Posts Tagged ‘wifi’

TL;DR The WiFi coverage in my house wasn’t as good as I’d like it to be, and I’ve heard lots of good stuff about Ubiquiti UniFi gear, so I’ve installed one of their Lite Access Points, and it seems to be working well. Background I first came across Ubiquiti kit as part of the bizarre […]


The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has introduced ‘software security requirements’ obliging WiFi device manufacturers to “ensure that only properly authenticated software is loaded and operating the device”. The document specifically calls out the DD-WRT open source router project, but clearly also applies to other popular distributions such as OpenWRT. This could become an […]


NAT in the hat

06Apr15

TL;DR Whilst on vacation in Spain I’ve found networks that seem to be like something out of a Cory Doctorow novel – domestic WiFi routers hanging off domestic WiFi routers hanging off domestic WiFi routers. At first I thought it was my Airbnb host being cheap and having a cosy arrangement with a neighbour to […]


The TP-Link WR-703N is a nice, hackable pocket WiFi router. I’ve seen them put to some interesting purposes, but I didn’t own one until yesterday when the kind folk at QCon Shanghai gave me one. I’m not a fan of factory TP-Link firmware at the best of times, but more so when it defaults to […]


I spent Saturday manning the @BrightonPi stand at Brighton Mini Maker Faire showing off various projects with Gareth James. It was great fun, and I really enjoyed talking to people about the potential of the Raspberry Pi. There were a few questions that got asked a lot… hence this post. The projects I was showing off […]


Two years ago I took my son along to Maker Faire UK in Newcastle (which is where I grew up). This year the whole family came along. Whilst I queued with the kids for the ‘laser caper'[1] my wife went along to a talk by Clive from the Raspberry Pi Team. I can’t blame her […]


The Quick version Get OpenELEC Download an SD Card image file from resources.pichimney.com (latest version at the time of writing is RC1 – 2.99.1). Install OpenELEC Unzip the image file and burn it onto a (1GB or bigger) SD card using Win32DiskImager (for Windows) or dd (for Mac or Linux). Plug Everything in Plug the […]


I like to get familiar with new versions of Windows early in the cycle, so it was great to see the Developer Preview being made available ahead of a beta. First impressions The new Metro interface hits right between the eyes. I can’t say that I’m a fan yet. It seems well adapted to touch screens, but I’m […]


When I started my new job I had two choices for mobile device – a company owned BlackBerry or buy my own iPhone and get company email using Good. I didn’t want to go back to having two phones in my pocket, which would have been necessary if I’d gone down the BlackBerry route (as […]


This post is about the madness of corporate web filters in the age of ubiquitous consumer devices with Internet connectivity. I typically see three types of connectivity in any given corporate setting: The company network. Usually wired, but sometimes with a wireless adjunct, this network offers the same liberty as an oppressive Middle East regimes[1]. This […]