Quicky

Got this message immediately after we lost a game. A random team mate was unimpressed with my performance on the day, which to be fair, was entirely justified, despite a late consolation goal from me.

Must have had a change of heart after I admitted my failings.

It's already hard enough without the ball being nailed to the ground.

I’m looking for some advice as to what product(s) I would need to replace an access point in my house.

My current setup is crudely drawn below. The house is ancient and weirdly shaped, so needs multiple wireless access points to get decent coverage everywhere. 

I have 300Mbps fibre to the premises which goes into the Wi-Fi router (R). I have a Cat 6 cable (red line) running from the router, outside the front of the house and back in through the back of the house where it connects to an old router (AP1) that is configured as a Wi-Fi bridge/access point.

Another Cat 6 cable (blue line) then runs from that access point to my cabin into another old router (AP2) that is configured as an access point so I can have Wi-Fi in there.

Basically I’ve chained the old routers and set them all up with the same Wi-Fi network and password so I can seamlessly connect automatically wherever I am, and all devices can see each other where relevant.

The issue is AP1 is failing every few days and giving very slow speeds. It’s fine after a reboot and goes back up to 300Mbps for a couple of days until it needs another kick.

I’d like to replace AP1 with something else. What I don’t know, is what would give the fastest/most consistent speeds.

Should I:

a) Just replace AP1 with another newer, more reliable router set to bridge/AP mode.

b) Replace AP1 with an Ethernet switch so that the red line and blue line connect to the switch, and connect a dedicated AP to the switch where AP1 is. Most inexpensive dedicated access points I’ve looked at don’t seem to have enough Ethernet ports to allow chaining, which is why I’m wondering if a switch is necessary.

c) Something else?

Assume I can’t run any new cables outside the house, i.e. I can’t be arsed to replace the red line because it would be a huge pain.

If you have specific recommendations of products, that would be great. Cost is a factor - I’m not looking to replace the whole setup with some expensive mesh product because 80% of the time I’m getting maximum speed with this current cheapo setup, it’s just that it’s annoying to have to reset AP1 regularly.

Quite impressed with ChatGPT producing this image from this photo of my dog

I'm 46.

This is going to sound like an advertisement, but for anyone streaming Xbox games to Apple devices, I cannot recommend OneCast enough.

Since Microsoft removed the remote play option from the official Xbox app on Apple devices, I’ve had no end of trouble trying to use their new web offering, with it constantly requiring me to sign back in to my Microsoft account when using an iPad.

I’ve had OneCast on my AppleTV upstairs for a long time since there’s no official way from Microsoft to stream from your Xbox or access cloud gaming there. Up until the last month or so, OneCast only supported remote streaming from your Xbox, but after a recent update the app has been overhauled and now allows you to play cloud gaming too. I’ve since put it on my other Apple devices because the experience vs the official “apps” is considerably better.

Combined with higher quality streaming, no performance issues, a simple interface, the ability to restart the Xbox remotely to resolve connection issues, and a consistent experience across iPhone, iPad and AppleTV, OneCast is incredible. While not free, the one-time lifetime licence is so much better than had they demanded a subscription for the app.

For info, my setup is a Series X wired to the router, and an AppleTV, iPad and iPhone on 5GHz Wi-Fi, with FFTP, and the experience is superb.

While not a retro game itself, I was playing Atomfall just now and came across this metal head in the robotics section, which is a lovely little hidden reference to a late entry in the Bitmap Brothers catalogue, Z.

Z was a decent game back in the day, and yet another example of the Bitmaps showcasing their skills at being able to produce top quality games in whatever genre they chose.

Rebellion gained ownership of the Bitmap Brothers games a few years ago, so it's not out of place in Atomfall, but still a nice nod to one of British gaming's most beloved studios.

Holy shit that was the most exciting game I've watched in ages, and I missed the first 40 fucking minutes. Unbelievable Jeff.

Just spotted a cheeky little reference to Last of the Summer Wine in Atomfall, which you'll recognise if, like me, you're old as fuck.

Hated that show as a kid. My grandparents loved it though. Maybe I'll find it peak comedy now that I'm approaching their demographic.

Almost all business applications have horizontal menus and ribbons that take up a decent percentage of a landscape monitor instead of utilising the "spare" screen space on the left or right, and a taskbar usually sits at the bottom or top of the screen eating up even more space (yes I know this can be changed but it's not the default).

Documents are traditionally printed/read in portrait which is reflected on digital documents.

Programmers often rotate their screens to be portrait in order to see more of the code.

Most web pages rarely seem to make use of horizontal real estate, and scrolling is almost universally vertical. Even phones are utilised in portrait for the vast majority of time, and many web pages are designed for mobile first.

Beyond media consumption and production, it feels like the most commonly used workplace productivity apps are less useful in landscape mode. So why aren't more office-based computer screens giant squares instead of horizontal rectangles?