Tips On Home Mesh Network Setup

Recently decided to upgrade my wifi setup. In addition to getting a high-end router in the form of a TP-Link Tri-Band BE19000, featuring the performant Wifi 7 standard, I got several mesh-capable wifi extenders.

The process wasn't as straightforward as I would've liked, which is usually what I get for not planning ahead and importantly, reading the instructions and taking notes, otherwise known as being lazy. However, being meticulous and refining my steps helped things turn out nicely.

Here are some tips for your wifi upgrade journey.

• Advise anybody at home that the network will be down for a bit.
  
  
• Bookmark support pages for the router and range extenders.
  
  
• Install the manufacturer's app or, if you prefer, note the default IP address, admin username, and password for all the devices.
  
  
• If you like, download the latest firmware for each and keep handy in a folder or on a USB stick, in case upgrading through the device interface automagically isn't an option.
  
  
  
• Set up your new router, install its latest firmware, back up settings.
  
  
• Whether swapping an old router for a new drop-in replacement, make sure you give it a static IP address via the app or web interface.
  
  
• Give your backup configuration files descriptive names. Instead of just "config.bin", try "manufacturer MODEL123 - location.bin". For example, "TPLink AX5400 - Basement.bin". 
  
  
• Ensure other settings like WPA security, date / time, DHCP server, QoS, and others are configured to your needs. 
  
  
• Of course, enable the router's mesh capability if you haven't already.
  
  
  
• Set up each range extender individually, in close proximity to the router.
  
  
• WPS can simplify extender setup, but for that you need to have the router and extender physically close, say a meter or so apart.
  
  
• In case WPS doesn't work out for whatever reason (connectivity issues, or yours is a use case a bit more complicated than just plug and play), connect the extender to one of your router LAN ports with an ethernet cable. 
  
  
• Going even further down the use case rabbit hole, consider assigning a static IP address to each extender. If you do, be sure to exclude the extenders' addresses from your DHCP server range to avoid IP conflicts.
  
  
• Especially if using identical extenders, use a Sharpie to label each unit. It could be a code you devise, the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, etc.), directionality (e.g. "N" for an extender at the north side of your home). 
  
  
  
• Enable each extender's mesh capability to leverage Wifi 6+ technology.
  
  
• Prior to Wifi 6, some use cases made sense for each extender to have its own SSID, but with the newer standards, you can use the same SSID across your entire network. 
  
  
• To verify your extenders are part of the mesh once physically moved to their new homes, open the router's mesh configuration and verify your extenders appear in the list and are healthy and enabled. 
  
  
• If you like, double check to ensure each extender's MAC address, as listed, corresponds to the notes you've jotted down.
  
  
• No notes? Create a text file, Word document, Excel sheet, etc., and to it list each extender with make, model, IP address, MAC address, descriptive name, and anything else you deem important to recall later.
  
  
• One thing about wifi range extenders, most I've worked with will have two separate MAC addresses, one for its onboard ethernet port, the other for its wifi interface. This can be a bit confusing if you're tired and it's late and your trusty Advanced IP Scanner displays MAC addresses for which the last number is off by one from what you expect. 
  
  
  
• Once all is said and done, be sure to download and save backup firmware.
  
  
• Should something go haywire, you can lean on your backup configurations in case you made a change and must revert it, especially in cases where tired you has made many changes to many devices and are maybe losing touch with reality.
  
  
• While I haven't tried it, I'm reasonably certain that if you happen to replace one of your units with another identical model, you may be able to upload your previous unit's config file to the new one. Keep in mind, however, that subtle variations between models, like the hardware version, may differ from one model's revision to the next.

That about sums up my less inelegant, more refined process in this latest instance of moving up and onward with faster, better, seamless mesh wifi networking. ⚡

 

Start Menu or Taskbar "Bulge" Follows Cursor

In Windows 10, have you noticed recently that if you happen to click the Start Menu or right-click the Taskbar, then and hover left or right over any one of the listed items, a sort of "bulge" appears to be following your cursor?

This appeared to start happening by default for my otherwise ordinary display settings as of a month or few ago, and it was just one of those things that's mildly infuriating if like me you both are an acutely visual and detail-oriented person, and prefer an absolutely no-frills Windows desktop experience.

After poking around I found the solution. Settings => Color Settings reveals that Transparency effects is the offender. 

By setting this to Off, no more bulge, no more seething with apoplectic rag-- I mean, annoyance.

The only minor and to me inconsequential issue is that the background is a tad darker thanks to the now fully obscured transparency. No big deal, and far better than yet another decision casually inflicted by Microsoft upon its userbase.

Apple II Copy Protection: In-Game and Insidious

Back in the latter part of the 20th century (which for GenX me is admittedly an odd way of saying in the 1980s and 1990s) I played Sid Meier and Microprose's excellent WW2 submarine simulation game, Silent Service. 

The game was provided on a 5.25-inch floppy disk. Unlike the rigid 3.5-inch ones to come later for the Apple IIgs and early PCs, this was that same style of literally floppy disk like the 8-inch type that the U.S. once used to control its ICBM missile silos and that even today the German navy is working to finally phase out, just a bit smaller.

Copy protection in the Apple II days was interesting and in Silent Service and some other games of the period, multifaceted. 

First, the game would prompt you with a set of enemy vessels and have you pick the correct one based on the ones shown in the original instruction manual. Failing to do so would impede your ability to play.

As an aside, some games would take this a step further and print those certain manual pages such that Xerox copy machines of the day could not properly duplicate them, rather like those jackets nowadays celebrities use to deter papparazzi. For games that expected you to visually match intricate, extremely primitive precursors to QR codes, essentially, that was a roadblock.

On top of that, as this article describes, certain data the software would use to validate original media from the publisher would be encoded by special hardware. Unlike the disk drive used by the publisher, retail floppy disk drives could read, but not properly write, data from the original disk to a copy, and thus, any attempt by the computer to validate the appropriate checksum indicating the disk was authentic would fail.

Cleverly, on the part of Meier and Microprose, the fact that a disk had been pirated would not be publicized with the software locking the user out or rebooting or exiting the program, but it was a far more insidious, in-game punishment. You might be happily cruising beneath the surface, quietly stalking a large convoy of enemy cargo ships and tankers, when suddenly, the entire convoy would ALL transform into Kaibokan destroyer escorts. 

Crude mockup of a convoy turned entirely into Kaibokan destroyer escorts!

Not only that, whether submerged or not, the destroyer escorts would pinpoint your location and make a beeline for your sub and once in range begin hammering you with depth charges or gunfire as appropriate, relentlessly. 

For today's gamers playing the game on an emulator, this punishment would seem impossible to replicate, given in that case it wouldn't be running on the original Apple II hardware, just a digital, virtualized facsimile. 

Nevertheless, someone dedicated who maybe had GenX or Boomer family who were gamers of the era leave them an Apple II complete with this game gathering dust in the attic might be able to bring this insidious copy protection mechanism up for a breath of fresh air.

Reolink for Windows Download Failed

Reolink makes some pretty decent security cameras including their recently released Duo 3 PoE 16MP with night vision, visible and infrared illumination, and in particular its panoramic view, which with its two lenses can offer a full horizontal view of the street in front of your home.

While the Reolink app for Android is pretty solid, their Windows app is much less so. When trying to get recorded video via the Windows version's Playback => Download, maybe a third or more of the time you'll be met with repeated download failures. 

Before optimization. Note repeated download failures.

Whether just a few videos are queued to download or a few dozen, Reolink will variously fail one or a few along the way, slow to a crawl in terms of transfer speed, or as seen above, fail altogether. Things can be even worse if you use a resource manager like Bitsum's excellent Process Lasso (sort of like Task Manager on steroids), which manages programs' CPU, memory and I/O usage on your system, and in some cases actively restrains ornery processes trying to monopolize same. 

Reolink for Windows strikes me as poorly written for PC, as if the developers either outsourced to some third-rate Windows team, or let their B-team or even interns loose on it. It's finicky, brittle, and inconsistent overall, whether trying simply to connect to cameras the Android app interacts flawlessly with, or as in this situation trying to download recordings.

Having Process Lasso enabled really brings Reolink's download issues to a head, but at the same time, if you configure things properly, it can help minimize those issues so that the app performs overall more smoothly and consistently. To do this, from Process Lasso, look for Reolink.exe in the list of all or active processes, right-click on it, then click Induce Performance Mode.

This ensures Reolink is both not restrained by Process Lasso itself, and seems to help the app have more resources dedicated to it, being more sensitive to changes in CPU and other resources especially for downloading as well as live viewing and even simple connectivity to your cameras.

After Induce Performance Mode. Overall smoother operation.

Certainly this does not get around Reolink being challenged in the Windows development department, but it does work arounds the app's clearly irritating deficiencies, at least most of the time.