Move over little dog

New WAP in the box

Now that Nana has a new laptop (and mine is on the way), I decided it’s time to upgrade the wireless access point. We’ve been using the same little 802.11n-type access point for about four years now. I bought it at Bic Camera for a ridiculous price, not much more than $20.

Little Dog, aka Old 'n' Busted
Little Dog, aka Old ‘n’ Busted
Big Dog, aka New Hotness
Big Dog, aka New Hotness

So yesterday I spent five minutes picking out a new 802.11ac WAP on Amazon, for rather a bit more than $20, and it was delivered this afternoon. (The delivery person took 20 minutes to get to our apartment after ringing up from the delivery entrance, but that’s not the WAP’s fault.)

It didn’t take much longer to set up than it did to first pick it out (although it was long enough that Nana noticed the internet was down, after she’d ignored me telling her it was going to be down for a few minutes). Once I connected I had to go to the router’s home page and set an admin password before it would connect with the outside world. That’s a good idea, actually.

It has a bunch of advanced features that we may never use, such as a dynamic DNS service in case I want to run my own server, and a guest network. Meanwhile, it’s humming along quietly in the corner. Nana hasn’t yet mentioned if it’s any faster with her new laptop.

Surrounded!

Road work

Happy to report I was able to sleep in this morning despite the continual bang and clank of construction work coming through the window. When I finally got up, I went out on the balcony to locate the source of the noise. It took me a while to find it: a three-storey building across the river where a couple of workers were setting up scaffolding and nets prior to beginning remodeling.

When I finally got out of the house a couple of hours later, I discovered construction work on every side: a park on the corner, road paving in front of the building, and an office tower on the opposite side of the street.

Park under construction
Park under construction
More office space
More office space

Exotic flora of inscrutable Japan

Possible oak leaf hydrangea

For me this was just a lovely flowering bush on my way from the cycle shop near my office to the train station. But it’s stumping the gardeners in my family. Oak leaf hydrangea? Does anyone know? (There were lots of more recognizable hydrangea in the neighborhood, and this is definitely the season.)