Category Archives: Reviews

The Lockitron Has Arrived! Home Automation Moved Forward…

What is Lockitron?

A long, long, time ago (Ok, so it was just a bit over a year ago), I came across a preview online for a product called a Lockitron. This device seemed really, really cool. I could remotely lock and unlock my deadbolt to my house using only a single swipe from my phone. Furthermore, I could easily allow access to a friend, family member, etc., into my house, either by remotely unlocking it for them, or by granting them access to be able to unlock it themselves using their own phone.

This seemed like a wonderful idea to me! No longer did I have to dread the issue of taking the dogs for a walk. You see, our house has the wonderful idea of ONLY providing a lock via the deadbolt. The normal door handle itself doesn’t have a door lock. So, every time, we had to leave to go for a walk, (or to leave the house in general!), we had to manually pull the keys back out, and lock the deadbolt from the outside. What a pain in the butt!

Then along came the Lockitron, and I was sold! I threw down my money, and waited for the device to come in, which was scheduled to be shipped in March of 2013.

And I waited… and waited… and waited. March came and went, May came and went, July came and went, and September came and went. Each month promised a shipment of my Lockitron, and each month passed without my Lockitron arriving at my doorstep. What started to seem like vaporware eventually faded away, when TODAY my Lockitron finally arrived. Happy Days!

The Hardware

When I got home from work, I barely had set my stuff down before I was diving into the packaging, ripping off that USPS packaging and diving into the heart of what I wanted!

It’s here, it’s finally here! I can’t believe it! (And yes, I did have to take this picture before even pulling it out of the packaging box!)

The package came pleasantly packaged, stuffed inside of a cardboard box, wrapped up inside of a USPS slightly padded bag. After pulling the Lockitron box itself out of the cardboard box, I was greeted with a nicely decorated box.

The Lockitron box, in all its glory.

The front of the box didn’t display too much information, but did show a nice image of the device.

Just your usual, run-of-the-mill information.

The bottom of the box showed a simple bit of information, directing the user to the Apple App Store, or the Google Play Store to download their respective version of the software to go with the device.

Peace of Mind? We’ll see after I do some extensive testing of it!

One side of the box said exactly what the device was meant to do: provide peace of mind, allowing you to always be able to check on the lock status of the door.

As long as it works well, I’m excited about this!

The other side of the box complimented the other statement, expressing the ability to lock the device from anywhere. Peace of mind? You betcha!

Ooh, a pretty logo!

The remaining side of the box simply displayed Lockitron’s logo: a simple round outline, surrounding a deadbolt-style lock icon. You better get used to this icon – it’s everywhere in the software!

Yes, the installation was easy. Unfortunately, the whole fact of Bluetooth unlock only working with iPhones irritates me. No love for Android?

The backside of the box provided a bit more information as to the contents and functionality of the device. I was disappointed to know that the bluetooth functionality of being able to be near and lock / unlock the device was functionality restricted only to iPhones. Hopefully Lockitron will add that functionality to their Android counterparts in the future.

The Lockitron faceplate has been revealed!

Removing the cover of the box revealed the plastic Lockitron faceplate. I originally ordered the white / brushed nickel faceplate, to better match the decor at our house. Lockitron manufacturers, unfortunately, are having some problems with their manufacturing at the moment. As a result, they decided to go ahead and ship out the black-on-black faceplates for now, and ship the originally ordered version later on down the road.

A good gesture, yes. But still a bit disappointing, seeing as how it’s already so far behind. But I certainly do appreciate the gesture, and the ability to get it out the door sooner.

Just the faceplate, with a quarter for comparison. Huge!

Pulling the faceplate out of the box reveals just how huge the device is overall! Of course, I’m sure I could’ve assumed it’d be the size it was after thinking about all the components and electronics inside of it. But I guess I had falsely assumed it’d be closer to the size of the deadbolt itself, especially when compared to some of the alternatives that are starting to be released to market by other manufacturers.

I assume this is the core group of developers?

Underneath the faceplate was a box with some instructions in it, as well as the deadbolt backplate to get installed on the door. Wrapping it was a nice signature folio of people, which I assume to be the core group of developers / designers.

The brains of the whole operation. It’s heavy too!

Underneath all of that was the brains behind the entire system. This houses the primary motor assembly, wifi chip, rubber surround to keep from scratching the deadbolt, and battery compartment to help run the entire device. It’s pretty sweet!

This was a nice touch! I was pleasantly surprised to see a set of nice batteries that came with it, as well as a screwdriver for installing the backplate to the deadbolt!

Included in the box was a package of accessories. I ripped into the box, and was extremely pleased with what came with it. One item, a small NFC tag, was included to allow for easy tap-and-use functionality. In addition was a set of 4x AA batteries, which were of surprisingly high quality (not those crappy knockoff brand ones that have such a small amount of storage and don’t last very long)! Lastly, I was quite surprised to see a full sized screwdriver in there as well! This is to help loosen the deadbolt framing in order to be able to slide the backplate into it. Now, I know that almost everyone probably already has a screwdriver that they could use instead. But the very act of including one, which made it so that I didn’t have to divert my attention away from installing the Lockitron, and instead remain focused on doing it with all the tools necessary right in front of me, was quite nice!

Everything that comes included with the Lockitron – even stickers!

Oh, yes – there were also a couple Lockitron stickers / window decals as well! Another fun touch for those of us who like to make our stuff go faster with stickers!

Another angle of all the stuff that comes with it!

The Installation

I didn’t take any pictures of the installation process itself, but that’s because it was quite simple and uneventful. Basically, it consisted of me downloading the Lockitron app, logging into my account, setting up a wifi connection, and then utilizing BlinkUp to transmit the data (assuming wifi data + user account data) to the Lockitron in order to authenticate it and activate it online.

Once the process was complete and the Lockitron was authenticated with the network, the remaining process was simple, and was all done via a video guide over the phone. The guide walked through the remaining process of installing the backplate, snapping the Lockitron frame onto the guide, configuring the Lcokitron to know whether it was locked or unlocked, and finally putting on the rubber stopper and plastic cover frame. It was definitely quite the easy setup for something that could’ve easily been so much more complicated!

The Final Product

Once the device was installed and working, all that was left was to try it! I quickly booted up the app on my phone and switched the device to be locked…. and waited. About 10 second later, I heard the familiar sound of gears running, and the device was locked! I then tried swiping on my phone to unlock it, only to find that the app was frozen… Drat!

I hopped onto my laptop to bring up the web interface to try it out. it showed that the device was locked, so I pushed the button to unlock it. About 30 seconds later, the gears sounded, and it unlocked. Woot! But wait…what’s this? The web interface stated that there was a system error, and to try again later. Um, not good?

I refreshed the page, and it then showed the device was unlocked, like it was supposed to be. I went ahead and clicked the lock button, and waited. 30 seconds or so again later, and it was locked, but shortly thereafter I received another system error message. A simple refresh of the page later, and all was good again.

I went back to my phone to try again, and again I got the familiar response: swiping it to lock (or unlock) the device would work, but then the entire system would lock up again for a period of time. After doing some testing, I believe it to be that the centralized Lockitron server must be waiting for some confirmation from the device stating that the command had been received and processed. During this time, it appears to make the entire system unresponsive while it’s waiting for the response back. Hopefully this will be changed in the near future. But in the meantime, at least I know to give it some time before trying to send another command.

I did give it a real-world situation tonight, where I left for a walk, and locked the door on my way out. When I got home, the door was in fact locked. But pressing unlock on my phone did nothing. I waited, and waited, but nothing ever happened, and the door remained locked. But about 60 seconds later, it finally made the familiar gear sound, and the door opened up for me. So there appears to be a few kinks in lag time and response issues that still need to be worked out. Hopefully the Lockitron team will get those issues ironed out, and have a rock-solid product in the end!

I’d have to say that I’m happy overall with the product. I do have a few pictures of the final installation that I grabbed with my cellphone quickly (I forgot to take them with my nicer camera before posting!):

A view of our entire door with the Lockitron installed on it.

A closeup picture of the Lockitron installed on the door. It’s a bit hard to see, but it gives you an idea of the size of the device! It’s much larger than I originally thought it’d be.

As you can see, the device is quite large. It’s not obtrusively large, but it is definitely something that may catch you off guard at first. But I think after a few days or so I won’t even really notice, and we’ll get used to it. And once Lockitron sends out the color that we ordered, hopefully we’ll be able to make it match even better with the rest of our decor.

The Verdict

Lockitron
Price
Great price for what it does. Lots of functionality, and seems to be a pretty solid product.

Features
Lots of features. Includes a knock sensor, which I haven't tried yet. Supports limited bluetooth, NFC, app integration, an external APK and text messages.

Support
Limited support so far. Good Facebook response, but limited service when trying to determine rollout times. Iffy customer service leaves some worry with regards to warranty support and other new-product bugs.

Aesthetics
Decent looking product. Hides well on the inside of the door, and can't tell there's anything from the outside. A bit bulky and awkward on the inside, though.

Quality
Hard to tell so far, since it's brand new. Seems solid. Gears are a bit loud when it runs. Not sure if that means anything with regards to lasting power.

Setup
Piece of cake to set up. The video installation instructions were spot on, and overall the BlinkUp feature made it a breeze. I had one small snag, where the BlinkUp took, but the Lockitron didn't want to communicate with the network. A simple second attempt to BlinkUp worked out.

Overall

Overall, seems like a decent product. I'm a bit biased, since I was a Day One backer when it was promoted to the market, so I was super excited for it to come in. But at the same time, I'm a bit flustered, since it took twice as long to come to market. I'm glad it's out, and I am looking forward to giving it a run for its money. I appreciate all the detailed engineering that went into it, and loved the simple, easy to set up ability of it. Great idea using BlinkUp to do most of the heavy lifting!

Network Solutions – How NOT to Host a Website!

8 Replies

Preface

OK, so normally I try to remain positive with regards to most services. While I have experienced frustrating, and sometimes downright horrible service before, I can usually withhold my anger and frustration as much as possible, since it’s normally not the representative’s fault whom I deal with. Furthermore, I’ve been on both sides of the customer service conversation before, ad I understand what it’s like to be on the service side as well, and know that getting frustrated and angry doesn’t resolve the situation any better. I also know how the customer can get frustrated and out of sorts with their experiences with customer service. Once the support process gets to that point, productivity usually drops to zero, and nothing can be further figured out or resolved. So, I usually do my part to maintain a level of understanding and respect, and try not to spread negative frustrations about such an encounter. However, in the case of Network Solutions, I have reached a point of boiling frustration, that cannot be resolved. While it will do no good to write about my encounters with Network Solutions, as they have been around a long time and appear to have little concern for the frustrations of their customers. At the very least, however, it will help release a bit of the frustration pressure of my experiences with them, and may save some readers the headaches of dealing with them, by warning them ahead of time against going with Network Solutions, and going with a different registrar / host instead.

Initial Experiences

When I took over control of a few websites, I quickly found out that the websites were hosted through Network Solutions. Now, I hadn’t dealt with Network Solutions for quite a long time, so I didn’t think too much about it, and figured that the bad reviews and complaints I had read about online were overreactions, and that they weren’t as bad as initially assumed. So, I didn’t put too much thought into it, and began my work with them, using their “Website Builder Tool” that my predecessor had decided to use to build the website. This worked “OK”, for the most part, but provided a severe amount of limitations and frustrations that quickly grew to anger me every time I used it. I, a web developer, was severely constrained by using their WYSIWYG tool, and being unable to provide any of my code to create a better, more interactive, dynamic website. After further inspection, I noticed that we were hosted on a Windows Server, which meant no MySQL or PHP.

Grr…

So I contacted Network Solutions to see about what to do to switch services over to a Linux host instead, so I would have better access to the tools that I needed. A few days passed, and I got a response back from them saying that they couldn’t do a transfer, and I had to set up a new hosting package with them, manually transfer what I wanted over, cancel the existing hosting package, and then they would credit back the remaining time on my existing package.

WHAT?!

This would result in insurmountable downtime while attempting to transfer hosting packages, domain names, etc. from one account to another; not something recommended for a live, commercial website. So, I rescinded my request to transfer to a Linux server, and instead left it as is.

A .DOCX File Is not a .ZIP File

After doing some additional work on the site, I uploaded a .DOCX file, and linked to it for download by our customers. It seemed to work OK, until I started getting some complaints from our customers that they were unable to properly download the .DOCX file. After doing some checking, I noticed that if I clicked the link to the file in Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, it downloaded properly as a .DOCX file. But if I did it using IE, it instead downloaded as a .ZIP file. I could change the extension of the .ZIP file back to a .DOCX file and it would work fine, but it was unacceptable to expect our users to have to change the extension, just because the webhost was having an issue serving up a .DOCX file.

I did some research, and came across the solution – apparently if the host doesn’t properly have the MIME types configured on their server, it won’t properly serve .DOCX (or .XLSX, .PPTX, etc., for that matter) files to the user’s browser. If the MIME type is missing, the server will not know how to server it, and will instead rely on the browser trying to figure it out (which Chrome, etc. could figure out). IE obviously couldn’t do, and as such resorted to downloading it as a .ZIP instead. Even though .DOCX files had been around since 2007 (six years ago), Network Solutions still hadn’t made the jump on our shared Windows host to properly serve those types of files!

I sent Network Solutions a support ticket, explaining in detail what the problem was, and got this response back from them:

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties you are having with your nsHosting. We were able to replicate the issue however the file opened properly and saved as a .docx. We would suggest saving the file as a .doc to prevent the file type confusion.

What. The. Hell? First off, I got lost when they told me that they could replicate the issue, but yet it opened and saved as a .DOCX. That made no sense to me. Secondly, the suggested that I save it as a .DOC instead, to resolve the problem!? I’m supposed to save it as a 7+ year old file format, so that the server properly streams the document to clients’ browsers? Adding an entry into the list of MIME types on the servers is child’s play. I couldn’t believe such an asinine recommendation from them! Unfortunately, this was only a sign of horrible things to come from them…

Death to the WYSIWYG!

Fast forward a time, and I’m still struggling with dealing with Network Solutions’ crappy WYSIWYG editor. I was well aware of its limitations, but made due with what it had. That was, until it started flaking out on me. And no, I’m not talking about simple page timeouts, file save failures, etc. I’m talking about much, MUCH worse! Example:

Horribly generated HTML
Inability to adjust font color / bold / italics / etc
Randomly inserted WYSIWYG color pickers INTO the HTML coding!
Failure to use anything except for IE for editing any longer!

Yes, those problems… problems that shouldn’t exist. At all. EVER! I can [slightly] understand the issues of horribly generated HTML code. A WYSIWYG, after all, is a layer above the code that attempts to take the inputs of a non-developer, and generate complex, underlying code that matches to the user’s expectations. After several edits, bolds, unbolds, etc., I can understand how the code can get complicated enough (spans inside of divs, inside of more spans, with font tags strewn about) to create some non-standard code.

However, this got to the point where the WYSIWYG could no longer keep up! I could select a block of text (yes, a simple text selection), click to bold, unbold, italicize, or change colors, and end up with text somewhere else completely that was a different color, size, font, etc. No longer was my selected text even what I was editing!

Along with this issue of random non-selected text being changed, there was also the issue of the WYSIWYG randomly inserting the text color picker into the code! Yes, the piece of user interface meant to provide abstraction between the user and the source was now erroneously somehow inserting itself into the code. Talk about recursion!

Lastly, after a period of time, it appeared that Network Solutions updated their WYSIWYG, which broke almost all functionality with any browser other than IE. While one could still use Safari, Chrome, or Firefox to edit some of the basics of the code, if one attempted to edit the underlying source using the advanced editor, the SAVE and CANCEL buttons needed to close out the advanced editor and persist the changes to the page wouldn’t work. Furthermore, they weren’t even clickable! If you attempted to click on them, they wouldn’t even respond to the event and depress visibly. They were just… useless!

Joomla 1.5 Template to Joomla 3.0 Template Debacle

Moving on beyond the previously mentioned website, we move to our other website. This one was configured differently than the previous website. It was build upon Joomla 1.5, and also hosted on Network Solutions (albeit on a Linux host, rather than a Windows host). When the site had been developed (before I started), a custom template was developed by Network Solutions for the website to use. This template was highly coupled with the website itself, and did not lend itself very well to being modified and tweaked, based on how Network Solutions made it. After a few years of it being the way it was, it was time to upgrade Joomla to 3.0. Unfortunately, the template that Network Solutions made was only for Joomla 1.5 (understandable, as there’s a huge difference between 1.5 and 3.0). I didn’t want to have to overhaul the website too much, so I contacted Network Solutions and asked about upgrading our template to support 3.0, and whether that would be included in the cost that was paid to create the initial template, or if we had to buy a new template. After a day, I received this response back from Network solutions:

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. With regard to your concern, I was able to check that the Joomla application was manually installed on your server. Please contact your Web Master or refer to Joomla instructions on how to do the upgrade.

Um, WHAT?!? That had absolutely nothing to do with my question. I didn’t ask anything about my Joomla installation. I asked them about what to do if we wanted to upgrade our custom template that they made to 3.0! Obviously, I could tell that they spent zero time on reading my email, and had absolutely no idea what the hell I asked them. So I chalked it up as another useless support response from them, and decided to do everything myself, including creating a new 3.0 compatible template from scratch.

Poor FTP Upload Transfer Speeds

Of course, the fun doesn’t stop there. Oh no, not at all! Before I could work on a Joomla 3.0 template, I first needed to upload and install Joomla 3.0 on their servers. Their one-click install only allowed for installing of Joomla 1.7, which reached its End Of Life over a year ago! I figured that it wasn’t too big of a deal, since I could upload and configure a measly 13MB package to their servers. I quickly found out, however, that that wasn’t the case.

My internet speeds are roughly 30Mb/s down, and 5Mb/s up. Assuming a 13MB (104Mb) file, and assuming a 50% packet negotiation overhead, it should take roughly 31.2 seconds to upload the entire file to their website. Unfortunately, it took much, MUCH longer to do that. I attempted all of the following:

Upload via Coda and its built-in FTP connection
Upload via WinSCP
Upload via Windows FTP / Network manager

All three failed with horrible ends. Coda simply would only upload about a 1/3 of the files before giving up and quitting. Windows FTP manager timed out, and wouldn’t even connect. WinSCP, when in FTP mode would start to try to connect, and would transfer at the speed of Bytes per second, and would time out on the very first file. After switching to SFTP, I was able to upload in the range of about 1Kbps. This took an INSANE amount of time to finally upload 13MB of files. I sent another support ticket to Network Solutions inquiring about their slow FTP performance, and received the following (useless) response back from them:

I am sorry to hear that you are having issues with using FTP on your hosting. I tested FTP functionality on your hosting account – it is working correctly. I was able to read, write, overwrite, rename and delete files all without issues. Please ensure you have passive mode enabled and port 21 open on your network.

http://www.networksolutions.com/support/how-do-i-edit-retrieve-my-ftp-account-username-and-password/

If you verify both of these settings, and you are still having issues, your computer technician or network administrator will need to assist you with your FTP issues. We cannot help you further with diagnosing why you may not be able to FTP. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Allow me a moment to perform a massive facepalm… Again, um, WHAT!?! Yes, I can connect, yes it’s ungodly slow, and yes, it’s YOUR issue. Don’t send me a link on how to request that my password be reset! If my password was wrong… IT WOULDN’T WORK! Lastly, I AM the computer / network technician / administrator! It’s not an issue with MY FTP. In my support ticket, I informed them that I tried via multiple different PCs, on multiple different networks. It was not an isolated issue. It centered on their own services. But their lack of care or attempt to read my email was completely apparent.

A few days later, it suddenly seemed to work better. I eventually managed to upload and install Joomla 3.0 on their servers, and begin working on overhauling their website. I don’t know if they were having network issues, server overload issues, or port forwarding problems. They seemed to resolve it, but with absolutely no response to their customers.

Poor Database Access Performance

Of course, the fun STILL doesn’t stop by this point! Oh no, not even close. I noticed that with our old Joomla 1.5 site, we were having some significant performance issues when loading each page. I had incorrectly assumed that it was a performance issue with Joomla 1.5, and had assumed that upgrading to 3.0 would resolve my performance issues.

I was wrong…

After migrating my site that I had been developing locally on my laptop to Network Solutions’ servers, I quickly noticed something troubling… Every time I would attempt to load a page of the site, or every time I attempted to save a configuration change on the backend, the page would take 5-10 seconds to load and refresh the changes that I made. I noticed that if I opened up Chrome’s page inspector and clicked on a link on the page, it would take roughly 5-9 seconds before the page even started loading!

This meant that during this 5-9 second period, the PHP file was accessed, parsed, interpreted, and the database was queried in order to get the data needed to generate the page. Furthermore, based on the fact that the Joomla configuration itself went quite quickly, I knew that the issue wasn’t a limitation on CPU performance on the website itself, it had to be an issue with the database querying. Network Solutions was tanking the ability for the Joomla interface to query the database for the data to display on the page. And once the data was properly returned to generate the HTML for the page, the remainder of the client-side processing / loading of dependencies went quickly.

So, I decided, once again, to send Network Solutions one more ticket to bring to light the issue of their database performance. And, again, I got a useless response:

[…]your website may be too robust for a shared hosting environment. If you are comfortable managing your own server or moving your site to a more advanced hosting solution, we do offer VPS packages that may fit your needs.

Repeat after me: USELESS! Rather than Network Solutions owning up to their own performance issues, they offer me the ability to pay them a considerable amount more so that I can get a functional website. Let me point out a quick statement – this website contains about 6 pages of static data. “Robust”, it is not. To even suggest such a solution is both irresponsible and borderline corrupt. Heck, I could probably stand up a Amazon EC2 “micro” instance, and get sufficient performance for this site!

Results

It’s at this point where I’ve finally said “Screw It” to Network Solutions. I have pinged them through their support ticket system, through Facebook, and through Twitter. Nothing in my attempts has caused a positive experience with them, nor has any interaction with them improved my faith in their ability to provide themselves as an effective, useful webhost. All of the problem I listed above shouldn’t have been problems to begin with. And yet, even if they did become problems, they should have been quickly (and easily!) resolved. I pretty much gave them the exact solution with what needed to be done for each and every one of the support tickets that I sent them. And yet, they seemed to blatantly ignore my tickets, and give me the same usual, canned responses.

Let this post serve as a warning to anyone who’s thinking about doing business with Network Solutions – DON’T! I don’t think you could even pick a worse webhost. You would be better off standing up an Amazon EC2 instance, or hosting it yourself. If you’re not comfortable with either of those solutions, any other host (1&1, GoDaddy, DreamHost, BlueHost, or almost any other startup host) will serve better than Network Solutions. I hope with this massively long blog post, that I may spare at least one person from the horror that is Network Solutions.

An Update!

After posting this last night, I spent a bit of time writing a performance test to compare the MySQL performance between Network Solutions and other web hosts. I used a really simple block of code:

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for ($i = 0; $i < $loops; $i++) {

$starttime = microtime(true);

//Connect to the DB
mysql_connect($db_host, $db_username, $db_password) or die("Unable to connect to DB.");

$db_query = "SELECT 1 from dual";

$result = mysql_query($db_query);

$endtime = microtime(true);
$duration = $endtime - $starttime;

$totaltime = $totaltime + $duration;

}

echo "Total Time: " . $totaltime . " seconds.\n";
echo "Average Duration: " . $totaltime / $loops . " seconds.\n";

Basically, what I wanted to do was to simulate the way that Joomla connects to the database and queries data to generate the dynamic webpages. I didn’t want to spend too much time digging into the Joomla code to determine how it connects and queries the database, so I decided to make a worst case scenario. I simply looped over a block 1,000 times. Each time a connection is made to the database, a query is run, and the database is then subsequently closed. I didn’t want to do it all within the same connection, because I wanted to make sure any problems stood out and were easier to recognize. And boy, were they recognizable! After doing the test, I noticed the following:

Network Solutions: Total Time – 5.9s, Average Query Time – 0.0059s
1and1: Total Time – 0.293s, Average Query Time – 0.0003s
Local MBA with a SSD: Total Time – 0.078s, Average Query Time 0.000078s a query

What does this tell me?

Well, for starters, my MacBook Air, 2012 Model is FAST! Running a lightweight XAMPP server, I was able to get blazingly fast query times. This was to be expected. Comparing this performance then to that of 1and1.com, which hosts some of my websites and databases, I see that 1and1.com takes roughly 4x longer to perform the same query. That difference doesn’t surprise me too much, due to the assumption of 1and1’s servers not necessarily being configured with the databases on the same physical (or even virtual) servers as that of the web hosting. I also attributed it to the probability of them using non-SSD drives for their servers (albeit in probably a RAID format using business-class SAS drives.

What I did not expect, however, was the fact that Network Solutions was 20x (TWENTY TIMES!) slower than that of 1and1! What took 1and1 a bit over one-fourth of a second to perform, took Network Solutions almost SIX SECONDS to do! This is outrageous, and absolutely unacceptable for any webhost. It’s no surprise that each of my webpages on there take 6-8 seconds to generate! If a page would normally take 1/4 of a second to generate on 1and1, it will now take six seconds to do the same on Network Solutions. That’s insane!

For Network Solutions, then, to have the audacity to tell me that my website is too complicated for their shared hosting, and that I should switch to their VPS hosting, is ridiculous. I am on the same low-level, shared hosting on 1and1, and it is twenty times faster to do the same thing on there. Not to mention, it’s cheaper too!

Network Solutions Web Hosting
Price
Their prices are not comparable. Their basic package of $12.95 a month pales in comparison to that of even 1and1.com.

Performance
Their performance is downright awful. Slow page loads, slow database access. Unless you pay for VPS hosting, you're going to frustrate your users with timeouts and failed loads. Furthermore, the performance testing that I made comparing them with other webhosts drives the point home that their performance is downright awful.

Features
There's nothing special here. They have many one-click installs, but they're old and outdated. FTP connectivity is also dismal, at best.

Support
Their support is laughable and useless. Little to no attention is paid to the requests, and there's no way to contest a response. Make sure you can resolve any issues yourself.

Uptime
Uptime is normal, for the most part. They had some monthly email outages for awhile that they didn't know how to fix. The websites seem to be up 85-90%

Overall
Overall, Network Solutions is a case of being THE industry a number of years ago, then becoming stagnant in their position, and letting their company go to waste. Stay far, far away from them. You'll be glad you did.

– admin

Goin’ Paperless! Enjoying the ScanSnap S1300i.

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Preface

Now, before you start calling me a tree-hugging hippie, let me preface by saying that I’ve fought the paperless bandwagon for as long as I could! I constantly got annoyed by the requests by all my companies I do business with to go paperless, and I was extremely frustrated when it came to the point that I either converted to paperless, or faced a $5.00 a month additional charge by them to send me the statements in the mail. I wanted paper statements! I wanted something tangible that I could see, touch, and file. I wasn’t comfortable without a stack of cellphone bills in my filing cabinet (that I would probably never look at again, mind you). I felt that if it wasn’t there, then it wouldn’t be there in the future when I needed it. Never mind the fact that in the case of a house fire, all of my paper filing would be gone, and I would be without any sort of documents.

Fast forward a few years down the road, and my office quickly became a massive disaster. Boxes after boxes of papers lay around, waiting for me to properly sort, organize, and file into the filing cabinet. These papers dated back 3 or more years, doing nothing but cluttering up my office with their presence. Furthermore, after those boxes filled up with papers, the papers themselves continued to fill up the office, slowly making their way into random piles, strewn about here and there, covering my desk, the floor, the folding table, bookshelf, and other assorted areas. I tried various methods to stay on top of the massive, endless amount of papers, including purchasing color-coded filing labels, developing a storage system, reorganizing, etc. However, each various method felt like nothing more than another attempt to fail at the same thing. I just could not stay on top of the papers, and my office was quickly becoming nothing more than a collection of paper waste. There wasn’t even a spot for me to sit any longer!

Eventually, it came to the point that “enough was enough”, I needed to do something about the papers.

The Solution – The ScanSnap!

I did some research. I then did more research. I then thought about it, and did more research. All the while, the paperwork continued to pile, and the space continued to dwindle. Then one day, I hopped on Amazon, and said “that’s it!” I had had enough, and it was time to finally purchase a scanner, and begin to go completely paperless. After an extensive amount of research, I finally rested on this – a newly upgrade, ScanSnap S1300i scanner:

Once it arrived (yay, Amazon Prime!), I quickly set it to get it in place and get it going just as fast as I could. I was sick and tired of the paperwork, and it was time to be done with it.

The Setup

The first thing I noticed when I got the scanner in the mail was that the box was quite small. I opened it up, and noticed the following in the packaging:

The Scanner (duh)
A USB cable
A power adapter
Another USB cable, with a nifty power plug on one end
Various assorted instructions / warranty cards / installation CD

After popping in the CD, the software quickly installed, and I was on my way. It’s interesting to note at this point the secondary USB cable that came with the box. While the scanner obviously can run of the power adapter, the secondary USB cable can also serve to power the scanner through a secondary USB port on the connected computer. Nice! I probably won’t ever use this feature, as I don’t plan on taking the computer with me in a portable situation. However, it is a nice touch, and a nice additional feature if your environment will lend you that necessity to do so.

First Impressions

Once everything was set up, I was ready to scan! Every where I looked in my office, I saw paper after paper, pile after pile, and box after box, of various dead tree bits that needed to turn their lives into a digital format. I quickly grabbed one box, and began the scanning process.

I found a stack of papers that I felt belonged together, each of various sizes. After arranging them in an order from larger to smaller (full size documents in the front, smaller card-sized documents in the middle, and receipts in the back – to help with the scanning rollers), I stuck it in the scanner and hit the big glowing blue button. Immediately the scanner sprang to life, sucked all the paper through one page at a time, spit it out the other end, and finished the job before I knew it!

It’s important to point out why this scanner is so friggin’ awesome. Obviously for the most part, a scanner is a scanner. What makes it extremely powerful is the corresponding hardware that goes along with the scanner. In this case, it couldn’t be more true. Besides the scanner having dual scanning heads (so that it can scan both sides of the page at the same time), the corresponding software does the following, automatically:

Automatic duplex detection
Automatic color detection
Automatic page size detection
Automatic page rotation
Automatic keyword detection
Automatic highlighting tagging
Automatic OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

That’s right. No longer do you need to continuously mark the scanner for a specific size, type, orientation, or format of the paper you’re scanning it with. Instead, the scanner does everything fully automatic (if you’ve configured it to do so), and you no longer have to do that. Just grab a stack of papers, put it in the scanner, hit the button, and you’re off! Obviously, if the process takes too much extra unnecessary effort, I’m more likely to drop the process entirely, and regress back to a state of not doing anything with the papers, and quickly return to where I was before purchasing the scanner. So, the fact that the scanner can do everything in an extremely quick, efficient manner is important to me.

The Software

I’ve touched on the software a bit already, but there’s so much more to it than just the automatic scanning part of it itself. Depending on the package purchased, the ScanSnap might come with a slightly different list of software with it. The version I purchased, however, comes with the following:

ScanSnap Organizer
ScanSnap CardMinder
Abbey FineReader for ScanSnap
Others(?)

I haven’t payed too much attention to the software that came with mine, outside of those listed below. The most critical of all the software, in my opinion, is the ScanSnap Organizer, and the corresponding FineReader. The FineReader is the piece of software that will automatically perform the OCR on the files that are scanned with the ScanSnap. Note that it WILL NOT allow you to perform OCR on any PDFs that were not created with ScanSnap. While the normal FineReader software can do, the version that came with the scanner will not. I assume this has to do with a license restriction put in place in the software bundled with the scanner.

In my workflow, the coup de grâce, in my opinion, is the ScanSnap Organizer. There are a number of alternative software packages that do similar functionality as the Organizer. However, in my case I wasn’t looking to spend any additional money than what I spent after purchasing the scanner. So, ScanSnap Organizer it is!

At its core, ScanSnap Organizer is nothing more than a simple document managing system, that simply puts all the files in a folder, gives them preview icons that show what the document consists of, and calls it good. And that is exactly what I wanted! I didn’t trust various other software, such as the one coupled with the NeatDesk system, which kept all PDFs in a proprietary database, which required the user to access through the software. The great thing about ScanSnap Organizer, is that it simply references with Windows (or Mac) folder structure, and overlays it with a bit more detail, using a hidden “.organizer” folder. Don’t feel like going through the Organizer software? Simply navigate to the ScanSnap folder that you have configured, which contains all of your PDFs within it, and you’re good to go! Not being locked into a proprietary software design is huge to me. I don’t want to be locked out of all of my files a few years down the road.

In addition to being a document organizer for all the PDFs, ScanSnap Organizer also contains some various additional advanced PDF editing tools. These include deleting and reorganizing pages within a PDF, rotating / deskewing pages, cropping, etc. It can also organize by keyword, find highlighted keywords, and distribute by keyword.

Lastly, the Organizer / scanner allows scanning to numerous third-party programs, including, but not limited to:

Outlook
Microsoft Office (Powerpoint, Word, Excel)
Dropbox
Evernote
Google Docs
Salesforce
Mobile
Any other program you can configure!

The ScanSnap scanner, and the associated software, allow you to do pretty much anything you want to with your digital documents. In my case, I primarily wanted the ability to convert all my physical documents into digital, and organize them into a folder structure similar to how they would have been in my filing cabinet. But the options and possibilities to do more advanced things with the documents expand far beyond my simple requirements.

The Results

After spending an hour or two a night for the past few weeks, I have managed to scan, file, and organize over 2,000 pages worth of documents. They are all now contained within a single master folder (or cabinet), with various associated folders underneath of it. I’m far from complete in scanning all of the remaining documents that still reside inside of my file cabinet. However, all of the boxed and loose paperwork lying around my office is now gone, and in its place is nothing but space, and room for me to actually enjoy my office once again. With barely 100MB or so of converted files on my PC, I have plenty of room to scan, and destroy thousands, if not millions more documents, with little concern about space any longer. In my case, one Banker’s Box worth of documents used close to 100MB worth of storage space. Assuming the minute size of a 32GB micro-SD card, I could effectively take 320 Banker’s Boxes, and consolidate it down into a size smaller than a penny. How awesome is that!

Conclusion

As far as I’ve come in the past few weeks, I still have an incredibly long way to go, before I can fully consider myself paperless. I still must fully develop, and stick to, a workflow plan that will effectively take any paper documents I receive, and convert them into an organized digital counterpart, and still be able to access the documents as quickly and efficiently as I need, without allowing the papers to once again pile up and overrun the office space. Furthermore, I also need to go through many of my physical mailing statements that I receive, and see about converting them to digital, and going with a paperless distribution with them instead. Unfortunately, many times the paperless format isn’t actually distributed, but rather put online for access, and only for a limited time. So, rather than being able to be lazy for a year and let documents accumulate, I need to be proactive in making sure to regularly download and archive all my digital statements. Otherwise, if I don’t stay on top of it, I could easily lose those digital documents into the abyss of dev/null, never to be seen or archived.

Oh, and there’s the obvious statement of “backup, backup, backup!”. In the case of physical documents, one only really needs to be aware of fire and theft – both of which are fairly uncommon. But in the digital world, one needs to be must more aware of harddrive and other equipment failure, and protect against such failures with duplication, redundancy, and versioning, to make sure that the documents don’t get accidentally lost or deleted. But that’s a completely different topic for another time!

ScanSnap S1300i Scanner
Simplicity
The scanner is as simple as it can get. Fairly easy install, plus extremely easy usage makes it a great printer.

Hardware
The hardware on the printer is great! Very little jamming, collapses into a very small footprint, and expands to easily hold a stack of legal-sized documents.

Software
The included software is impressive. Can easily do almost everything you want it to. I have to knock off a star though for the OCR not working on non-ScanSnap documents.

Durability
Solid little device. Includes ability to replace consumables (pick roller, pad) for minimal cost.

Price
A bit pricey. You get a ton for your money. But it is a bit harder to drop almost $300.00 on a scanner.

Overall
Overall, this is a great scanner. Numerous features, combined with incredibly easy to use interface, makes it a very versatile, powerful device.

– admin

From Mac with Love!

Introduction

For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve used Windows, and strictly Windows. From a little kid, I grew up starting with Windows 2.0, and have progressed beyond that point to Windows 3.0, Windows 95, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, and the preview to Windows 8. I have developed in DOS, wrote programs in BASIC using DOS, remembered playing various DOS games, etc. From an extremely small, young child, I did nothing more than immerse myself into Windows, as I grew up in the computer industry. Outside of being forced to use Apple products in grade school, my primary experience was focused entirely on Windows. And I was happy!

I had no problem doing anything on Windows. I became extremely comfortable in the “ins and outs” of Windows, and could quickly and efficiently solve almost any problem that would crop up in Windows, and was able to build a successful IT support solution, which helped to put me through college during the summertimes. In college I had my variously branded laptops (Dell, HP, etc), and my custom-built desktops, all running various flavors of windows. Again, I was happy!

I grew tired of the Apple fanboy-isms, and equally as tired of the Windows fanboy-isms. Oh, sure, I got involved in the taunts with friends of mine who had iPhones, or iPads, or MacBooks, but it was all fun and games. Everyone had their own opinions and tastes, and each was entitled to their own.

After graduating college, I began a new job at a company, which was solely a Windows shop. Branded desktops abounded, all running various flavors of Windows (Windows 2K, XP, and Vista were the common ones). I had no problem with this, since as stated before, I was completely comfortable in doing anything with Windows, and could easily network, troubleshoot, connect, repair, upgrade, debug, and dig into anything that needed done with the computers. This satisfied me, and I had no problem doing my job. Fast forward a few years, and I got a new job at another company. Again, this was an all Windows shop. And again, no problem with me.

However, time moved forward, and I began to get that “itch”. That feeling of “What good is an IT guy, if he is only knowledgable of Windows, and has little to no experience with Macs? While much of the corporate world runs in Windows, that should be sufficient. But if he has no experience or skills with Macs and OSX, what good is he to support those others who want to go ‘against the grain’, and run their Macs instead of being ‘stuck’ with Windows?’

And so, at that time, I decided I needed to get a new laptop. And I made that all important decision. *GASP!* I went with a Mac!

First Impressions

It’s at this point that I suppose I should clarify a few things. As previously stated, I felt that I ~~needed~~ wanted to get a Mac, so that I would be able to provide better IT support, as I would have a better understanding of Macs and OSX, as well as see if I could possibly improve my workflow by being able to incorporate Macs into the mix as well, both for personal as well as work reasons.

With that said, I did a bit of quite a bit of research ahead of time regarding the Mac OS, and the corresponding hardware. I’d been a bit of an on-again, off-again Linux user (Ubuntu, primarily), so I had some familiarity with the underlying OS architecture as well. Lastly, I researched which MacBook I wanted to get (Air vs. Pro / Retina Pro). I knew I wanted the higher portability, as well as the “instant-on” capabilities of the Air with the SSD. So, from a hardware / purchasing standpoint, I knew what I wanted to get, and had an idea of what I was getting.

The Apple Store

Of course, any Mac purchase requires the use of the Apple Store. Well, that’s not entirely true (there’s the internet, Best Buy, etc). But, I wanted to get one from the Apple Store, just to make sure all my bases were covered, warranty was in place, etc. Since I was buying the laptop for work, I figured I’d go ahead and buy it from the Apple Store. I figured if I had questions, they’d be able to help me out.

So, off I went to the Apple Store, credit card in hand, ready to buy the laptop. Once I got in, I was surprised with just how busy the store was! People were all over the place, and tons of guys in blue were around. One guy stopped me and asked if he could help.

“I’m here to buy a MacBook Air. I’d like the 13″ with 8GB of RAM and the 256GB SSD,” I said.

“Ok,” he said, and he plunked something into his phone. “Someone will be right out with the laptop in a moment. But in the meantime, would you like anything else? Cases, an external DVD drive, etc.?”

I responded back that I didn’t need anything else (they didn’t have any cases there I wanted at the time). Before long someone came out with the laptop, the guy took my credit card, swiped it through his phone, took my email address, and said “Done!”.

Initially I was confused at the lack of a receipt. “Oh,” he responded, “we just email that to you. Would you like a paper copy?” Heck no! I loved having an email copy of my laptop receipt. One less thing to keep track of, one less thing to lose in the case of a warranty replacement. He then proceeded to ask if I needed help setting up my Mac. I politely declined, as an IT guy, I wanted to do it all myself (as I would learn better that way), and plus I wanted that enjoyment of opening up a brand new electronic gadget in my house!

Booting It Up

After getting home, I quickly tore off the plastic wrapping off the box like a little kid at Christmas time. Inside was a nicely packaged laptop, complete with power cord and instruction manual. I took a first look at the power cord, and was quickly confused. It was in two parts. The first contained the transformer / plug, and the MagSafe connector on the other end. The second was a simple cable that contained a 3-pin plug, and an adapter on the other side. But with my super-awesome (hah!) mind, I realized it was a simple extension cord that could be used to replace the plug on the transformer itself, in order to extend the range of the power adapter if need-be. And if I don’t need it, the power adapter simply plugs straight into the wall. Nice!

I grabbed the laptop, plugged (snapped!) the MagSafe connector into the laptop, sat down, lifted the lid, and turned the thing on, like a kid ready to play a brand new video game. (Can you tell that I felt like a kid with this?) I was presented with a gray screen, and the all-too-familiar bootup sound. Hello brand recognition! Even after not using a Mac for 15+ years, I immediately recognized that sound. I was quickly greeted with the bootup screen, followed by the welcome and walkthrough steps to finish installing the OS. I completed those steps, and was presented with a desktop, with absolutely nothing on it except for the dock at the bottom of the screen. Um, yay? Oh yeah, no Windows bloatware installed all over the desktop waiting for me to run it! So yes, yay!

Initial Impressions

So, at this point, I had no idea what to do. I didn’t have any software to install on the Mac, nor did I have any licenses for Office, Photoshop, etc. to try out. I simply had the base OSX in all of its glory to play with. But, where to begin?

I noticed the Apple in the top left corner. I remembered this from when I was a kid. I knew that it contained the ability to shut down the laptop. I figured there had to be more stuff to do in there. So I decided to take a look. And, of course, the first thing that caught my attention was the Software Update option. Yes! So I opened it up, and was immediately greeted with some updates that needed to be installed. Yay, just like Windows… I thought to myself. I went ahead and did the install, which prompted me to reboot. So, reboot I did.

Upon restart, I tried again, thinking that there might have been additional pending updates, which required other updates to be installed first. Sure enough, that was the case. I let it download and install the second round of updates, rebooted, checked one more time, and was greeted that OSX was completely up to date. Yay!

Now, finally, it was time to explore a bit more of the OS and to see what I could do. I began by hovering over an item in the menu bar and tapping (not clicking) the icon to open it. Nothing happened….. Maybe I missed the icon. Lemme try again. I tapped again, still nothing. I then clicked on the trackpad, and the item opened. I immediately was a bit frustrated. I used the tap-to-click capability on my Windows laptops all the time! I didn’t like to have to click if I didn’t need to. For one, it saved wear and tear on the laptop buttons. And for two (and this is more important), it was much quieter to tap it than to click it. This may not seem very important, but later at night, I don’t want to annoy my wife with constant “click, click, click” as I use the laptop. So, I decided to see if there was something I could do to change this. Back to System Preferences, I go!

So, once again, I made it back to the Apple icon. From there, System Preferences -> Trackpad. To my extreme pleasure, I see a checkbox that says “Tap to click”, with no checkbox in it. Check! Once I checked it and tested it out, it worked. Super yay! I then realized that there were a whole ton more gestures and touch capabilities that I could do with the trackpad. I had read that the MacBook trackpad was supposed to be one of the best ones on the market. Holy moley!

I closed out of the preferences, and opened up Safari, to try the trackpad gestures. Tap, double-finger tap, swipe up and down (OMG, instant awesome!), three-finger desktop switching, Mission Control launching, and application opening. Awesome! The entire touch experience was intuitive, responsive, and easy to grasp. I was hooked! Now, what about the keyboard?

To typingtest.com I went. Aesop’s Fable? Sure! I opened it up, and started typing. 60 seconds later, I was greeted with my results – 109 wpm, 7 errors, 102 adjust wpm. Wow! This was my first attempt at typing with the keyboard as well. Definitely in love with the keyboard!

I then closed out of Safari, to continue exploring the OS. Well, I thought I closed out of Safari…. Wait, what the heck? When I closed out of System Preferences, using the red “X” in the corner, it closed out System Preferences. But when I closed out of Safari by doing the same thing, Safari remained opened – just without any actual opened windows. Ok, so this will take a bit of getting used to before I fully understand what actually closes, and what doesn’t by simply closing the red “X”.

Moving on, I quickly decided to try some of the other applications: Calendar (iCal), Adress Book, Mail, Photo Booth, iPhoto, and the App Store. I don’t need to go into depth on them in this post. However, I was pleasantly surprised with all of them, and with the intuitive-looking interface of each of them. Address Book was surprisingly dull-looking in my opinion. However, overall the applications seemed to have a decent cohesive look to them. I really liked playing in the Photo Both app, testing out the various effects and modifications.

Overall Thoughts

It is now beyond 2,000 words in this post. I suppose at this point I should probably end it here and leave with some closing thoughts on the MacBook Air. To reiterate what I said at the beginning of the article – I am a longtime Windows user. I grew up on them, went through school and college with them, work with them, build them, and for the most part understand the full ins-and-outs of the OS. But, I would not consider myself a “fanboy” (I can’t stand that term!). In my opinion, it’s similar to a Ford v. Chevy debate, or even a Ford v. Porsche debate, depending on how you want to look at it. They each serve a similar purpose, and each go about it in their own way. Bashing on each other with references of “sheeple”, “fanboys”, etc. get old quick.

With that said, I love my Windows PCs. Yes, they have their quirks, and yes they have their problems. But I enjoy them, and enjoy working on them. At the same time, now with the new MacBook, I have started to love OSX as well, and love the corresponding hardware that came along with it. Compared to my previous laptop, this new one is a BEAST, and such a tiny one as well! The screen is gorgeous (though admittedly not as nice as some of the new ones – Asus Zenbook Prime, for example), the unibody is sleek, the keyboard is awesome, and the trackpad is amazing and intuitive. I love it! I have already started to transition all my mobile laptop needs to the new MacBook, and have began phasing out my previous primary Windows laptop. Previously, I had figured that I would throw on BootCamp onto the MacBook, so that I would still have the Windows functionality when I needed it. But after further thinking, I have decided that I am going to try with it being purely an OSX laptop to begin with. I think I was concerned about using Windows as a “crutch”, keeping it on the laptop if I needed it in a pinch. Of course, there will be the time when I need to use a piece of software that works only on Windows. At that time, I’ll have to look at either BootCamp or Parallels to run the Windows software. But in the meantime, I’m going to give this a shot as a pure OSX MacBook Air.

Despite my praises for the laptop, however, it’s not without flaws. To begin with, there was the obvious part about having to immediately install system updates when I first booted it up. A lot of people use that as a complaint against Windows (Patch Tuesday, anybody?). I wouldn’t necessarily call it a bad thing, so to speak. I understand it as a necessity of the ever-improving technology paradigm that we live in today. Things change, bugs get fixed, patches put out. But I felt it warranted at least stating that I had to do such an update, as it did immediately detract from my excitement about a brand new laptop, and a brand new OS.

Additionally, the problems I am running into this morning, in my attempt to download and install OSX Mountain Lion has been a bit of a pain. Since I purchased the laptop after the public preview of OSX ML, I am entitled to a free upgrade / download of ML. Unfortunately, Apple’s release of ML to people this morning has been met with large problems and complications. First off, it is taking people hours to receive their upgrade codes for the free downloads. Secondly, those who are actually receiving their codes, are being greeted with errors when they try to download, stating that their codes had already been redeemed. Consequently, I still don’t have Mountain Lion installed yet, and am still awaiting my code in my Inbox.

Despite any shortcomings and setbacks, I really do like the new MacBook Air, and am starting to become a fan. I still love my Windows PCs as well, and am also a fan of them. (Does this make me a bi-fan?) But, after owning this laptop for a week, I have already started to migrate over to the Mac for some of my daily duties. We’ll see how things continue to go in the future, and I’m excited to see if my relationship with my Mac is simply a fad, and will fizzle away when I need it most and it fails to be there for me, or if our relationship flourishes into new and unprecedented territories. I still need to get a Thunderbolt -> VGA adapter for it, as it isn’t very useful at the moment for presentations. But, I’m excited to try it out at my next upcoming presentation. I’m sure I’ll be back with more reviews and opinions on the new Mac!

Oh, and of course, I typed this entire blog post using nothing but the new MacBook Air! It worked like a champ.

Mid-2012 MacBook Air
Keyboard
Smooth, low profile keys make typing a breeze.

Trackpad
Extremely intuite touch-gestures. No typing artifacts.

Screen
Beautiful colors, bright screen. Shame it's still a TN screen with a lower resolution.

Battery Life
Long battery life! I can go all day at work, with intermittent breaks from it. The MagSafe adapter is awesome!

OS
After just starting using it, I'm already getting the hang of it! Some inconsistencies in functionality between stock applications.

Overall
I'm glad I made the purchase of a MacBook. I feel it will help expand my IT support position, and make me better able to do my job. It was definitely a worthwhile purchase!

– admin

Review – Netgear Powerline AV 200 Adapter Kit

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The new Netgear Powerline XAV2001 Adapter Kit

Happy New Year, and happy 2011! I hope the holidays were good for all, and hopefully you’ve started relieving yourself of the stress and commotion of the busy holiday season. Recently, I joined an endeavor called Project52. You can read more about it here: Project52, Basically, it boils down to an “accountability group”, with one goal in mind: making a simple post to your blog, once per week, for the next year (52 weeks). It’s a way to keep members in check, and a way to help bloggers along when they get into a rut, or a habit of not posting to their blogs. Obviously, in the case of mine, I haven’t posted for almost two months. I essentially got everything set up, and then left it, as is. Now with the start of the new year, it became time to try to maintain the goal of posting here at a minimum of once per week, for the next year. And to start it all of, I begin with the first product review of the Kenzietech blog.

For this post, I am reviewing the Netgear Powerline AV 200 Adapter Kit. You can pick it up for a relatively decent price at Amazon. Currently, the going price for the product, sold and shipped through Amazon, is $119.99. Since I’ve never done a product review before, I’m not sure how well this will go. But I’ll give it a shot, and hopefully it will be beneficial to those of you who read it.

I’ve never had any experience before with a powerline ethernet adapter, until my father purchased an older 85Mbps model. He used it to provide network capability to his Ooma Telo (something I plan on buying in the near future), and it worked quite well for him. So, I figured that with the layout of network accessibility at our house, that it may be a worthwhile piece of equipment to get for the house. Even better, I got it as a gift for Christmas!

Hardware
To start with, let’s discuss the physical hardware makeup of the adapter kit. The Netgear powerline adapter appears to be very solidly made. At a form factor of roughly 3″x2″x1″, the ability to convert and revert network signals into and from a 110V power source is quite impressive. Each adapter weighs in at about 1/2 a pound or so at most. On one end, a female CAT5 jack is housed. On the side is a “quick-lock” type of button, allowing a quick ability of encrypting / unencrypting signal between all assigned adapters. And on the front are three lights: one for power, one for network signal, and one to show connectivity with another adapter. All of this is wrapped up in a solid-feeling outer plastic shell.

Setup
Netgear hits it right on the head when it comes to setup involved in making it work. I won’t go too in detail in this section, since most of it is covered in the next section (software). But without any configuration required, it just works. Plug a CAT5 cable from your network (router, switch, etc) into the CAT5 jack on one of the adapters, and plug a CAT5 cable from your computer into the CAT5 jack of the other adapter, plug them in, ensure that the activity light is green on the adapters, and you’re good to go. Simple as that.

Software
Originally, when my father purchased the 85Mbps version, the software that came included was a bit lacking. There appeared to be some bugs when getting the encryption set up, some grammatical errors in the instructions / configuration, etc. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Now, when I got the 200Mbps version and popped the CD into my PC to install the software, it immediately asked me if I wanted it to check for a newer version of the software before installing. I said OK, and let it check for a new version. Lo’ and behold, a new version was available. And even better – it was version 2.0. Woot! So I let it download and install (it was pretty small), and started it up.

Initial Interface Upon Load

The initial interface was quite different, and much simpler than the original software. As you can see, it is stripped down to the bare bones. You’re simply provided with a graphical display of the available detected powerline adapters, their models, which one you are connected with, and the speed that you are communicated with that adpater, when you hover over the adapter. This provides a nice visual display, and allows you to verify communication is set up properly. In addition, you also see an unlocked icon displayed between the two adapters. This means that data transferring between the two adapters is unencrypted.

Configuration Screen

To enable encryption between the two devices, you simply need to bring up the configuration screen. From there, you can specify an encryption key to be shared across both devices. This will allow the data to be encrypted, preventing unauthorized access to your network, and to your data. During the configuration process, however, you will need to enter the device password for each adapter. This is a hardcoded password printed next the serial number on the router. This will prevent an unauthorized user from enabling encryption over all the devices, and ensures physical access to the device is necessary. Once this is configured, you can simply enable and disable encryption over the devices, simply though a physical button located on the device. In order to enable encryption, you simply have to press the lock button on the side of one of the devices, then press the lock on the other devices you need encrypted within the span of two minutes (I believe).

Speed
With my testing I’ve done with the kit, I’ve achieved impressive speeds between the two devices, especially considering average speeds that powerline adapters were getting just a few years ago. The XAV2001 has a maximum theoretical speed of 200Mbps. Currently I have one adapter sitting in the basement on the far side of the house. The other, hooked to my desktop, is upstairs (two floors up), on the other side of the house, roughly 30 feet away (straight up and across). According to the interface, I am receiving from the one in the basement at about 110Mbps, and transmitting at around 145Mbps, for an average of roughly 117Mbps. It’s not as good as gigabit speeds that I plan to get when I finish running CAT5 upstairs. But at speeds slightly better than theoretical max 10/100Mbps speeds of 100BASE-TX connectivity, I’ll take it. When comparing what I was getting to wireless speeds from a wireless router positioned in roughly the same spot in the basement, I was only getting speeds of around 18-20Mbps. So it’s definitely a much better improvement!

Durability
Since I’ve only had the kit for a few weeks, I can’t comment too much yet on the durability of the device. It’s seemed to work flawlessly for me, and I haven’t had any signal dropouts with it yet. I’ve used it when the TV has been on, refrigerator running, dishwasher, washer and dryer, etc. Nothing has interfered with the signal yet. It seems to be holding up like a champ.

One negative with the durability though resides from the set of adapters that my father had. One of his quit working after a few months of usage. It appeared that the physical CAT5 connector on the adapter quit working, and we could no longer plug anything into it. It still appeared to communicate just fine with the other adapter, but simply failed to be accessed by a CAT5 cable any longer. It’s important to note, however, that he actually purchased it used (or refurbished, I don’t remember which) off of eBay. So that may have adversely affected the expected lifespan out of the device.

Summary
Overall, the Netgear Powerline AV 200 Adapter Kit has been a great buy (gift), and I will definitely be purchasing more of the adapters to add to the network. I’ve got a few Xbox 360s (old kind) that don’t have wireless connectivity. I’d rather spend $60 on another adapter for it that I can use for anything else I would prefer (including a switch, to grant network access to more than one device), than spending $75 or so on a simple wireless adapter for the Xbox. It’s worked like a champ so far!

Netgear Powerline AV 200 Adapter Kit
Hardware
Solid, durable feeling. Nice and compact.

Setup
Setup was a breeze. Simple plug and play connectivity.

Software
Simple, intuitive software. Easy to navigate.

Speed
Fast speeds. Not theoretical maximum. Slight volatility from interference.

Durability
Works well for me. Slight concern over failure of CAT5 jack.

Overall
Great product overall! Will definitely expand my network with.

– Admin

Kenzietech Blog

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Review – Netgear Powerline AV 200 Adapter Kit