Deploying Internet Wireless Hot Spots

The book I read to research this post was Deploying Internet Wireless Hot Spots by Bryan Foo which is a very good book that I read on kindle unlimited. This is a fairly short book for network service engineers that cut out all the excess dialogue and concentrates on the steps involved in connected a wireless access capability to your network. It has example models of the various items needed. There are also example set up settings to at least get your network up and running leaving you to finish configuration at a later point. A lot of the hardware used is Cisco. Cisco is the king of the crop when it comes to networking. You need a wireless access point to provide the internet connection and get a contract with a service provider. Another essential is a router which can either work with fast ethernet, cable or the ADSL component in telephone line. This will give a wired connection for back. A necessity is a PoE Switch which looks a bit like a router at first glance and is like a pre amp on a home network in that both provide current to send a signal down the cable. With cable most people use cat 6 or cat 5e and over long distances fiber-optic. You also need wireless access cards and whatever you do don’t use the default passwords. Make them a decent length with numbers, capital letters and small case and use special characters. I did thoroughly enjoy this book and would recommend it. It is the most easy to follow book on computer networks I’ve read.

Google Chromecast

The book I read to research this post was Unlock The Power Of Your Chromecast by Aaron Halbert which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. If you just need to do things like watch Netflix on your Chromecast you probably don’t need but if you want to get the most out of it like using various apps and programs to add additional features or watch channels like Disney and Spotify which aren’t officially supported this book is for you. The Google Chromecast is about $35 and is a tv streaming box a bit like the Roku or Apple TV. Unlike them it uses a wireless router and computer network to do the streaming. It works with a 3D signal uses the router mostly to do the processing which frees up the processors on your television, tablet or computer. Say if you are watching YouTube on it you haven’t got to keep the app open to do that because it converts it into a TV signal leaving you to do other stuff on your computer. There are various services for the Chromecast mainly for different tv stations you can watch and some are kind of unofficial and will typically be a lower resolution than full HD. There is localhost which is free and cloud based and gives you up to 2GB to store media to play which isn’t much space you have to pay for anything additional. There is a program called handbrake which you can probably search for in Google but that lets you convert from other formats into MP4 the compatible format and that is a free program. If there is no kind of signal going to the Chromecast it will merely display a screensaver. It will stream stuff to a tablet for you to watch. This book which when I downloaded was number 1 on the computing ebook chart on kindle at the time does tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the Chromecast and does a good job of explaining it. A final thing if you do presentations and have a large HDTV you can do your presentations streamed from a laptop via the device on the television and lets face it a Chromecast is lot more mobile than a projector. I did really enjoy reading this book.