How did they find you? I mean, even if they had your MAC address I don't imagine it saying much. I also can't imagine them finding you based on what your Network name was, unless your network name was your actual name or something, (and yes, I've seen wideopen networks whose SSID was the physical address of the owner's house)...
Hmmm... according to FCC article 15, this newspaper just openly and admittingly committed a felony. Just getting an IP address constitutes committing this felony, [snip]
Just getting an IPAddress? To get an IPaddress, you have to ask for one. Is it your fault they gave it to you? That's like if you knock honeywell's front door, and ask if you can come in, and they say, "OK, come on in", and as soon as you step foot in their premises, have you arrested for tresspassing. I suppose you could say, you did have permission, because you obeyed all network protocols, where the server has the right to accept/reject your requests. If the DHCP server gives you an IPAddress, and the DNS server resolves the host names for you, and the HTTP server fetches the documents for you, you did everything with permission;)
Now if they had WEP keys, and an IPSec tunnel, that you had to infiltrate, then thats a different ballgame:) What's this you say, the network was wide open?:)
If your network doesn't at least have a WEP kep, how the hell is someone supposed to differentiate your network from any other wide open hotspot? Perhaps he thought you had a hotspot with convenient network shares to store files:)
Its ok for me to record this weeks episode of friends from tv. Its ok for my neighbor to record this weeks episode of friends also. If next week I miss it, and my neighbor lends me his copy, and I copy it, how the HELL is anyone going to know if I recorded it myself or got it from my neighbor, since I am allowed to record it on my own in the first place???
Technically speaking, if I download the file, I am the one making the copy, not the sharer, who is only providing a means to copy.
This isn't true. TECHNICALLY, the sharer is making the copy, because he is the one copying the bits from his hard drive and sending them on the network. He's not magically giving you his file, and you copy it and send the original back....
A toll road is a fixed cost. What we are talking about here, is not. Its basically auctioning the "priveledge" to drive in the carpool lane. I wouldn't particularly care to drive in Seattle's carpool lanes unless seattle made their carpool lanes look like the ones in LA, where the carpool lane is either completely isolated from the freeway, or there are double yellow lines, to prevent people from pulling into the carpool lane whenever they feel like it. (granted, I know I-5 in seattle has an "express-way" such as this, mostly talking about 520:)
I wish most that seattle had Carpool-Interchanges. In LA, no matter what carpool lane you are in, you can pretty much get on any freeway, without having to cross 10 lanes of traffic. There are also marked carpool entrances/exits for each exit, so you don't have people frantically crossing 10 lanes of traffic, because they don't know when to leave the carpool lane.
Besides, this is about West Coast roads, where toll roads are almost unheard of... The only toll road I know off hand, is the converted toll lane on the 91 freeway in LA. I think there is another one off the 405 near Costa Mesa. But I don't know of any other toll roads on the west coast, except for a handfull of bridges.
Linksys's 802.11g gear is a piece of crap. Its range sucks, and the signal booster is useless. I replaced it with a Netgear WGR614, based on the Intersil Prism GT chipset, and get MUCH MUCH better range and such. A coworker got a Dlink variety, also based on the same chipset, and works equally as well. (Everything was verified with Netstumbler, NetIQ, and various other tests. I tested in both a home and corp environment, with many different brands of APs and client cards)
Linksys's B only AP were pretty good tho. Overall I found the best AP was the Netgear WAB102, because it's second genaration 802.11a Atheros Chipset was awesome. It actually got better range than 802.11b, and much much much better than the first generation 802.11a chipsets. Tomshardware got the same conclusion. Toms hardware says the Netgear AP is the only dualband A/B AP that uses 2nd generation 802.11a. The signal strength was not as great as B, but its throughput was still better at range. For example, with 802.11g even tho I got higher signal strength in my master bedroom, the signal dropoff from the computer room, still resulted in lowered throughput. My 802.11a did not suffer any drop in throughput in non-turbo mode, despite having a "weaker" signal than the B did. At work, both B and A covered the whole floor. But at the opposite end of the building, I was still able to get 14mbit/sec in turbo mode, and 4mbit/sec in non-turbo mode. With B, I was only getting 1mbit/sec at the same location. (These are throughput values)
Anyways, I think his rant was that linksys outsources everything, and isn't consistent. They change chipsets every other day.
(You would think newer==better, but in this case, newer == worse)
Linksys 802.11b cards used Intersil Prism, Prism2, Prism2.5, and Prism3 chipsets, depending on which version you buy.
Their 802.11A/B dualband card used Atheros. Their 802.11B/G uses Broadcom Their 802.11A+G trimode uses Atheros.
I heard Linksys TriMode AP uses Atheros for 802.11A, but Broadcom for 802.11B/G, even though the atheros chipset supports B/G as well. Though I won't give them too much heat about it, because my beloved Netgear WAB102, uses Atmel for B, despite the Atheros in it also supports B.
But they aren't the only guilty party. I heard (unverified), that DLink did the samething. I think the original DWL-620 used an intersil prism2 chipset, but the current one uses Atmel.
And to top it off, the better 802.11g solution offered by Netgear and DLink are both cheaper than Linksys's 802.11g solution. And my DualBand Netgear A/B AP, that is superior to Linksys Dualband A/B AP (which uses 1st generation A), is also cheaper than Linksys's solution.
I also heard that Netgear's upcoming TriMode AP will also still be cheaper than Linksys's TriMode AP. And further, the Netgear TriMode AP, uses Atheros for all three protocols, wheras Linksys uses Atheros for A only, and Broadcom for B/G.
1.) Those rugrats sitting behind me kicking the chair
2.) The lady next to me who keeps sleeping with her head on my shoulder.
3) The guy across the aisle who thinks I'm interested in his conversation.
4.) The screaming baby a few rows over.
5.) Those kids running up and down the aisles getting in everyone's way...
Same at a restaurant. I don't mind if someone is on the phone, so long as their ringer isn't loud and obnoxious. More often then not, I find more people in the restaurant who aren't on the phone, but talk/laugh really loud when talking to members at their own table...
And I can't believe how many times I go to see a movie at the theatre, and some moron brings their baby, and doesn't bother to leave when he/she starts crying. I also hate those kids that think its funny to point a laser pointer at the screen.
Believe me, chatting on the phone is the least of my irritations....:)
Notice the LED says 133. The owner did this cause he was bored, and said it actually only runs at 100. The rest of the site is also quite hilarious....
I have many many different WLAN cards here. I even have generic Prism2 cards. Believe me, I found the AP to be more the culprit when it came to range, then the WLAN card did.
And I have a Linksys Signal Booster, and found it to be worthless. I attached it to both a B only Linksys Router, as well as the B/G router, and found that it did not increase my range one bit. If anything, maybe 5 feet, here at the office. I couldn't even get past the conference rooms. With the Netgear WAB102, the Intel Gateway, and the Netgear WGR614, I'm able to get coverage on pretty much the entire floor.
The problem with amplifiers, is that while it amplifies transmit power and receive sensitivity, it also amplifies noise. So if you have a crappy receiver/transmitter and/or a crappy antenna to begin with, you'll still have crappy reception. Its like plugging in a 250 watt amp into a Radio Shack brand stereo, and then expecting it to rival sound produced by a Harmon Kardon.
And what do you mean an apple add? I posted the link to the whitepaper, because it talked about the myths about 5ghz range sucking, and showed maps of an actual home environment and office environment, and tested several APs. I don't even think apple has an AP that uses an Atheros chipset, (though I could be wrong, I mostly only read the stuff that directly compared the Atheros 5001/5001X+ chipsets to the Atheros5000, Intersil PrismGT, and Broadcom chipsets)
Anyways, sorry about your problems with your wireless setup. I have a bunch of Orinoco Silver cards, and I never noticed any better range with them. Though I do like the card, because it has an external antenna jack.
If you have a Linksys 802.11 b/g router (WRT54G), then you have boughten a piece of crap. No seriously, that router has terrible range. I should know, I used to have one. I verified on the net, that is was the case. I exchanged it for a Netgear WGR614, which uses an Intersil PrismGT chipset, and my coworker bought the DLink variety, which also uses the Intersil PrismGT chipset. It gets MUCH MUCH better range.
With an Intel 802.11b gateway that I used to have, I would get -65db signal in my master bedroom, and XP would report VeryGood connection. With the Linksys G router, I got -77db, and XP reported Poor signal connection. When I connected the Netgear G router, I got -57db and XP reported Excellent signal strength. I borrowed a friends signal booster, and connected it to the linksys, and found it to be useless.
I ran NetIQ and did some through-put tests. With the Linksys, I got 17mbit/sec when I was in mixed mode, and 20mbit/sec in G only. On the netgear, I always got 21mbit/sec. With the 802.11b, I got 4.5mbit/sec...
802.11a:
With an AP based on the Atheros 5000 chipset, I got crappy signal at our work. Thanks to Tomshardware, I bought a Netgear WAB102, which is the ONLY A/B dualband AP that uses the second generation A, (Atheros 5001) chipset. This thing is awesome. At our work, its coverage actually exceeds that of B.
At home, I get -59 to -65db in the master bedroom on A. However, the cool thing is the throughput. In non-turbo mode, I get a constant 24mbit/sec in the master bedroom. On the G router, it seemed to be more sensitive to the signal strength, as it would always connect at 36mbit/sec or 48mbit/sec, consequently, I only get 21mbit/sec throughput if I was in the computer room. In my bedroom I got between 14-18mbit/sec.
With A however, I got 24. And I enabled Turbo mode, and it connected at 108mbit/sec, and I measured a constant 35-40mbit/sec everywhere in the house! and thats a two story house, with the AP upstairs.
Keep in mind the "b" radio in the Netgear WAB102 is a piece of crap Atmel chipset. Everytime I "accidently" rest my arm on my card, I lose connectivity. I found my Prism2/Prism3 cards would go into 1mbit/sec mode, and never recover, unless I unplug the card, and plug it back in. The A radio in it on the otherhand is truly awesome.
In the end, I returned my G router, and kept the Netgear WAB102 dual band A/B, and reconnected my Intel gateway for the B, and use Netgear for A.
Atheros has an white paper they posted talking about range and such of A and B, and testing results in an actual home environment and corp environment. Its rather interesting. I verified it myself at our office here with my own testing with various A and B equipment along with Netstumbler and NetIQ, and it is truly suprising.
So anyways, most range problems can be attributed to a shoddy AP, not the "technology". I mean, I've tested the Netgear WAB102, Netgear WGR614, Linksys WRT54G, Linksys WAP54G, Intel ProWireless 5000AP, Intel Gateway, DLink DI-624, and the Linksys BEFW11S4. I tested with Orinoco Silver, Linksys WPC11V3, Linksys WPC54G, Linksys WPC55AG(my fav card), Cisco Aironet 350, Linksys WUSB11 v2.6, and assorted generic Prism2 cards, so I can safely say I know what I'm talking about;)
(I work in a lab and have lots of wireless toys, if you guys can't tell:)
The professor? Chances are with this precedent, the RIAA will just demand all the names of people they _think_ are trading illegal files. Knowing the ISP, they'll probably hand over the names, and disconnect your service in the process for violating TOS. The ISPs will just assume everything is true.
Since the RIAA didn't even bother CHECKING the files first, who knows how many people are going to get screwed this way. I'm sure there are Pro-RIAA zealots out there who PURPOSEFULLY put out fakes. Well I guess there is a brighter side. Those guys will get nailed too:)
At my school (USC), I think we had a good mix of both. My prof even said that if you are majoring in CS so you can write code, then you need to drop out, and go to ITT Tech or equivelent. He said, he was going to turn us into "Computer Scientists" and "Software Architects", etc etc.
Anyways, we focused on different languages, and focused on theory. However, almost every class had a lab associated with it, that involved hands on stuff... A friend across town at UCLA was telling me that they didn't have such labs, and consequently a lot of classes were all theory.
I did find it odd tho that my school and berkely (don't know about the ivys), were the only ones (in CA anyways) that required so much EE in a CS curriculum.
Was our school wierd for starting you out on a full regiment of engineering courses? Most of my friends at other schools didn't start engineering courses till their 2nd or 3rd year... I guess you can say I didn't have as many "liberal arts" classes but oh well....
Keep in mind this was 6-10 years ago. The popular browser at the time was mosaic and lynx. Netscape just came out end of my freshmen year. Besides, being an Engineering student, most all of the documents contained diagrams, graphs, schematics, etc....
But this was not a note taking class. There were plenty of other classes where I had to take my own notes, record the lecture, etc. I just happened to like this prof's teaching style. (He also happened to be the chair of the EE board)
The point of this class was to teach us EE. To use a very bad analogy, its like when you give a PowerPoint presentation at work. Do you distribute the foils before hand, or do you make everyone there take notes as you go over the slides?
While its not like he was a hard @ss about it. I'm sure most people ended up jotting some notes in the class notes every once in a while. I still have mine tho, and I didn't write much in it. Most of the stuff I wrote in it, was afterwards, when I was studying for exams and such.
I especially got a laugh at how everyone used MS Word to write the paper. They all submitted their comments to each other with fancy little fonts in pretty little colors and such. Yet nobody had the brains to use the _tracking_ feature, which would've been easier/cleaner/etc... Everyone ends up spending lots of their time removing comments out of their paper, reformatting it, etc, when a "delete comment", or "accept changes", etc would've been easier:)
What I find works well for group projects (papers, particularly) is to appoint a group "editor". They will actually do the writing. As a group, you all get together and determine the outline and form of the document, and what you want to accomplish. Then, divide up the portions of the outline and assign the specific research to each person - but keeping it lighter on the editor - they'll work harder in the end.
This is what ends up happening tho... The outline ends up being too vague. Each person gets one segment of the outline. They take the outline literally, and come up with a paragraph or two for each item, and send it to the "editor".
The editor than bitches that you didn't explain why x, y, and z, you only said what is x, y, and z. You then grumble about how the outline sucked, because it was only one level deep, and didn't contain sub-bullets for any topics, etc.
Editor then pastes everything together, and the guy that had the "conclusion", basically ends up writing the paper, becuase his conclusion is like 2 pages long, becuase it needs to "summarize the thesis", and tie the evidence together, blah blah blah.
In the end, the paper looks like crap, and nobody learned anything.:)
because if you missed 3 or more classes, it was an automatic F. And he had lots of class participation, and he actually made the class fun, with how he tought it, the examples he used etc.
Besides, the notes were just that... Notes.... Not nearly as detailed as the lectures. By themselves, they were useless. But once you attend the lectures and associate them with the examples he gives and such, it becomes crystal clear.
I didn't say this was yesterday. This was almost 10 years ago. Good luck finding that crap on the net. A lot of people didn't even have web sites back then, and mosaic and lynx were the browser of choice....
All my CS sylabusses and crap, were all in PDF, cause it was the only way to get everyone to be able to read it. Everyone probably had access to a windows boxen somewhere, but lots of times we were in the computer labs doing our assignments, and we want to reference really quick, and we want to be able to read it from the Sun Station or something. A bunch of people had linux boxes as their primary computers as well..
That or the people that did have windows, didn't have the same version of Word you had, etc.
I only got irritated when I was doing my EE simulations, and the thing would only output PostScript files, or the prof wanted you to turn in your drawings is postscript format, to save paper, etc etc. I got to know GhostView really well:)
The wife is taking UnivOfPhoenix, and I think some of the classes are laid out rediculously. I think too much time is spent "doing" things, and no time is spent actually learning anything.
For example, they have these teams "collobarate" to write a paper. The team lead, gets to write the introduction, each person gets a specific section in the body, and another poor sap gets the conclusion. What a stupid way to write a paper. The team lead is on easy streat writing a one paragraph into, each person writes something so so so so specific, as to not learn/grasp anything, or even learn how to structure an essay, and the schmuch who got stuck with the conclusion, ends up spending hours trying to cohesively tie everything together. In the end, you wind up with a paper that is poorly written, has no logical flow, etc etc. I'm all for group projects, but it seems they like to work in groups for things that don't need to be worked on in groups, and don't work in groups for things that make sense to be worked on in groups, etc.
And all the communication is done by usenet newsgroups? This has got to be one of the poorest mediums for this type of work. I hear people complain how the servers are slow, don't update correctly, lose postings,etc. And people are having a hard time even tracking threads/converstations and such, cause people keep attaching to the wrong thread, etc...
Some of my EE classes in college were also distance learning classes, but we had cameras set up in the class, etc. Then again, I had a special prof. He didn't believe in note taking, cause he said every minute you spend writing notes, is another minute you aren't paying attention. So he had all the notes, guides, tables, etc all written before hand, and organized into a big fat binder, that you had to buy from the bookstore. That and he was very interactive, but now I'm getting off topic...
Anyways, for the money that UofPhoenix charges, I think its a big rip. I think they should've had pre-recorded and/or live lectures in real/windows media/name your favorite format, and you watch those, and the assignments are assigned there, etc. Use instant messaging for live chats/lab sessions/one-one etc etc. Hell, even use email threads for conversations or turning in assignments, using PGP or equivelent.
Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
How many times did Yosemite Sam shoot Bugs, and yet he never died? How many times did Porky/Daffy/Wile E Coyote, fall off a cliff, and live? How many times had jerry hit tom in the head with a hammer with nothing bad happening? How many times did gargamel try to boil the smurfs in a pot of hot water? How many times was daffy roasted in an oven? I remember nobody ever died in the A-Team despite all the violence.
By today's standards I should've assumed that violence doesn't hurt anybody, yet I seemed to have turned out ok. I think we aren't giving kids enough credit, we seem to think they are too stupid to figure anything out...
all those "violent/explicit" video games probably do little more, then teach you how to click the mouse really well:) Probably safe to say, it won't teach you how to really knock someone off.
Slashdot Mirror
How did they find you? I mean, even if they had your MAC address I don't imagine it saying much. I also can't imagine them finding you based on what your Network name was, unless your network name was your actual name or something, (and yes, I've seen wideopen networks whose SSID was the physical address of the owner's house)...
Hmmm... according to FCC article 15, this newspaper just openly and admittingly committed a felony. Just getting an IP address constitutes committing this felony, [snip]
;)
:) What's this you say, the network was wide open? :)
Just getting an IPAddress? To get an IPaddress, you have to ask for one. Is it your fault they gave it to you? That's like if you knock honeywell's front door, and ask if you can come in, and they say, "OK, come on in", and as soon as you step foot in their premises, have you arrested for tresspassing. I suppose you could say, you did have permission, because you obeyed all network protocols, where the server has the right to accept/reject your requests. If the DHCP server gives you an IPAddress, and the DNS server resolves the host names for you, and the HTTP server fetches the documents for you, you did everything with permission
Now if they had WEP keys, and an IPSec tunnel, that you had to infiltrate, then thats a different ballgame
If your network doesn't at least have a WEP kep, how the hell is someone supposed to differentiate your network from any other wide open hotspot? Perhaps he thought you had a hotspot with convenient network shares to store files :)
Its ok for me to record this weeks episode of friends from tv. Its ok for my neighbor to record this weeks episode of friends also. If next week I miss it, and my neighbor lends me his copy, and I copy it, how the HELL is anyone going to know if I recorded it myself or got it from my neighbor, since I am allowed to record it on my own in the first place???
Technically speaking, if I download the file, I am the one making the copy, not the sharer, who is only providing a means to copy.
This isn't true. TECHNICALLY, the sharer is making the copy, because he is the one copying the bits from his hard drive and sending them on the network. He's not magically giving you his file, and you copy it and send the original back....
A toll road is a fixed cost. What we are talking about here, is not. Its basically auctioning the "priveledge" to drive in the carpool lane. I wouldn't particularly care to drive in Seattle's carpool lanes unless seattle made their carpool lanes look like the ones in LA, where the carpool lane is either completely isolated from the freeway, or there are double yellow lines, to prevent people from pulling into the carpool lane whenever they feel like it. (granted, I know I-5 in seattle has an "express-way" such as this, mostly talking about 520 :)
I wish most that seattle had Carpool-Interchanges. In LA, no matter what carpool lane you are in, you can pretty much get on any freeway, without having to cross 10 lanes of traffic. There are also marked carpool entrances/exits for each exit, so you don't have people frantically crossing 10 lanes of traffic, because they don't know when to leave the carpool lane.
Besides, this is about West Coast roads, where toll roads are almost unheard of... The only toll road I know off hand, is the converted toll lane on the 91 freeway in LA. I think there is another one off the 405 near Costa Mesa. But I don't know of any other toll roads on the west coast, except for a handfull of bridges.
Linksys's 802.11g gear is a piece of crap. Its range sucks, and the signal booster is useless. I replaced it with a Netgear WGR614, based on the Intersil Prism GT chipset, and get MUCH MUCH better range and such. A coworker got a Dlink variety, also based on the same chipset, and works equally as well. (Everything was verified with Netstumbler, NetIQ, and various other tests. I tested in both a home and corp environment, with many different brands of APs and client cards)
Linksys's B only AP were pretty good tho. Overall I found the best AP was the Netgear WAB102, because it's second genaration 802.11a Atheros Chipset was awesome. It actually got better range than 802.11b, and much much much better than the first generation 802.11a chipsets. Tomshardware got the same conclusion. Toms hardware says the Netgear AP is the only dualband A/B AP that uses 2nd generation 802.11a.
The signal strength was not as great as B, but its throughput was still better at range. For example, with 802.11g even tho I got higher signal strength in my master bedroom, the signal dropoff from the computer room, still resulted in lowered throughput. My 802.11a did not suffer any drop in throughput in non-turbo mode, despite having a "weaker" signal than the B did. At work, both B and A covered the whole floor. But at the opposite end of the building, I was still able to get 14mbit/sec in turbo mode, and 4mbit/sec in non-turbo mode. With B, I was only getting 1mbit/sec at the same location. (These are throughput values)
Anyways, I think his rant was that linksys outsources everything, and isn't consistent. They change chipsets every other day.
For example:
WUSB11 v2.5 uses a Prism 2.5 chipset
WUSB11 v2.6 uses Atmel garbage.
(You would think newer==better, but in this case, newer == worse)
Linksys 802.11b cards used Intersil Prism, Prism2, Prism2.5, and Prism3 chipsets, depending on which version you buy.
Their 802.11A/B dualband card used Atheros.
Their 802.11B/G uses Broadcom
Their 802.11A+G trimode uses Atheros.
I heard Linksys TriMode AP uses Atheros for 802.11A, but Broadcom for 802.11B/G, even though the atheros chipset supports B/G as well. Though I won't give them too much heat about it, because my beloved Netgear WAB102, uses Atmel for B, despite the Atheros in it also supports B.
But they aren't the only guilty party. I heard (unverified), that DLink did the samething. I think the original DWL-620 used an intersil prism2 chipset, but the current one uses Atmel.
And to top it off, the better 802.11g solution offered by Netgear and DLink are both cheaper than Linksys's 802.11g solution. And my DualBand Netgear A/B AP, that is superior to Linksys Dualband A/B AP (which uses 1st generation A), is also cheaper than Linksys's solution.
I also heard that Netgear's upcoming TriMode AP will also still be cheaper than Linksys's TriMode AP. And further, the Netgear TriMode AP, uses Atheros for all three protocols, wheras Linksys uses Atheros for A only, and Broadcom for B/G.
"Minor" anomalies? A 5 degree heading error puts you about 300 miles off at the end of a cross-country flight.
Are you saying all those air-traffic-controller guys you pass in the process won't notice you deviating off course?
I get more irritated at:
:)
1.) Those rugrats sitting behind me kicking the chair
2.) The lady next to me who keeps sleeping with her head on my shoulder.
3) The guy across the aisle who thinks I'm interested in his conversation.
4.) The screaming baby a few rows over.
5.) Those kids running up and down the aisles getting in everyone's way...
Same at a restaurant. I don't mind if someone is on the phone, so long as their ringer isn't loud and obnoxious. More often then not, I find more people in the restaurant who aren't on the phone, but talk/laugh really loud when talking to members at their own table...
And I can't believe how many times I go to see a movie at the theatre, and some moron brings their baby, and doesn't bother to leave when he/she starts crying. I also hate those kids that think its funny to point a laser pointer at the screen.
Believe me, chatting on the phone is the least of my irritations....
See here
Notice the LED says 133. The owner did this cause he was bored, and said it actually only runs at 100. The rest of the site is also quite hilarious....
I have many many different WLAN cards here. I even have generic Prism2 cards. Believe me, I found the AP to be more the culprit when it came to range, then the WLAN card did.
And I have a Linksys Signal Booster, and found it to be worthless. I attached it to both a B only Linksys Router, as well as the B/G router, and found that it did not increase my range one bit. If anything, maybe 5 feet, here at the office. I couldn't even get past the conference rooms. With the Netgear WAB102, the Intel Gateway, and the Netgear WGR614, I'm able to get coverage on pretty much the entire floor.
The problem with amplifiers, is that while it amplifies transmit power and receive sensitivity, it also amplifies noise. So if you have a crappy receiver/transmitter and/or a crappy antenna to begin with, you'll still have crappy reception. Its like plugging in a 250 watt amp into a Radio Shack brand stereo, and then expecting it to rival sound produced by a Harmon Kardon.
And what do you mean an apple add? I posted the link to the whitepaper, because it talked about the myths about 5ghz range sucking, and showed maps of an actual home environment and office environment, and tested several APs. I don't even think apple has an AP that uses an Atheros chipset, (though I could be wrong, I mostly only read the stuff that directly compared the Atheros 5001/5001X+ chipsets to the Atheros5000, Intersil PrismGT, and Broadcom chipsets)
Anyways, sorry about your problems with your wireless setup. I have a bunch of Orinoco Silver cards, and I never noticed any better range with them. Though I do like the card, because it has an external antenna jack.
802.11b/g:
;)
:)
If you have a Linksys 802.11 b/g router (WRT54G), then you have boughten a piece of crap. No seriously, that router has terrible range. I should know, I used to have one. I verified on the net, that is was the case. I exchanged it for a Netgear WGR614, which uses an Intersil PrismGT chipset, and my coworker bought the DLink variety, which also uses the Intersil PrismGT chipset. It gets MUCH MUCH better range.
With an Intel 802.11b gateway that I used to have, I would get -65db signal in my master bedroom, and XP would report VeryGood connection. With the Linksys G router, I got -77db, and XP reported Poor signal connection. When I connected the Netgear G router, I got -57db and XP reported Excellent signal strength. I borrowed a friends signal booster, and connected it to the linksys, and found it to be useless.
I ran NetIQ and did some through-put tests. With the Linksys, I got 17mbit/sec when I was in mixed mode, and 20mbit/sec in G only. On the netgear, I always got 21mbit/sec. With the 802.11b, I got 4.5mbit/sec...
802.11a:
With an AP based on the Atheros 5000 chipset, I got crappy signal at our work. Thanks to Tomshardware, I bought a Netgear WAB102, which is the ONLY A/B dualband AP that uses the second generation A, (Atheros 5001) chipset. This thing is awesome. At our work, its coverage actually exceeds that of B.
At home, I get -59 to -65db in the master bedroom on A. However, the cool thing is the throughput. In non-turbo mode, I get a constant 24mbit/sec in the master bedroom. On the G router, it seemed to be more sensitive to the signal strength, as it would always connect at 36mbit/sec or 48mbit/sec, consequently, I only get 21mbit/sec throughput if I was in the computer room. In my bedroom I got between 14-18mbit/sec.
With A however, I got 24. And I enabled Turbo mode, and it connected at 108mbit/sec, and I measured a constant 35-40mbit/sec everywhere in the house! and thats a two story house, with the AP upstairs.
Keep in mind the "b" radio in the Netgear WAB102 is a piece of crap Atmel chipset. Everytime I "accidently" rest my arm on my card, I lose connectivity. I found my Prism2/Prism3 cards would go into 1mbit/sec mode, and never recover, unless I unplug the card, and plug it back in. The A radio in it on the otherhand is truly awesome.
In the end, I returned my G router, and kept the Netgear WAB102 dual band A/B, and reconnected my Intel gateway for the B, and use Netgear for A.
Atheros has an white paper they posted talking about range and such of A and B, and testing results in an actual home environment and corp environment. Its rather interesting. I verified it myself at our office here with my own testing with various A and B equipment along with Netstumbler and NetIQ, and it is truly suprising.
So anyways, most range problems can be attributed to a shoddy AP, not the "technology". I mean, I've tested the Netgear WAB102, Netgear WGR614, Linksys WRT54G, Linksys WAP54G, Intel ProWireless 5000AP, Intel Gateway, DLink DI-624, and the Linksys BEFW11S4. I tested with Orinoco Silver, Linksys WPC11V3, Linksys WPC54G, Linksys WPC55AG(my fav card), Cisco Aironet 350, Linksys WUSB11 v2.6, and assorted generic Prism2 cards, so I can safely say I know what I'm talking about
(I work in a lab and have lots of wireless toys, if you guys can't tell
The professor? Chances are with this precedent, the RIAA will just demand all the names of people they _think_ are trading illegal files. Knowing the ISP, they'll probably hand over the names, and disconnect your service in the process for violating TOS. The ISPs will just assume everything is true.
:)
Since the RIAA didn't even bother CHECKING the files first, who knows how many people are going to get screwed this way. I'm sure there are Pro-RIAA zealots out there who PURPOSEFULLY put out fakes. Well I guess there is a brighter side. Those guys will get nailed too
At my school (USC), I think we had a good mix of both. My prof even said that if you are majoring in CS so you can write code, then you need to drop out, and go to ITT Tech or equivelent. He said, he was going to turn us into "Computer Scientists" and "Software Architects", etc etc.
Anyways, we focused on different languages, and focused on theory. However, almost every class had a lab associated with it, that involved hands on stuff... A friend across town at UCLA was telling me that they didn't have such labs, and consequently a lot of classes were all theory.
I did find it odd tho that my school and berkely (don't know about the ivys), were the only ones (in CA anyways) that required so much EE in a CS curriculum.
Was our school wierd for starting you out on a full regiment of engineering courses? Most of my friends at other schools didn't start engineering courses till their 2nd or 3rd year... I guess you can say I didn't have as many "liberal arts" classes but oh well....
YMMV
I completely agree with you. However, that seems to only make sense for a medium to large project... But for writing a 2 page paper?!!!
Keep in mind this was 6-10 years ago. The popular browser at the time was mosaic and lynx. Netscape just came out end of my freshmen year. Besides, being an Engineering student, most all of the documents contained diagrams, graphs, schematics, etc....
But this was not a note taking class. There were plenty of other classes where I had to take my own notes, record the lecture, etc. I just happened to like this prof's teaching style. (He also happened to be the chair of the EE board)
The point of this class was to teach us EE. To use a very bad analogy, its like when you give a PowerPoint presentation at work. Do you distribute the foils before hand, or do you make everyone there take notes as you go over the slides?
While its not like he was a hard @ss about it. I'm sure most people ended up jotting some notes in the class notes every once in a while. I still have mine tho, and I didn't write much in it. Most of the stuff I wrote in it, was afterwards, when I was studying for exams and such.
I especially got a laugh at how everyone used MS Word to write the paper. They all submitted their comments to each other with fancy little fonts in pretty little colors and such. Yet nobody had the brains to use the _tracking_ feature, which would've been easier/cleaner/etc... Everyone ends up spending lots of their time removing comments out of their paper, reformatting it, etc, when a "delete comment", or "accept changes", etc would've been easier :)
What I find works well for group projects (papers, particularly) is to appoint a group "editor". They will actually do the writing. As a group, you all get together and determine the outline and form of the document, and what you want to accomplish. Then, divide up the portions of the outline and assign the specific research to each person - but keeping it lighter on the editor - they'll work harder in the end.
:)
This is what ends up happening tho... The outline ends up being too vague. Each person gets one segment of the outline. They take the outline literally, and come up with a paragraph or two for each item, and send it to the "editor".
The editor than bitches that you didn't explain why x, y, and z, you only said what is x, y, and z. You then grumble about how the outline sucked, because it was only one level deep, and didn't contain sub-bullets for any topics, etc.
Editor then pastes everything together, and the guy that had the "conclusion", basically ends up writing the paper, becuase his conclusion is like 2 pages long, becuase it needs to "summarize the thesis", and tie the evidence together, blah blah blah.
In the end, the paper looks like crap, and nobody learned anything.
because if you missed 3 or more classes, it was an automatic F. And he had lots of class participation, and he actually made the class fun, with how he tought it, the examples he used etc.
Besides, the notes were just that... Notes.... Not nearly as detailed as the lectures. By themselves, they were useless. But once you attend the lectures and associate them with the examples he gives and such, it becomes crystal clear.
I didn't say this was yesterday. This was almost 10 years ago. Good luck finding that crap on the net. A lot of people didn't even have web sites back then, and mosaic and lynx were the browser of choice....
All my CS sylabusses and crap, were all in PDF, cause it was the only way to get everyone to be able to read it. Everyone probably had access to a windows boxen somewhere, but lots of times we were in the computer labs doing our assignments, and we want to reference really quick, and we want to be able to read it from the Sun Station or something. A bunch of people had linux boxes as their primary computers as well..
:)
That or the people that did have windows, didn't have the same version of Word you had, etc.
I only got irritated when I was doing my EE simulations, and the thing would only output PostScript files, or the prof wanted you to turn in your drawings is postscript format, to save paper, etc etc. I got to know GhostView really well
The wife is taking UnivOfPhoenix, and I think some of the classes are laid out rediculously. I think too much time is spent "doing" things, and no time is spent actually learning anything.
For example, they have these teams "collobarate" to write a paper. The team lead, gets to write the introduction, each person gets a specific section in the body, and another poor sap gets the conclusion. What a stupid way to write a paper. The team lead is on easy streat writing a one paragraph into, each person writes something so so so so specific, as to not learn/grasp anything, or even learn how to structure an essay, and the schmuch who got stuck with the conclusion, ends up spending hours trying to cohesively tie everything together. In the end, you wind up with a paper that is poorly written, has no logical flow, etc etc. I'm all for group projects, but it seems they like to work in groups for things that don't need to be worked on in groups, and don't work in groups for things that make sense to be worked on in groups, etc.
And all the communication is done by usenet newsgroups? This has got to be one of the poorest mediums for this type of work. I hear people complain how the servers are slow, don't update correctly, lose postings,etc. And people are having a hard time even tracking threads/converstations and such, cause people keep attaching to the wrong thread, etc...
Some of my EE classes in college were also distance learning classes, but we had cameras set up in the class, etc. Then again, I had a special prof. He didn't believe in note taking, cause he said every minute you spend writing notes, is another minute you aren't paying attention. So he had all the notes, guides, tables, etc all written before hand, and organized into a big fat binder, that you had to buy from the bookstore. That and he was very interactive, but now I'm getting off topic...
Anyways, for the money that UofPhoenix charges, I think its a big rip. I think they should've had pre-recorded and/or live lectures in real/windows media/name your favorite format, and you watch those, and the assignments are assigned there, etc. Use instant messaging for live chats/lab sessions/one-one etc etc. Hell, even use email threads for conversations or turning in assignments, using PGP or equivelent.
Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
How many times did Yosemite Sam shoot Bugs, and yet he never died? How many times did Porky/Daffy/Wile E Coyote, fall off a cliff, and live? How many times had jerry hit tom in the head with a hammer with nothing bad happening?
How many times did gargamel try to boil the smurfs in a pot of hot water? How many times was daffy roasted in an oven? I remember nobody ever died in the A-Team despite all the violence.
By today's standards I should've assumed that violence doesn't hurt anybody, yet I seemed to have turned out ok. I think we aren't giving kids enough credit, we seem to think they are too stupid to figure anything out...
all those "violent/explicit" video games probably do little more, then teach you how to click the mouse really well :) Probably safe to say, it won't teach you how to really knock someone off.