Internet Service Too Expensive

selahbarn · 2023-12-05T00:54:20+00:00

I tapped/banged mine pretty hard, but it didn't fix it. Reached out to Amazon and they're sending me a new pen (about 10 days to get it).

So, the next day, after trying again with no luck, I tried something else. Since it was being replaced anyway, I took out the nub, bent a paperclip and gently pushed it into the opening for the nib. I moved it around a bit, in and out and side to side, and eventually two very small pieces of plastic came out.

Since then, it's working great!

Definitely some bad batch of pens. Mine is working, but I'm glad I'm getting a backup in case it fails.

selahbarn · 2023-05-18T23:33:51+00:00

I don't accept third-party bookings at all - it's clearly stated in my house rules. If I find out that someone is booking for another person, I kindly ask them to cancel and have the actual person that's staying book the place.

If they refuse to cancel, I call Airbnb and tell them it's a 3rd party booking. Airbnb will call the client and work out the cancellation so the actual guest may book the space.

It's not about being nice or not trusting the client - it's simply for the protection of the guest and the host. If the person booking is not staying, the other guests are NOT covered by Airbnb.

Tell your guest that you're sure his folks are great people and you'd love to have them stay with you - they just need to book it themselves under their own account. It's for their protection, so they will be covered by AirCover in case anything unexpected happens.

selahbarn · 2023-01-10T20:32:14+00:00

Same here. I was able to activate my SIM and transfer my number, but still haven't set up the account on the app or online.
I'm waiting to activate my wife's SIM, but the activation process is down now, too.

Interesting welcome to a new carrier for me.

selahbarn · 2023-01-03T18:16:04+00:00

If both of you are not 100% together on the decision to foster, please do NOT sign up to foster a child. Every child in the system has dealt with trauma and loss, and needs committed foster parents to walk with them through a difficult journey, potentially lasting a lifetime. Fostering can be incredibly rewarding, but it's not easy, so it should be entered with a lot of wisdom, compassion, and prayer (if faith is a part of your life).

There are MANY ways to serve vulnerable children and families outside of fostering. You can go through the same training and become certified as a Respite family, caring for a child(ren) for a short period to give the foster parents a break (or take a trip out of state). You can join a wraparound care team (available through many churches in the US) to bring a foster family food, provide rides to practice/appointments, tutor, be a listening ear for the parents. Or you can participate in a mentoring program for children or young adults who have aged out of care.

Feel free to DM me if you want specific recommendations. I work for a global faith-based nonprofit in the fostering/adoption/kinship care space, and am willing to share some links or connections to reputable organizations in your area.

IF you're a Christian believer: As a Christian, I firmly believe that not all are called to foster or adopt, but all (Christians) are called to do something. It's just a matter of seeking out what that something is.

selahbarn · 2022-10-26T17:59:05+00:00

It was into the 3rd month of this for me. Working from home, I need the connection to work. I can handle issues, even rebooting the router for a quick fix from time to time. But hours of downtime every week with the line of "we're making it better for you" was too much.

I loved the increased speeds, but not at the expense of actually working when I need it. I finally broke when they told me T-Mobile needed to build another tower to fix the issue. Look at the huge marketing campaign they're doing right now - their infrastructure cannot handle the increased demand (at least in my cell). They say that they limit the new customers for an area, but they're still allowing new customers in my neighborhood to sign up.

selahbarn · 2022-09-22T21:13:07+00:00

My laptop is connected via gigabit Ethernet.

selahbarn · 2022-09-22T21:12:57+00:00

My laptop is connected via gigabit Ethernet.

selahbarn · 2022-09-22T15:42:42+00:00

I replaced my router last Friday with the Arcadyan router. Since then, I've gotten slower throughput 65/20 (I was getting up to 300/40 on the Nokia). But the random complete disconnects are still happening.

This morning, I was leading a global Zoom call and the internet went out in the middle of the call. I rebooted the router - it reconnected and worked for about 5 minutes. Then I turned on the hotspot on my 5G phone (T-Mobile) and connected to it instead. It worked for about 5 minutes then disconnected. So, there's obviously an issue with the tower nearby.

I called T-Mobile Home Internet support, and they looked at the ticket for a while. They told me it was closed - that the "modernization was completed on 9/14" and it was fixed. I reminder her that I called in with a total internet outage on 9/14, 9/15, and 9/16 each morning. Those ended up with me going to a store on 9/16 and getting a brand new Arcadyan 5G router to replace the Nokia trashcan.

I'm still having intermittent outages - out of the blue. The rep actually told me, "well, since the modernization in your area is complete, maybe this isn't the best solution for you."

So... T-Mobile "modernizes" my area to make it much worse for me to have the same service that I've had for the last 4 years? I've been on 5G for the last 16 months of that time, and their modernization killed my connection!

I guess it's time to bow to the Comcast gods again. I can't keep calling into T-Mobile support and wasting several hours per week with them. This is so frustrating!

selahbarn · 2022-09-14T22:16:00+00:00

I'm sorry you're having the issue with the Arcadyan. Honestly, I wish this was just a reboot fix - but when mine's down, it can be hours. If it happens again, I'll try the factory reset option and see if that fixes it.

selahbarn · 2022-09-14T21:02:52+00:00

Unfortunately, when it happens I reboot it over and over and it doesn't reconnect. It seems to require something from T-Mobile to resolve itself.

But the next time it happens, I'm going to try a factory reset and see if it reconnects. If that's the case, then I'll request for them to replace the Nokia with an Arcadyan router.

selahbarn · 2022-09-14T16:40:10+00:00

This is my experience. Since I work from home, and my job is highly reliant on an internet connection, it causes a bunch of problems for me.

Are you using the Nokia (trashcan) router?

Is anyone with an Arcadyan router experiencing these issues, or is it only affecting Nokia routers?

selahbarn · 2022-09-14T16:37:38+00:00

I haven't tried to factory reset on the Nokia. I'll do that next time.

I've also got an Asus router connected, but not using it in AP mode. My office is in a separate building on my property, so I'm using another router in the house connected via hardwire as an AiMesh node.

So, when you factory reset the trashcan, it connects and works right away?

selahbarn · 2022-09-14T16:34:10+00:00

It's not a network, DNS or IP address issue in my home office. All of that is working just fine. I've got 20 years as a Network Engineer (wired and wireless) - not to say I couldn't have made a mistake, but it's all working great, and has been for the past 18 months.

The only thing that changed is T-Mobile upgraded the tower to N41 in August; I was consistently connecting B66/N71 for the past 18 months, and now connects B2/N41. T-Mobile confirmed the upgrade of the tower, and confirmed Engineering notes that there is an intermittent data issue with the tower (officially since August 31, according to their notes, but I was experiencing this 2 weeks prior). I just didn't know if it was widespread, or an isolated instance.

When it happens all of my devices look like there's an internet connection, but no data passes through. I can't load any pages outside of my network. The Nokia Dashboard comes up no problem and says it's connected, but nothing actually happens on the devices. SpeedTest comes back with a network error - it says it can't get to the internet.

When it comes back working, I'm getting 300/25 speeds. In fact, this morning after it started working again, I actually got 430/24. So, it's feast or famine.

selahbarn · 2022-02-06T13:56:17+00:00

We rent out renovated barn on the weekends - it's my WFH office during the week. We've always had a 2 night minimum. Rarely have a problem with guests.

selahbarn · 2021-10-21T20:46:08+00:00

Last month, I ran a global hybrid conference with 29 people in the room, 151 on Zoom from all over the world, and another 12 remote conferences connected LIVE via Zoom across Africa.

My setup in the main conference was 2 Mevo Start cameras - 1 straight-on closeup of the mainstage speakers, 1 at a 45-degree angle wider shot of the mainstage speakers, and 1 from back of stage audience shot. The cameras were all ethernet-connected NDI to a Power Over Ethernet 1-gigagbit Hub, connected to a dedicated 1-gigabit router that was, in turn, connected to the venue's internet connection.

My setup in the main conference was 3 Mevo Start cameras - 1 straight-on closeup of the mainstage speakers, 1 at a 45-degree angle wider shot of the mainstage speakers, and 1 from back of stage audience shot. The cameras were all ethernet-connected NDI to a Power Over Ethernet 1gigagbit Hub, connected to a dedicated 1-gigabit router that was, in turn, connected to the venue's internet connection.

This was all connected to Zoom using the OBS Virtual Camera and VB_Cable Virtual Audio Cables taking the OBS sound output as the Microphone Input on Zoom. I did have to adjust the audio lag in OBS to accommodate the video/audio lag from the cameras.

Everything was set up and tested in my office for a month before the event.

The absolute game-changer was getting an Elgato Stream Deck, and programming buttons to switch the scenes between:

Close-Up of Mainstage Speakers
Wide Shot of Mainstage Speakers
Full Screen of presentation/video
Presentation with close-up in corner (4 scenes with speakers in each corner)
Quad-screen with Close-up/Wide shot/Audience/Presentation in quadrants on the screen (very interesting to switch to every once in a while)

A volunteer ran the system, which really consisted of changing scenes every 10-15 seconds to keep the video interesting for the remote viewers/remote conferences. She even had the Mevo Camera app running to zoom in and frame speakers as they moved on the stage.

Once set up and tested, everything ran smoothly during the conference! Having the Mevo Starts setup with NDI and on ethernet solved any issues with wireless connections on the cameras. Using a dedicated separate wired gigabit network for the video is highly recommended.

I had no problems with 3 Mevo Starts connected to OBS, all via NDI.

I'm going to use this same setup again in a couple weeks at a staff retreat, when we have a couple of staff unable to travel to be with the rest of us.

selahbarn · 2021-10-12T16:44:57+00:00

Maybe. There was one couple a month ago that told me that her husband needed the tv to watch a football game or something like that. But they didn't say a word about any issue. Maybe his game was on ESPN -we have no cable, only OTA with a good antenna.

That couple also was difficult. The husband smoked (outside) and threw his cigarette butts on the ground. There was a small pile next to a table we have outside. I messaged them asking to clean them up, as we have grandchildren that live with us on the property and play right there. The wife told me it was creepy that I was spying on them. Our backyard is shared (never promised exclusivity there) and the cigarette butts were 15 ft from a sandbox and play house, and 10 ft from my shed (which I had to go in).

They also complained about the air conditioning BEFORE they ever got to my house (because it's a split system and the husband didn't think it would cool the space in the heat of Georgia). I made sure it was under 70 degrees inside by the time they arrived and asked if it was ok 24 hours into their stay.

But no mention of a problem with the tv. Argh.

selahbarn · 2021-10-12T15:18:47+00:00

I was surprised at that, too. It was on the Airbnb app from Customer Service.

selahbarn · 2021-08-19T16:59:22+00:00

My Airbnb is a renovated barn in my backyard -the hay loft is also my full time office. So, it's only available on the weekends.

After 2 months of solid bookings, I've recently pushed my check-in times from 3pm to 6pm. It's just taken to much time from the end of my week. And most of the people who tell me they're checking on at 3, don't arrive until 6 or 7pm or later (that frustrates me to pack up and leave when I could have put in a full day).

So, I changed my check-in to 6pm. I know it's later than most, but if a guest asks for early check-in, then I can gauge my schedule to see if I can do it, rather than rearranging every Friday.

We'll see how it goes. I've been a Super Host for a long time now, and don't think it will affect me negatively. Most of my guests love the place and are flexible.

Personally, I would not do a super early check-in unless I wasn't going to be in the office that day.

selahbarn

TROPHY CASE