Was looking through my previous entries about home internet performance. Realized I had not checked the house's wifi performance lately, nor on how this latest Debian Workstation laptop was doing.

Current home internet access is the combination of Spectrum cable internet-only service, their most-bandwidth service that is available for where we ( Read more... )

Installed Debian 8 Jessie to my Gateway laptop

Downloaded the netinst CD ISO image, then used Brasero to burn it to a CD

Installed via wired connection.

To get the wi-fi to work

1. Had to update the /etc/apt/sources.list to include contrib
2. Had to, as root, run aptitude install firmware-b43-installer
3. reboot

To add my usual user to ( Read more... )

Added an old computer to our wifi network

Did a run to our local PC store, Alice Computerworks. Thank goodness they are open until 7pm, as I just barely got there before they closed.

Picked up an ASUS USB N150 wifi adapter

Plugged it into the back of the old PC. Ran the installation software. Now my Oldest can use the old workstation PC. No ( Read more... )

As is my own personal Security Policy, did my annual Changing Of The Passwords (changed all my passwords in my online accounts, and home WiFi (WPA2 PSK key)).

Tried to create and use strong passwords, unique to each online account. See tagged articles about WPA2 and/or haystack.

Switched internet providers from Earthlink/DSL to ATT/Uverse

I really really liked Earthlink/DSL. I didn't want to say good bye. They had provided my little family with our DSL for over 10yrs. Reliably. Afford-ably.

The trouble was, speedtest.net showed our DSL service was 1.3Mbit down/0.3Mbit up.

For 10yrs, when internet usage at my house ( Read more... )

Was about midnight, and I was surfing the web as I typically do.

Noticed the WiFi was showing a lot of activity (the antenna symbol LED very active), which seemed unusual. My PC is connected to the router via hardwire, so know it couldn't be me.

Did a walk around the house. Everyone was asleep, and I verified all the devices that could be ( Read more... )

Gateway MX6214 laptop, Debian Stable, and WiFi self-meme:

As a default desktop install, seems if I had had the hardware WiFi radio turned off, but then decide I want to use it, seems I also have to reboot in order for the kernel and wireless subsystems to 'see' it fully

If I dont reboot, then the network manager 'sees' the signal, but any attempts ( Read more... )

Attended the SGVLUG general meeting last night at Cal Tech. Was a very interesting presentation.  The guest speaker presented about how eazy it was to compromise WiFi even if the connection was using WEP or WPA.

The exploits used publically available software, and a simple everday laptop.

For WEP it just took a few minutes to brute force caculate the ( Read more... )