And we're in.

It has been ten days now since we moved into our new house, and things are starting to resemble something approaching normality. We still have a lot of boxes which haven't been unpacked, but they're mainly books and CDs, because as yet we don't have any shelves to put them on.

I've had Virgin Media TV, broadband and phone installed, and as part of the install upgraded to their 500GB Tivo. This has taken a bit of getting used to, as it is a much more complicated (but also more capable) device than the old V+. As for broadband, Virgin insisted on me having one of their SuperHub combined modem/routers - which I didn't really want, but customers apparently don't have any say in the matter. I was happy with my separate cable modem and router, but I guess it's one less power plug. Despite the SuperHub being 802.11n, the wifi doesn't even reach halfway across the house so I've been making do with my old Devolo 85mbps homeplugs, just to get the internet where I need it.

However, I've today set up something a little better - still not my intended wired gigabit network, but certainly more robust than my current solution.

I've gone for another product by Devolo (because they really are the best when it comes to powerline networking) but this time I've opted for their dLAN 200 AV Wireless N adapters. Instead of each plug just having one ethernet socket, these have three, and not only that but each acts as a 802.11n wifi access point as well, which is handy.

Basically what this means is that I've got three wifi access points, giving good coverage all over the house, and the ability to hard wire all the devices that support it as well - three in the lounge, three in the cinema and three in the study. The monitoring software tells me that I'm getting about 115mbps across the wired devices which is good enough for the time being. I don't rely on wifi all that much (I'm not a big fan of it really) but if I do need it (for phones, laptop, Wii, Kindle etc) then it's available.

On a more disappointing note, it looks like it'll be some time before I'm able to set up the garage conversion as the home cinema. I'm sorely missing my 5.1 surround sound, but there are other priorities at the moment - apparently we need furniture and stuff?

FUBAR!

As I've previously mentioned, I got a very nice pair of Grado SR80i headphones for Christmas and they're quite superb. I had the idea a while back (inspired by this CNET article) to get together some kind of "head-fi" setup using my Airport Express as a source. I've gone into some detail about how the iPhone Remote app works with the Airport Express to stream music around your house, and I had been using the Grados plugged straight into the 3.5mm jack on the AE.

Me being me, of course, I knew that there were gains to be had by using an offboard DAC instead of the cheap one built into the AE so I went about researching my options. There was the "two-box" approach, involving a separate DAC in turn feeding a separate headphone amplifier, or there was the "integrated" option if I could find a combined DAC/headphone amp that I liked the look of and could afford. My preferred route was to have everything in one box - tidier, less faff, no worrying about system matching - so after much internet surfing I came across the Fubar IV, made by Firestone Audio. It has digital inputs for optical (which the Airport Express uses), coaxial and USB. I discovered that the manufacturers were offering a hefty discount (125 euros instead of 225) in their post-Christmas sale and all the reviews of the unit were glowing, so I went for it.

Just a few minutes after taking delivery, I had the Fubar IV hooked up via an optical lead from my Airport Express, with my SR80i's plugged into the headphone socket. With the iPod Touch Remote app controlling my iTunes Lossless library, I was listening to quite amazing sound, far more in keeping with the quality of the Grados than I had been experiencing direct from the Airport Express. Most impressive!

I headed over to the What HiFi forums - where I had heard about the Fubar IV in the first place - and posted a brief review. Excerpt below:

"It's a good warm, round sound from solid bass through to well-defined treble. It does show up poor recordings, but with a well-produced album it's giving some excellent results. I've been noticing lots of extra details that I'd never really heard before, even in albums I know really well. The separation of different parts is superb, and it's very easy to pick out an instrument and follow it through a track - but at the same time there's a really nice cohesiveness to the sound overall. I'm used to listening to my music through my separates hi-fi, but I can honestly say that this little set-up is blowing it out of the water!"

Firestone Audio also sell a dedicated power supply for the Fubar, called The Supplier, which is supposed to bring further musical gains. I dare say that once some more funds become available, I shall be investing in one of those too! All round, it's a brilliant little setup, and ideal for people whom a full separates system isn't practical or realistic. I was dubious about whether "head-fi" could really be "hi-fi" but I have to say - I'm converted.

Joi to the world

If you follow my Twitter feed you may have heard me mention a little application that I downloaded for my Nokia E63 called Joikuspot. It's a very clever little program that uses the phone's 3G connection and wi-fi to create a little personal hotspot for you to use to get internet access.

I'm pleased to report that it works incredibly well, particularly bearing in mind that it's free. There is a "premium" version but I'm quite happy to look at a landing page in my browser when first logging on in exchange for not having to pay!

As you might expect with plain old 3G, you're not going to set the internet alight with amazing download speeds (I'm getting about 256kbps) but when you're without a web connection, then it's a very neat option. It's essentially doing what the Three Mi-Fi does, but at very little cost. My phone network (Virgin) gives you 24 hours of unlimited browsing for just 30p, so for the few times I need to jump on the web away from home its perfect.

In fact, my Eee PC is connected via Joikuspot as I sit here and type this in a local (wifi-less) coffee shop. There's not many times that my budget Nokia phone option gets one over on my iPhone using friends, but this is one such occasion.

Wi-fi to go

As you may recall (if you've been here before) I recently got myself an Airport Express for the purpose of streaming music from my iMac to my hifi, in conjunction with my iPod Touch and the Remote app. This, as I've already reported, works wonderfully.

I was off to my folks' for the Easter weekend, and I was wondering how I would manage for four days with no wi-fi. Although they have broadband, it only goes directly to their desktop machine and nowhere else. I figured I could take my Airport Express with me, and somehow get it to broadcast a wi-fi signal - thereby allowing me to use my iPod Touch and netbook.

I wasn't entirely sure about the best way of doing this (and I'm not even sure this is the correct way now), but allow me to share how I got it all to work.

The AE has a feature built in to the setup software which allows you to set up profiles. Basically a profile is a batch of settings instructing the AE to function in a certain manner. My default profile was to connect as a client device to my home wifi network and stream music from my iMac. However, I knew when I got to my parents' that this wouldn't work. I needed it to accept the broadband signal via its ethernet port and then act as a wifi base station to broadcast the signal. So I set up a second profile telling the AE to work in the fashion, then packed it in my bag and set off.

Upon my arrival, I plugged in the Airport Express, but the setup software on my netbook simply would *not* find the device at all. I began to wonder how I'd ever manage to switch to my other profile if I couldn't connect to the AE in the first place. After some Googling (on the desktop machine of course!) I discovered that I needed to reset the AE. I held down the reset button for a few seconds, and when the light flashed I knew it had reset itself.

Sure enough, straight away the AE appeared in the Airport software, and it asked me which of my saved profiles I'd like to enable. I chose the new one that I'd set up before I left, and then the unit rebooted. When it restarted, it began broadcasting the wi-fi, which I was able to connect to with both my Eee and my Touch. Result!

Upon my return home, I reversed the process - reset the unit, selected the original profile in the Airport software and it was back in client mode. Simple when you know how...