I've seen this issue come up so many times on Slashdot and I can't figure out why the hell you USians want to jam phones so badly in cinemas and stuff - or are there really that many inconsiderate people in your country who let their phones ring?
I remember this came up a bit in Australia a while back, but it's illegal to jam private spectrum. However, after those reminder notices at the start of each movie the problem went away almost completely. Now we don't even get the reminder notices because people do the right thing. I go to a lot of movies and only remember a phone ringing once in the past year. The person was so embarassed that it's unlikely they will let it happen again.
And I don't know about US technology, but if people can't take a call they discreetly send an SMS, or reject the call. No big deal.
I've been toying with dummynet on my FreeBSD router on my home network, I especially wanted to improve the effectiveness of the Internet connection under higher loads, and looking at the documentation reveals dummynet has huge possibilities with it's level of flexibility and configuration options, and how it integrates with IPFW. However, the documentation lacks real world examples of how dummynet could be used in a practical situation.
That's odd. I've been able to make data calls, send SMS etc, with my Nokia 8210 mobile phone over InfraRed with FreeBSD 4.x. Actually that's very odd for an OS without IR support.
[/sarcasm]
Use the user-land software "birda" available in the package and ports collection.
Firstly, "3G" is not a standard on its own. There is not going to be a shift away from GSM here in Australia, or in many parts of the world.
The term "3G" is nothing more than a stupid marketing term, it explains very little and just confuses people about the technology. Hopefully I can clear up some of this confusing mess of acronyms.
The term GSM however does not refer exclusively to the current "2.xG" digital technology. GSM is constantly evolving, and yes, will become "3G".
The first stage in the GSM "2.5G" evolution towards 3G was GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). This extended GSM to support packet switched data over multiple timeslots (bandwidth per timeslot = 14400bps). It required little change to the GSM network except for software upgrades on the base station and other minor changes to the backbone. Hence GPRS could be called "2.75G". GPRS is implemented by all 3 Australian carriers Optus, Telstra and Vodafone. It is also implemented in many other countries.
The next phase will be EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution). Also called "E-GPRS" this is much like GPRS however it packs more data onto a single timeslot (upto 3 times as much due to improved coding (8 Phase shift keying as opposed to Gaussian Minimal Shift keying) and error correction transferring up to around 3 times as much data - 3 bits per symbol with a raw symbol rate of 270K). This only generally requires hardware changes to the radio interface of the base station. No official term for this yet, call it "almost 3G - 2.9G??".
Unfortunately Optus scrapped its plans to implement this for now, however I've been told some of the newer GSM base stations do support EDGE.
It is important to note that GPRS & EDGE operate in the normal GSM spectrum (thats 900MHz and 1.8GHz here in Aus and most of the world, 1900 and 800 in the US/Canada).
The next part however is to _supplement_ EDGE in other parts of the spectrum. Branded "3GSM", I am not too familiar with the technology however I believe most GSM countries will use a Wideband-CDMA technology (W-CDMA) in the 2.0-2.2 GHz spectrum. Hence, a 3G GSM phone operates on several frequencies using several coding techniques transparently to the user. The different codings are suited to different environments so I guess you have a more reliable service. EDGE can supposedly transfer around as much as 384Kbps whilst W-CDMA can do around 2megabit or so.
EDGE can coexist peacefully with older GPRS and "plain old GSM" transmissions on the same timeslot, so it's backward compatibility will make it look promising.
In Australia GSM will be the way of the future here, however CDMA is still useful for the rural hicks:-) where GSM coverage is lacking. But most Australians live in cities.
You could use the ICQ SMS bridge (people have written code to use these - they support most GSM networks).
Alternatively, depending on your SMS costs, you could build one yourself. You can use almost any phone and connect it to a PC with the appropriate cable, or use IrDA with the more expensive phones. Most of the phones that support IrDA can be controlled using simple AT-style commands over virtual serial console, in addition to the proprietary interfaces specific to each manufacturer. There is a great deal of multi-platform software/libraries available - do a search of "SMS" on Freshmeat. Alternatively, you could write your own software.
The AT-style commands can be found in section 07.07 of the GSM specifications.
Interesting.. I remember I started using IM in 1998 (ICQ) at the age of 13, in the earlier days before ICQ spam etc.
These days Instant Messaging is something everyone I know uses - instead of "call you tonight" it's "talk to you on MSN tonight". 99% of the people I know who use IM in Australia use MSN, and I think that's mostly because "everyone uses it", so, even if they dislike MSN, they use it anyway in order to talk to everyone.
In the last two years my contact list has multiplied by 10, as EVERYONE uses it, probably as much, or MORE than they would use the telephone (most people I know are under 20).
A friend I know from the US who lives here now told me that MSN however was not "the standard" for IM communication there however. He said AOL had the lion's share of the IM users.
I still have an ICQ account and jabber account, however I really don't have a need for them, as there are probably only about 5 contacts in total on these services that aren't on my MSN list.
As I said before it depends where you are. I agree in some places people would go "minidisc?? what's that??"
Jump on a train in Melbourne, open YOUR eyes and you WILL see lots of minidisc players. Yes a lot of them are "rich asian kids" but a lot of them aren't. I know lots of people in my age group (13-19) who own MDs.
That's probably a hardware limitation actually - your system probably only routes a maximum of 4 IRQs to the PCI slots, AGP slots and on-board devices like USB etc.
The software would need Administrator privileges to do that - and it should not have that. It's surprising how much software requires Administrator privileges that DOES NOT NEED IT.
Linux and FreeBSD don't really take advantage of the x86 ability to mark code as executable either. It's not just WinNT. Well technically the non-x86 ports do in the VM code, but the x86-specific VM code simple considers "executable" and "readable" the same thing.
No OSes these days really use segmentation to its slowness and complexity. They prefer to handle everything at page (VM) level, which really differentiates between system (ring0-2) and user (ring3) privilege levels. Also, x86 paging cannot change execution privileges on the code (this goes back to the design elements of the x86).
In order to implement something your suggesting would mean always screwing around the with GDT and LDT, and define regions in the virtual address space for each process for different purposes, in a manner which is inflexible.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen this issue come up so many times on Slashdot and I can't figure out why the hell you USians want to jam phones so badly in cinemas and stuff - or are there really that many inconsiderate people in your country who let their phones ring?
I remember this came up a bit in Australia a while back, but it's illegal to jam private spectrum. However, after those reminder notices at the start of each movie the problem went away almost completely. Now we don't even get the reminder notices because people do the right thing. I go to a lot of movies and only remember a phone ringing once in the past year. The person was so embarassed that it's unlikely they will let it happen again.
And I don't know about US technology, but if people can't take a call they discreetly send an SMS, or reject the call. No big deal.
--quirky
Actually he's in Australia, so he should probably report it to the Telcommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).
Obviously you don't have a sense of humor.
Odd - in this screenshot of Windows XP, the System Properties dialog is showing the version as "Windows 2000 v5.01.2428" - a beta?
Huh? What are you talking about? Get YOUR facts straight
or LCD display - that's a classic one
Yeah, Singtel-Optus has some in Queensland, Australia, too. They actually look quite good.
--quirky
8890 is only dual band - GSM900 and GSM1900 - no GSM1800 support.
I've been toying with dummynet on my FreeBSD router on my home network, I especially wanted to improve the effectiveness of the Internet connection under higher loads, and looking at the documentation reveals dummynet has huge possibilities with it's level of flexibility and configuration options, and how it integrates with IPFW. However, the documentation lacks real world examples of how dummynet could be used in a practical situation.
I found this article is somewhat helpful to me.
--jquirke
Actually AMD will be implementing the so-called DRM technologies in their processors as well. Read carefully in future please.
That's odd. I've been able to make data calls, send SMS etc, with my Nokia 8210 mobile phone over InfraRed with FreeBSD 4.x. Actually that's very odd for an OS without IR support.
[/sarcasm]
Use the user-land software "birda" available in the package and ports collection.
Firstly, "3G" is not a standard on its own. There is not going to be a shift away from GSM here in Australia, or in many parts of the world.
:-) where GSM coverage is lacking. But most Australians live in cities.
The term "3G" is nothing more than a stupid marketing term, it explains very little and just confuses people about the technology. Hopefully I can clear up some of this confusing mess of acronyms.
The term GSM however does not refer exclusively to the current "2.xG" digital technology. GSM is constantly evolving, and yes, will become "3G".
The first stage in the GSM "2.5G" evolution towards 3G was GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). This extended GSM to support packet switched data over multiple timeslots (bandwidth per timeslot = 14400bps). It required little change to the GSM network except for software upgrades on the base station and other minor changes to the backbone. Hence GPRS could be called "2.75G". GPRS is implemented by all 3 Australian carriers Optus, Telstra and Vodafone. It is also implemented in many other countries.
The next phase will be EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution). Also called "E-GPRS" this is much like GPRS however it packs more data onto a single timeslot (upto 3 times as much due to improved coding (8 Phase shift keying as opposed to Gaussian Minimal Shift keying) and error correction transferring up to around 3 times as much data - 3 bits per symbol with a raw symbol rate of 270K). This only generally requires hardware changes to the radio interface of the base station. No official term for this yet, call it "almost 3G - 2.9G??".
Unfortunately Optus scrapped its plans to implement this for now, however I've been told some of the newer GSM base stations do support EDGE.
It is important to note that GPRS & EDGE operate in the normal GSM spectrum (thats 900MHz and 1.8GHz here in Aus and most of the world, 1900 and 800 in the US/Canada).
The next part however is to _supplement_ EDGE in other parts of the spectrum. Branded "3GSM", I am not too familiar with the technology however I believe most GSM countries will use a Wideband-CDMA technology (W-CDMA) in the 2.0-2.2 GHz spectrum. Hence, a 3G GSM phone operates on several frequencies using several coding techniques transparently to the user. The different codings are suited to different environments so I guess you have a more reliable service. EDGE can supposedly transfer around as much as 384Kbps whilst W-CDMA can do around 2megabit or so.
EDGE can coexist peacefully with older GPRS and "plain old GSM" transmissions on the same timeslot, so it's backward compatibility will make it look promising.
In Australia GSM will be the way of the future here, however CDMA is still useful for the rural hicks
Anyway correct me if I've made errors
--JQuirke
You could use the ICQ SMS bridge (people have written code to use these - they support most GSM networks).
Alternatively, depending on your SMS costs, you could build one yourself. You can use almost any phone and connect it to a PC with the appropriate cable, or use IrDA with the more expensive phones. Most of the phones that support IrDA can be controlled using simple AT-style commands over virtual serial console, in addition to the proprietary interfaces specific to each manufacturer. There is a great deal of multi-platform software/libraries available - do a search of "SMS" on Freshmeat. Alternatively, you could write your own software.
The AT-style commands can be found in section 07.07 of the GSM specifications.
--jquirke
Interesting.. I remember I started using IM in 1998 (ICQ) at the age of 13, in the earlier days before ICQ spam etc.
These days Instant Messaging is something everyone I know uses - instead of "call you tonight" it's "talk to you on MSN tonight". 99% of the people I know who use IM in Australia use MSN, and I think that's mostly because "everyone uses it", so, even if they dislike MSN, they use it anyway in order to talk to everyone.
In the last two years my contact list has multiplied by 10, as EVERYONE uses it, probably as much, or MORE than they would use the telephone (most people I know are under 20).
A friend I know from the US who lives here now told me that MSN however was not "the standard" for IM communication there however. He said AOL had the lion's share of the IM users.
I still have an ICQ account and jabber account, however I really don't have a need for them, as there are probably only about 5 contacts in total on these services that aren't on my MSN list.
Not possible to network over USB - the bus is host-based, all transfers are scheduled and controlled by the host.
Actually the Firewire connector was built around the link-cable connector for the Nintendo Gameboy hand-helds.
As they said "it has already been tested by thousands of children world wide".
As I said before it depends where you are. I agree in some places people would go "minidisc?? what's that??"
Jump on a train in Melbourne, open YOUR eyes and you WILL see lots of minidisc players. Yes a lot of them are "rich asian kids" but a lot of them aren't. I know lots of people in my age group (13-19) who own MDs.
It depends largely on the culture you are in.
For example, in certain suburbs you would be able to spot MD players without trying (along with high end phones etc).
Bullshit. You obviously don't live in Australia.
It's not a distribution medium, it's a medium for recording your own stuff.
So which state is this actually going to be built in? NSW or Victoria?
From the article it looks more like NSW.
--JQuirke
Actually the planned Millenium tower in HK is supposedly 1.6km tall.
--jquirke
That's probably a hardware limitation actually - your system probably only routes a maximum of 4 IRQs to the PCI slots, AGP slots and on-board devices like USB etc.
The software would need Administrator privileges to do that - and it should not have that. It's surprising how much software requires Administrator privileges that DOES NOT NEED IT.
Linux and FreeBSD don't really take advantage of the x86 ability to mark code as executable either. It's not just WinNT. Well technically the non-x86 ports do in the VM code, but the x86-specific VM code simple considers "executable" and "readable" the same thing.
No OSes these days really use segmentation to its slowness and complexity. They prefer to handle everything at page (VM) level, which really differentiates between system (ring0-2) and user (ring3) privilege levels. Also, x86 paging cannot change execution privileges on the code (this goes back to the design elements of the x86).
In order to implement something your suggesting would mean always screwing around the with GDT and LDT, and define regions in the virtual address space for each process for different purposes, in a manner which is inflexible.
--JQuirke