What about Wireless ISPs? I run one in Texas and give my customers ~40ms pings to nearly peering point in Dallas. The bandwidth may be slow and expensive compared to cable/dsl providers in large cities, but the only other alternatives are dial-up or satellite. My customers also enjoy the fact that I'm a local small business that lives down the road. They can call me up and ask me a question personally and not have to worry about getting shunted to a large call center in a foreign country.
There are thousands of Wireless ISPs around the country helping to provide service to everyone who the big telcos don't think they can profit enough from. Look hard enough and I bet there's already a WISP servicing your area.
The biggest issue is how federal funding is handed out to rural ISPs. The FCC determines broadband coverage based on zip codes the big providers give them. That means even though Verizon has DSL in the nearest town to me, they only cover about 200 houses within 1/4 mile -- everyone else outside that is considered covered by the FCC even though they can't get service. I can't get a RUS Grant because my coverage area is already "covered" by another provider.
Not sure if anyone's mentioned it yet but SpywareBlaster has worked well for me.
I use it at my work on a few hundred computers in a school district. For some reason teachers refuse to use anything except IE, so I had to install SpywareBlaster to at least try and prevent it
from being installed in the first place. From what I've seen, none of the computers I've installed it on have gotten any spyware.
I've been a ham for many years (and I too shower, am under 30, and heck, I'm even married!) BPL is just a stupid idea all around. All antennas are basically some form or another of unshielded cable that's been bent to form a certain transmission pattern favorable to whatever frequency you're transmitting on. Albeit not a great transmitter, power lines are elevated unshielded cables, which look suspiciously like antennas covering the entire US.
Now, although I shudder at the thought of BPL's horrible interferrence, I do have a plan if it gets implemented. [evil grin]BPL works on unlicensed spectrum, under part 15. Under the part 15 rules, someone transmitting licensed under part 97 (amateur radio) can legally cause interferrence to the part 15 device. So basically, I'm legally allowed to pump my 2000 watts and not care if everyone's BPL stops working.[/evil grin]
I went to UTD several years ago (before they rolled out wireless,) but I still have several friends that live there, so I'm pretty familiar with their setup.
First of all, the housing on campus isn't run by the university at all. It's a "privately managed community... and conveniently located on the UTD campus." http://www.utdallas.edu/student/slife/housing/
Previous to the university's wireless rollout, residents were unable to connect to the university's network directly and had to rely solely on standard residential broadband (cable/DSL.) After enough pressure, the university caved in and started setting up their own wireless system using standard, unlicensed 802.11b. Each building has a panel antenna mounted on the roof for a backhaul to the campus (about 1/2 a mile away in parts.) That runs down to smaller panel antennas mounted in the center hallway of each floor. They use bluesocket centrally for access control.
Now theoretically you should be able to walk around the apartments and stay connected to their access points. It obviously never works like that, and even sitting in the same place you're subject to very frequent disconnects.
I'm still rather mixed as to how I feel about this overall. I can understand the interference issue with the university-sponsored network, but it was their choice to use unlicensed spectrum. Under FCC Part 15 there is no legal action they can take. I think its ridiculous they didn't even plan on a flood of unlicensed devices migrating in.
Puts on black hat. On the plus side, it was quite amusing to sit in any apartment and see 10-15 access points at once, only a small fraction being encrypted.
wtf? I made a LEGIBLE and valid comment and get 0:Redundant although IT WAS NOT STATED BEFORE I MADE THE COMMENT. Who the hell modded that comment? Then a reply to mine gets 3? Good grief, I'll spend more time on kuro5hin.
I don't think m$ totally lost out on this one unfortunately. After quickly visiting SimDesk's site, I noticed they were using asp. Sure enough, after a quick lookup:
The site simdesk.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
Oh wow, this is GREAT news for me! I've been a radio operator for about 7 years now and tried to dabble a bit in the "data links" before the days of 802.11 at all. Just recently I had a renewed interest with all of the 802.11 products but was having a hard time integrating them into ham radio more. Woohoo!
Okay, so what... I already live in Dallas and have Sprint's Vision plan... that gets me on average 128kbits/sec including when I plug my phone into my laptop. I don't really think I'm going to rush out and get one of the other carriers for an extra few k/sec.
I work for a smaller school district as a PC/network tech. The company we usually purchase computers from was using fujitsu hard drives because they were dirt cheap. After about 6 months or so of normal use, we started having failures. It started to be several a week and as of now we've probably replaced 20-30% of them with western digitals. Until I saw this story I wasn't sure if it was just us getting a bad batch or if Fujitsu was FUBAR'ed. Good to know others are going through our same woes.
Okay, I don't know if I'm just being stubborn or what, but I cannot seem to understand their service plans.
On their service plans page they have stated "Unlimited" PCS vision with all of the new vision plans. Then someplace else I found (cannot recall the link) there is a 20MB/month limit.
My question is: if I switch to one of the new vision plans, get a nice vision phone, slap the usb adapter on there and start surfing away (albeit not as my main connection, just light use,) are they going to turn around and royally rape me if I hit a limit? Or is it one of those "Free for 3 months then 20MB limit after that" kind of thing? Just trying to get any help from anyone that may have this service already.
I run a web development company and also maintain a few moderate-trafficed web sites.
One thing i've noticed about developing is that IE tends to allow HTML that is not properly formatted and sort of just re-form it so it renders properly. When that happens all of the other browsers die, and you get a load of vomit on your screen.
Half of the time I develop using Mozilla only, load it up in IE later on and realize that it doesn't work worth crap. (even when it is 100% HTML 4.01 compliant.)
I think that IE actually needs to require more properly-formatted HTML to stop all of these lazy web developers from writing sloppy html. For now I'll stick to Konqueror... the only scrollbar coloring browser that i've seen besides IE (=
The current stats for one of my main web sites are: Explorer 84.1% Netscape 4.85% Mozilla 1.56%
I laugh in the face of the government... the whole idea behind this tax is to "reimburse" artists for millions of dollars they're supposedly losing by us listening to their music and buying their cds.
I run a fairly small stream for a Christian club in the Dallas area. As far as I know, we are the only club I have seen to do this. We make a live recording of each band when they perform and then broadcast it over the Internet. Each band is required to sign a legal document saying they allow us to broadcast their music, royalty free, over the Internet without any fees or dues paid to them. Most of the bands that we showcase are independent, unsigned artists. This way local artists still have a chance to get their music heard and still give **AA and CARP the finger.
I hope other people try this same thing in different areas. If the bands agree, just have them sign a legal document saying you are not liable for any dues or payment paid to them. Also be sure to include the fact that the contract may be broken at any time by either party. That way they know its not a lifelong sell-your-soul agreement.
If anyone wants a copy of the form I made, use the contact form from the website linked above./me waits and hopes my server doesn't die...
I help out a small Christian club in the Dallas area http://uprm.net by adminning an online radio stream. The majority of the bands that come to play are self-signed bands without a contract. For us to broadcast them on our site we just have them sign a contract excempting us from past, present, and future implications by laws requiring us to pay royalties. It seems to be working out well so far, I just don't know if it would stand up to a cluster of RIAA lawyers... oh well. Just my thoughts.
You'd better believe we're complaining about it.... I live in the north dallas area and I used to be able to get 900k/sec steady (read: _steady_, not bursting). So for me its quite a dramatic decrease to go from 900k/sec to 180k/sec:((
I am one of only 2 technicians in the school district I work for and just happen to have extensive linux knowledge/experience. The problem here is the other way around though, trying to convince other people that linux isn't just "some OS only those really smart people use." Plus getting _teachers_ to try to learn a different interface is worse than trying to get a squirrel to do the polka.
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What about Wireless ISPs? I run one in Texas and give my customers ~40ms pings to nearly peering point in Dallas. The bandwidth may be slow and expensive compared to cable/dsl providers in large cities, but the only other alternatives are dial-up or satellite. My customers also enjoy the fact that I'm a local small business that lives down the road. They can call me up and ask me a question personally and not have to worry about getting shunted to a large call center in a foreign country.
There are thousands of Wireless ISPs around the country helping to provide service to everyone who the big telcos don't think they can profit enough from. Look hard enough and I bet there's already a WISP servicing your area.
The biggest issue is how federal funding is handed out to rural ISPs. The FCC determines broadband coverage based on zip codes the big providers give them. That means even though Verizon has DSL in the nearest town to me, they only cover about 200 houses within 1/4 mile -- everyone else outside that is considered covered by the FCC even though they can't get service. I can't get a RUS Grant because my coverage area is already "covered" by another provider.
My 10d arrives in a few hours... now I'm glad I didn't get the Nikon D70!
Wouldn't ever work... microsoft already spoiled that one.
Vonage already offers softphone service. Although it wasn't designed for use on a PDA, of course the guys over at engadget had to make it work.
I use it at my work on a few hundred computers in a school district. For some reason teachers refuse to use anything except IE, so I had to install SpywareBlaster to at least try and prevent it from being installed in the first place. From what I've seen, none of the computers I've installed it on have gotten any spyware.
I've been a ham for many years (and I too shower, am under 30, and heck, I'm even married!) BPL is just a stupid idea all around. All antennas are basically some form or another of unshielded cable that's been bent to form a certain transmission pattern favorable to whatever frequency you're transmitting on. Albeit not a great transmitter, power lines are elevated unshielded cables, which look suspiciously like antennas covering the entire US.
Now, although I shudder at the thought of BPL's horrible interferrence, I do have a plan if it gets implemented. [evil grin]BPL works on unlicensed spectrum, under part 15. Under the part 15 rules, someone transmitting licensed under part 97 (amateur radio) can legally cause interferrence to the part 15 device. So basically, I'm legally allowed to pump my 2000 watts and not care if everyone's BPL stops working.[/evil grin]
With that said, its time to go read the new BOFH.
I went to UTD several years ago (before they rolled out wireless,) but I still have several friends that live there, so I'm pretty familiar with their setup.
First of all, the housing on campus isn't run by the university at all. It's a "privately managed community ... and conveniently located on the UTD campus." http://www.utdallas.edu/student/slife/housing/
Previous to the university's wireless rollout, residents were unable to connect to the university's network directly and had to rely solely on standard residential broadband (cable/DSL.) After enough pressure, the university caved in and started setting up their own wireless system using standard, unlicensed 802.11b. Each building has a panel antenna mounted on the roof for a backhaul to the campus (about 1/2 a mile away in parts.) That runs down to smaller panel antennas mounted in the center hallway of each floor. They use bluesocket centrally for access control.
Now theoretically you should be able to walk around the apartments and stay connected to their access points. It obviously never works like that, and even sitting in the same place you're subject to very frequent disconnects.
I'm still rather mixed as to how I feel about this overall. I can understand the interference issue with the university-sponsored network, but it was their choice to use unlicensed spectrum. Under FCC Part 15 there is no legal action they can take. I think its ridiculous they didn't even plan on a flood of unlicensed devices migrating in.
Puts on black hat. On the plus side, it was quite amusing to sit in any apartment and see 10-15 access points at once, only a small fraction being encrypted.
wtf? I made a LEGIBLE and valid comment and get 0:Redundant although IT WAS NOT STATED BEFORE I MADE THE COMMENT. Who the hell modded that comment? Then a reply to mine gets 3? Good grief, I'll spend more time on kuro5hin.
I don't think m$ totally lost out on this one unfortunately. After quickly visiting SimDesk's site, I noticed they were using asp. Sure enough, after a quick lookup:
The site simdesk.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
Is it just me that this strikes as odd?
Oh wow, this is GREAT news for me! I've been a radio operator for about 7 years now and tried to dabble a bit in the "data links" before the days of 802.11 at all. Just recently I had a renewed interest with all of the 802.11 products but was having a hard time integrating them into ham radio more. Woohoo!
Too bad the guys over at The Neo Project didn't have a few of these before they closed their key project...
Mostly mirrored page at:
t urnkey/
:)
http://209.152.2.3/lulu.esm.rochester.edu/kevine/
now play nice with my server
great, I just installed 4.7 last night...
does it count if I was the passenger?
*ducks*
Okay, so what... I already live in Dallas and have Sprint's Vision plan... that gets me on average 128kbits/sec including when I plug my phone into my laptop. I don't really think I'm going to rush out and get one of the other carriers for an extra few k/sec.
I work for a smaller school district as a PC/network tech. The company we usually purchase computers from was using fujitsu hard drives because they were dirt cheap. After about 6 months or so of normal use, we started having failures. It started to be several a week and as of now we've probably replaced 20-30% of them with western digitals. Until I saw this story I wasn't sure if it was just us getting a bad batch or if Fujitsu was FUBAR'ed. Good to know others are going through our same woes.
can you put linux on it?... sorry, had to ask the obvious :P
Okay, I don't know if I'm just being stubborn or what, but I cannot seem to understand their service plans.
On their service plans page they have stated "Unlimited" PCS vision with all of the new vision plans. Then someplace else I found (cannot recall the link) there is a 20MB/month limit.
My question is: if I switch to one of the new vision plans, get a nice vision phone, slap the usb adapter on there and start surfing away (albeit not as my main connection, just light use,) are they going to turn around and royally rape me if I hit a limit? Or is it one of those "Free for 3 months then 20MB limit after that" kind of thing? Just trying to get any help from anyone that may have this service already.
Heh, I'm suprised I haven't heard a joke about the penal system being involved in this yet.
I run a web development company and also maintain a few moderate-trafficed web sites.
One thing i've noticed about developing is that IE tends to allow HTML that is not properly formatted and sort of just re-form it so it renders properly. When that happens all of the other browsers die, and you get a load of vomit on your screen.
Half of the time I develop using Mozilla only, load it up in IE later on and realize that it doesn't work worth crap. (even when it is 100% HTML 4.01 compliant.)
I think that IE actually needs to require more properly-formatted HTML to stop all of these lazy web developers from writing sloppy html. For now I'll stick to Konqueror... the only scrollbar coloring browser that i've seen besides IE (=
The current stats for one of my main web sites are:
Explorer 84.1%
Netscape 4.85%
Mozilla 1.56%
Actually you ended a sentence with a prepositional phrase... who's with the bad grammar now?
I laugh in the face of the government... the whole idea behind this tax is to "reimburse" artists for millions of dollars they're supposedly losing by us listening to their music and buying their cds.
/me waits and hopes my server doesn't die...
I run a fairly small stream for a Christian club in the Dallas area. As far as I know, we are the only club I have seen to do this. We make a live recording of each band when they perform and then broadcast it over the Internet. Each band is required to sign a legal document saying they allow us to broadcast their music, royalty free, over the Internet without any fees or dues paid to them. Most of the bands that we showcase are independent, unsigned artists. This way local artists still have a chance to get their music heard and still give **AA and CARP the finger.
I hope other people try this same thing in different areas. If the bands agree, just have them sign a legal document saying you are not liable for any dues or payment paid to them. Also be sure to include the fact that the contract may be broken at any time by either party. That way they know its not a lifelong sell-your-soul agreement.
If anyone wants a copy of the form I made, use the contact form from the website linked above.
I help out a small Christian club in the Dallas area http://uprm.net by adminning an online radio stream. The majority of the bands that come to play are self-signed bands without a contract. For us to broadcast them on our site we just have them sign a contract excempting us from past, present, and future implications by laws requiring us to pay royalties. It seems to be working out well so far, I just don't know if it would stand up to a cluster of RIAA lawyers... oh well. Just my thoughts.
You'd better believe we're complaining about it.... I live in the north dallas area and I used to be able to get 900k/sec steady (read: _steady_, not bursting). So for me its quite a dramatic decrease to go from 900k/sec to 180k/sec :((
I am one of only 2 technicians in the school district I work for and just happen to have extensive linux knowledge/experience. The problem here is the other way around though, trying to convince other people that linux isn't just "some OS only those really smart people use." Plus getting _teachers_ to try to learn a different interface is worse than trying to get a squirrel to do the polka.