LETTERS
6 OCTOBER2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE
Letters
APowerlineadaptor that providesEthernetand Wi-Fiaccesscould solveallthe
broadbandproblemsinyourhouse.But woulditworkinGod’s house?
[email protected]
Parishcounsel
Iamanavidreaderof
ComputerShopperand
havebeenasubscriberfor
manyyears.Iwonderif
youmightgivemesome
pointers.Iamtreasurerof
my local parish church
and we would like to
install BT Business
Broadband to provide Wi-Fi in certain areas
of the church to support our new cashless-
giving initiatives and to provide broadband
forusers of ourcommunity area.
My question is: how would you approach
the provision of Wi-Fi in alarge,internal
open space,but where the router is situated
in the vestry at one end of church and the
community area, as the area of largest
usage,isatthe otherend? We need to try
to avoid any structural alterations, so would
amesh system be sufficient, or perhaps
could we use access points linked to the
router using HomePlug technology?
Perhaps you could point
me in the right direction,
recognising that our financial
resources are very scarce
during this awful time
when churches have been
closed to congregations
(and collections!) for
some months.
John Eccleston, Haverhill
We’vejustdonesomethingverysimilarin
ourlocalchurch.Inourcase,weusedamesh
systemtodistributetheWi-Fisignal.We
connectedtherouterintothevestryandthen,
duetosomeverythickwalls,hadtousean
Ethernet cable (luckily,already in place) to
connect to the second satellitelocated in the
main church hall.
Given that the main church was alarge
open space,wefound that asingle satellite
was enough to cover the entire area; if you’ve
got alargearea to cover,asecond satellite
might be required.
Something along the lines of the TP-Link
Deco M5 should do the trick. This mesh
systemcosts around £125 foratwo-pack and
£150 forathree-pack.
Hang 10
Ineverwritetomagazines,butJohn
Nuttall’sletteraboutstayingwith
Windows 7sounds like me (‘7 up’,Letters,
Shopper391). Ihave Windows 10 on an SSD
drive in adrawer tosee what it was and do
not like it; it remains in the drawer.
Back in the 1980s, Iacquired aViglen
computer with a40MB drive and taught
myself DOS from abook. Windows is a
DOS overlay. Ibuilt more computers for
myself and other people,made friends at
computer fairs and tried dodgy software.
I’ve been through all the incarnations of
Windows and now use Windows 7Ultimate
on this and three other machines; all work
files are on aNAS. There is anetwork
system installed, with screened cables
hidden behind the coving Iput up.
Star letter
Easy as Pi
Thank you forClive Webster’s
AdvancedProjects(‘Make aMedia
Server’,Shopper391)
Ihavealong history with computers, am
avery enthusiastic user of Arduinos, but
the Pi had until an hour ago repeatedly
defeated me.I’m now happily listening to
music from my server as Itype this.
Don’t imagine that the device is limited
to serving music and videos. It is ageneral
NAS box.
And don’t underestimateUSB 3.0/ Wi-Fi.
Ionly have abasic router,but Ibackedup
925 files in 77 folders(970MB) from my
main PC to afolder on the Pi media NAS,
using nothing more than File Explorer,just
as if Iwere backing up to aUSB hard drive
plugged directly intothe PC the files were
coming from. It took less time to do it than
it took me to writeanoteshorter than this
paragraph and save it in the same folder I
was backing up to.Idid the backup and
wroteand savedthe note concurrently.
Ihad no luck with SSH –
my PC doesn’t seem to
have it installed -but
PuTTY worked just
fine foreverything in
the article.
Iwrotemyfirst program in
- Ihaveseveral web servers on
Windows boxes and Arduinos, running
continuously.Itaught A-level Computing in
the 1980s. I’ve seen several exciting eras
come and go...and repeatedly,Computer
Shopperhas helped me
move along as things
come along.
Younever give us too
many geek articles. I’ll
ignore the reviews of mobile
phones; Irealise thereisno
market foran‘all geeks’ magazine.
But things likeAdvancedProjectsare what
keep me coming back.
Most of all, my thanks to Clive Webster.
TomBoyd
Write in and win
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