Sumit Birla
Posts by: Sumit Birla
In nature, bodies of water exist in a state of balance. You can jump into most lakes on Earth and not have to worry about pH being too low. However, a swimming pool is a closed system. It needs to be maintained via artificial methods. There is where a lot [...]
Building the next big thing on the web? It is never a good idea to serve your static files, i.e. style sheets, javascripts and images, from your main application server. This task should be offloaded to another server for three reasons -
It ties up resources in your app server while it would be performing [...]
Until now I have needed two devices for my server needs at home. One to serve as a general purpose router, phone, web and file server (Dell PowerEdge SC420) and another to watch my media on TV (Popcorn Hour). But recently I decided [...]
Do you ever wish you knew what your Internet IP Address is? Maybe not, but check out my new service to humanity anyway. Go to IP Mutton. It took me about an hour to set it up. It has some neat features which I plan to use shortly for some of [...]
Here is a recording of my desktop running Ubuntu. Notice how much cooler it is than yours (if you run Windows) . Apart from eye-candy, the UI is extremely clean and functional. The animation was recorded on my cheapo laptop with a pathetic graphics chip. If you want to see the true potential of this [...]
I decided to build a coat-hanger antenna last weekend. It required 6 coat hangers, one long block of wood, screws/washers and a balun (UHF/VHF converter). The whole project cost less than $10 and now the signal strength is 100% on all channels. In fact the TV reports 100% at 24dB where [...]
After much waiting, Verizon finally decided to lay down fiber optic cables in my neighborhood. Last night, the final connection was made when my FiOS service was activated. I have 10Mbps/2Mbps service. It appears to be working well so far. Ping times are much lower than cable modem. Some pictures of the equipment installed are [...]
It is year 2007 and houses still don’t have network connectivity built into the house wiring. It is one of the reasons that wireless routers are so popular. But I have found them to be a lot less reliable, not to mention to the security concerns and setup issues. When you [...]
Zoom 5001 is a DOCSIS compliant internal cable modem which is not in production any more. There hasn’t been a replacement product. It appears as though people prefer the external modem that the cable company provides. I, however, wanted less clutter under my desk and snagged this card off of eBay. I paid $13 for [...]
Out of boredom, I decided to hook up a piece of wire to act as an antenna for my upstairs TV. And behold, I was receiving all local High Definition channels in all their glory. Crystal clear with no disruptions. So, why pay $75/mo to the cable company? They have been [...]
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