Lou Quillio

Windows 7 stopped receiving updates in 2020, so you're on your own with that. As for Win 10, Microsoft's in-built malware service is enough. Aftermarket software solutions play on folks' apprehensions and ignorance, and are generally unneeded. They exist to make you feel better because you paid something.

Beyond that, don't do stupid stuff. No browser toolbars, for example. Remember, the answer is always No, until you affirmatively determine that it's Yes. If some reasonably well-regarded software asks to install something extra, that's a No, for example.

Folks recall with horror the bad old days, when Microsoft wanted to be everybody's portal to the web, but provided no responsible protections. Those days are over. Just don't do stupid stuff.

Or use Linux, like me. 😉

LQ

On 1/26/2024 at 8:03 AM, pappysmarket said:

Wi-fi only with a hub that connects to your router either via ethernet or now just by wi-fi.

Thanks. That's what I reckoned.

A pair of ordinary cordless Panasonics was cheap enough, so we'll start there. I have business-class Ubiquiti network gear now, so when I later experiment with wifi-only voice, I might try their solution first.

(This new Unifi gear is worlds better than the consumer stuff, especially with dual WAN. Never going back.)

LQ

On 9/4/2021 at 1:02 PM, RickS said:

I am assuming that, when you use the term 'land line' you are referring to your new TotalPlay phone which is an Internet (VOIP) phone and not a land line.

This is correct. To many people, "land line" refers to POTS -- plain old telephone service -- delivered over copper wires. Most of us grew up with this. Works when the power's out because the copper carries enough power to ring the phone. POTS service still exists in Mexico, but no longer does in the U.S.

A clearer term in this case would be "house phone."

We're thinking we may buy a house phone, something we never expected to have again, just because Mexican society often still connects a phone number with a place, an address, and not a person who may not be home, like a cell phone. We'd only use it for delivery people, etc.

And our TotalPlay Internet comes with a VoIP number and service, we just don't have anything connected to the RJ-11 jack on TotalPlay's base station.

I assume that any house phone I plug into it will come to life with no further steps. Probably get a cordless phone, probably with a second handset for downstairs.

What I'm less clear on are so-called "WiFi phones" meant for use as a home phone. Do they often have an RJ-11 jack as well, or are they a different, wifi-only animal? Anyone been down that road?

LQ

They'll string the fiber optic cable overhead, not underground. I think gated communities often won't allow that. If you live in a normal neighborhood there will be plenty of fibra optica overhead already, and nobody should care about or notice another house drop.

LQ

2 hours ago, bojackson said:

Do I need to

But you will need a forma aduana. Customs declaration.

This one should be current:

https://siat.sat.gob.mx/app/declaracion/faces/pages/plantilla/declaracionAduana.jsf

It's sometimes not clear which inmigración line to get into. You want the one not for Mexican passport holders.

LQ

9 minutes ago, Whipstock said:

were you asking about multi zone split units?

Thanks, but I wasn't really asking anything, except for the post to be fleshed out. From the initial info given, a passer-by wouldn't know the topic was a USD $1,000 capital improvement.

Off topic: As for Joan and I, after two years renting, our California house is sold, we're mostly retired, and we're finally house hunting in earnest. We're looking for centro, fully walkable, a pool or space for one, minimum three bedrooms, in San Antonio, Chapala, or even Ajijic -- though we don't covet Ajijic, nor want to pay the Ajijic premium. They're not making more of these, so we have to wait. They do appear, just not so often.

After we own, we'll see what heating and AC needs we have (and PV solar, and home battery, and commercial-grade networking). Joan likes a little AC, I like a little heat in winter. But everything depends on the house we find. Since this will be our last house and we're 60-ish, it has to suit our needs for twenty or so years, and we're unwilling to settle for something we don't love.

LQ

18 minutes ago, Ferret said:

sized correctly for the cubic area that it will be covering

Obviously. Some people even size their compressor for future capacity.

Just seemed to me like a casual, undetailed post for a non-trivial investment. Didn't even mention the cost.

Just now, RickS said:

So can't understand why you did not find

Such systems are uncomplicated and I understand how they work. What wasn't clear was whether the poster was adding to an existing system or installing from scratch. Affects how much of an investment we're making.

Sometimes further clarification isn't for me, rather it's to make a thread more useful to others -- sometimes those arriving at this page later via a Google search. It's a habit from having built and managed many discussion boards.

LQ

4 minutes ago, Mostlylost said:

https://mirage.mx/productos/todo/aire-acondicionado/minisplit/inverter/magnum-22-inverter/

Assume I Google everything, since I'm a Google engineer.

I've read that. Still not perfectly clear.

I'm guessing an "electric wood stove" is an electric heater that looks like a wood stove, correct?

Wrt the Mirage, does the A/C functionality rely on already having a compressor, or is it contained within the minisplit stand-alone style?

LQ

37 minutes ago, Mostlylost said:

XE transfer will offer a better rate

Generally correct. For example, my MXN $12,000 rent payment would cost USD $703.99 to send with Xe and USD $708.01 with Xoom -- considering exchange rate + fee, if done at this moment. Xoom would arrive in one or two business days; Xe quotes three business days.

Maybe one of these days I'll switch, and save the four bucks.

LQ

For paying individuals (and sometimes stores, if the amount isn't huge), look at Xoom, now a PayPal service. If you can configure the source in PayPal, you can use it with Xoom. I use it to pay our rent (still looking for a house to buy) in San Antonio and also for a sofa sleeper from the Ibarra brothers. Fees are reasonable; exchange rate could be better -- but the net on transactions of reasonable size won't kill you.

LQ

9 minutes ago, OldWEB said:

OUCH!

Correction: I think I wanted ten keys done, so $40 vs. $30 each.

15 minutes ago, Mostlylost said:

Pretty far from centro Ajijic

And shady. I went there once. A fresh-faced kid was doing the work, and quoted me $300/key. This bothered the slovenly dude sitting in a folding chair nearby, who corrected that the price was $400.

When I picked up the keys later, I asked the price again. This time the fat guy was ready. "$400."

"Ese es el precio regular o el precio gringo?"

"$400," scowling.

I paid, left, and haven't been back.

LQ

I like the one (Cárdenas) next to Mariscos Irma, on Revolución in Ajijic, here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/uR2952pTfRDUiEj76

Can't speak for the locksmithing, just the key cutting.

LQ

Unlimited most things, no voicemail, 3GB data = $229/mo. Done.

LQ

3 hours ago, Mostlylost said:

TELCEL is the company. Telmex is a different company. 

I'd thought there was a historical connection. Not that it matters.

3 hours ago, Mostlylost said:

Read all their plans online

Dude, I'm a software engineer at a gigantic internet company. I just don't care for salespeople. Mobile and internet services in the States are mature, but in Mexico they're still "sold."

3 hours ago, ibarra said:

We have had 2 Telcel packages for many years with very little problems.

Seems to be the consensus. Telcel it is.

Thanks.

LQ

2 hours ago, Mostlylost said:

Far better coverage lakeside than AT&T.

1 hour ago, sm1mex said:

Telcel

Certainly Telcel/Telmex has the best coverage, but is it hassle-free (-ish)? I can't take a lot of BS.

Also, how long did do you suppose it'll take them to port our numbers? 24 hours? Thanks.

LQ

We're coming to the end of our two-year, prepaid cell phone plans with AT&T Mexico -- which isn't AT&T because there isn't an actual AT&T company any more, just a trade name that's passed around for money. But whatever.

Our AT&T service resides on the physical SIMs in our dual-SIM phones, and provides our Mexican phone numbers, which in turn back our WhatsApp identities (we mostly use WhatsApp for voice, text, and casual video). These numbers are important to preserve.

The promotional plan we've been on no longer exists, but it was something like $200 USD for two years, for each phone.

We don't care a lot about cell data. Our other carrier is Google Fi (an eSIM), and its data arrangement in Mexico is the same as the U.S. We could switch between carriers for data any time if there were risk of overage, but it's never come up.

Our primary mobile data use is driving navigation. Nothing else comes close.

Knowing all of this and if you were me, who would you try next?

Ideally, I'd want to walk in, get a new SIM, transfer the existing number, and be done with it.

Thanks.

LQ

3 minutes ago, Mad_Max said:

so it works on some browsers but not chrome or edge when i tried it 

In general, that means Firefox (Gecko) and Safari (WebKit). Everything else you've heard of is Chromium-based.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Browsers_based_on_Chromium

Safari is garbage, but lax behavior by Firefox surprises me.

LQ

The first link will never work in Chrome as-is, because there's a content policy violation related to iframes. More liberal and less-used browsers may be less strict. The second link is correct, and should probably be the only one released into the wild. Two links pointing to the same resource is bad practice.

LQ

What is "the 200 zone?"

Don't buy without trying Colchonera del Descanso in San Antonio. We're happy with our king.

7 hours ago, RickS said:

As always, YMMV

Yes, certainly.

I mention all of this because because home networking gear -- whether from one's ISP or personally owned -- is documented for the stick-built context. The performance you can expect, where to position mesh points, and so on does not anticipate interior brick walls. Same for information one finds on the web.

Here's a typical case where that matters:

7 hours ago, ibarra said:

... able to get service everywhere in our house and yard.  Averaging 51 Mbps.

In general, requests are lightweight and responses are heavy. Clicking a link, for example, just requests whatever's at a URL. But the response is more likely a heavy web page, a video stream, etc.

To say that your wifi coverage is good because you get 51 Mbps only tells us it's easy to make that lightweight request. The heavier response of a web page or video must travel back to you over approximately half of that 51 Mbps wifi signal, which is janky, and is also still listening for other requests you might make.

In short, "51 Mbps" is misleading. "I don't understand why my video is buffering, Lou. I have 51 Mbps." Actually, you don't. You're believing in mesh magic, but mesh ain't magical.

In a house made of two-by-fours and drywall, that "51 Mbps" isn't so big of a lie. In a Mexican house, it's practically meaningless.

When you wire your wifi points, they can use the full throughput you buy from your ISP, and things go swimmingly.

If your mesh setup works well for you Lakeside, that's great. But in these parts it's always best practice to use access points that accept an ethernet input (as well as mesh), and pull ethernet to them.

Here's what my setup looks like:

If I didn't run ethernet to my access points, they would try to mesh instead, and would say Wireless instead of Wired.

LQ

I simply don't rely on ISP gear whatsoever. I only want a dumb pipe from them, and my home network is formed by my own networking gear.

Likewise, WRT wifi, I don't rely on my wifi points to effectively mesh, and certainly don't get involved with snake-oil "extenders."

Each of my three wifi points gets its own wired (ethernet) backhaul. Mesh is meant for stick-built northern homes, but Mexican construction (ladrilla, concreto, y acero) and mesh networks simply don't mix. It took some effort and a bit of money to build the network, but at my house everything needing a wireless or wired connection just works, even for streaming video.

Note my mention of "backhaul," above. Not only does each wifi point not rely on a wifi mesh connection to handle my requests (like clicking a link, starting a video, etc.), the responses travel back to the wifi point over ethernet. Only the last few meters are wifi. Fast, fast, fast.

In my experience, getting norte home network performance in a Mexican house requires pulling some wires. The alternative is endlessly sifting through anecdotal advice on message boards. 😉

LQ