Synology Diskstation File copy speed: solution

I noticed there were a lot of people hoping to figure out why their file copy speeds were 10mb/sec or slower... I had exactly the same issue initially.

I found the solution buried away in the support forums. It bears repeating, and it's unfortunate this is not in the manual somewhere.

The short answer is to plug the Diskstation's network cable directly into your computer.

Doing this assumes a few things:

- You have finished setting up your Diskstation. It should already have an IP address on your network, a disk installed and formatted, etc.

- You need to have a gigabit NIC in your computer, and your computer needs to have an IP address on the same network the Diskstation is connected to.

Unplug your Diskstation from your networking hardware, and plug its network cable directly into your computer's NIC.

Don't worry, you can't break anything by doing this. The gigabit specifications are *supposed to* include the capability to do this- that is, plug directly into another gigabit device and talk to that device without a piece of networking hardware or special crossover cable. Whether your specific NIC was actually constructed to this specification I have no way of knowing, but in theory it is possible your NIC, though gigabit, is not capable (in which case this solution would not work.)

You should be able to access the Diskstation from this computer just like you were, previously, accessing it across the network.

File copy speed varies by what you are copying, and I don't know exactly what the difference is, large files seem to go more quickly. I have seen transfer rates peak as high as 64mb/sec. I have seen consistent speeds of 45mb/sec, and I have also seen it drop way, way down to 10mb/sec or slower. I have also seen Windows 7 completely lie about time remaining, so, I would ignore that. I copied across about 600GB, it consistently reported "About one day remaining", and about six hours in, it suddenly dropped down to "About an hour"... etc.

I also saw pretty decent file copy speeds when copying items off of a USB Western Digital My Passport drive, through my PC, and over to the Diskstation.

As a backup solution, the less-than-rocket speeds really aren't the end of the world. I just need to get a copy of my data over there so it's backed up, and then it can be accessed from other computers on the network and remotely- but I am not going to be moving gigabytes back and forth from it on a regular basis. It's an excellent solution for me in this respect. So far it is working well.

VOIP phone nirvana is achieved

Well, what do you know?

There is a simple path to making voip calls from a cell phone that has wifi only.

For my iPhone, I installed google voice, and then a free app called Talkatone.

Talkatone interfaces with google voice.

When someone calls your google voice number, talkatone makes it ring just like it normally would.

When you call out through talkatone, it rings on the other end as coming from your google voice number.

VICTORY!

Well, mostly. The Talkatone iPhone app is a bit buggy, crashes from time to time, and the call quality is not very good even when you are right next to a wifi access point. I tried making a couple of calls while standing right next to my wireless router. There was a 1-second or so delay, and the call quality was tinny and static-y. I would also say that the GUI in the app is a bit poorly thought out.

All those negatives- but I still call it a victory. A wifi enabled cell phone with no phone contract/phone service can be used to make phone calls. Awesome!

I can only assume this capability will either continue to grow, or, be randomly stamped out by The Man anytime it becomes too popular.

Thanks Talkatone! You guys are great!

Not all voip created equal

Well, Fring does not offer DID, or direct inward dialing, so that's a fail for my objective, which is to emulate as closely as possible the capability I had with fancy pay service. If I can only call out, this is no good.

Onward on my search.

VoipLife post 1: devices and voip apps

So, with hopes of using some device with voip in the near future, I have accepted the fact that iPhone may not be my platform of choice in the near future as I will have to hack it in order to make voip over wifi work.

Where I am now:

- iPhone probably won't work as Google Talk and Skype sucking it, going to try Fring

- may have to buy android device, kind of want to anyway as Bubonic Plague preferable to using iTunes

Updates soon on Fring.

My new schtick: voip on a smartphone, with no contract

Hello.

Moving forward I will be posting blog entries here illustrating my adventures in "no carrier" land. That is, I want to abandon the cell phone service/providers and see how hard it is to get by on just a portable device with some kind of voip product on it.

What I have figured out so far:

1. The google "talk" app for my iPhone will not work without functioning phone service (the explanation is long and dumb, feel free to go look it up, but once you are out of cell service, wifi does not kick in and save the day, therefore: fail)

2. Skype's newly released "Skype wifi" will only work over Skype-approved wifi connections, so the idea that you can make calls from your home wifi network or one at a local coffee shop are probably nix.

I am not surprised that cell providers and mobile apps are coming loaded with these snags- it does not make sense for them to allow their users to obviate use of their toll services.

I strongly suspect that "All of this, and more, can be yours for the small fee of: hacking your device", but I'd like to avoid that path if possible, as most regular users are not going to be too keen on all that.

My goal is to discover a way to use my iPhone with no service contract, and load a voip client on it, and, in a fairly wifi-connected city, see how much of a hassle this is. And tell you about it here.

"Founder's Vacancy" issue

The "Founder's Vacancy" issue addresses human behavior as it applies to establishments.

Essentially, if someone builds a company and infuses it with thier beliefs and behaviors, when that person leaves the company, sells the company, wills the company to their heirs- the next people to come in and run the place are most likely to ditch the founder's ideals and ways as they are too costly and too much work.

In many cases, you would suspect this action would negatively impact the establishment, or at least their reputation.

We're all aware of this kind of behavior- companies are bought out all the time, typically to the detriment of the product quality and customer service.

My question is, why do we always do this?

Has someone mapped all of the bad behavior of humans and created a flow chart, so that we can always know how something will turn out?

Take the constitution of the United States, for example.

Is it useful? Is it still serving its citizens fully?

Rule: Work to Food Ratio

Have you been eating foods that make you unhappy? Perhaps you are a victim of the work-to-food ratio rule.

This rule is self-explanatory. If you have to work too hard to eat something, it violates the work-to-food ratio.

Enjoyment of food is a positive number. The work required to eat food is negative enjoyment, that is , a negative number. We need to factor in a baseline of expected work in order to eat a hypothetical "average food item" (also a negative number), then:

[enjoyment of food] + [baseline] + [negative enjoyment beyond baseline] = [total enjoyment]

If our total is a negative number, then the food item is not worth eating as it will generate negative enjoyment, or "unenjoyment".

Obviously with the popularity of "wings"-related establishments, some people clearly enjoy laboring over their 1/10th of a mouthful of food.

I tend to believe those people actually just like the sauce on the wings, not unlike a child using a french fry as an improvised spoon for ketchup.

Foods which violate the rule could be; pomegranites, cornish game hens, ribs, pistachios, chicken wings... and many others.

Obama's Credit Card Debt Relief Program : Scam

If you are googling "Obama's Credit Card Debt Relief Program" because you wanted to find out about a program that would help you out if you had over $10k in credit card debt, you are being misled by people who know you aren't going to look very hard.

Obama signed a credit card reform act in May 2009, but it has nothing to do with giving people free money, and there is no new legislation coming which will do so.

Stop dreaming, start thinking rationally. Good luck with that.

Baby Got Back

The short version of the story: a while ago, at a different job, there was a prominently-placed but unused mark and wipe board, which one day became the home of

"magnae clunes mihi placent."

... a translation I had just found online.

The goal then became to fill the board with more translations of the same sentence.

We ended up with quite a few over a few weeks, and strangely nobody we knew spoke it, so the very last one was Spanish.

The day after posting it, we came in to find someone (the cleaning staff) had written "good for you" in Spanish right next to it.

So ended that little game.

Perhaps I can recover all the sentences from back then.

"I like big butts" can't be that hard to say. Check the comments for more translations as I discover them. Here's Japanese-

大きいおしり好きです、

Save as: BMP

Dear Microsoft:

Kiss my butt.

Yes, there is probably a fix or workaround for the stupid old "save as BMP" issue that plagues all of the products you make.

Up yours for not fixing it by now, it's 2009, and I still have to deal with this.

NOBODY USES THIS DUMB FORMAT, QUIT SUPPORTING IT, DUH.

Thanks, just had to say that.