The Solid Signal Blog

Here’s something I’ve recently had to contend with. If young people think the tech you used when you were their age is “classic” or “retro,” you my friend are officially old. In fact, you are old as …. well I don’t use profanity on this blog but you get the idea. This very idea came to me when I was exploring this video: In which a fellow who, I would guess, is about 35, just gushes over a beat up, broken Power Macintosh 9600 and then proceeds to clean it up and adapt it to use modern forms of storage. This set off a cascade of feelings for me, and this being a blog after all, I decided to share them with you. Although I can’t exactly blame the guy. Apple’s Power Macintosh 9600 was a very interesting beast. In the 1990s, Apple was...

Ah, lazy days on the water. There’s nothing like it. Days spent in the fresh air, sunsets over the ocean. But this is the twenty-first century. We don’t like disconnecting for very long, even when we’re enjoying ourselves. Good news— you don’t have to be! With products from Solid Signal, you can enjoy life on the water without giving up any of the benefits of being on land. Are your electronic entertainment options limited? Truth is, there are some limitations to what you can do on the water, especially on smaller craft. If you’re taking a dinghy out 10 miles — and I don’t recommend that, obviously — you’ll run into trouble. All of the options I’m recommending require that your boat be big enough to mount equipment on, and that there...

Tall buildings have tall problems. You don’t really think about stuff like this as a homeowner, but if you’re looking at a roof that’s 500 feet above street level, some things have to change. Your regular satellite TV install isn’t going to work. A big part of that is the sheer amount of wire that it takes to get from the roof to wherever you are. High rise buildings need special installers with special qualifications. The riser Every large building has a big vertical space where all the wires are. It’s kind of like an elevator shaft for cables. This is called “the riser.” It’s specifically designed to let technicians get to the communications cables that every modern building needs. It’s also designed to connect to the equipment...

Yeah, that’s quite a throwback for this Thursday. This recently found footage was shot in 1911 by “Svenska Biografteatern,” apparently a Swedish company specializing in documenting the world as it was at that moment in time. A few years ago, New York’s Museum of Modern Art discovered the footage, restored it and put it on display. That exhibit has since been taken down. However, YouTuber “guy jones” got hold of the footage and put it up for all to see. It’s not under copyright, being so old. You can clearly see a bunch of landmarks that are still there, and considering we are looking at 100-year-old film the quality is simply amazing. Why is it so choppy? In those days, cameramen commonly used a rate of 18 frames per second. It was...

Let’s just face it. You need internet service at home. You need it for schoolwork, work projects, and just to enjoy life. It’s one of those things that you feel like you just can’t live without. And just relying on your cell phone probably isn’t cutting it. I totally understand. But on the other hand, it’s expensive. There can be hidden fees, teaser rates that expire after a year, and you might just think isn’t any other choice but the cable company. Like so many things today, it seems like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. For once, the government has your back. And Signal Connect can help. There’s a new benefit called the Affordable Connectivity Program. If you qualify, you can get up to $30 a month off your internet...

It’s not easy running a small business today. It’s even harder if your business relies on serving the public. Bar and restaurant owners have had it very rough the last few years, to be sure. I think we all remember when they weren’t even allowed to be open and how that felt. Sure, those times are over, but how can a bar or restaurant owner make up some of that lost time? Owning and operating a bar or restaurant means being an expert multitasker. It’s not just about putting some memorabilia up on the wall and having some bottles on the shelf. You need to deal with suppliers, inspectors, and of course the public. Then, to make everything harder you’re supposed to be an expert in the kind of complex technology it takes to run 25...

Winter’s here. You probably didn’t need me to tell you that. Even if you live in a nice balmy climate, the year’s already seen its share of rough weather. And folks, it’s only February. Luckily, DIRECTV has finally given us all a way to make it through the winter a little more easily. Telling the truth about satellite TV Folks, obviously I’m a satellite TV fan. After all, this is what I write about all day, right? But even I have to admit a few things about satellite TV that can be a little bit of a challenge. While satellite TV is more reliable than cable or streaming in terms of uptime, it is affected by severe weather. Heavy rains can block the dish’s view of the sky, and snow can accumulate on the dish in the winter. A dish heater...

June 19 – 25, 1953 This week Ken welcomes professor, writer, producer and director Jack Solder (Nightmare on Elm St. 2, By Dawn’s Early Light, The Hidden, 12:01, Alone in the Dark) to the show. Ken and Jack discuss growing up in Philly, growing up playing trumpet, being a classical musician, realizing you’re good but not GREAT at something, becoming an editor, the rhythm of cuts, working at New Line Cinema, Caroline Biggerstaff, poses vs pauses, editing The Burning, learning by doing, creating suspense, revival art house cinema, the genius of Buster Keaton, exploitation films, Ed Sullivan, Uncle Milty, 1950s music shows, the cultural scene of the 1950s, Uncle Pete Boyle, Chief Halftown, kids shows, Life of Reilly, Magnavox, The...

See if this seems like a familiar scenario. You have a business, under 100 people. You started with just a few, and you’ve grown organically. Things are good, but you’re beginning to realize that you can’t do it all in-house. You probably have one employee who is charged with making sure the internet is running. They might not know more than just how to reboot things, but it’s been enough. You have a local computer contractor who can come in and handle the rest. It’s a setup that’s worked for you for years, and you’re not alone. A lot of small businesses work this way. But what happens when you have a need that’s bigger than what those two local folks can handle? Where do you turn? That’s probably why you found this article. It’s hard...

Without a doubt, the biggest non-Swift story in 2023 was the way that generative AI really broke out. While the technology has been around for a few years, ’23 was the year that the average person became aware of what it could do. Apps like Copilot and ChatGPT were made available to the general public, and at the same time the quality of work done by this app increased. It may have been impossible to think that by 2024 an AI could write a script, pass a bar exam, and create realistic photos, AI did this and more. If we look at the year to come and think about the rate at which AI is growing, should we be terrified? The argument for “yes” Obviously at this point you’ve heard every Terminator/Skynet reference there is. The idea that an...

Signal Connect has partnered with Sports Bar World to offer the Wolfpack line of matrix switches. Listen in to find out why this is so important to the world of bars and restaurants. When you’re ready to learn more and get great customer service, call us at 888-233-7563. Listen to the podcast your way! Just choose one of the following: Option 1: Click on the image above to stream the podcast in your browser. If you use the YouTube player above, be sure to subscribe to get future videos delivered to you! Option 2: The Solid Signal Podcast is available on several podcast aggregators. Search for us, or tap on the links below on your mobile device. If you want us to add another aggregator leave a comment below. Amazon iTunes Overcast...

At this point do I even need to explain what Starlink is? It’s revolutionized the way that people connect to the internet when they’re away from major cities. It’s still not perfect compared to traditional fiber internet or even cellular, but when those options aren’t there, Starlink can definitely fill the need and fill it well. Why Starlink is brilliant Starlink, in fact all low-earth-orbit internet systems, are a brilliant combination of two technologies. Traditional satellite internet has been around for decades. It’s really not terribly different from any other sort of satellite communication. You have a fixed satellite dish that sends information up and pulls information down. This was a pretty brilliant idea in the 1990s but...

OK, fess up. You probably don’t have the latest wireless networking gear. Or, I should say, you might have some current stuff but you probably aren’t current with all of it. Even if you have a relatively modern mesh networking set up, it’s probably hooked up to the router you got for free from the cable company. How worried should you be? First, a look at the current landscape It seems like it’s getting harder and harder to remember where we are in the evolution of Wi-Fi. In the beginning, there were two competing standards, 802.11a and 802.11b. But that was 20 years ago. The first router you probably used most likely supported 802.11g, which is still actually fast enough for most things you’re going to do. But all of those standards...

Even though it’s been with us for almost a year, people are still discovering DIRECTV’s Gemini for Satellite. DIRECTV has been hitting it out of the park with new products and services, and perhaps none is as popular as its Gemini series. There’s the satellite version, linked above, and also a version called the Gemini Air which works on the company’s streaming-only service. Both have been so popular over the last several months that we at Solid Signal struggle to keep them in stock. Why is Gemini so popular now? We’ve launched other DIRECTV boxes over the years (including the recent H26K Commercial Receiver) but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen something that captivates enthusiasts’ imaginations quite like the Gemini. I think...

Ask most people how they connect their computer monitors or TVs, and the answer will come back the same: HDMI. HDMI cables are the standard because they’re everywhere, the cables are cheap, and pretty much everything supports it. But, as I explain here, HDMI has a dirty little secret. It often carries content protection, and that can be a problem. When HDMI was new, there was a competitor called DisplayPort that came out at roughly the same time. DisplayPort has been left for dead several times by the media, but here we are in 2023 (almost 2024) and not only can you still get DisplayPort stuff, there are times when you almost have to. Here’s the real reason why DisplayPort refuses to die. It’s not the copy protection, but… HDMI was...