Your lockdown purchases.

[Jobbo]

I think simply moving his router will do the job; that and checking the connections in his BT master socket. Shame I can't do so!

[dinny_g]

I think my fathers issue is that he's a cheapskate and has probably bought a rubbish service.

The router is only about 10 feet from where be sits to video call with a clear line of sight so that's not the issue

[Richard]

My new laptop just arrived.

Went for the new MacBook Pro, after using a Microsoft Surface Laptop for a few years. Somehow, the exact specification I wanted was nearly £100 off on Amazon, which is pretty amazing for a brand new Apple laptop. Weirder still, all the other configs were RRP. And it's now £120 off - https://amzn.to/2Th6MUn - Space Grey colour only though.

I'm glad to be back using MacOS

Also I bought a new TV. I went with a 55" Samsung Q80R. It was £100 cheaper on Currys than anywhere else that had them in stock. After much thought, I decided to go QLED rather than OLED because it should be significantly less reflective, which I find to be annoying.

[drcarlos]

It just looks like a blatant zoom copy. I find teams is awful at uploading anything vaguely large on a slower connection too, it just gives up too easy like the time limit is set too early (it’s a large excel document that’s a standard company format)

I'm finding that Teams doesn't prioritise speech over video like Zoom does, so if one of the participants has a poor connection on Zoom you can still hear them when their image freezes, yet on Teams the audio goes too. Pretty poor from Microsoft.

That's not down to teams that's down to prioritisation of the IP ports on the network and more likely that your ISP (I assume you are working at home) is not providing QoS for the teams audio ports.

Speak to your ISP.

[jamcg]

We use zoom for our virtual scout meetings, never had issues of people dropping out, but do occasionally have some people unable to join the meeting- they restart app, restart device and still can’t get in the meeting. we’ve paid for a subscription so we know it’s not an issue of maxing our numbers

[Richard]

I also bought this a few weeks ago, and it arrived this morning. It’s an original production used storyboard from Empire

[Jobbo]

It just looks like a blatant zoom copy. I find teams is awful at uploading anything vaguely large on a slower connection too, it just gives up too easy like the time limit is set too early (it’s a large excel document that’s a standard company format)

I'm finding that Teams doesn't prioritise speech over video like Zoom does, so if one of the participants has a poor connection on Zoom you can still hear them when their image freezes, yet on Teams the audio goes too. Pretty poor from Microsoft.

That's not down to teams that's down to prioritisation of the IP ports on the network and more likely that your ISP (I assume you are working at home) is not providing QoS for the teams audio ports.

Speak to your ISP.

I am working from home when using Teams, rarely use it when I'm in the office. Thanks for the tip; I'll ask my IT guys if they can do something to assist.

[NotoriousREV]

QoS can’t create bandwidth that isn’t there, it just means your stream will hang on longer before getting disrupted.

Other apps will definitely detect bandwidth issues and kill video.

I mean, you can ask your ISP to tweak the QoS settings for you, but they won’t. They’re looking at their traffic in aggregate and shaping appropriately in real time based on demand.

[Swervin_Mervin]

There is one person on our Teams meetings who regularly (always) has issues with his sound going. And his video quality is appalling. Think he's with Virgin on a supposedly decent connection

[Simon]

If you are working from home Jobbo are you VPN'd to your office? Particularly, if so, are you on a no-split (all internet traffic from your laptop goes to the office then out again) or a split (only traffic destined for your office goes over the VPN, the rest goes out directly from your home) VPN?

[Orange Cola]

If you are working from home Jobbo are you VPN'd to your office? Particularly, if so, are you on a no-split (all internet traffic from your laptop goes to the office then out again) or a split (only traffic destined for your office goes over the VPN, the rest goes out directly from your home) VPN?

Do you mean if you’re connected to the VPN all router traffic regardless of source goes via the office servers/only machines connected via VPN go via the office, all other goes out as per normal e.g. iPads, internet radios and porn boxes?

I’m hoping to learn something about my slow work connection too

[nuttinnew]

Bah, find things I want to buy, they're collect only and too far away under lockdown Probably too fay anyway for low value stuff anyway but I'd use it as an excuse for a roadtrip at other times. Also found some factory Recaros for the Passat in the right colour (beige ) but they're not in great condition and too much for the condition they're in. The seller will send from Germany though.

[DeskJockey]

If you are working from home Jobbo are you VPN'd to your office? Particularly, if so, are you on a no-split (all internet traffic from your laptop goes to the office then out again) or a split (only traffic destined for your office goes over the VPN, the rest goes out directly from your home) VPN?

Do you mean if you’re connected to the VPN all router traffic regardless of source goes via the office servers/only machines connected via VPN go via the office, all other goes out as per normal e.g. iPads, internet radios and porn boxes?

I’m hoping to learn something about my slow work connection too

Depends where the VPN terminates. But normal work connections are from your PC to the office. Only traffic from your PC will go to the office, everything else will follow the normal path to the internet.

If the VPN is configured to allow split tunneling then it can decide, again on your PC, whether the traffic needs to go to the office (e.g. to connect to a file server or in-house application) or straight to the internet (for your daily donkey grot needs).

Important people (at least in so far my company/customers are concerned) may have a dedicated corporate connection at home. That could be used to route all internet traffic via the office, but is rather unlikely.

[Orange Cola]

If you are working from home Jobbo are you VPN'd to your office? Particularly, if so, are you on a no-split (all internet traffic from your laptop goes to the office then out again) or a split (only traffic destined for your office goes over the VPN, the rest goes out directly from your home) VPN?

Do you mean if you’re connected to the VPN all router traffic regardless of source goes via the office servers/only machines connected via VPN go via the office, all other goes out as per normal e.g. iPads, internet radios and porn boxes?

I’m hoping to learn something about my slow work connection too

Depends where the VPN terminates. But normal work connections are from your PC to the office. Only traffic from your PC will go to the office, everything else will follow the normal path to the internet.

If the VPN is configured to allow split tunneling then it can decide, again on your PC, whether the traffic needs to go to the office (e.g. to connect to a file server or in-house application) or straight to the internet (for your daily donkey grot needs).

Important people (at least in so far my company/customers are concerned) may have a dedicated corporate connection at home. That could be used to route all internet traffic via the office, but is rather unlikely.

We definitely don’t have that then because they had to block Netflix on the second working day after lock down because it was slowing the network right down

[DeskJockey]

Do you mean if you’re connected to the VPN all router traffic regardless of source goes via the office servers/only machines connected via VPN go via the office, all other goes out as per normal e.g. iPads, internet radios and porn boxes?

I’m hoping to learn something about my slow work connection too

Depends where the VPN terminates. But normal work connections are from your PC to the office. Only traffic from your PC will go to the office, everything else will follow the normal path to the internet.

If the VPN is configured to allow split tunneling then it can decide, again on your PC, whether the traffic needs to go to the office (e.g. to connect to a file server or in-house application) or straight to the internet (for your daily donkey grot needs).

Important people (at least in so far my company/customers are concerned) may have a dedicated corporate connection at home. That could be used to route all internet traffic via the office, but is rather unlikely.

We definitely don’t have that then because they had to block Netflix on the second working day after lock down because it was slowing the network right down

So people were watching Netflix while connected to the VPN? Wow that's a new level of stupid right there. Good way to highlight to management that you're not working (not you specifically I assume)!

[Orange Cola]

Depends where the VPN terminates. But normal work connections are from your PC to the office. Only traffic from your PC will go to the office, everything else will follow the normal path to the internet.

If the VPN is configured to allow split tunneling then it can decide, again on your PC, whether the traffic needs to go to the office (e.g. to connect to a file server or in-house application) or straight to the internet (for your daily donkey grot needs).

Important people (at least in so far my company/customers are concerned) may have a dedicated corporate connection at home. That could be used to route all internet traffic via the office, but is rather unlikely.

We definitely don’t have that then because they had to block Netflix on the second working day after lock down because it was slowing the network right down

So people were watching Netflix while connected to the VPN? Wow that's a new level of stupid right there. Good way to highlight to management that you're not working (not you specifically I assume)!

Yeah, company wide bollocking. I was amazed, one “for the book” as it were. I reckon it was marketing given some of the first and second hand stories from a close friend

[McSwede]

Just had a cast iron Chiminea delivered today 30chuffingKG!. A Simba memory foam pillow and that's about it. Been far too busy working



ETA

[Sundayjumper]

Slippery slope initiated

After buying an upgraded AV amp on a whim last week, I've also bought:

A small cheapie Panasonic Blu-ray player as a downgrade from my Sony UHD Blu-ray. I was never sufficiently blown away with 4k to feel like spending the extra for UHD media over regular HD so only ever bought one UHD disc. Netflix does 4k and keeps me amused most of the time even though the sound is not as good as a disc. This player is basically just for backup when I run out of other options.

An early noughties Roksan Kandy CD player as an upgrade from my Sony Blu-ray. My Dad bought a Linn Genki BITD and we auditioned it against the Kandy and one other that I can't remember. IIRC the Kandy was great for rock music but a bit unruly otherwise. I only ever listen to rock music so this should suit me nicely

Van Damme 2.5mm² "hifi" speaker cable. It was recommended by the chap I bought the amp from and is cheap @ £3/metre so worth a try against the QED 79 that I've always used by default.

And then bunch of Blu-rays from Musicmagpie because there's quite a few decent films for only a couple of quid each and why not


Anyone want to buy a Sony STR-DN1080 and/or UBP-X800 ? Both are What Hi-Fi? 5-star items but I never really liked them. Mint, boxed, etc.

[Jobbo]

If you are working from home Jobbo are you VPN'd to your office? Particularly, if so, are you on a no-split (all internet traffic from your laptop goes to the office then out again) or a split (only traffic destined for your office goes over the VPN, the rest goes out directly from your home) VPN?

I'm not VPNing to the office at all. Our document management and finance system is web-based and we're going to the cloud in place of our current server from this weekend - I've been testing that since taking over last month.

My old firm used a VPN for remote logging in and it was purely by chance that I realised that all internet traffic from my PC went via the VPN, not just the stuff in the VPN window. Fortunately I was actually using a second PC on my desk for personal stuff. I raised this with them and they never fixed it. ETA: this was logging in from a personal machine at home, not a work-supplied PC.

[dinny_g]

All our traffic goes through the corporate VPN but we have a reasonably flexible attitude to ‘personal’ non work stuff

Reading the paper online or checking in on Facebook is fine (within reason) but obviously streaming Netflix or accessing grott is not.

Zoom’s verboten mind for security reasons.

We’re being actively encouraged to take time out during the day, stay connected to family and friends etc at the moment