To the Internet House!
So, bit of a splurge this week, installing a couple of airports, both domestic (express) and international (extreme) in my house. Didn’t bother with planning approval, and now have a total of 4 wifi networks derived from the word ‘intertron’.
Airport Extreme, upstairs, hosting a couple of hard drives for time machine and network file stores.
Airport Express, downstairs, allowing me to press play on my iphone, which presses play on my macbook pro, which makes the good speakers produce noise, which makes me relax.
Now, if I were to do the same under linux, I’d need to work out how much my time is worth, and multiply that by how long it would take to determine an appropriate hardware and software solution to the problem of reducing cable mess, introducing a backup solution, and the ability to play audio without worrying about cables strung across the lounge.
This figure doesn’t take into account the net knowledge increase by going the Linux route which is certainly not to be dismissed. That knowledge could go onto providing others with useful knowledge and providing a benefit to the community overall. On the flipside however, the time I would have lost, depending on how it is valued, can now be spent potentially learning anything I so desire, thus providing a lot more flexibility and opportunities to procrastinate, or even put time in towards my thesis which - as any piece of research - one might hope that it contributes to a larger body of knowledge on a global scale.
Unfortunately some of said time has been lost in the formation of this post, although credit must go to arctanx for whom a conversation prompted this post.
March 15th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Peter Lyle: Now with 802.1n