I agree. I have a load balanced connection using two 3m / 384k AT&T DSL lines at work, and a 12m / 1m Charter cable connection at home. The Charter stuff works pretty good for streaming Netflix or Hulu depending on the time of day, but for general purpose web browsing, pages load several times faster on the "slower" DSL. I usually have 100% uptime in 30 days on the DSL. I can't get through a full day without some kind of issue on the cable. I'd have the DSL at home but the Charter cable is the only thing available to me other than 3G, ISDN or satellite. And yes I know the load balance has the advantage of being threaded, but if I unplug one circuit it is still faster.
Linksys, Netgear and D-Link are generally consumer grade equipment (crap)
Try a higher end product like an Engenius ECB-3500 if you desire omnidirectional coverage, or the EOC-2611P for coverage from the sidelines or in a particular direction.
Both models have excellent receivers, and they have up to 600mW of output power. That will punch through a noisy environment. 600mW is 10 times the power that most "consumer" stuff offers, and their receivers are far better.
The ECB-3500 is an indoor model which has two 5dBi antennas with diversity, and the EOC-2611P is an indoor/outdoor model and has a 10dBi panel antenna that is configurable for horizontal or vertical polarization, or diversity between the two.
Either one can be had for under $100.00. I've been using Engenius/Senao gear for a long time and I will say that it is worth three times the money.
Other than biting the bullet and pulling some Cat5, you might consider some different wireless hardware. I've used the WRT54G and found the performance to be dismal compared to high power Engenius stuff that costs about the same. I manage a real 20-24 Mb in A or G mode / WPA2 around the office with ours. Pair that with some sort of traffic shaping to prioritize what's going on (higher priority to media and lowest priority to backups, etc) IPCop maybe?
Pirates will pirate your warez no matter what you do to try to stop them. All these battles do is hurt the consumer by increasing the cost of media and hardware, and piss them off by making them jump through hoops just to watch some shitty movie. Only the lawyers win in the end.
I'll keep watching my old laserdisc collection until these clowns figure it all out.
It is nice to have ownership of my media and have full control over it for about $2.00 per title from Ebay.
At intersections that are not brightly lit by street lighting, the LED traffic signals are completely blinding to drivers at night. I actually find myself closing my eyes because of the glare so that my eyes won't have to readjust for the pitch black road on the other side of the light.
I guess it won't be a problem if the sucker is covered by snow and ice.
Just another stupid greenie wacko thing to piss us off and get us killed.
Highs in the 20's F in Nashville, Tennessee in a few days (home of Al Gore). Average high temp: 46F
It goes exactly half as far before "refueling" as my 1995 GMC half ton with 6.5L turbo diesel can go on a single tank of fuel. The GMC has 250K miles on the ODO and I paid $2900.00 for it last year.
I can buy enough diesel fuel to drive another half million miles for the price of the Tesla even before figuring in the cost of its electricity. LOL
That's with a 14-year old pickup truck. Don't even get me started on the total cost of Volkswagen TDI versus these things. You can't beat dead dinosaurs.
I'm sorry, but is no one ready to call "bullshit" on the claims of going 40 miles on 8 kilowatt hours of electricity from the utility?
8 kilowatts is about 27300 btu, or the same energy contained in a LITER of gasoline.
Also, every time there is a peak demand for heating or cooling, the electric utilities are crying to us to conserve so that things don't start blowing up.
Many utilities are banning tankless electric water heaters simply because the infrastructure cannot handle the load. A tankless water heater is a load similar to what an electric car would place on a circuit (realistically). If these got popular (and they will because there is a sucker born every minute), we'll have a power generation crisis on our hands real quick.
Spare us the bullshit. Make my high mileage car a TDI, please. And keep your hippie electric car out of the left lane and out of its way!
Oh, and one more freakin thing... When will Apple bestow the luxury of being able to cut, copy and paste on the iPhone?
Pretty please, with sugar on top.
Try logging an iPhone or Touch on to a WPA-PSK network with a 63-character random ASCII key without a QWERTY or the ability to copy and paste. It is impossible!
If we could copy and paste, it could be put on a MicroSD card and inserted in the the side of it and voila... Oh, wait a minute... no freakin card reader either. Thanks, guys!
I guess we'll all get that those features when Apple starts putting a second mouse button on its computers, huh?
These are all more reasons why I chose a Blackberry Bold.
Tethering and MMS cost extra on every other device that AT&T provides service for. What makes this one any different?
Like some other posters on this thread, I find it sad that the iPhone is just now getting around to supporting these features.
I recently purchased a Blackberry 9000 (Bold) through AT&T and it does both. I can share my phone's data plan with other devices via USB or Bluetooth. Piece of cake. It does, however, cost an extra $30/mo for the ability to tether it. Sucks, but that is half the cost of a standalone data card.
Also, the author of the story missed the reason that Verizon and the iPhone didn't happen. Verizon is a CDMA carrier, whereas AT&T is GSM. There is no such thing as a CDMA iPhone. Everyone may bitch about AT&T, but they are the only carrier other than T-Mobile in the United States that CAN support the iPhone. AT&T's 3G coverage leaves much to be desired, but it is a hell of a lot better than T-Mobile's. To make things worse, T-Mobile also has no plan that allows tethering of its devices. It is prohibited in the TOS.
Don't get your hopes up for a CDMA version any time soon. The problem with CDMA and the iPhone is that CDMA radios are larger and consume far more power than GSM radios. Think of the battery life that you have with your current iPhone, and cut it in half.
The Motorola RAZR is a prime example of a device that was nice on GSM, but the CDMA versions should have never made it out the door. Once I asked a friend how long the battery lasted in her Verizon RAZR v3. She said "Oh, usually till lunch time". haha!
I did this for a while using a Verizon USB720 (USB dongle, Evdo Rev A). I live in the suburbs of Nashville, TN so service is a little spotty around my home. It takes a little effort to find just the right "sweet spot" to get a good signal to it. I ended up purchasing a Kyocera wireless router that was designed just for the purpose of sharing a mobile broadband card. The Kyocera (made by D-link, so there are D-link variants out there too) has slots to plug in your Express Card or USB modems. Once you set it up, you simply plug in your modem and power it up. A minute later, you have access to multiple computers. It is kind of buggy, but it's nice to have. It even came with a cigarette lighter plug so that it can be used in your vehicle. Plug it all in, toss it on the dash, and you've got internet access just about anywhere.
The service was expensive ($59.99 per month), and wasn't the fastest thing around, but it was the best offering that I could get in the sticks (until the local cable company get their act together). If I put the WAP in just the right place, I could get 900Kbits down / 256 Kbits up, and the latency is slow if you're a gamer, but totally reasonable if you're a more basic user (~80 ms).
When my cable company had an offer for both 5Mbit / 512Kbit cable AND basic TV for $19.99 per month for a year, needless to say I signed up for that.
Still got the mobile stuff though. Comes in handy! The mobile WAP was great when a storm knocked out power at work in the city. I even plugged our four Vonage lines in to it. Conversations were a little laggy, but we still were able to make and receive calls. It sure beat the hell out of having nothing and being dead in the water!:)
If you're a casual user that needs mobile access more than anything it's great. If you are heavy in to gaming or downloading music or videos, leave that to dsl or cable.
Duh. I never said to do anything illegal. You can hook up used equipment and subscribe to service through the satellite providers but you won't be subject to a contract because you own your own stuff. You will be a paying customer like anyone else - you just won't be on the hook for a 2 year lease if you decide after a few months that you do want the crap anymore.
If you are a subscriber, Directv will provide up to date access cards at $20.00 each including next day UPS service to deliver it to you.
I am an SBCA certified satellite installer. I do know what I'm talking about here.
As for DirecTV or Dish Network, you can purchase used stuff off of Ebay, install it yourself and skip the contracts. This is a little more difficult to do with the HD stuff, and quite a bit more expensive, but just a thought. For standard def stuff you could own your own DirecTivo, DIY for less than $150.00 and no contracts. The non-dvr receivers are a dime a dozen.
If you are pursing a fleeing suspect, the last thing you need is 200 pounds mounted on your roof. This would seriously affect the way the cop cruiser handles.
When the U.S. Government is letting millions of illegal aliens cross over from Mexico and live here with impunity, then what the fuck is the point with stopping a few thousand document carrying people getting off of planes from entering the country?
I guess the system exists to give the appearance that the feds actually give a shit.
And then the Pres and Congress wonder why their approval ratings are as small as their shoe sizes...
If the state government attached a 802.11 repeater to every damned State Police cruiser and airplane that they have out raising revenue... uhh... I mean writing traffic citations (and include the fake cruisers as well - yes, they really do have fake damned cop cars that they put on the side of the interstate - uggh!) they'd have every square inch of the friggin' state covered in no time.
I guess now we'll have to buy carbon offset credits now so that we can continue to use Google without pissing off some stupid asswipe hippies.
By my "back of the paper" calculations, Al Gore burns the equivalent of 927 megawatts of energy in fuel every time they fly somewhere to preach to the rest of us why we should be driving some POS econobox hybrid to save the earth from global warming. (Boeing 767 fuel capacity = 23980 US gallons. Kerosene (aka jet fuel) has a BTU capacity of 132000 per gallon. 132000 X 23980 = 3165360000 or 927.35 megawatts.
Let's not forget those Google guys flying around the world in their 767 "company jet", then driving a Prius to somehow help the environment. WTF?
Hypocritical self-righteous bastards. Leave us all the fuck alone!
I have never eaten at Zaxby's. I'm kind of afraid to.
Several months ago, I was dining at a meat n' three next door to my local Zaxby's. While waiting for my order, I looked over at Zaxby's, and read their big roadside sign. It said:
The future of Flash for web content? Hopefully, the future will be that it will D !!! I !!! E !!!
Thank heaven for Firefox and Flashblock. Now I can actually get around OK with my 128K ISDN connect. (I live in the sticks - my choices are ISDN, dialup that connects at 19.2K or satellite)
If Flash would die, and people selling shit on Ebay would bother compressing their pages full of half-megabyte friggin' JPEGs, the world would be a better place:) hahahaha
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. I have a load balanced connection using two 3m / 384k AT&T DSL lines at work, and a 12m / 1m Charter cable connection at home. The Charter stuff works pretty good for streaming Netflix or Hulu depending on the time of day, but for general purpose web browsing, pages load several times faster on the "slower" DSL. I usually have 100% uptime in 30 days on the DSL. I can't get through a full day without some kind of issue on the cable. I'd have the DSL at home but the Charter cable is the only thing available to me other than 3G, ISDN or satellite. And yes I know the load balance has the advantage of being threaded, but if I unplug one circuit it is still faster.
Yeah, I use a Symbian-powered Nokia E71 and laugh at them all
Linksys, Netgear and D-Link are generally consumer grade equipment (crap)
Try a higher end product like an Engenius ECB-3500 if you desire omnidirectional coverage, or the EOC-2611P for coverage from the sidelines or in a particular direction.
Both models have excellent receivers, and they have up to 600mW of output power. That will punch through a noisy environment. 600mW is 10 times the power that most "consumer" stuff offers, and their receivers are far better.
The ECB-3500 is an indoor model which has two 5dBi antennas with diversity, and the EOC-2611P is an indoor/outdoor model and has a 10dBi panel antenna that is configurable for horizontal or vertical polarization, or diversity between the two.
Either one can be had for under $100.00. I've been using Engenius/Senao gear for a long time and I will say that it is worth three times the money.
Other than biting the bullet and pulling some Cat5, you might consider some different wireless hardware. I've used the WRT54G and found the performance to be dismal compared to high power Engenius stuff that costs about the same. I manage a real 20-24 Mb in A or G mode / WPA2 around the office with ours. Pair that with some sort of traffic shaping to prioritize what's going on (higher priority to media and lowest priority to backups, etc) IPCop maybe?
Pirates will pirate your warez no matter what you do to try to stop them. All these battles do is hurt the consumer by increasing the cost of media and hardware, and piss them off by making them jump through hoops just to watch some shitty movie. Only the lawyers win in the end.
I'll keep watching my old laserdisc collection until these clowns figure it all out.
It is nice to have ownership of my media and have full control over it for about $2.00 per title from Ebay.
haha!
At intersections that are not brightly lit by street lighting, the LED traffic signals are completely blinding to drivers at night. I actually find myself closing my eyes because of the glare so that my eyes won't have to readjust for the pitch black road on the other side of the light.
I guess it won't be a problem if the sucker is covered by snow and ice.
Just another stupid greenie wacko thing to piss us off and get us killed.
Highs in the 20's F in Nashville, Tennessee in a few days (home of Al Gore). Average high temp: 46F
Eat me, you Global Warming morons.
It goes exactly half as far before "refueling" as my 1995 GMC half ton with 6.5L turbo diesel can go on a single tank of fuel. The GMC has 250K miles on the ODO and I paid $2900.00 for it last year.
I can buy enough diesel fuel to drive another half million miles for the price of the Tesla even before figuring in the cost of its electricity. LOL
That's with a 14-year old pickup truck. Don't even get me started on the total cost of Volkswagen TDI versus these things. You can't beat dead dinosaurs.
I'm sorry, but is no one ready to call "bullshit" on the claims of going 40 miles on 8 kilowatt hours of electricity from the utility?
8 kilowatts is about 27300 btu, or the same energy contained in a LITER of gasoline.
Also, every time there is a peak demand for heating or cooling, the electric utilities are crying to us to conserve so that things don't start blowing up.
Many utilities are banning tankless electric water heaters simply because the infrastructure cannot handle the load. A tankless water heater is a load similar to what an electric car would place on a circuit (realistically). If these got popular (and they will because there is a sucker born every minute), we'll have a power generation crisis on our hands real quick.
Spare us the bullshit. Make my high mileage car a TDI, please. And keep your hippie electric car out of the left lane and out of its way!
Oh, and one more freakin thing... When will Apple bestow the luxury of being able to cut, copy and paste on the iPhone?
Pretty please, with sugar on top.
Try logging an iPhone or Touch on to a WPA-PSK network with a 63-character random ASCII key without a QWERTY or the ability to copy and paste. It is impossible!
If we could copy and paste, it could be put on a MicroSD card and inserted in the the side of it and voila... Oh, wait a minute... no freakin card reader either. Thanks, guys!
I guess we'll all get that those features when Apple starts putting a second mouse button on its computers, huh?
These are all more reasons why I chose a Blackberry Bold.
Tethering and MMS cost extra on every other device that AT&T provides service for. What makes this one any different?
Like some other posters on this thread, I find it sad that the iPhone is just now getting around to supporting these features.
I recently purchased a Blackberry 9000 (Bold) through AT&T and it does both. I can share my phone's data plan with other devices via USB or Bluetooth. Piece of cake. It does, however, cost an extra $30/mo for the ability to tether it. Sucks, but that is half the cost of a standalone data card.
Also, the author of the story missed the reason that Verizon and the iPhone didn't happen. Verizon is a CDMA carrier, whereas AT&T is GSM. There is no such thing as a CDMA iPhone. Everyone may bitch about AT&T, but they are the only carrier other than T-Mobile in the United States that CAN support the iPhone. AT&T's 3G coverage leaves much to be desired, but it is a hell of a lot better than T-Mobile's. To make things worse, T-Mobile also has no plan that allows tethering of its devices. It is prohibited in the TOS.
Don't get your hopes up for a CDMA version any time soon. The problem with CDMA and the iPhone is that CDMA radios are larger and consume far more power than GSM radios. Think of the battery life that you have with your current iPhone, and cut it in half.
The Motorola RAZR is a prime example of a device that was nice on GSM, but the CDMA versions should have never made it out the door. Once I asked a friend how long the battery lasted in her Verizon RAZR v3. She said "Oh, usually till lunch time". haha!
I did this for a while using a Verizon USB720 (USB dongle, Evdo Rev A). I live in the suburbs of Nashville, TN so service is a little spotty around my home. It takes a little effort to find just the right "sweet spot" to get a good signal to it. I ended up purchasing a Kyocera wireless router that was designed just for the purpose of sharing a mobile broadband card. The Kyocera (made by D-link, so there are D-link variants out there too) has slots to plug in your Express Card or USB modems. Once you set it up, you simply plug in your modem and power it up. A minute later, you have access to multiple computers. It is kind of buggy, but it's nice to have. It even came with a cigarette lighter plug so that it can be used in your vehicle. Plug it all in, toss it on the dash, and you've got internet access just about anywhere.
:)
The service was expensive ($59.99 per month), and wasn't the fastest thing around, but it was the best offering that I could get in the sticks (until the local cable company get their act together). If I put the WAP in just the right place, I could get 900Kbits down / 256 Kbits up, and the latency is slow if you're a gamer, but totally reasonable if you're a more basic user (~80 ms).
When my cable company had an offer for both 5Mbit / 512Kbit cable AND basic TV for $19.99 per month for a year, needless to say I signed up for that.
Still got the mobile stuff though. Comes in handy! The mobile WAP was great when a storm knocked out power at work in the city. I even plugged our four Vonage lines in to it. Conversations were a little laggy, but we still were able to make and receive calls. It sure beat the hell out of having nothing and being dead in the water!
If you're a casual user that needs mobile access more than anything it's great. If you are heavy in to gaming or downloading music or videos, leave that to dsl or cable.
Duh. I never said to do anything illegal. You can hook up used equipment and subscribe to service through the satellite providers but you won't be subject to a contract because you own your own stuff. You will be a paying customer like anyone else - you just won't be on the hook for a 2 year lease if you decide after a few months that you do want the crap anymore.
If you are a subscriber, Directv will provide up to date access cards at $20.00 each including next day UPS service to deliver it to you.
I am an SBCA certified satellite installer. I do know what I'm talking about here.
As for DirecTV or Dish Network, you can purchase used stuff off of Ebay, install it yourself and skip the contracts. This is a little more difficult to do with the HD stuff, and quite a bit more expensive, but just a thought. For standard def stuff you could own your own DirecTivo, DIY for less than $150.00 and no contracts. The non-dvr receivers are a dime a dozen.
If you are pursing a fleeing suspect, the last thing you need is 200 pounds mounted on your roof. This would seriously affect the way the cop cruiser handles.
If we fold, there will be no damn phones. AT&T. We're tired of taking your crap!
When the U.S. Government is letting millions of illegal aliens cross over from Mexico and live here with impunity, then what the fuck is the point with stopping a few thousand document carrying people getting off of planes from entering the country?
I guess the system exists to give the appearance that the feds actually give a shit.
And then the Pres and Congress wonder why their approval ratings are as small as their shoe sizes...
If the state government attached a 802.11 repeater to every damned State Police cruiser and airplane that they have out raising revenue... uhh... I mean writing traffic citations (and include the fake cruisers as well - yes, they really do have fake damned cop cars that they put on the side of the interstate - uggh!) they'd have every square inch of the friggin' state covered in no time.
:)
God, I'm glad I live in Tennessee
And in other news, the Pope is officially Catholic.
-1 Flamebait
I guess now we'll have to buy carbon offset credits now so that we can continue to use Google without pissing off some stupid asswipe hippies.
By my "back of the paper" calculations, Al Gore burns the equivalent of 927 megawatts of energy in fuel every time they fly somewhere to preach to the rest of us why we should be driving some POS econobox hybrid to save the earth from global warming. (Boeing 767 fuel capacity = 23980 US gallons. Kerosene (aka jet fuel) has a BTU capacity of 132000 per gallon. 132000 X 23980 = 3165360000 or 927.35 megawatts.
Let's not forget those Google guys flying around the world in their 767 "company jet", then driving a Prius to somehow help the environment. WTF?
Hypocritical self-righteous bastards. Leave us all the fuck alone!
Deadly dihydrogen monoxide claims another victim!
New Intel ad:
Thank you for calling Eeen-tell, how may I provide you with excellent processor today?
I have never eaten at Zaxby's. I'm kind of afraid to.
Several months ago, I was dining at a meat n' three next door to my local Zaxby's. While waiting for my order, I looked over at Zaxby's, and read their big roadside sign. It said:
"NOW! REAL CHICKEN DINNER ONLY $5.99"
Real chicken? WTF were they serving there before?
The future of Flash for web content? Hopefully, the future will be that it will D !!! I !!! E !!!
:) hahahaha
Thank heaven for Firefox and Flashblock. Now I can actually get around OK with my 128K ISDN connect. (I live in the sticks - my choices are ISDN, dialup that connects at 19.2K or satellite)
If Flash would die, and people selling shit on Ebay would bother compressing their pages full of half-megabyte friggin' JPEGs, the world would be a better place
Yeah, they should have used a Sheik instead. :)
And you think computer tech support is bad now... Just wait until our calls are answered by Mooninites!