ActionTec ECB6200 MoCA adapters

ActionTec ECB6200

I was doing a bit of a network re-org and realized that the old MoCA adapter that connects my home office to the network was only a 100mbps ethernet connection. Since everything else on my network is now gigabit (except for the occasional exception like my PiDP-8), I decided to upgrade to ActionTec’s ECB6200 MoCA adapters.

These units support the MoCA 2.0 specification which allows for theoretical throughput of 800mpbs via two 400mpbs bonded channels (while still being backward compatible with MoCA 1.1 devices) and gigabit ethernet. I figured swapping out the two ECB2200s (one in my office, the other in the computer closet before the cable modem) with the ECB6200s would be plug-and-play easy.

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Yelling at the Yakkety Yak (but it won’t talk back)

Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) was released almost two months ago, but I only just realized I hadn’t upgraded yet (this happened to me during the last .10 release as well). This upgrade was a little smoother than last time, but not without its hiccups.

The upgrade process uses screen to keep everything running separately in a separate shell in case you’re disconnected (I run a headless server, remember). The download of all the upgrade packages went just fine, but at the first configuration file difference (where you’re prompted to keep the maintainer’s version or your customized one), after I viewed the details of the change screen terminated and I wasn’t able to reconnect to the session! I tried sudo screen -list followed by sudo screen -d -r root/30719.ubuntu-release-upgrade-screen-window but that just reconnected me to the terminated screen session and dpkg wouldn’t resume because another process was already running. I had to manually kill all the upgrade processes and the use sudo dpkg --configure -a to resume the reconfiguration step. The rest of the upgrade went fine, luckily.

Post-upgrade, I re-applied my changes to the affected configuration files. Additionally, I had to update the Blowfish secret for phpMyAdmin to fix an error there. I also had an issue with wpa_supplicant (my server has wired and wireless NICs) that I had to fix to be able to re-connect to the WiFi network (hence the reference to “it won’t talk back” in my post title 😉 ).

Next year we’ll get 17.04 Zesty Zapus. Will Ubuntu then wrap around back to “A” names?

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 9

We’re finally home, back in warm, sunny, Florida.

At 8:15am we were checked out of the hotel after breakfast and on the road for the final time. We were worried there’d be heavy traffic on I-75 South around Gainesville due to the UF/FSU game in Tallahassee yesterday, plus students returning to school after the Thanksgiving break, but it turned out to be fine. We made a brief stop at Busch Gardens to pick up our annual passes (my daughter is going on a field trip there for Physics Day later this week) but were home by 11:45am. Whew!

Driving stats: 3 1/2 hours; 211 miles

This was quite the road trip:

Total drive time: 53 hours
Total miles driven: 2,955
Average MPG: 25.7
Total fuel cost: $240
Colleges visited: 5

 

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 8

Today was the long haul …

We were on the road at 9:00am, continuing our drive south on I-75 through Kentucky. Around noon we crossed in Tennessee and finally saw the sun again (after three cloudy, gray days in Ohio). About an hour later in Knoxville we started encountering heavy traffic. According to Waze there was a bad accident on the interstate so we took some back roads to route around it. This allowed us to stop at a Whole Foods and pick up a healthy lunch to each in the car.

At 5:00pm we were driving through Atlanta and we stopped for dinner in Tifton at 7:30pm. Our original plans had called for us to stop in Valdosta again, but we decided to push a little further and get as far as Lake City. We checked in by 10:00pm and were done for the night.

Tomorrow, we finally get back home.

Driving stats: 11 1/2 hours; 736 mi

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 7

Yesterday we spent Thanksgiving with family but today it’s back on the road as we start heading for home.

We had loaded most of our stuff into the Highlander the night before and at 8:00am we were back on the road. Being the weird road trip people we are, we started driving north, to go south: we took I-90 West towards Toledo and then I-75 North (again!) toward Michigan. Since we didn’t do our Frankenmuth trip on Wednesday, we were doing it now. We crossed the border into Michigan around 10:00am and by noon were pulling into the parking lot of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland.

After doing some Christmas shopping in the Black Friday madness of the world’s largest Christmas store, it was finally time to head south. We took US-23 South and, keeping with our college visit theme, took some time to drive around the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. (The next day, the Ohio State Buckeyes would defeat the Wolverines in double-overtime).

We left UM around 2:30pm and crossed into Ohio two hours later. Then it was back on ol’ familiar I-75 South. At 7:00pm we stopped just north of Cincinnati to meet some old college friends for a leisurely dinner (at Marion’s Piazza again!). Afterwards, back on the road, we stopped at Graeter’s in northern Kentucky around 9:45pm for dessert since we had been snubbed on the way up. 45 minutes later we were checked into our hotel for the evening in Florence (y’all). Tomorrow will be our longest driving day.

Driving stats: 10 1/2 hours; 606mi

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 5

Originally we were going to go to Frankenmuth, Michigan today to visit Bronner’s, but we decided to move that to Friday during the drive home. Instead, we took it easy this morning and then took I-90 East to downtown Cleveland to (again), see some of our old haunts.

This included: lunch at the West Side Market, driving past the waterfront icons (the Factory of Sadness (oops, I meant FirstEnergy Stadium!), the Great Lakes Science Center, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), and a photo opp with the Cleveland sign (one of three installed during last summer’s Republican National Convention). We also stopped briefly at Tower City Center (it was rainy so the ice skating rink in Public Square wasn’t open), and drove past Quicken Loans Arena, home of the 2016 NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers.

On our way back to the west side we stopped at Malley’s to pick up a jar of our favorite fudge sauce. The jar we bought last Christmas was confiscated by the TSA when we forgot we had it in our carry-on luggage. Since we’re driving this trip it should make it back to Florida safely (unless we eat it before then).

For dinner we met the whole family (including the people we hadn’t yet seen) at Red Robin. Afterwards, my brother took me to an awesome bar called 16-Bit. A bar filled with classic arcade games? Hell yes! We spent a few hours playing old favorites like Gauntlet (“warrior needs food, badly”), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spy Hunter, Donkey Kong, and my personal favorite, Galaga (I had over 100,000 points before my brother got to play his first life, ha!).

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 4

Another college visit today. This morning after breakfast we drove down to Oberlin to visit Oberlin College (my daughter’s first choice currently) for a tour. It was a lot colder here than in Dayton yesterday and there was a lot of snow on the ground. It was good for my Florida girl to see what she’d be getting into, picking a school in northern Ohio 🙂 . It was another informational (and brisk!) tour and afterwards we had Mediterranean for lunch at Aladdin’s before the information session later that afternoon at the Admissions office.

In the late afternoon we went over to my brother’s house to visit with my sister-in-law, niece, and 6-month old nephew. Then it was a late-night dinner at Strip where we were joined by my sister who had had a long day. So it was nice to finally see family on this trip.

Today also happened to be Dick Goddard’s last broadcast on Channel 8 after 55 years. I grew up watching Dick do the weather and hosting his Woollybear Festival every year. Wow.

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 3

Today was our first official college visit at the University of Dayton. We woke up early and were on the road at 7:30am. We crossed the Ohio River into Cincinnati an hour later and at 10:00am were pulling into the visitor parking lot at UD, on-time for our 10:30 tour and information session.

I thought it would be a little weird going on a tour of the college where I had gone to school (met my wife, and even got married!) with my daughter, but it wasn’t that odd. It was cool to see all the changes around campus, and what had stayed the same since I had graduated. It was another beautiful brisk fall day and walking around the campus to see the dorms, library, and buildings was very pleasant.

After the tour we hit all our old haunts which included lunch at Marion’s Piazza and dessert at Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs (where we also briefly drove past Antioch College just to see a really small school). Then it was back to driving … I-675 to I-70 East over to Columbus, and then I-71 North to Cleveland.

By 6:00pm were were in the vicinity of our hotel for the rest of the week on the west side. We stopped at Crocker Park to do some grocery shopping and pick up dinner. Then we checked into the hotel and ate before unloading everything out of the car and getting settled.

Tomorrow is another college visit and then we’ll actually see family.

Driving stats: 7 hours; 350mi

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 2

Today was a full travel day.

We were back on I-75 North at 9:30am after having breakfast at the hotel. At 11:30am we passed through Macon and decided to make our first unplanned detour of the trip. In addition to going to see family up north on this road trip, we’re doing a few college visits (on Monday and Tuesday) with our daughter. Since we going through Atlanta, we decided to make a quick stop at Emory University just to quickly check it out. We spent about an hour or so wandering around campus checking out the Quad, some of the classroom buildings, the DUC, etc. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect for a nice self-guided walk around campus.

After lunch at Mellow Mushroom (where I got to watch a little of the Browns game), it was back onto I-75 North. 5:00pm saw us passing through Dalton, GA and 45 minutes later we were over the border into Tennessee as the sun was setting. We saw warning signs about heavy smoke in northern Tennessee and at 8:00pm starting driving through it. 15 minutes later we were out of the smoke and over the border into Kentucky.

We tried to make a late stop for dessert at Greater’s in Lexington, but we had misread the hours on the web site and arrived 15 minutes past closing. Oops! So instead we pushed on to our hotel north of Lexington and were checked in by 10:20pm.

Driving stats: 10 hours; 636mi

Thanksgiving 2016 Road Trip: Day 1

Time for another family road trip! It’s back to Cleveland for Thanksgiving.

We were using today just as a jump-start day for the drive, planning only to go as far as southern Georgia. This allowed us to spend most of the day decorating the inside of the house for Christmas (so it would be done when we get back from the trip), finish the packing, load up the Highlander, etc. At 4:45pm we finally hit the road.

We stopped for dinner around 7:30pm at the Ruby Tuesday in Lake City. Then it was just another hour’s drive north over the Georgia border to our first hotel in Valdosta at 9:45pm.

Driving stats: 4 hours; 254mi (probably our easiest day of the trip)