I think I heard an audio snippet of this on the radio, and the person was demonstrating how he could not only track the offender, but could also communicate with him, ala "get away from that school your perv!"
He demo'd it... "bleep bleep" - sounded just like a nextel to me.
Linear regulators will work like a resistor, as you say, getting hot and inefficient.
Switching regulators, OTOH, are much more efficient. Basically, they turn the power on and off very quickly and do so to charge a capacitor. They monitor the voltage on the capacitor and adjust the duty cycle to make sure that the voltage on the capacitor stays where you want it to... if the load on the regulator increases, the capacitor will drain quicker and will need a higher duty cycle. Unlike a linear regulator, they aren't "burning off excess voltage to heat".
a good explanation of the simple switcher is here: http://www.national.com/appinfo/power/files/f5.pdf
A Boost switcher can be used to get voltages higher than where you started, if necessary.
With portable electronics I'd be careful about an inverting regulator, since at some point you might be connecting these devices to eachother and you'd want their negative ends to be at the same absolute potential.
To roll your own multi-voltage power supply, you could start with a high power 12-20VDC supply. Some examples would be a 12VDC supply for powering cb's and ham radios, or a PC power supply (if it has the current ability, or if you want small and quiet, an old laptop power supply is a good start. Then run a bunch of switching DC regulators from the single source.
(I know this post sounds really shady, but if you look at my profile you'll see that I'm not just here spamming slashdot, I'm a regular reader and poster)
I have designed a device similar in function to the Cellsocket/Dock-n-Talk/Cidco Merge, but that will work with almost any cellphone instead of the few brands that those devices work with, and will cost a SMALL FRACTION of the price of the those products - I estimate around $25. My device will also work with VoIP softphones, such as Skype, and audio over AIM/iChat/etc.
With my device, the user must perform all dial and answer functions at the cellphone itself, but can use a regular telephone to speak once the call is established. So, you get many of the advantages of the other products for a cheaper price - something I think many Slashdotters would be interested in.
It is not yet available in quantity, but if you are intersted in more information, please email me. A few beta units will be available soon and I'm looking for a few good geeks!
email is: spam-SlashdotPhone with the URL at the top of this post
(Please leave the "spam-" in there)
(I was trying to encode the email address, but/. wouldn't let me!)
Comment spam can be easily stopped by requiring a password - you can even publish the password right on the website so humans see it and bots don't. I did it for moveable type and it was pretty easy
as for referrer spam... it seems to me that the only way referrer spam is fruitful is if your log files are publicly visable and if they are parsed by google (etc), unless I don't understand referrer spam. So why not just remove all links to your logfiles, add a.robots file, and maybe even password protect where your logfiles are stored. I would assume that referrer spambot wouldn't even try to target your page unless it knew your referrer logs were linked off your page...
i'm not talking about somebody putting the phone down when they're about to crash
i'm talking about driving defensively and anticipating stuff - for example "i'm coming up on a merge, hang on one second", or "it looks like this idiot is about to cut me off, hang on"
the problem is that too few people drive defensively, and even fewer people have the self control to realize when they need both hands on the wheel.
the other part of it is that if there's a pending accident, the person MIGHT need to NOT say hang on, and might need to DROP the phone instead of setting it down, just to get his 2nd hand on the wheel in time - I'd love to see a study to see how many people talking on cellphones would actually be smart enough to know when they need to literally just drop the phone.
phones are so socially weird. do you RUN to answer the ringing phone in your house? most people do - isn't that absurd? people just don't naturally understand that it's ok to not answer the phone, or to tell somebody to hang on.
[defensive driving sidenote - If you drive with the proper distance between you and the car in front of you, you should be able to average fewer than 1 use of your brakes every 5 miles on a highway that's moving. But how many people do that?
also check here about how to "eat up" traffic jams - http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.htm l ]
I agree - I've always thought they ought to study if voice quality was related.
My hypothesis is that the main reason there's a difference between talking on the phone and talking to a passenger is that your brain needs to work harder to do some signal processing on the audio from the cellphone. And THAT is where the tunnel vision comes through. This sort of thing could be easily tested by having people have conversations using the same headset, but using different quality voice: cellphone quality (vocoded to ~7Kbps), telephone quality (64Kbps), and (mono) CD quality (700Kbps). Then you have them do the same sorta tasks that this study had them do.
Sure, part of it is that the person on the other end of the phone doesn't know when to pause, BUT if the driver is smart enough to say "hang on" when necessary [and put the phone down if not using hands free], then you can eliminate some of that stuff. That's a BIG BUT though - most people don't "get" that you can stop somebody mid-sentence if you have to.
Hands free devices un-restrict you from turning your head, and make you have 2 hands on the wheel. In general I like the idea behind them, I feel more attenting while using one, but if the headset isn't already attached to the phone and the phone starts ringing, I'm probably MORE of a hazard trying to plug it in while driving.
for political candidates it makes little sense, but I used this method for picking a dentist when I moved to a new area:
1. went to my dental insurance website and found dentists sorted by distance from my home address 2. googled each name until I found the first one with his own website (i.e. not just listed on some "dentists of NJ" website)
The method actually worked very well - the first place with a website turned out to be a dental office that was new, clean, and technologically advanced. USB based x-rays that show up immediately after they are taken, computer based patient management system in the room so the guy can bring up my previous exams and x-rays, etc.
of course, I had nothing else to compare, so website was basically one step above just randomly picking a guy. Vote for president should take a little more thought.
People can give all sorts of examples of the babysitter calling (time isn't critical if she already called the fire department)... As for the doctor on call - most doctors who receive critical calls use PAGERS, because they are much more reliable than cellphones. I wouldn't trust my cellphone to receive a critical call, ever.
As for people calling 911 from within the theater - I have no problem there either. Go run to the ticket counter and have them call.
But here's my problem - let's say there's a medical emergency IN the theater, and I am the emergency responder, but I'm relying on a cellphone for medical command or to call poison control or to call for backup... let's say because this theater is inside some giganta-megamall, my regular radio doesn't work, so my cellphone is my backup. Sure, the theater manager could shut down the blocking system, but is he going to remember to do that?
It only takes 15 hours of instruction until you can solo under the new Sport Pilot rules, full license can be obtained in as little as 20 total hours (minimum).
Private pilot certificate is 20hrs to solo and 40hrs total (minimum).
It takes absolutely no permits or instruction for you to legally climb into your very own (single-seat) ultralight... though you'd be very silly to do it that way. Even if you wanted to get training, you're only looking at 10-15 hours of work before you're on your own.
I didn't RTFA, but the way this was suggested in the past would only allow for CDMA phones.
In CDMA, the cell tells the phone how much transmit power to use, thus the picocell on the plane would dial the power down on all the phones such that they would no longer interfere with ground networks and would reduce the interference with on-board stuff as much as possible.
they claim the MSRP is $49, but if nobody will sell it to you without that adapter then you have to pay at least $100 to get the XM Direct + one of the aftermarket adapters.
In addition to a special rs232 or usb cable, you need a 12V power supply for it and appropriate connectors... easy enough for somebody comfortable walking the aisles of radio shack, but perhaps enough of a "hack" that XM won't care as much... of course, if it is that easy to build the cable, then cable + power supply packages should appear on ebay any day now.
I'm willing to bet that the XM Direct box is EXACTLY the same as the XM PCR, but with a different outer box and connectors. They're both $49.99 and about the same size... Possibly the xmdirect isn't even using USB but is rs232. It makes sense when you realize that the XM USB driver is really just a USB-serial driver.
The $50 "aftermarket adapter" boxes just interpret the control signals from your car stereo and translate them to the same protocol that TimeTrax and the XM PCR software use.
If this is the case, then all you'd need to hook the xm direct up to your PC is a cable with the right ends on it.
Another option is htthost and httport. A little more complicated to setup than SocksCap, but especially good if you only want to use your proxy connection for some apps, but not all, and also if you just want everything to look like (encrypted) HTTP traffic (like if you're at work).
It isn't going to help the original poster with INBOUND connections though, which is obviously his primary concern. For that it seems like VPN/SSH will be necessary... I doubt it's fast enough going all the way out to your friend's cable modem and then back out to the real internet, but it's worth a shot. Otherwise one of the paid VPN providers mentioned in other posts is probably the best option.
"How much does Regional BGAN cost? The satellite IP modem costs about the same as a notebook PC, with costs for transmissions in line with GPRS roaming tariffs."
When I was at the point where just looking at somebody using a mouse made me cringe, I found these. The "Keyboarder" model solved my problem and I was pain free while using them. After 12-18 months I didn't need them anymore. Granted, I didn't have legit full blown CTS, but I had serious pain when typing and mousing.
I found the "softsplits" too tight and hard to type in.
Read the testimonials on their site... worst case, try em out and return em. Only cost is the shipping - the people on the other end of the phone are very friendly.
Slashdot Mirror
thank GOD I now have a command line shortcut for "vagsmell"!
just like tuning into to the neighboring car's FM modulator transmitting their ipod...
He demo'd it... "bleep bleep" - sounded just like a nextel to me.
I'm a little late with this, but:
f
Linear regulators will work like a resistor, as you say, getting hot and inefficient.
Switching regulators, OTOH, are much more efficient. Basically, they turn the power on and off very quickly and do so to charge a capacitor. They monitor the voltage on the capacitor and adjust the duty cycle to make sure that the voltage on the capacitor stays where you want it to... if the load on the regulator increases, the capacitor will drain quicker and will need a higher duty cycle. Unlike a linear regulator, they aren't "burning off excess voltage to heat".
a good explanation of the simple switcher is here: http://www.national.com/appinfo/power/files/f5.pd
A Boost switcher can be used to get voltages higher than where you started, if necessary.
With portable electronics I'd be careful about an inverting regulator, since at some point you might be connecting these devices to eachother and you'd want their negative ends to be at the same absolute potential.
To roll your own multi-voltage power supply, you could start with a high power 12-20VDC supply. Some examples would be a 12VDC supply for powering cb's and ham radios, or a PC power supply (if it has the current ability, or if you want small and quiet, an old laptop power supply is a good start. Then run a bunch of switching DC regulators from the single source.
Homer: Extended warranty? I can't lose!
I've designed a similar, cheaper, and more universal product that will be available soon, I posted about it in a later comment
I've designed a similar, cheaper, and more universal product that will be available soon, I posted about it later in this article
I have designed a device similar in function to the Cellsocket/Dock-n-Talk/Cidco Merge, but that will work with almost any cellphone instead of the few brands that those devices work with, and will cost a SMALL FRACTION of the price of the those products - I estimate around $25. My device will also work with VoIP softphones, such as Skype, and audio over AIM/iChat/etc.
With my device, the user must perform all dial and answer functions at the cellphone itself, but can use a regular telephone to speak once the call is established. So, you get many of the advantages of the other products for a cheaper price - something I think many Slashdotters would be interested in.
It is not yet available in quantity, but if you are intersted in more information, please email me. A few beta units will be available soon and I'm looking for a few good geeks!
email is: spam-SlashdotPhone with the URL at the top of this post (Please leave the "spam-" in there)
(I was trying to encode the email address, but /. wouldn't let me!)
Adam
Comment spam can be easily stopped by requiring a password - you can even publish the password right on the website so humans see it and bots don't. I did it for moveable type and it was pretty easy as for referrer spam... it seems to me that the only way referrer spam is fruitful is if your log files are publicly visable and if they are parsed by google (etc), unless I don't understand referrer spam. So why not just remove all links to your logfiles, add a .robots file, and maybe even password protect where your logfiles are stored. I would assume that referrer spambot wouldn't even try to target your page unless it knew your referrer logs were linked off your page...
i'm not talking about somebody putting the phone down when they're about to crash
m l
i'm talking about driving defensively and anticipating stuff - for example "i'm coming up on a merge, hang on one second", or "it looks like this idiot is about to cut me off, hang on"
the problem is that too few people drive defensively, and even fewer people have the self control to realize when they need both hands on the wheel.
the other part of it is that if there's a pending accident, the person MIGHT need to NOT say hang on, and might need to DROP the phone instead of setting it down, just to get his 2nd hand on the wheel in time - I'd love to see a study to see how many people talking on cellphones would actually be smart enough to know when they need to literally just drop the phone.
phones are so socially weird. do you RUN to answer the ringing phone in your house? most people do - isn't that absurd? people just don't naturally understand that it's ok to not answer the phone, or to tell somebody to hang on.
[defensive driving sidenote - If you drive with the proper distance between you and the car in front of you, you should be able to average fewer than 1 use of your brakes every 5 miles on a highway that's moving. But how many people do that?
also check here about how to "eat up" traffic jams - http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.ht
]
I agree - I've always thought they ought to study if voice quality was related.
My hypothesis is that the main reason there's a difference between talking on the phone and talking to a passenger is that your brain needs to work harder to do some signal processing on the audio from the cellphone. And THAT is where the tunnel vision comes through. This sort of thing could be easily tested by having people have conversations using the same headset, but using different quality voice: cellphone quality (vocoded to ~7Kbps), telephone quality (64Kbps), and (mono) CD quality (700Kbps). Then you have them do the same sorta tasks that this study had them do.
Sure, part of it is that the person on the other end of the phone doesn't know when to pause, BUT if the driver is smart enough to say "hang on" when necessary [and put the phone down if not using hands free], then you can eliminate some of that stuff. That's a BIG BUT though - most people don't "get" that you can stop somebody mid-sentence if you have to.
Hands free devices un-restrict you from turning your head, and make you have 2 hands on the wheel. In general I like the idea behind them, I feel more attenting while using one, but if the headset isn't already attached to the phone and the phone starts ringing, I'm probably MORE of a hazard trying to plug it in while driving.
adam
seems a little redundant
power * time / time = power
900 Watts * hours / day * (1 day / 24 hours) = 37.5 Watts.
Why not just say that to start?
any good geek knows that halloween and christmas are the same thing:
OCT 31 == DEC 25
Joshua: Greetings, Professor Falken.
Stephen Falken: Hello, Joshua.
Joshua: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
for political candidates it makes little sense, but I used this method for picking a dentist when I moved to a new area:
1. went to my dental insurance website and found dentists sorted by distance from my home address
2. googled each name until I found the first one with his own website (i.e. not just listed on some "dentists of NJ" website)
The method actually worked very well - the first place with a website turned out to be a dental office that was new, clean, and technologically advanced. USB based x-rays that show up immediately after they are taken, computer based patient management system in the room so the guy can bring up my previous exams and x-rays, etc.
of course, I had nothing else to compare, so website was basically one step above just randomly picking a guy. Vote for president should take a little more thought.
People can give all sorts of examples of the babysitter calling (time isn't critical if she already called the fire department)... As for the doctor on call - most doctors who receive critical calls use PAGERS, because they are much more reliable than cellphones. I wouldn't trust my cellphone to receive a critical call, ever.
As for people calling 911 from within the theater - I have no problem there either. Go run to the ticket counter and have them call.
But here's my problem - let's say there's a medical emergency IN the theater, and I am the emergency responder, but I'm relying on a cellphone for medical command or to call poison control or to call for backup... let's say because this theater is inside some giganta-megamall, my regular radio doesn't work, so my cellphone is my backup. Sure, the theater manager could shut down the blocking system, but is he going to remember to do that?
not to argue, just for info:
It only takes 15 hours of instruction until you can solo under the new Sport Pilot rules, full license can be obtained in as little as 20 total hours (minimum).
Private pilot certificate is 20hrs to solo and 40hrs total (minimum).
It takes absolutely no permits or instruction for you to legally climb into your very own (single-seat) ultralight... though you'd be very silly to do it that way. Even if you wanted to get training, you're only looking at 10-15 hours of work before you're on your own.
I'm a little late on this thread, but zoneedit.com has worked for me for multiple domain names and subnets...
lately their page seems to have a bug where to login you need to edit the Login link to go to zoneEdit.com instead of zoneDit.com
I didn't RTFA, but the way this was suggested in the past would only allow for CDMA phones.
In CDMA, the cell tells the phone how much transmit power to use, thus the picocell on the plane would dial the power down on all the phones such that they would no longer interfere with ground networks and would reduce the interference with on-board stuff as much as possible.
they claim the MSRP is $49, but if nobody will sell it to you without that adapter then you have to pay at least $100 to get the XM Direct + one of the aftermarket adapters.
In addition to a special rs232 or usb cable, you need a 12V power supply for it and appropriate connectors... easy enough for somebody comfortable walking the aisles of radio shack, but perhaps enough of a "hack" that XM won't care as much... of course, if it is that easy to build the cable, then cable + power supply packages should appear on ebay any day now.
I'm willing to bet that the XM Direct box is EXACTLY the same as the XM PCR, but with a different outer box and connectors. They're both $49.99 and about the same size... Possibly the xmdirect isn't even using USB but is rs232. It makes sense when you realize that the XM USB driver is really just a USB-serial driver.
The $50 "aftermarket adapter" boxes just interpret the control signals from your car stereo and translate them to the same protocol that TimeTrax and the XM PCR software use.
If this is the case, then all you'd need to hook the xm direct up to your PC is a cable with the right ends on it.
It isn't going to help the original poster with INBOUND connections though, which is obviously his primary concern. For that it seems like VPN/SSH will be necessary... I doubt it's fast enough going all the way out to your friend's cable modem and then back out to the real internet, but it's worth a shot. Otherwise one of the paid VPN providers mentioned in other posts is probably the best option.
the landlord can't prevent you from having an antenna, but he CAN prevent you from drilling a hole in the wall.
The original post isn't asking about convincing his landlord to allow the antenna - he's asking how to mount it without damaging the building.
IP service: http://regionalbgan.inmarsat.com/
very portable.
"How much does Regional BGAN cost?
The satellite IP modem costs about the same as a notebook PC, with costs for transmissions in line with GPRS roaming tariffs."
144Kbps
When I was at the point where just looking at somebody using a mouse made me cringe, I found these. The "Keyboarder" model solved my problem and I was pain free while using them. After 12-18 months I didn't need them anymore. Granted, I didn't have legit full blown CTS, but I had serious pain when typing and mousing.
I found the "softsplits" too tight and hard to type in.
Read the testimonials on their site... worst case, try em out and return em. Only cost is the shipping - the people on the other end of the phone are very friendly.
Adam