This post has two topics.. weight, or getting rid of the computer fat, and my adventures with my network switch..  first let’s not wait and get to the weight.

Some great news this morning, I got myself on the scale and I have fallen below the magic 290lb level.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been this ‘light’.   The scale reported 288lbs today. WOO HOO!

I’ve been thinking more about how it was that I got to gain all my computer fat.  And I’ve actually been finding inspiration in the people I see when I’m out, either at the store, the movies or when my wife and I go out to dinner.

I see so many people who are overweight.  I don’t judge them, but I do have to say that I don’t want to look like some of these people.  Is it harsh of me to think that way?  I don’t think so.  I know it’s not easy to stay in shape, and it is more work than some people think they can do… I feel sort of a kinship.  It’s easy to sit around and not move around so much, especially these days.  There is a plethora of entertainment that doesn’t require much effort to enjoy, especially on TV.  And with more and more information, entertainment and work being experienced and done on computers, there seems to be less of a requirement to go out for any entertainment or work, and more work being done sitting in the same spot for 8-10 hours a day.

And I have been in the same position as the people I observe.  It’s hard going to the Gym everyday (well at least 6 days), and working hard.   It’s soooo much easier to go grab a great tasting bag of fast food, eat, drink sugar infused fizzy water and go back and sit down in front of my computer.  And in not doing the fast food thing, and not being a computer or couch potato I am feeling much much better, more alive!

Now, to SWITCH to the other topic of this post; Network Switch.

I have had a home network for many years, as way back as 1992 when I had 5 computers in my apartment’s spare bedroom running Novell’s netware.  Old used computers connected so I could learn about networking… was pretty fun, but that’s another story.

My current network has a router connected to my cable modem.  Connected to the router is a network switch.  Some people might think that is overkill.  I have a router that has 4 network connections, shouldn’t that be enough?  Well, no.

The four network connections on the router share the network bandwidth.  So, when one computer is uploading or downloading a lot of data this make all the other computers SLOW down considerably when getting info to or from the network.  A switch is a nifty device that gives each computer connected the full bandwidth for each packet that goes through.  So, if computer A is connecting to the Internet, it gets full bandwidth, even if computer B is transferring files across the same network to computer C at the same time.  It’s a turn taking proposition, and it definitely improves network performance. Especially if the only thing connected to the router is the switch!

My 8 port linksys group network switch died.  Right in the middle of me uploading some files to a client.  Well, I had to scramble to get just the computers and network storage re-connected directly to the router.  While this worked, I did notice the network was much slower.  After hobbling around with this slower network and realizing I am totally spoiled, I went to the store and got another network switch, this time a 16 port D-Link…  Who knows when I will run the networking cables out and connect them to the video game consoles?  Got to have more plugs!

I spent a little more money on a switch this time, my previous switch was a 10/100 switch.  Which meant that the highest speed it would transfer data at was 100mbs.  With more devices having 1 gigabit network interfaces, I thought it best to purchase a 10/100/1000 switch.  And I picked up 1 network interface card for my main machine, to take advantage of the new speed.  I have two NAS or network attached storage drives which have the capability of 1 gigabit speeds, but to get that the computer also need that type of interface as well.

Speeds are much better now, I haven’t installed the network interface card in my machine yet, but I know I will be seeing greater transfer rates to the NAS devices, which will be so much nicer.

I’ll post the results of that improvement as soon as I get the new card installed.