09.30.01

Better WiFi

Posted in General at 1 pm

Proxim is bringing out a WiFI (802.11b) aka wireless ethernet adapter. That ought to be pretty good for some stuff, but USB’s upper limits for transfer don’t come close to the 10Mb transfer rate for Wireless Ethernet. At first I was pretty excited about this: having a USB to WiFi gateway would be really flexible and useful with lots of machines. http://www.proxim.com/products/all/skyline/pn474/

But now on reflection, I still think it would be better to get a PCI to WiFi card that will allow the card to run at full speed. That way I can put the PCI card in my B&W G3 or move it into Amy’s old 6400 or I can put the PC Card into my notebook from work. It’s $180 which is a little steep but it’s a pretty flexible piece of equipment. http://www.proxim.com/products/all/skyline/pn476bld/

The never ending quest for the perfect home network continues…

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09.29.01

A Recent E-mail

Posted in General at 5 pm

An e-mail that came by recently:

Somebody told me to e-mail you. Can you tell me where they have info on home dwellings.
- Christina

Yes, that’s the full text of the mail. I would love to know who’s telling people to talk to me regarding their domicile issues. If it’s you, please stop. I just hope that it’s not the voices in Christina’s head that are telling her to e-mail me.

How do you reply to this? A complete stranger, potential newbie on the line looking for some juicy info. Of which I have none.

Um, I have an online journal that has the title Dwelling. I don’t really have any info regarding Dwellings like homes and such. Perhaps you can ask the person again.
- Ross

It’s a big ol’ net out there…

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Self-teaching and Corporate Software

Posted in General at 9 am

One of the problems in the computer field that I’ve seen of late is the divide between software that’s available in Open Source terms and those that must be purchased in terms of site licenses and require large budgets to install and learn.

There’s a case to be made for creating and selling software that is large and expensive. Robust, networked, team oriented software is notoriously difficult to develop. Often this software will have gone through years of development with large teams of developers that rightfully ought to be paid for their labor.

This software ends up being very expensive and generally this leads to it only being available in large companies. It also means that only the staff of those companies have access to that software, and generally only when they are in the company’s network/environment. Take Lotus Notes for example. Here is a large, complex tool that is affordable and makes sense only for larger corporations.

But the problem is that most of the people who are really ‘into’ their occupation in the computer field don’t just learn while they are at their job. It’s been my experience that those people who bring the full force of their concentration and effort into the field often devote much of the time outside of their work hours to technical endeavors. These projects range from home networks to public works (http://www.freegeek.org comes to mind.) that benefit the community as well as provide the individual with valuable hands-on time with technology.

This time outside of the work place is what really separates the dedicated computer enthusiasts.

But this outside time is limited by money and access to platforms. Want to know why Linux continues to grow in popularity in the computer industry, despite the best intentions of the entrenched software providers? Because geeks can run it at home. Want to know why wireless networking is gaining such momentum? Because geeks can play with it at home.

These are great tools and they are used by dedicated people who really grasp the technology and it’s limitations.

All of this ends when the software becomes too expensive and to costly to install. The kind of environment that is required to learn, play and experiment with software generally doesn’t exist in the corporate world. Workers must be sent away for week and multi-week training courses to learn the basics of difficult software.

Where is the sense in this? Why not leverage the knowledge that the die-hard computer geek is already seeking, already bringing to the plate? It would make more sense to use a set of tools that are within the grasp of the dedicated enthusiast, allowing them to bootstrap, grow and refine their own learning, which they already have an innate drive to expand.

To follow this idea is a win-win situation. I shake my fist and yell, “Why not?”

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09.24.01

Song Request

Posted in General at 7 am

I really think someone ought to do a Trance or House style remake of The Wheels on the Bus. And Ramstein should cover Rock a-bye Baby.

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09.20.01

Google Searches

Posted in General at 9 pm

Ever since I moved OrderSomewhereChaos over to the new server, I’ve been able to better track the traffic that’s been coming into the old server on smartnetworks.net. The more interesting aspect has been the Google searches that have found relevent links on my site. Since I switched over the site around 3 Sept, I’ve had quite a variety show up. Take a look for yourself:

I find it fascinating that certain words like ‘variables’ and ‘dwelling’ ended up getting so high on Google’s rankings. At least, high enough to be clicked on, anyway.

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09.18.01

Good Birthday

Posted in General at 11 pm

I had a really nice b-day. I got cards from the Hot Pepper office and the PGE office, plus my mom and dad were in town, on their way to Wisconsin.

Amy got me a beautiful watch (big pic) and I’ll pick something out from my wishlist as well. I got lots of clothes, and despite Amy’s best efforts to take us out to a ’special’ place for dinner, we had a wonderful meal at DiNichola’s, a chintzy little Italian restaurant on Powell, that I really like.

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09.16.01

Crash Boom Bang

Posted in General at 10 am

A Volume Map error is a bad thing for most computers. Mine got one and it took down my machine for the last few days. I don’t think I lost any data, but I’m sure glad I had split my hard drive into two partitions *and* installed a minimum system folder on the second. My second partition came up and ran just fine, allowing me to use Data Rescue, and move most of my first partition to my second partition.

So I seem to be up and running again, with a full backup burned to disc. Whew.

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Afghanistan Maps

Posted in General at 10 am

As Afghanistan is such a point of discussion these days I decided to look up some maps. Note: some of these maps are pretty big, anywhere from 200k and up. All links open in new windows.

A political map of the country. The United Nations has a highly detailed political map as well. Look who’s at the top of the list of least developed countries.

A map of the former Soviet states that are north of Afghanistan. That’s interesting; there’s a border with China, though the area is sparsely populated according to some maps.

A map of the Ethno-lingustic groups in Afghanistan. The legend at the bottom organizes the groups into three major categories: Iranian, Turkic and Other.

Most of these are culled from U of Texas Library, which I found via a search on Google.

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09.12.01

Cold Calculations

Posted in General at 10 am

Based on the tenent lists that I’ve seen online, there were about 17,000 employees listed for the businesses that had offices in the world Trade Center. I would expect that half of these people escaped the buildings: 8,500. Early response fire and police: ~300, Airflights: 265, Pentagon: ~300

I’m expecting a final total of souls lost to be about 10,000.

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NATO, Article 5

Posted in General at 8 am

This is the relevant document of the day: NATO’s North Atlantic Treaty, Article 5.

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