Setting up a Netgear wifi access point

I have an ancient Netgear access point in my spares cupboard, and I needed an additional access point, so I got it out and tried to configure it.

The problem was, the Netgear box was so old, that the https encryption methods that it could use, are all so old that current browsers don't use them. And it refused to be accessed via http.

I tried Firefox and Chrome. No luck.

So I had a bit of a think. What I needed was an old browser. So, using Google, I found Firefox 38 and installed that; installation was easy, and didn't mess up my current Firefox. And that worked - I was able to access and configure the Netgear, and it is now sitting quietly in an area that gives wifi coverage to a part of the house that was previously uncovered.

It turned out, I needn't have done it. I also have a Buffalo wifi access point (I have a story about that, see below) which still works, and I bought another TP-Link on eBay for £12,a nd I also have a wifi repeater that will also work as an access point. And the Siemens wifi AP that I thought had failed, just needed reconfiguring. An embarrassment of riches.

So, the story about the Buffalo.

A long time ago, I had my leased-line access (2 megabits) terminating in the house, and most of the servers in the garage, which was a separate building several yards away. In order to join the garage servers to the in-house servers, I used two Buffalo wifi APs as a bridge, so that the two groups appeared as a single network, and I had a speed of 54 mbits between the two groups.

Later on, I strung a cat 5 overhead between the two buildings. Maybe I should have done that in the first place.

Words have consequences

So said Mr Abdullah A. S. Patel, an Imam from Bristol, when he questioned the Tory leadership candidates.

The candidates eagerly agreed, and promised to investigate Muslim-hatred in the Tory party.

But words do indeed have consequences. Here's some words from Mr Patel, advice for women.

 Here's Mr Patel's proposal for Israel - this is the same graphic that Naz Shah, the Labour MP shared, and which she subsequently apologised for as antisemitic.

In other tweets, he claims that British politicians are 'on the Zionists Payroll’. That "Zionists are "hiding behind the Holocaust".

But, as Mr Patel explained - words have consequences. Mr Patel has now been suspended from the school that he is deputy head of.

Yes. Words have consequences. And if you live in a glass house, don't throw stones.

Parliament Prorogue

Parliament closes for the holidays; this is normal and traditional, and nothing much happens while parliament is prorogued.

But the idea of proroguing parliament so that a government can push through an action while parliament isn't sitting, is very very bad.

In the British Constitution, parliament is sovereign. At the top of the tree. The main thing. If a government deliberately prorogues parliament in order to take an action, then they are doing so because they know that if parliament is sitting, then the action would not be allowed.

This is called a coup.

This is how the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire; instead of the Senate being the Main Thing, it was Julius Caesar - until he got milkshaked. And then it was Augustus, and his successors. It was the end of the republic. And this is also how the Nazi party converted a majority in the Bundestag, into a permanent dictatorship. It's the sort of action that one might expect in a banana republic.

No party should be allowed to do this, and I would hope that no-one will even try, because the fallout from such an attempt would make the current ding-dong over Brexit look like a food fight at the vicar's tea party.