Setting Up Eero At The Lake

Because of remoteness, I rely on satellite internet service at my cottage. The best place to install the dish was on a deck at the rear of the garage. I setup the modem and wireless in the garage's attic. However, the signal to the cottage was weak, even with an extender. Streaming music required much buffering, which frustrated me. Them I heard of "eero," the world’s first home WiFi system, powered by TrueMesh™. A set of three eero units cover the typical home. However, I had to span a small yard between the garage and cottage. Additionally, the modem was in the attic of the barn-size garage. So I opted to use five erro units delivering five 802.11n access points. I connected the initial eero unit to the satellite modem. I placed the second unit in the garage directly below the one attached to the modem, separated by a floor, the home of the third was cottage's entryway, the fourth in the loft, and the fifth in the sunroom. I blanketed the entire indoor and outdoor living space with a strong WIFI signal. It took me around 60 minutes to set up the eero system, which was less time and effort I expended setting, testing up my old system, and creating a second network, as I did with my extender. And I didn't have to worry about correctly setting up my access points to create a mesh network. I just clicked Next in the eero app on my iPhone, and I got one network with a single SSID, and all the configuration was done by the cloud-based software, behind the scenes. With my old network setup, the WIFI signal didn't quite reach certain areas, but with eero, my to hunt for signal vanished. For example, the unit in the entryway provides a dedicated signal for my Ring-Doorbell and facilitate monitoring front yard. I'm no longer frustrated streaming Pandora through by SONOS speakers.

How Did I Get Here?

I knew keyboard shortcuts. People would ask me for my help. Now I cringe when I see a CTRL key. What does it mean? Backspace, I remember a Backspace key in high school learning to type of a Remington typewriter.  How did I get here?  

I was a Windows Guy. I was comfortable. My first computer was a Design 1 manufactured by Morrow Design. I learned to "cut-and-paste" to the dismay of my dissertation committee.  Thanks to a research grant, I upgraded to an IBM 3270 PC. Then thanks to an another grant, I gain access to the new 386, but I had to decide: Compaq or IBM?  Big Blue won out! With a math coprocessor, it was wicked fast.  

From the mid-80s to the early 2000s, I owned and used a myriad of DOS and Windows computers. I had manuals.  I collected floppy disks of operating systems and programs. I hung-out with Larry, my favorite lounge lizard.  It was a magical time.  

In the early 90s, I purchased a lunchbox size "portable" phone: 25-cent a minute! In the ensuing years, portable phones became smaller.  The only occasional interaction my computers and phones had was backing up my address book.  But it all changed in 2007: I bought an iPhone. For the first time, I was connecting my portable phone to my computer regularly. They communicated with iTunes; why did I need iTunes, I had CDs.  

But there were apps, but my Dell crashed over and over again when it talk to my iPhone via iTunes. So I purchased an iMac (Aluminum Unibody): Gone was my tower, and in its place was a slick computer just under an inch thick. I didn't know then, but I started on a journey to the world of Apple and other technologies, which I plan to share with whomever finds this website.