From the "It's been done before" department...
on
Broadband Blimps
·
· Score: 1
SpaceData announced a similar service three years ago. This service is for narrow-band communications and focuses on telemetry applications. It is cooler than the SansWire system because the base station is attached to a weather ballon which falls out of the sky and crashes to the ground every couple of days!
Here is a example of an expect script embedded inside a csh script. This is an old idea, but seems to fit the description in the patent -- except that this is not implemented in XML. This example is also slightly more powerful than the example given in the patent because it allows variables in the enclosing script to be referenced by the embedded script. (I originally copied this idea from a script that did this with ftp: an "ftp script" is enclosed inside a shell script)
#!/bin/csh -f # here we set a csh variable called YOWZA set PARM="parameter1" # here the csh echoes a line to the user echo "I am a shell script, with paramater $PARM" # Here we invoke expect and everything until EndExpect is piped to it. # Script: echo.exp # Description: this script echoes a variable from the enclosing # shell script. /usr/local/bin/expect <<EndExpect set expect_variable "hi I am an expect variable\n" send_user "I am an Expect script, my parameter is $PARM ? \n" send_user "my local variable is \$expect_variable" EndExpect
I was surprised to see mention of a long lost
friend in this article. In the late 70's my dad
built a Southwest tech 6800 (see the link in the
article for pictures and details - you had to code
your own OS, and it had a 300 baud modem for the
tape (cassette) drive).
I learned to "program" this machine by reading the
heavy BASIC manual that came with it.
Many (many) years later, when I was in at University (taking, what else but computer science), I realized that this old system would be
cool to hold on to. I called my Dad and asked him
if he still had it. Unfortunately he had just
thrown it out!
Many people have already commented on this,
so here is my two bits:
I would like to use only a digital camera.
I would like to scan all of my current photo colletcion. (& save a bunch of space)
BUT, if I put these on CDs, how long are they
going to last?
Paper can last centuries. Other medium has lasted millenium. Whatever the solution is, it will have to be better than that, or I am not going to throw out those photos!
We could have a lot of this 100 years from now:
"hey kids, lets look at some pictures of when
your great grandparents were born... oops looks
like all those pictures are gone...."
I bought two DWL650+ PC cards last april, one
for a Win98 laptop (P75) and one for
a Linux loptop (P233). After much grief
I was told by Dlink that my Win laptop was too
old (strike one) and there is no Linux support(strike two)! I had to
go to eBay and get a DWL650 for the Win machine
(It works).
I was quite annoyed about the lack of linux support - what is the point?! How hard can it be?
Anyway, I am keen to try out this soln. I hope it works (or that will be strike three for me!)
I like the idea of a "wireless" watch -- especially on those days when I forget my cell phone/pager, or the battery wears out, or there is no coverage...
But, this is nothing new, in fact you can get a watch like this already http://www.skytel.com/products/shop_timex.htm
$99 for the watch and one year of unlimited service.
Oh yeah... the network has already been built and paid for - you can't get much cheaper than that!
Of course this is the "traditional" one-way pager, now a two way pager in a watch - that would be cool! (note, same as above - network already built....).
Slashdot Mirror
SpaceData announced a similar service three years ago. This service is for narrow-band communications and focuses on telemetry applications. It is cooler than the SansWire system because the base station is attached to a weather ballon which falls out of the sky and crashes to the ground every couple of days!
Here is a example of an expect script embedded inside a csh script. This is an old idea, but seems to fit the description in the patent -- except that this is not implemented in XML. This example is also slightly more powerful than the example given in the patent because it allows variables in the enclosing script to be referenced by the embedded script.
(I originally copied this idea from a script that did this with ftp: an "ftp script" is enclosed inside a shell script)
#!/bin/csh -f
# here we set a csh variable called YOWZA
set PARM="parameter1"
# here the csh echoes a line to the user
echo "I am a shell script, with paramater $PARM"
# Here we invoke expect and everything until EndExpect is piped to it.
# Script: echo.exp
# Description: this script echoes a variable from the enclosing
# shell script.
/usr/local/bin/expect <<EndExpect
set expect_variable "hi I am an expect variable\n"
send_user "I am an Expect script, my parameter is $PARM ? \n"
send_user "my local variable is \$expect_variable"
EndExpect
You do not need much of their time, so it may cost you a couple hundred bucks. Think of what it could cost you if you don't do this.
I was surprised to see mention of a long lost friend in this article. In the late 70's my dad built a Southwest tech 6800 (see the link in the article for pictures and details - you had to code your own OS, and it had a 300 baud modem for the tape (cassette) drive). I learned to "program" this machine by reading the heavy BASIC manual that came with it. Many (many) years later, when I was in at University (taking, what else but computer science), I realized that this old system would be cool to hold on to. I called my Dad and asked him if he still had it. Unfortunately he had just thrown it out!
Many people have already commented on this, so here is my two bits: I would like to use only a digital camera. I would like to scan all of my current photo colletcion. (& save a bunch of space) BUT, if I put these on CDs, how long are they going to last? Paper can last centuries. Other medium has lasted millenium. Whatever the solution is, it will have to be better than that, or I am not going to throw out those photos! We could have a lot of this 100 years from now: "hey kids, lets look at some pictures of when your great grandparents were born... oops looks like all those pictures are gone...."
feature: the worlds first moth zapper!
I bought two DWL650+ PC cards last april, one for a Win98 laptop (P75) and one for a Linux loptop (P233). After much grief I was told by Dlink that my Win laptop was too old (strike one) and there is no Linux support(strike two)! I had to go to eBay and get a DWL650 for the Win machine (It works). I was quite annoyed about the lack of linux support - what is the point?! How hard can it be? Anyway, I am keen to try out this soln. I hope it works (or that will be strike three for me!)
I like the idea of a "wireless" watch -- especially on those days when I forget my cell phone/pager, or the battery wears out, or there is no coverage... But, this is nothing new, in fact you can get a watch like this already http://www.skytel.com/products/shop_timex.htm $99 for the watch and one year of unlimited service. Oh yeah... the network has already been built and paid for - you can't get much cheaper than that! Of course this is the "traditional" one-way pager, now a two way pager in a watch - that would be cool! (note, same as above - network already built....).
this sounds kind of like a postage stamp....