The problem with Airport Networking is that it just works

The often experienced problem with tinkering is that in the process you screw things up and have to figure out how to put all back together again. Of course, it's the process of rebuilding things which leads to new insights and improvements. In this scenario, this was all about Airport home networking tinkering.  The aim of the tinkering was to do 3 things:

• Maintain a 5Ghz wifi network for all my smartphones, tablets, Macs, Media streamers and Windows PCs
• Ensure it was a roaming network for each device to pick up the best signal, regardless of where it was being used in the house (3-floors)
• Get the Airplay playback to Sonos less prone to drop out because it was connected to my 2.4Ghz wifi network

Sonos Airplay
Using the previous version of Airport Utility (5.5.6), it was very easy to add Airplay to Sonos to throw iOS device music at the different Sonos zones. While the wifi radio on the 1st generation Airport Express was turned off, I did configure it to join the 2.4Ghz wifi network running off my Billion router. Playback on the Sonos Airplay was patchy in that it would consistently cut out the signal at various points in the playback of any tracks from my iPhone.  It made no difference for which zone it connected it to and which iDevice I used. I had the same symptom of issue with Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil which I shared previously. Given that Sonos creates it own optimised mesh network to optimally playback wireless music, my suspicion was that this had to do with the Airplay part going over the 2.4Ghz network where throughput is renowned for being choppy, regardless of any channel I chose.

The 5Ghz network
The initial idea was to add 2 Airport Expresses to the 5Ghz network (Airport Extreme – 'AExt') which would add coverage to black spots in the house, due to the shorter ranges covered by the 5Ghz mode.

I set up the first 'AExp' (for the lounge) using the 'extend wireless' option for the main 5Ghz network and it was operating fine.  Issues started to happen when I tried to add another AExp (for the loft) wirelessly in the loft to similarly extend the wireless network. At first, the wireless connection simply would not pick up. After a few soft resets, I managed to get it to pick up via an ethernet connection.  Then I found it was operating the extended wireless network at the 2.4Ghz which went against my aims. I ended up setting up another wireless access point with a different name to ensure I could get the 5Ghz mode which I wanted. Less than ideal.

What I learned from this was a subtle difference between Creating and Extending a wireless network with Airport Utility. While extending is fairly obvious, Airport Utility can actually extend your network by using the Create a Wireless network option. In this instance, the new access point  simply adds new 2.4 and 5ghz channels to the same access point name. In this regard, it optimises the wireless performance of the AExp where it is located, instead of forcibly making it run to the channels of its parent base station.  The result is a change as in the screenshots below. Loft AExp – tick.

Initial set up for additional base stations
- wired and wireless

So I returned to the Lounge AExp and thought it would be relatively easy to change the connection from wireless to wired by simply adding the ethernet cable to the switch where it was located.  What I found was somewhat strange - it seemed to cause a network storm and take down the Internet connection.  Take the ethernet cable out, and in a few seconds, all access points and the internet were back.

I suspected possible causes of this easy repeatable were either IPv6 LAN traffic enabled on the Billion and being automatically picked up on the AExt and AExp's.  So I turned this off and plugged in the ethernet cable again.  All connections went down again.

Then I realised — the magic of the Airport products, is that you need to soft reset them and run the Add a new base station routine in Airport Utility. Voila, it worked. 

Throughput wise (and concentrating on 5ghz), it has been beneficial. The rather hidden 'hover over' feature in Airport Utility (Mac) shows solid connection rates for each piece of kit. For example — iPhone at 52Mbps, Galaxy Nexus 39-65Mpbs, Apple TV 3rd gen 65Mpbs, Apple TV 1st gen 162-270Mbps, MacBook Air 162-270Mbps.

Results wise, I have 3 base stations connected by ethernet, using the same access point name across each floor, each with support for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz support. The only difference between them is the channels being used for 2.4 or 5Ghz modes.  In effect, Airport Utility has optimised their radio signal as per their respective location.

Back to Sonos Airplay

Using the same principle of soft reset to re-run the set up routine for the 1st gen Airport Express, it is also connected by ethernet to my Sonos Play S5 in the lounge, with the wireless turned off.  When I airplay audio from the iPhone or the iPad, it works – flawlessy.

So the final Airport base station network now looks like this.

All ethernet wired base stations
- even Airplay with Sonos, which plays nice!

Morale of the story?  Use ethernet for connecting each base station to your network. Get HomePlugs and Switches if you have to, and while it will cost extra, it makes for a more satisfying device connection and playback performance across the entire network.

A couple of other points of note.  TidBits editor, Glenn Fleishman's video on Airport Utility is a great introduction on the latest how to on Airport Utility.  I go even further and recommend his book available in ePub, Kindle or iBooks which goes into extra detail for running and configuring Airport product networks at home or in the office.  Recommended.

Streaming to the big screen

With recent announcements in relation to the availability of Hulu Plus on Apple TV, plus the addition of AirPlay Mirroring for newer Macs on Mountain Lion, it was a good moment to check where I am on options in cutting the cord from satellite TV here in the UK. The essential aim is to be able to access web content on the big screen, ahead of UK based TV schedules.

Of course, BSkyB is very powerful in UK & European market terms, both in its variety, with agreements with TV networks and film studios, alongside their unrivalled ability to content via set top boxes, mobile and even internet subscriptions. All with DRM and related encryption technologies thrown in to boot.

Previously, I had been playing with the Boxee box.  A decent product overall, with key features such as VPN configurability to be able to access US based services such as Vudu to get 1080p movies and film shows. The only downers being in terms of the price per throw for each movie (as opposed to a monthly all you can eat price).  A complimentary entertainment source is Hulu, in the form of the Hulu Plus service, designed for consoles and media streamers with HD content baked right in.  To date, Hulu Plus has not been available on Boxee, and given its niche numbers, I wonder if it ever will be. Without Hulu, Boxee is always missing something which really transform its value for non-US users.

So if you want to get access to your Hulu standard def shows outside of the US and Japan, you turn to the web with a VPN. Enter AirPlay Mirroring. However, Apple enabled AirPlay Mirroring only on their newer Macs, due to performance issues on older ones with the newer requirements of the technology. Thankfully, outside the Mac App Store, there are other solutions.

AirParrot is an app I mentioned previously. I tested it with my 2008 iMac on 2 favoured use cases which matter to me. Namely streaming football via FoxSoccerTV and then of course Hulu. The mirroring was to my 5 year old 37" Panasonic 1080i Plasma TV to check the quality.

AirParrot streamed content from iMac to Panasonic Plasma 1080i set

As you can see from the screen shot, the quality of the stream across the LAN produces a smooth image with much of the anti-aliaising built into the TV signal processing.  Of course, what it distinctly lacks is any real sharpness or detail. But given that the source is standard definition or below web source, this is hardly surprising.

What was even more interesting is how hard the iMac was working, both in terms of packets across the LAN and how heavily the iMac CPU was being taxed.

Courtesy of iStats menus - how the iMac was working hard to
use Airplay over AirParrot

AirParrot can also allow you to extend your desktop while mirroring content.  This provides additional value in terms of being able to watch your footy or TV shows on a mirrored screen while working on your main monitor at the same time.  Seeing how taxing this is on machine resources, I am mindful of the types of apps I'd throw for doing other stuff — e.g no heavy lifting apps such as image processing or CAD drawing.

So where does this leave me?  Well for us non-US dreamers of Hulu on Boxee or Apple TV, we can still use standard definition as we had all along as long as we put our money down on a decent VPN connection.  Of course, I can sign up to Hulu Plus for $8 per month (enabled by having a US Credit Card or PayPal and a bona fide US address) and then stream via AirParrot on the older iMac or use proper Airplay Mirroring fro the MacBook Air to the TV in the lounge.  In that scenario, I would have access to HD quality streams where available on Hulu.  Beyond that, I can only hope that Hulu finally shows up on Boxee.  It's been a long time coming, given its availability on most other console and media streamer platforms, but it would certainly tick all of my key boxes to think seriously about cutting the cord on UK satellite and cable TV services.

Posted with Blogsy

Nearly a month with the new iPad

It's amazing how our perceptions and expectations of technology and gadgets change so quickly.  I had an iPad 1 on the day it was launched in the UK.  That was May  2010. I sold it on March 2012. During that time, it had been at my side as my trusted tool when I attended seminars and conferences as part of my job. It had been my bathroom and couch companion on a daily basis (Confirmed - I am a guy).

The first iPad got through 2 major iOS releases during that time.  It started at iOS3 before the iPhone 4 came out. I finished using at iOS5. Apple are very clever with their design and of devices. They future proof the device to a certain extent (2-3 years) to ensure it can run a number of future software releases before obsolescence starts to show up by virtue of new iOS features which will no longer be supported.  We saw this on the iPhone 3G when you upgraded to iOS4. Glenn Fleishman's argument on Apple's incremental improvement approach talks to that point.

That said, I had grown tired of my iPad 1. It started with the zippier performance seen with the iPad 2 with the dual core graphics chip and doubling in memory to 512Mb. My daily apps started creaking such as Guardian, The Times, dJay, FlipBoard and others.  I saw app crashes a bit too often. I would kill open apps sometimes just to reduce the chances of a large app launch going wrong (even though iOS memory management is completely seamless). Then I upgraded my phone to the 4S, which I posted previously. It became very apparent that in less than 2 years, I would want to upgrade to the new iPad as soon as I could.

For an iPad 1 user, it's like going from the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 4 for the first time. Read the reviews from Gruber, Dalrymple, and Anandtech  on what feels like a huge jump in performance. There's been enough said on the Retina display, so all I will say is that this device has the potential to take publishing and new PC displays to a whole new level.  It's that good and most of all satisfying to use. I suspect it narrows the value add of the Kindle e-Ink displays, such is its clarity and brightness.

[FAO - owners of the Guardian and The Times apps. I'm sure you have it in hand. But please upgrade your iPad apps to Retina as soon as possible.  Right now and in places, they look terrible.]

On a day to day basis, the old irritants on the iPad 1 are gone. Apps like the ones I mentioned strangely do not crash any more (at least very rarely). I suppose this is because the new chipsets and the 1Gb RAM on board can cope with everything thrown at it and still have room to manoeuvre. I do understand that the 1Gb is not purely dedicated to the apps, but in part for the retina display. Of course, all this may change when iOS6 comes out and can do more on newer hardware which we will see in the fullness of time.

Typing on the new iPad is much, much more responsive. Fast typists like me now feel the new iPad keeps up with their speed, allowing for anyone being accustomed to typing on the iPad in the first place.  I've taken the new iPad on a couple of business trips, preferably over my 11" MacBook Air and I've been surprised at how fast I can do my surfing, social, document management, mail and calendaring and task management. I'll be sharing more on my comparisons with the MBA in a coming post. One of the themes coming out of this is that iOS apps on the new iPad seem to more often have an edge over the OSX counterpart.  Take OmniFocus for example, an application I have been looking at for task management. The UI experience on the iPad is miles superior to the OSX version, which is ok, but cumbersome in places. Of course, the OSX app will see another upgrade and for that matter, so will Lion, starting this summer.

Watching HD movies is simply fantastic. The detail is eye-popping on the Retina and very satisfying when on a plane.

The other big surprise was pairing the new iPad with the 3rd generation Apple TV. Airplay Mirroring has the possibility of becoming a staple device is most enterprises for presentation and learning and development. Great little device.

Downers? Possible LTE this time next year, since it won't work on the planned UK 4G frequencies. But if the incremental improvements for iPad (4) have anything to go by, this new one will be back on the market in no time :)

Streaming audio wirelessly around the home

My Sonos wireless music system is one of the best gadgety things I've bought in recent years.
Now I have 4 rooms around the house where I can stream my choons.

As I listen to a lot of radio — like TV programmes, I can't always be there to listen to it at the time. As a soul music nut, it's a great source of getting new choons to stream over Spotify, Last FM or iTunes on the Sonos.

First off, I got curious around Airplay over Sonos.  I thought this would  be good to throw audio from my iOS device to the Sonos rooms without the needs for buying extra Sonos gear.  The Airport Express wired to a Sonos Play:5 solution works pretty well.  It is prone to irregular sound drops from time to time.  I think this is related to the number of hops the connection has to make over the main home wifi and the Sonos mesh.  Tip of the day — Connect the Airport Express to the Sonos zone you will mainly use for more consistent connected performance.

Going back to the radio thing.  I use some cool software on my Mac by Rogue Ameoba. I use Radioshift for Mac to schedule recordings of shows I like to playback later. Mainly Solar Radio. (Note that Radioshift is no longer available).  I then use the Fission app to open the MP4 file of the show I recorded and edit out tracks I want to keep. Then export to iTunes to sync with the iOS device or be part of the Sonos connected music iTunes library (which is all stored on my NAS drive anyway).

An article appeared on Ars Technica, extolling the virtues of Rogue Ameoba's other product for streaming audio wirelessly around the home - Airfoil.  This was the piece I was looking for (instead of wiring in a 3.5mm stereo between the Mac and my Sonos Play:5). When playing back the audio from Radioshift, Fission or any other audio touting app on the Mac, Airfoil connects it to the Sonos Zones via the Airplay connected Apple Express.

Again, reliability is not 100% as any wireless activity on the home network seems to cause problems with the quality of the streaming. Probably a clash of packets. I do get tempted by the wired connection from time to time.

So in essence, if you have a Sonos system:

• Airplay is worth exploring via a connected Airport Express to a Sonos Play:5. It's great to throw audio  from any iOS connected device to the one or more Sonos zones. Nice for parties :)
• If you have audio stuck on your Mac (or Windows if you have to), Airfoil is a nice complement to getting Mac audio streamed around the home.

Worth it?  IMO yes, each of the products mentioned are relatively inexpensive and are well designed and easy to use.  And I'm sure I'll find other useful ways of using this as I tinker with it.

Of course you can see that Airfoil is a temporary solution, as Apple are likely to be baking in this functionality in a future release of OSX.