Once the backbone is in place, Google will be able to connect homes in Kansas City, KS. and Kansas City, MO. to a new high speed infrastructure that will cary data at speeds more than 100 times faster than what is available to most Americans today.

Google will post more updates and announcements on their Google Fiber Blog as they build out the Google Fiber infrastructure.

Since Google announced that Kansas City, Kansas had been selected as the pilot city for the Google Fiber for Communities Program, the site will also feature this exciting new project as it moves forward, along with an on-line community.

The Lacie 1TB External USB Hard Disk

I bought the Lacie 1TB External USB Hard Disk to serve as an external hard disk for my MacBook Pro 13 inch laptop, mainly to use as a scratch disk for Final Cut Express.  My main concern before buying the drive was if the USB connection would be fast enough to serve that purpose.

The first thing I noticed after unpacking the drive is that the power cord and USB cable were not as long as I had hoped.  I had to place the drive a  very short distance from my MacBook Pro, and also move the power strip closer to the laptop.

The drive itself is shiny black, and light and sleek.  After connecting it to my laptop, the drive free disk space first read approx. 650 gb, but   after formatting the drive for the Mac, using the pre-installed software, the free disk space increased to a little over 930 gb.

Next, I updated Final Cut Express to use the Lacie external drive for the scratch disk.  I am fairly new to FCE, so I don’t currently have a very heavy video editing requirement.  With that said, after a day of rendering several 3-4 minute video clips, I am happy to report that the drive has worked without incident, and, so far,  I am happy with its performance. If anything notable  happens with this drive in the future, I will report it on this site.

I am currently connect to the Internet through a Netgear DG834G Wireless Modem Router. For networking, I use the wireless features with my MacBook Pro laptop and a Lexmark All-In-One Printer, which also has wireless capability.

My older Windows PCs are networked using Netgear XE103 Powerline Network Adapters, connected to hub switches. I have been using this system for some time, and have been happy with my recently tested 1230 kbps Internet connection speed, and 85 mbps home network transfer speed.

With Google Fiber providing a possible 1 gigabit download and upload speed, however, 85mbps will probably seem pretty slow. I don’t know what the upper speed limit for powerline networking is, but the fastest speed I could find doing a quick search of the internet was 200 mbps, and the price for that adapter seemed pretty steep.

With a 1gigabit Internet connection speed, it will be faster to send data to a computer outside the home network, and then download the data to a computer on the home network.

As more information is made available about the Google Fiber service, I anticipate that I will be looking at ways to improve my home network performance.

I currently watch a variety of TV programs on-line, and, with such a fast connection, I can imagine watching HD movies and other programs via the internet rather than by satellite. Up to now, I had not seen a need for a large computer monitor, but with the possibilities that Google Fiber could bring, I can definitely envision a future need for a considerably upgraded monitor, or hybrid that could take advantage of the new entertainment options such a fast connection could bring. Of course, this is still thinking small.

A view of Kansas Speedway in western Kansas City, Kansas

On March 30, 2011, Google announced that, after careful consideration of over 1,100 cities, Kansas City, Kansas was selected to be the pilot city for its Fiber for Communities project.

The company announced, at Wyandotte High School, that it had entered a partnership with the city to build an ultra high-speed network in Kansas City, KS, and that it would work with local organizations, businesses and universities to bring a next-generation web experience to the community.

Once in place, the Google ultra high-speed fiber network will have the capacity to provide the community with internet access more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today.

Google plans to offer the ultra high-speed service to the Kansas City, KS community, beginning in the first quarter of 2012.

The Iomega eGo 1TB External Mac Edition Hard Drive

First, I will say that this drive failed about one day after I bought it, and I no longer have it.  With that said, I was able to form some impressions during the short time I had it, so I decided to share them here.

I bought the Iomega eGo 1TB USB 2.0 FireWire 800 Desktop External Mac Edition Hard Drive to serve as an external hard disk for my MacBook Pro 13 inch laptop, mainly to use as a scratch disk for Final Cut Express.

After unpacking the drive and connecting it to my Mac, I really liked the length of the USB, firewire cable and power cord.  It easily fit in to my current setup.

The drive seemed to be solidly constructed, and  could either be used horizontally, or vertically with a provided stand.

My Mac recognized the drive right after I connected it, and, for awhile, it worked without incident. I bought the drive primarily to serve as a scratch disk for Final Cut Express, as an older smaller external hard drive  I already had was too slow for that purpose.

I updated the settings in Final Cut Express to use the Iomega external drive as the scratch disk, and used it for a day with no problems.  The next day, I powered up the drive, and it started making clicking sounds and was no longer recognized by my MacBook Pro.  I tried powering the drive up several times with the same result, and therefore had to return it.

Despite the drive failure, I liked it well enough to give it another try, and, had it been in stock, I would have reordered it.  As it turns out,  a replacement was not immediately available, so I opted to replace it with a different external hard drive.