Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 August 2

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August 2

Need help setting up an internet system in a very large house (20 bedrooms)

I've recently moved into a co-op, with 20 bedrooms and about 24 people living in it. Its two stories. The internet is abysmal. We have the most expensive internet comcast provides, which gives us a mb/s cap way higher than anything we ever see. We have a router/modem that comcast claims is top of the line and there's no reason to replace it. We have two other router/modems that are piggy-backing off of our actual source of internet. My financial manager said he is willing to pay for better internet, he just has no idea how to improve it. I need some advice on how to set up an internet system to provide decent internet to about 25 people. Any and all advice is very much appreciated. I also have a couple questions if your able to answer them please do:

Would it help if instead of paying for one very high cap source, we instead paid for two sources with a moderate cap?

Would it be better to have these router/modems connected to our source router, (they all have their own network names) or should we disconnect them and just hook up some of the wi-fi boosters that extend the range without creating new networks?

Would switching to a company other than comcast help? according to internetprovidersbyzip.com we have other options.

Should we be looking at business plans as opposed to residential?

2605:6000:EA01:7E00:A010:411B:F7AE:4C64 (talk) 04:05, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

You will need to know if your cap is exceeded or not. There is no point in boosting if you are not hitting it. It sounds as if you are using WiFi. If you can actually get a wired ethernet connect to each room that will prevent wireless congestion. But for so many rooms that will cost 1,000's of dollars. Wifi repeaters will probably just degrade the overall service, unless you can actually wire in each repeater point. For this number of people 10 megabits per second may be OK. Do you know what rate you are getting? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:32, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Don't try to reinvent the wheel. This sounds like a good application for Setting up a Linux-based Open-Mesh Wireless Network. No consultancy or hidden fees and no vendor lock-in.--Aspro (talk) 14:36, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

What sort of building is a "co-op"? How many "data lines" are connected to it? The problem isn't with your "cap" it's with your bandwidth. It sounds like the building possibly needs a backbone, this is something like an "apartment block" would have to enable each apartment to have its own internet connection. For 25 people the building needs more than 1 connection, even with the fastest internet available where I live, 100Mbps, that means you'll only get about 8Mbps per person when only half the people are online, that's crap. In reality, without very good QoS which is hard to implement, it's likely that just one or a few people can consume all the bandwidth and everyone else gets almost nothing. You need to talk to comcast, or who ever manages the internet infrastructure. it might not be cheap, but then again if it means you'll be buying 3 or 4 internet connections instead of 1 they might be willing to do it. most apartment blocks are backboned by the internet provider for free because it means they'll get more business. it totally depends who manages the internet in your area, what kind of building it is, and probably several other factors. Vespine (talk) 23:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

It's true that speed will reduce according to how many people are on-line at the same time, but you can test whether this is the problem at a time when you are the only person using the connection. It sound to me as if the wireless connections are interfering with each other, or there is some other interference in the building. I'd suggest either Aspro's solution or DIY Cat6 (or higher) cabling to each room. Do you know what speed Comcast supplies? Vespine is very fortunate in having 100Mbps available. The best that British Telecom can manage here over six miles of copper is just one Mbps. It's just about usable, but not what I'd call proper broadband. Try some speed tests when you are the only user, using the wireless connection, then connecting direct to the primary router (did you say MODEM? Apparently these still exist in the USA. If so, then there is your problem!) If your supply relies on miles of copper, then there's little you can do about it. (I think Comcast normally supplies the service vis co-ax cable doesn't it? Does it use the same bandwidth for both TV and internet? Perhaps you should talk to Comcast - I know nothing about their service, except that nearly half of their customers have complaints.) The usage cap seems irrelevant here, it's speed that counts. Dbfirs 07:56, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

This article gives some common sense advice about how to go about it.How To Set Up An Open Mesh Network in Your Neighborhood. Also, you do not have to get the whole thing right immediately. Just do a few apartments, with the remotes held in place by bluetack or gaffer tape, to see how far the signal reaches in your particular building. Maybe even download a signal strength meter for your smart-phone to see if there are any dead-spot caused by hot water tanks and the like inside each apartment. Only then, think about rolling it out over the whole building. Also, individual use can be capped to prevent anyone hogging the bandwidth. Set up a private blog to keep tenants informed and to explain that it is less frustrating sometimes to down load during off peak usage hours and other tips. You can design and upgrade it to provide as many Mb's as is required. Most important – promise the tenants little but delver more. It is the golden rule to giving the impression that you are providing good service. There are other companies that will do all this for you but you won't end up with a better system -just one that is more expensive in the log run. Good luck.--Aspro (talk) 14:37, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Is there anyway to remove the smiley face on Microsoft Visual Studio 2015?

Is there anyway to remove this smiley face thingy[1] in VS2015? It looks very out of place in a piece of professional software that cost thousands of dollars, plus it clashes with the otherwise coordinated white on grey color scheme. My other car is a cadr (talk) 17:39, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Hey, guess what that smiley face button is? It's the "Send Feedback button"! You can click that button to directly share your thoughts with Visual Studio's developers... even if your thoughts are that their user-interface is distracting. The Visual Studio team call this type of bug-reports (i.e. bug reports and feedback specifically about the Visual Studio experience) "sending a smile" or "sending a frown."

You can customize the Visual Studio UI, including adding, removing, hiding, and modifying the default menus.

Nimur (talk) 01:46, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I can find where to modify menus in the Customize dialog, but there's no option to modify non-menu items like the smiley face[2] (at least not one that I could find).My other car is a cadr (talk) 01:58, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

This thread may help. -- BenRG (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks a lot. My other car is a cadr (talk) 13:15, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Resolved