gets to be open a crack from now on.
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Is that gonna be a problem?
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That, my friend, is how it is gonna be to get good internet.
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Go right down here so we get a nice clean line.
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Okay, so I'm not sure about ideal.
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There's no location.
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Part of the problem is this structure is all concrete.
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Concrete, concrete.
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It doesn't look like I'm gonna have a choice.
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So either I think I'm gonna do that pillar on the second floor
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or I'm gonna run it to mount on this thing.
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What I might ask is, what's the priority?
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Because if the priority is the downstairs,
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then I might be better off to go here.
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That's what you get for having bad Wi-Fi.
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So one of the reasons we had to,
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spend so much on our access point was PoE, power over Ethernet, so that I don't have to run those
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two wires. And what I like about the ubiquities anyway, is that they come with an injector in
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case you don't have a PoE switch. Do these two pronged ones work here? Oh, you have an adapter.
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Oh, handy. All right. Did not count on that. So we might need to use some kind of adhesive backing
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and I didn't get any extra. Oh yeah. I also need to steal one of your Ethernet cables. Okay.
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Now let's go plug this guy in. See if we got power. I might have to go switch those things
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around. I always get it wrong. Any light? Oh, there it goes. All right. Now we got to get the
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console fired up. Okay. So to configure the thing, we need to install the ubiquity controller
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software. So let's fire up this ancient Dell Optiplex 760. This is actually the computer
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I'll be upgrading and get it set up. Once we've got the controller set up, it doesn't actually
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ever need to interact with the controller. So I'm not worried about that. We just need to get it
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set up the first time. Who says text don't, you know, work out. No wonder they want this computer
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upgraded. I can't even do anything in an internet browser. Even the mouse movement is slow. Oh my
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goodness. This computer needs more than just a new SSD and some RAM. The most up-to-date browser
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or something. All right. So per the usual, the ubiquity software is super easy to get set up. So
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all we've got to do now is manually set up our channels, manually set up our widths.
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During the setup wizard, I was able to set up the SSID and everything. So what's left now then
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is to have a look at the surrounding area. And you can see that this is why I thought it was so
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important to have five gigahertz. Cause actually from the, from the outside,
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from the backyard, there's a bunch of stuff in here. So stuff on channel six, seven, um, their
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old Wi-Fi was on channel one, actually both the X, the repeater and the original access point were on
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one. So they're just talking over each other, but on five gigahertz, basically empty. So actually,
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the only thing we can see right now is the one that I just put in. So we're going to go ahead
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and we're going to play around with positioning a little bit. We're going to make sure that from
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everywhere within the house, we've got a lot of stuff in here. So we're going to go ahead and
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set this baby up. All right. So here in the back corner, we can see there's a couple on channel 36
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from this neighbor, but our strength is still not that bad on five gigahertz. Naturally, this floor
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is all very good with the access point right in the middle. Even five gigahertz can punch through,
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you know, one concrete wall. Okay. Actually should be workable. All right. So way at the back is
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actually quite a lot of work. So we're going to go ahead and set this baby up. All right. So here
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at the back, you can see what I was talking about with 2.4 gigahertz being completely congested and
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five gigahertz basically being our best bet to not be completely interfering with absolutely
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everything else. Yeah. You won't be FaceTiming back here. Ooh, Russian girls. So now that we've
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determined the location we want, I'm just going to go ahead and set this baby up. All right. So
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I'm going to throw a little sticky note on here that has the admin password and all that good
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stuff. Actually, I'm going to put it on the mounting plate. Then I have double-sided adhesive.
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That's the best solution I was able to come up with. I got two different kinds. So I'm going
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to hedge my bets and I'm going to use half of each. While what I wanted to do to have it on
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the bottom stair. Nope. Okay. This one. I'm going to apply pressure about 30 seconds.
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Okay. Um, I do want to leave this like some kind of a knot here, actually. If the adhesive fails,
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I don't want it to come crashing to the ground. So this is where my cable management tabs from
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upstairs come in. Straight lines are good. All right. How many times do I have left? Oh, nine.
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So that is nine feet. Okay. So we're going to go every foot. Okay. Okay. So I think we're done now.
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Okay. So I think we're done now. Our connectivity was pretty good to begin with. Now, this is all
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because we're trying to figure out how to set up and put it back. The hardest part is getting everything
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All right. So that is nine feet. Okay. So we're going to go every foot. Okay. So I think we're done now. Our
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Okay. So I think we're done now. Our connectivity was pretty good to begin with. Now, our
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Our connectivity up here is the only place in the house
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where it's really not as consistent as I'd like,
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not as good as I'd like, but I think we found a solution
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because it's only very rarely that someone
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is gonna be using something like a phone up here.
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This is actually the worst performing device
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in the house for Wi-Fi.
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That laptop over there, that old laptop,
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gets 40 megabit from the position on this desk right here
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on our range network.
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So that's what we ended up doing.
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We made two SSIDs, speed and range.
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Speed can saturate the 100 megabit connection
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that we have here at this location
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from anywhere downstairs, pretty much.
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And then range is able to,
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even on our worst case scenario device,
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give us about five to 10 megabit up here.
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Not too shabby.
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Then what we did was we reconfigured
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the existing access point as more of a failover.
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So we called this one attic.
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And so if range on a particular device
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is not working well up here,
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can connect directly to that one.
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Then we like to have it
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left the range extender downstairs.
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And with a little bit of repositioning,
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I'm able to get 20 megabit
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at the very bottom floor with that one.
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But we're just gonna leave that unplugged
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unless our Ubiquiti access point fails
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or something like that.
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So now we have not only better speeds
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pretty much throughout the house,
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but we also have a failover system
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in the event that the access point dies
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or something like that.
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So not too shabby.
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Is it the ideal solution?
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No.
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What I wanted was a 24 seven controller running
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and two access points,
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one at the top, one at the bottom.
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Then I think I could get anywhere from 50 to 100 megabit
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anywhere on the property.
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That would have been great.
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We weren't able to do that because you know how things are.
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So this is not a bad solution overall.
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What madness is this?
17:12
I'm back in the studio.
17:15
Crunchyroll must have bent space and time
17:19
to bring me back anyway.
17:20
Crunchyroll is a site created by anime fans for anime fans.
17:23
It has nothing to do with bending space or time.
17:25
They offer the most current episodes of new shows
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straight from Japan, like Food Wars and Gintama.
17:31
And they have a large collection
17:32
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17:36
What's cool is that all the content on their site
17:38
is professionally subtitled.
17:40
And if you have a premium membership,
17:42
which you can go to crunchyroll.com slash Linus
17:44
to try out for 30 days of unlimited free,
17:48
completely ad free, you get $10.
17:50
You get 1080p streaming as well as new shows from Japan
17:53
within an hour of their premiere.
17:55
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17:58
like your phone, tablet, or game console.
18:00
So once you've decided you like premium,
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you can continue for 6.95 a month.
18:04
So head over to crunchyroll.com slash Linus
18:06
to try it out now.
18:09
So guys, this has been a bit of a different format.
18:12
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18:15
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18:16
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18:17
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18:19
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And I think that's pretty much it.
18:32
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18:34
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18:35
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