2022

Have you ever struggled to measure the true speed of your internet?

Each router is different, and additionally, WiFi wireless networks come in different standards, on different frequencies and offering different speeds depending on external factors.

If our computer has a card that only supports 2.4GHz at a speed of 54Mbps, we can have 100, 200 or more Mbps, and we will not go faster than 54Mbps.

Some 2.4GHz networks can even offer 300Mbps. In the case of 5GHz and speeds go up significantly. This does not mean that we are always able to achieve the offered speed.

If we have 3 devices that actively use the WiFi network, the network capacity, i.e. the maximum speeds we can achieve, is also divided by three.

Therefore, to properly measure the internet speed, you would need to connect directly, preferably by cable, to the router and be the only user for whom the entire bandwidth would be available.

If you have a router with OpenWrt software, you can measure the connection speed directly from the router, bypassing all users.

My OpenWrt adventures began with the ASUS RT-AC56U router. It was a fairly good, cheap router with a dual-core Broadcom BCM4708A0 processor clocked at 800MHz. It also had 128MB of flash memory and 256MB of RAM.

Appetite grows with eating, as the saying goes.

While I didn’t complain about the processor, I quickly ran out of space for more of these applications. So I decided to replace it with a Linksys WRT3200ACM, which I later changed to a Linksys WRT32x.

WRT3200ACM (WRT32x) is a very solid machine, we still use this type of router at work. While I was pleased with its performance, the WiFi network did not work out very well.

The signal strength left much to be desired, and cooperation with other routers or access points was not without problems. All because of the wireless chip from Marvell used in it.

Additionally, the lack of support for DFS channels in WiFi in the 5GHz frequency further limited its use. Also, forget about WPA3 encryption introduced by default in the OpenWrt 21.02 series (WPA3 can be turned on, but WiFi and the entire router quickly stop working).

In my search for a better router, I came across the Linksys MR8300. It had 3 Qualcomm Atheros radios. One was for the 2.4GHz frequency and the other two for 5GHz, the first for channels up to 60 and the second for above 100 (with DFS support).

While the router performed well, it was clear to see that it was much slower, especially when installing software.

Just today, on the 23rd of July Yummy Recipes UK is celebrating the third month from the lunch of the website. We (me, from the development side, and my friend, from the content) didn’t see what was coming.

At the lunch the ambitions were high, but also reality brings us down a bit, as we saw plenty of cooking websites around that we will need to compete with.

During the first two months social media, mainly Facebook, dominates in popularity. Over 1000 people on average viewed each recipe that we shared, whereas our website got only a portion of visits.

An extreme heat reached the UK today. Where temperatures easily will go above 40C (in shade!), days before, people, especially the working class, start looking into employment law, health and safety and all other guidance to see what rights they have and what employers need to do in their workplace.

To disappointment, all come to one conclusion… nobody is required to do anything about that.

It’s not very often that I am finding something new in a tool that I am using constantly, every single day. Unless it’s announced as a new feature, I would not expect to find something, that is like a holy grail!

My daughter Anna book worm. She likes to read and from time to time writes on her own. Her creations can be found on anna.wieckiewicz.org website.

She participates in some YoungWriters.co.uk competitions and wherever there is a possibility I trying to encourage her to participate.

This time through the June newsletter I try to engage her in Ele Fountain, Writing Challenge & Giveaway.

I have been using Parallels Desktop since 2014. Initially, I purchased a full licence which I upgrade roughly every year. The upgrade was a bit necessary as related closely to the macOS updates and new functions introduced.

Over the years the business model of the company behind this software changed.

Introducing the subscription model, Standards and Pro versions put a bit of confusion. At the time I stuck with version 15 for some time until I upgraded to MacBook Air M1 in 2021.

I was forced to move into version 17 to get the support for Apple Silicon however I found a good deal at the time (a bundle deal) so was happy with it. Once my subscription was up for renewal I was greeted with a renewal fee of £79.99!

For the last few months, I haven’t been using this software often enough, so I start thinking, do I need it? Is there any alternative that offers Windows OS on macOS with an M1 chip that is finally worth considering?

I have been using Apple Watch since series 4 when my wife made me a gift and presented it to me. It was Apple Watch Nike Edition 42mm.

As a Mi Band user at the time, it was an upgrade in functions but a downgrade in battery life. However, the battery of the Series 4 hasn’t been so bad and allows me to easily last the whole day.

From time to time I see and look at some SEO articles to see what others are writing about and what’s new that I need to look at.

I have started reading an article about some SEO mistakes to avoid, and the first thing that stopped me from reading further was a point about “Read more” links.

It was stated that the severity of using the “read more” link for SEO is high and that the developer of the site should remove the use of “read more” links in favour of article links (for example title as a link).

That particular author claimed that when that has been done, the site visibility “went through the roof”.

Partly I can agree with that, but removing “read more” links shall not be advised if it is done right. Here is why.

I have been reading for some time that one of your solutions for better SEO will be removing pages that are not performing well and just wasting a crawl time.

Redirecting them to the most relevant part (using redirect 301) or where such doesn’t exist, pointing back to the homepage and advising search engines that it’s gone (using redirect 410).

There is one problem with removing something from a page that you spend a lot of time creating. There is a sort of sentiment in it.

Even when I migrated from WordPress to Hugo I moved all pages to a new website. I have done an initial review and did some corrections, but never looked at the test from a merit point of view.

Generally, I am against using the rule of removing content that performs poorly in search engines. Not always the case, that the content is not desired. Sometimes simply is unique and targeting the niche that shall be here for some who will need it.

With such an approach, I am creating some of my posts. To give users something that I struggle to find. You can call it niche but in reality, this is something that some people are searching for and cannot find easily. If I struggle to find a solution and I will come up with my own, I would like to share this with the world.