The turbos (as used in the WRX) are 2.0s, I believe. Less inertia, easier to get spinning at higher RPMs, and smoother in general.
Of course, since all Subaru engines are horizontally opposed all-aluminum (They were originally designed to be aircraft engines), any Subaru engine is pretty smooth to begin with.:)
I don't have a Subaru myself, but if I had the cash I'd seriously consider a WRX. If Subaru made a mid-to-large sized convertible (Comparable in size/trunkspace/interior room to a Chrysler Sebring) I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
So many things are misinformed/wrong about this...
Most have been posted by others, such as:
a) Digital can be in the 800 MHz band (same as analog) in addition to 1.9 GHz, and most of Verizon's CDMA network is low-band. 1.9 GHz is used because we ran out of 800 MHz spectrum.
b) Analog typically takes 3x as much power. Digital is good for the handset battery and good for your head. Digital phones peak at 200 mW, analogs are 600 mW for handsets, and some portables are 3W units. Analog is actually better for the provider power consumption wise - Analog FM signals can be amplified with around 70-80% efficiency or more, as opposed to around 14% for the absolute latest CDMA amplifiers. (FM signals do not need a linear amplifier, while CDMA requires an ultra-linear amplifier.)
c) RF cannot directly harm your body. (i.e. changing DNA nucleotides) The only way RF can harm your body is by heating it. Who cares if 1.9 GHz is close to 2.4 GHz? It's 200 milliwatts, which will cause negligible heating even if it is more efficiently absorbed than 800 MHz radiation. If RF were that dangerous, half of my coworkers would be dead after 10+ years of developing microwave transmitters and amplifiers. Yes, you have to be careful, and 45W of microwave directly into your body can do serious damage, but 200 milliwatts can't do diddly, even if you directly touch the antenna.
d) The author is severely wrong about quality vs. signal strength with analog vs. digital. Even at 4 bars of signal, an analog signal will have static. At 1-2, it will be almost unintelligible. I can get crystal-clear connections at 1 bar of signal, sometimes even 0 (i.e. on the verge of losing a connection) with my CDMA phone.
I don't remember the details, but 2-3 years ago, there was a guy with three or four patents related to either imaging or fonts. He explicitly granted a license to use the patent to anyone who wished to use it in a program that was covered by one of a few eligible Open Source licenses, including the GPL.
This doesn't count as non-enforcement - He has specifically granted the license to certain people for use in certain programs. (i.e. if you want to write a GPL program, feel free to use the patent. If you want to use it in a closed-source program, you'd better negotiate a licensing agreement to use the patent.)
"They simply have no idea on how many viewers will see it, and have no way to prove it."
How is this (Except for Nielsen ratings, which only provide statistics on what percentage of people is watching a given show, not how many people are watching in absolute numbers) any different from broadcast TV (Or non-PPV cable/satellite channels for that matter?)
Content gets transmitted, it goes to the void, and there is no feedback.
Radio stations have a way to get around this lack of feedback - Care to guess why they run contests on a regular basis? Keeping listeners is only a small part of the reason they run contests. Getting statistics on number of listeners compared to other radio stations is much more important.
I believe that the Wiebetech devices are Oxford-based, just like almost all other Firewire enclosures.
But the OX911 chipset has an onboard ARM processor, so ATA-6 support can be added by changing the firmware. This is the main difference between Wiebetech's bridges and other OX911 bridges.
That said, from all I've heard, the Wiebetech bridges are excellent (albeit very expensive) - And pretty much one of the only choices if you want more than 137GB to be accessible.
I would not reccommend a bus-powered enclosure unless it also has support for an external adapter - Some HDs will overload even the best 1394 powered ports, and bus-powered drives won't work with machines that have 4-pin ports (like most laptops)
CDMA2000 1xRTT = 2.5G (144 kilobits with a 300ish kilobit extension available) Rev 0 and Rev A are the two subdivisions of RTT I believe, Rev 0 being the 144 kilobit version and A being the 320ish kilobit upgrade) CDMA2000 1xEV-DO = 3G (Megabit speeds)
Official 2.5G/3G extensions to TDMA, or more specifically D-AMPS (which AT&T and Cingular used to use) -> Null. (i.e. there are none)
Official 2.5G extension to GSM (Also a TDMA-based system) = GPRS Official 3G extension to GSM = UMTS (CDMA-based, ZERO technical relation to 2G GSM. i.e. no seamless upgrade path that doesn't involve buying new spectrum and replacing all phones)
Official 2.5G extension to cdmaOne (Known most often as simply CDMA) = CDMA2000 1xRTT Official 3G extension to cdmaOne = CDMA2000 1xEV-DO All three are both officially and technically related (cdmaOne was designed with future expandability in mind), and as such CDMA2000 rollouts do not need additional spectrum, and do not require customers to immediately purchase new phones even if they just want to stay with basic voice service. Conversely, CDMA2000 phones work on CDMA networks that haven't yet been upgraded from cdmaOne.
1xEV-DO is what's being rolled out in Korea, 1xRTT is old hat there. 1xRTT or 1xEV-DO is also what KDDI, DoCoMo's main competitor in Japan is doing. KDDI's CDMA2000 rollout has gone much more smoothly than Japan's - Thanks to handsets with horrible battery life and numerous technical problems, UMTS has dragged DoCoMo's name through the mud in Japan. 1xRTT is also the 2.5G service being rolled out by Sprint and Verizon Wireless (Vision and Express Network respectively)
No, but there is also no TDMA->GSM->UMTS upgrade path.
Heh, you can't even call that an upgrade path - They're three completely different technologies, the only relation between GSM and UMTS being political (i.e. UMTS is the "official" 3G version of GSM), not technical.
Essentially, GSM is a dead end. There is no upgrade path from GSM to either of the competing 3G standards.
BTW, yes there IS a cdmaOne->CDMA2000 1xRTT->CDMA2000 1xEV-DO upgrade path. It's quite seamless - Portions of Verizon's network are now 1xRTT capable and my cdmaOne phone has no problem with it. When I upgrade to a CDMA2000-capable phone, it will have no problem in the boonies where Verizon has no reason whatsoever to upgrade their towers to 1xRTT capability.
Um, UMTS and GSM cannot interoperate with each other. Unless you mean "field-upgradable" as meaning "Drive out to tower, remove old equipment, and install new equipment, shutting down old service", there is NO upgrade path whatsoever from GSM to UMTS. GSM uses a TDMA scheme at 1.9 GHz (or 1.8, depending on country), or around 800-900 MHz. UMTS uses a CDMA scheme at 2.1 GHz. There is no technical relationship whatsoever between the two technologies. As a result, if a carrier wants to roll out UMTS, they have to roll out an entire new network essentially from scratch, because the new phones won't work with the old towers.
Also, all of the GSM equipment providers, while well-established, have no experience with CDMA. As a result, UMTS handsets are having the same problems (heat, battery life, etc) that Qualcomm and the other "classic" CDMA companies solved years ago.
Last but not lease, CDMA2000 (both 1xRTT which gives 140-300ish kilobit speeds and 1xEV-DO which gives megabit speeds) IS backwards-compatible with cdmaOne. A CDMA2000 handset will work with a cdmaOne tower and vice versa. (See Verizon Wireless - They have a partial CDMA2000 rollout, but people with old handsets have no problem on the new network, and people who get CDMA2000-capable handsets won't have the handset become useless where Verizon hasn't upgraded yet.)
CDMA2000 lets network providers upgrade as demand dictates, UMTS requires them to upgrade everything at once.
Most likely the only difference in this case between a 2.5G phone (1xRTT is 2.5G, not 3G) and a 2G phone/service is the PRL (Preferred Roaming List).
Essentially, this tells the phone which towers it should be connecting to in each individual area.
Old phones' PRLs can usually be updated automatically (Not sure exactly how old - But any phone less than 2-3 years old, maybe more). On a Verizon network, dialing *228 and then selecting option 2 will update your PRL.
That said - Sprint's coverage sucks. If you want good coverage, get Verizon. Yes, their plans are more expensive, but you get what you pay for.
I'm not quite sure if this really belongs on Slashdot... It is, after all, not much more than a glorified whine.
That said:
The author seems to have neglected the megainflation that I have heard plagues EQ, thanks to a combonation of exploits in the economy and macroing. This is probably the main reason I'm glad I'm playing DAoC instead of EQ.
I think EQ will prove to be just a beta for MMORPGs to come. (Well, UO initially did, EQ improved on that, and then come EQ's successors). Dark Age of Camelot, which I play, seems to have taken a lot of the best elements of EQ, while removing its flaws.
Customer Support: Biggest negative about DAoC - It is a bit better than EQ's, but still leaves much to be desired. Mythic does sometimes put in highly demanded features, but in other cases sees fit to completely ignore a poll that says 80%+ of players want a particular feature, without even commenting on why they don't want to implement it.
Economy: DAoC has zero inflation. A guild can go from rich to flat broke in 2 weeks just by claiming a frontier keep. Guess that needs some explaining, so now to explain how DAoC makes gameplay a lot more enjoyable long-term.
In EQ, it appears there are two types of servers - Standard servers where you can't attack any other players, and PvP servers where you can attack anyone. Standard servers - They get boring pretty quickly. PvP - Lots of cheaters and getting flattened by the hardcore players. DAoC is halfway between the two - The game is split into three realms. You can't attack anyone from your own realm, but it's open season on the other two. Each realm has a frontier with small castles (keeps), and there are rewards for killing people from other realms (realm points) and capturing keeps (Access to a high-level dungeon with above average loot/XP per mob and power/strength relics). This allows you to level to 50 peacefully, and then go out and start flattening other players.
Keep doors take wood to upgrade/repair. Wood costs LOTS of money... As a result, DAoC has no inflation. (There are also no ways a macroer can make quick cash, since not a single item sells for more than the cost of its ingredients.)
Some servers have worse "uber guild" attitudes than others. But even on the worst servers attitude-wise, players from smaller guilds are almost always welcome in small hunting groups and RvR raids.
Thanks to recent patches, almost any item in the game can be crafted. Thanks to this, there isn't intense competition over loot drops, because people can customize their own weapons/armor complete with stat bonuses. (At a price, of course...)
There's an upcoming game called EVE that is going to have an insanely complex and intricate economy, where it's entirely possible to progress without any violence whatsoever. It should prove interesting if it lives up to the hype.
From all I've heard about SOE's track record, I'm not so sure if SWG will live up to its hype...
No comparison to 802.11
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· Score: 2
a) 2.5W = 2.5 times the FCC legal limit for 802.11
Also, thy were probably using a very high-gain antenna on top of that 2.5W of transmit.
Last but not least - They were almost surely using CW (or *MAYBE* PSK31) - Which have bandwidths measured in *hertz* not megahertz.
The closest comparison to this would be taking a magnetron from a microwave, putting it into a feedhorn, and using that to communicate.
(Actually, hams DO things like this - Use a PLL to clean up the magnetron's signal, and then use it with a big dish for EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) work)
Why don't I ever have mod points when I need them?
The device, while so far light on specs, is marketed as an amplifier, not as a repeater. From Linksys' product page - "The Linksys Wireless Signal Booster piggybacks onto your Linksys Wireless Access Point (or Wireless Access Point Router)"
Repeaters don't "Piggyback" on the AP. They're placed elsewhere.
Also, if you look at the picture, esp. the enlarged one on buy.com's product page, you'll see that the booster is stacked on top of an AP in the pictures - WITH COAX RUNNING FROM THE AP TO THE AMP. Also confirmed on Linksys' product page - "To install, just stack the Wireless Signal Booster on your Access Point, move the antennas to the Booster, and attach the Booster's twin cables to the Access Point -- no drivers or modifications to your setup are necessary."
I haven't seen any specs, but I have a feeling this doesn't emit at the FCC max.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not anywhere close to the power output of some of the $300-400 range of bidirectional amps - I can't find specs on Linksys' website, but I wouldn't be surprised if this only boosted the signal to 100-200 mW. Legal limit into an isotropic antenna (or is it a dipole?) is 1W.
Also, FCC regs on the EIRP are a bit odd - There isn't an exact fixed limit on EIRP, i.e. for every 3 dB of antenna gain you add, you don't have to drop transmit power by 3 dB - It's only 1 or 2 dB or power you're required to drop.
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/page12.html has specific info.
+30 dBm max output at the product's connector +36 dBm max EIRP for multipoint connections For fixed point-to-point connections, the PEP of the transmitter must be reduced 1 dBm for every 3 dB of antenna gain beyond 6 dB.
i.e. with a 6 dB antenna, you may run 30 dBm (1W) output power, for an EIRP of 36 dBm. With a 9 dB antenna, you must drop to 29 dBm output, for an EIRP of 38.
At 20 dBm output (100 mW), you may run 36 dB of gain At 23 dBm output (200 mW), you may run 33 dB of gain
If the max output of this amp is only 20-23 dBm as I suspect, then not even the best Pringles antenna won't be able to push it beyond the legal limit. Only a large high-quality dish will have a chance. (33 dBi is a LOT of gain. The largest parabolic antenna at http://www.fab-corp.com/ only has 24 dBi of gain)
To the user, it may appear full-duplex because it switches between transmit/receive extremely quickly, but it's not full-duplex, just like 10 or 100baseT on a shared hub is not full duplex but without extensive benchmarking in a high-load situation, the user can't tell that it isn't FDX.
Do a search for N9ZIA - The guy is a bit nuts, but has done a LOT of 802.11 hacking, including some major mods including bidirectional amp ideas for Proxim's 802.11 precursor products. (Not 802.11, but very similar)
Signal to noise vs. receiver sensitivity
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· Score: 2
What you're ignoring here is that the receiver has a limit on its sensitivity - So that even if it is receiving a signal with a good SNR, if that signal is too weak, it will be below the noise floor of the receiver itself.
Adding a preamp boosts that signal. Yes, it amplifies the noise, but it will bring the signal above the receivers' internal noise floor. The most important factor in the noise performance of a receiver is the noise figure of the very first gain/loss stage after the receive antenna. Put in a low-noise gain stage here and the NF of the entire system drops. (This is why satellite receivers have a preamp at the dish, not at the receiver at the other end of the coax, and why broadcast TV amps should be at the antenna, BEFORE the coax run)
WLAN receivers (especially budget ones like Linksys, D-Link, and almost any mainstream Prism2/2.5/3 implementation) usually don't have the best receive sensitivity because a good preamp at 2.4 GHz costs $$$. This preamp is a cheap way around that problem.
If you want a good example of why a preamp will help you - Use Kismet (a passive receive-only monitor) with: a) A Prism-based card b) An Orinoco card c) A Cisco card
You'll notice that given almost identical antenna designs and identical signals at the receive location, the Prism-based card has horrible receive sensitivity, the Orinoco is INCREDIBLY good (compared to the Prism), and the Cisco is even better. (Not as much improvement as Orinoco vs. Prism, but still noticeable)
Note: High-end Prism-based cards like the Demarctech ReliaWave are exceptions. The Reliawave beats Orinocos and even Ciscos I believe.
So you can get a LOT of receive performance improvement with just a transmit power amp/receive preamp on one end. Especially when the receiver in the AP isn't particularly hot. (I think most APs are better than cards, but at the card end, you'll see a lot more benefits from adding a preamp to a Prism based card than to an Orinoco or Cisco card, since the Prism has the worst receiver and as I mentioned before, the very first gain stage is the most important.)
Well, maybe for Microsoft and their love for bloatware, it is, but in general, interpreted languages are NOT the solution.
Interpreted = slow. Period. Even with nifty stuff like Java JIT compilers and such, Java is still slow and bloated. I remember the Java version of AOL Instant Messenger - It could drive a machine with 256M of RAM into swapspace without lifting a finger. Yes, that was a particularly badly coded craplet, but I have yet to see ANY Java applet/application that could compare in speed/small footprint to a C program (or even C++) program that did the same thing.
And in this day and age, we are returning to having to return to small, efficient code thanks to embedded devices such as PDAs.
All it takes is a little bit of competence and a few extra utilities to check (and even prevent) buffer overflow vulnerabilities from occuring. I don't remember the exact name, but there's even a preprocessor for GCC that will check for vulnerable code and fix it.
Unless you can config your phone to ONLY accept incoming messages forwarded via sneakemail, this won't help the user one bit - This spam will simply bypass the sneakemail account and go right to his phone.
Yes, it's a useful way to give out an SMS contact address without giving out your phone's direct address, which you can revoke if it starts receiving spam. But once spam starts coming directly to the phone, you're screwed.
And it's not the user's fault in this case - He didn't do anything to sign up for these spams, it happens that he has inherited the spam that a former user (to whom it was likely not spam) had.
Some people find Guinness WAY too bitter, even if they like darker (Stouts/porters) beers. (I'm one of these people) - My favorite beers are all stouts and porters, but I can't stand Guinness. It's just not that good of a stout...
http://www.spambouncer.org/ - Procmail-based, also includes this feature. Also easy to rip out the bounce subroutine and integrated it with your own recipes if you wish, as I have.
I've seen at least two people suggest GPS receivers, and one suggest a WWV receiver.
These both aren't going to work - Most likely his machines are in a place where he is NOT going to be allowed to run a serial or antenna cable up to the roof of the building. GPS signals can NOT pass through the roof of a building (they have trouble even passing through trees), and most structures that hosting companies use use quite a bit of metal in their construction, so even WWV isn't going to get inside.
Using a GPS receiver is a good solution for a home user - NMEA-capable receivers are cheap (As little as $35 for the old Rand-McNally StreetFinder units for Palm IIIs on eBay, if they're still available) and accurate to within a second at least. But it's not a solution for anyone who doesn't own the building their server is located in.
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Where are my mod points when I need em'...
Does anyone notice the parallels between this and the PC world?
i.e. manufacturers tuning hardware drivers to give "false" results on specific benchmarks?
The normally aspirated Imprezas are 2.5s.
:)
The turbos (as used in the WRX) are 2.0s, I believe. Less inertia, easier to get spinning at higher RPMs, and smoother in general.
Of course, since all Subaru engines are horizontally opposed all-aluminum (They were originally designed to be aircraft engines), any Subaru engine is pretty smooth to begin with.
I don't have a Subaru myself, but if I had the cash I'd seriously consider a WRX. If Subaru made a mid-to-large sized convertible (Comparable in size/trunkspace/interior room to a Chrysler Sebring) I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
So many things are misinformed/wrong about this...
Most have been posted by others, such as:
a) Digital can be in the 800 MHz band (same as analog) in addition to 1.9 GHz, and most of Verizon's CDMA network is low-band. 1.9 GHz is used because we ran out of 800 MHz spectrum.
b) Analog typically takes 3x as much power. Digital is good for the handset battery and good for your head. Digital phones peak at 200 mW, analogs are 600 mW for handsets, and some portables are 3W units. Analog is actually better for the provider power consumption wise - Analog FM signals can be amplified with around 70-80% efficiency or more, as opposed to around 14% for the absolute latest CDMA amplifiers. (FM signals do not need a linear amplifier, while CDMA requires an ultra-linear amplifier.)
c) RF cannot directly harm your body. (i.e. changing DNA nucleotides) The only way RF can harm your body is by heating it. Who cares if 1.9 GHz is close to 2.4 GHz? It's 200 milliwatts, which will cause negligible heating even if it is more efficiently absorbed than 800 MHz radiation. If RF were that dangerous, half of my coworkers would be dead after 10+ years of developing microwave transmitters and amplifiers. Yes, you have to be careful, and 45W of microwave directly into your body can do serious damage, but 200 milliwatts can't do diddly, even if you directly touch the antenna.
d) The author is severely wrong about quality vs. signal strength with analog vs. digital. Even at 4 bars of signal, an analog signal will have static. At 1-2, it will be almost unintelligible. I can get crystal-clear connections at 1 bar of signal, sometimes even 0 (i.e. on the verge of losing a connection) with my CDMA phone.
I don't remember the details, but 2-3 years ago, there was a guy with three or four patents related to either imaging or fonts. He explicitly granted a license to use the patent to anyone who wished to use it in a program that was covered by one of a few eligible Open Source licenses, including the GPL.
This doesn't count as non-enforcement - He has specifically granted the license to certain people for use in certain programs. (i.e. if you want to write a GPL program, feel free to use the patent. If you want to use it in a closed-source program, you'd better negotiate a licensing agreement to use the patent.)
"They simply have no idea on how many viewers will see it, and have no way to prove it."
How is this (Except for Nielsen ratings, which only provide statistics on what percentage of people is watching a given show, not how many people are watching in absolute numbers) any different from broadcast TV (Or non-PPV cable/satellite channels for that matter?)
Content gets transmitted, it goes to the void, and there is no feedback.
Radio stations have a way to get around this lack of feedback - Care to guess why they run contests on a regular basis? Keeping listeners is only a small part of the reason they run contests. Getting statistics on number of listeners compared to other radio stations is much more important.
I believe that the Wiebetech devices are Oxford-based, just like almost all other Firewire enclosures.
But the OX911 chipset has an onboard ARM processor, so ATA-6 support can be added by changing the firmware. This is the main difference between Wiebetech's bridges and other OX911 bridges.
That said, from all I've heard, the Wiebetech bridges are excellent (albeit very expensive) - And pretty much one of the only choices if you want more than 137GB to be accessible.
I would not reccommend a bus-powered enclosure unless it also has support for an external adapter - Some HDs will overload even the best 1394 powered ports, and bus-powered drives won't work with machines that have 4-pin ports (like most laptops)
CDMA2000 1xRTT = 2.5G (144 kilobits with a 300ish kilobit extension available) Rev 0 and Rev A are the two subdivisions of RTT I believe, Rev 0 being the 144 kilobit version and A being the 320ish kilobit upgrade)
CDMA2000 1xEV-DO = 3G (Megabit speeds)
Official 2.5G/3G extensions to TDMA, or more specifically D-AMPS (which AT&T and Cingular used to use) -> Null. (i.e. there are none)
Official 2.5G extension to GSM (Also a TDMA-based system) = GPRS
Official 3G extension to GSM = UMTS (CDMA-based, ZERO technical relation to 2G GSM. i.e. no seamless upgrade path that doesn't involve buying new spectrum and replacing all phones)
Official 2.5G extension to cdmaOne (Known most often as simply CDMA) = CDMA2000 1xRTT
Official 3G extension to cdmaOne = CDMA2000 1xEV-DO
All three are both officially and technically related (cdmaOne was designed with future expandability in mind), and as such CDMA2000 rollouts do not need additional spectrum, and do not require customers to immediately purchase new phones even if they just want to stay with basic voice service. Conversely, CDMA2000 phones work on CDMA networks that haven't yet been upgraded from cdmaOne.
1xEV-DO is what's being rolled out in Korea, 1xRTT is old hat there. 1xRTT or 1xEV-DO is also what KDDI, DoCoMo's main competitor in Japan is doing. KDDI's CDMA2000 rollout has gone much more smoothly than Japan's - Thanks to handsets with horrible battery life and numerous technical problems, UMTS has dragged DoCoMo's name through the mud in Japan. 1xRTT is also the 2.5G service being rolled out by Sprint and Verizon Wireless (Vision and Express Network respectively)
No, but there is also no TDMA->GSM->UMTS upgrade path.
Heh, you can't even call that an upgrade path - They're three completely different technologies, the only relation between GSM and UMTS being political (i.e. UMTS is the "official" 3G version of GSM), not technical.
Essentially, GSM is a dead end. There is no upgrade path from GSM to either of the competing 3G standards.
BTW, yes there IS a cdmaOne->CDMA2000 1xRTT->CDMA2000 1xEV-DO upgrade path. It's quite seamless - Portions of Verizon's network are now 1xRTT capable and my cdmaOne phone has no problem with it. When I upgrade to a CDMA2000-capable phone, it will have no problem in the boonies where Verizon has no reason whatsoever to upgrade their towers to 1xRTT capability.
Um, UMTS and GSM cannot interoperate with each other. Unless you mean "field-upgradable" as meaning "Drive out to tower, remove old equipment, and install new equipment, shutting down old service", there is NO upgrade path whatsoever from GSM to UMTS. GSM uses a TDMA scheme at 1.9 GHz (or 1.8, depending on country), or around 800-900 MHz. UMTS uses a CDMA scheme at 2.1 GHz. There is no technical relationship whatsoever between the two technologies. As a result, if a carrier wants to roll out UMTS, they have to roll out an entire new network essentially from scratch, because the new phones won't work with the old towers.
Also, all of the GSM equipment providers, while well-established, have no experience with CDMA. As a result, UMTS handsets are having the same problems (heat, battery life, etc) that Qualcomm and the other "classic" CDMA companies solved years ago.
Last but not lease, CDMA2000 (both 1xRTT which gives 140-300ish kilobit speeds and 1xEV-DO which gives megabit speeds) IS backwards-compatible with cdmaOne. A CDMA2000 handset will work with a cdmaOne tower and vice versa. (See Verizon Wireless - They have a partial CDMA2000 rollout, but people with old handsets have no problem on the new network, and people who get CDMA2000-capable handsets won't have the handset become useless where Verizon hasn't upgraded yet.)
CDMA2000 lets network providers upgrade as demand dictates, UMTS requires them to upgrade everything at once.
Most likely the only difference in this case between a 2.5G phone (1xRTT is 2.5G, not 3G) and a 2G phone/service is the PRL (Preferred Roaming List).
Essentially, this tells the phone which towers it should be connecting to in each individual area.
Old phones' PRLs can usually be updated automatically (Not sure exactly how old - But any phone less than 2-3 years old, maybe more). On a Verizon network, dialing *228 and then selecting option 2 will update your PRL.
That said - Sprint's coverage sucks. If you want good coverage, get Verizon. Yes, their plans are more expensive, but you get what you pay for.
I'm not quite sure if this really belongs on Slashdot... It is, after all, not much more than a glorified whine.
That said:
The author seems to have neglected the megainflation that I have heard plagues EQ, thanks to a combonation of exploits in the economy and macroing. This is probably the main reason I'm glad I'm playing DAoC instead of EQ.
I think EQ will prove to be just a beta for MMORPGs to come. (Well, UO initially did, EQ improved on that, and then come EQ's successors). Dark Age of Camelot, which I play, seems to have taken a lot of the best elements of EQ, while removing its flaws.
Customer Support: Biggest negative about DAoC - It is a bit better than EQ's, but still leaves much to be desired. Mythic does sometimes put in highly demanded features, but in other cases sees fit to completely ignore a poll that says 80%+ of players want a particular feature, without even commenting on why they don't want to implement it.
Economy: DAoC has zero inflation. A guild can go from rich to flat broke in 2 weeks just by claiming a frontier keep. Guess that needs some explaining, so now to explain how DAoC makes gameplay a lot more enjoyable long-term.
In EQ, it appears there are two types of servers - Standard servers where you can't attack any other players, and PvP servers where you can attack anyone. Standard servers - They get boring pretty quickly. PvP - Lots of cheaters and getting flattened by the hardcore players. DAoC is halfway between the two - The game is split into three realms. You can't attack anyone from your own realm, but it's open season on the other two. Each realm has a frontier with small castles (keeps), and there are rewards for killing people from other realms (realm points) and capturing keeps (Access to a high-level dungeon with above average loot/XP per mob and power/strength relics). This allows you to level to 50 peacefully, and then go out and start flattening other players.
Keep doors take wood to upgrade/repair. Wood costs LOTS of money... As a result, DAoC has no inflation. (There are also no ways a macroer can make quick cash, since not a single item sells for more than the cost of its ingredients.)
Some servers have worse "uber guild" attitudes than others. But even on the worst servers attitude-wise, players from smaller guilds are almost always welcome in small hunting groups and RvR raids.
Thanks to recent patches, almost any item in the game can be crafted. Thanks to this, there isn't intense competition over loot drops, because people can customize their own weapons/armor complete with stat bonuses. (At a price, of course...)
There's an upcoming game called EVE that is going to have an insanely complex and intricate economy, where it's entirely possible to progress without any violence whatsoever. It should prove interesting if it lives up to the hype.
From all I've heard about SOE's track record, I'm not so sure if SWG will live up to its hype...
a) 2.5W = 2.5 times the FCC legal limit for 802.11
Also, thy were probably using a very high-gain antenna on top of that 2.5W of transmit.
Last but not least - They were almost surely using CW (or *MAYBE* PSK31) - Which have bandwidths measured in *hertz* not megahertz.
The closest comparison to this would be taking a magnetron from a microwave, putting it into a feedhorn, and using that to communicate.
(Actually, hams DO things like this - Use a PLL to clean up the magnetron's signal, and then use it with a big dish for EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) work)
Why don't I ever have mod points when I need them?
The device, while so far light on specs, is marketed as an amplifier, not as a repeater. From Linksys' product page - "The Linksys Wireless Signal Booster piggybacks onto your Linksys Wireless Access Point (or Wireless Access Point Router)"
Repeaters don't "Piggyback" on the AP. They're placed elsewhere.
Also, if you look at the picture, esp. the enlarged one on buy.com's product page, you'll see that the booster is stacked on top of an AP in the pictures - WITH COAX RUNNING FROM THE AP TO THE AMP. Also confirmed on Linksys' product page - "To install, just stack the Wireless Signal Booster on your Access Point, move the antennas to the Booster, and attach the Booster's twin cables to the Access Point -- no drivers or modifications to your setup are necessary."
I haven't seen any specs, but I have a feeling this doesn't emit at the FCC max.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not anywhere close to the power output of some of the $300-400 range of bidirectional amps - I can't find specs on Linksys' website, but I wouldn't be surprised if this only boosted the signal to 100-200 mW. Legal limit into an isotropic antenna (or is it a dipole?) is 1W.
Also, FCC regs on the EIRP are a bit odd - There isn't an exact fixed limit on EIRP, i.e. for every 3 dB of antenna gain you add, you don't have to drop transmit power by 3 dB - It's only 1 or 2 dB or power you're required to drop.
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/wireless/page12.html has specific info.
+30 dBm max output at the product's connector
+36 dBm max EIRP for multipoint connections
For fixed point-to-point connections, the PEP of the transmitter must be reduced 1 dBm for every 3 dB of antenna gain beyond 6 dB.
i.e. with a 6 dB antenna, you may run 30 dBm (1W) output power, for an EIRP of 36 dBm. With a 9 dB antenna, you must drop to 29 dBm output, for an EIRP of 38.
At 20 dBm output (100 mW), you may run 36 dB of gain
At 23 dBm output (200 mW), you may run 33 dB of gain
If the max output of this amp is only 20-23 dBm as I suspect, then not even the best Pringles antenna won't be able to push it beyond the legal limit. Only a large high-quality dish will have a chance. (33 dBi is a LOT of gain. The largest parabolic antenna at http://www.fab-corp.com/ only has 24 dBi of gain)
802.11 is not full-duplex.
To the user, it may appear full-duplex because it switches between transmit/receive extremely quickly, but it's not full-duplex, just like 10 or 100baseT on a shared hub is not full duplex but without extensive benchmarking in a high-load situation, the user can't tell that it isn't FDX.
Do a search for N9ZIA - The guy is a bit nuts, but has done a LOT of 802.11 hacking, including some major mods including bidirectional amp ideas for Proxim's 802.11 precursor products. (Not 802.11, but very similar)
What you're ignoring here is that the receiver has a limit on its sensitivity - So that even if it is receiving a signal with a good SNR, if that signal is too weak, it will be below the noise floor of the receiver itself.
Adding a preamp boosts that signal. Yes, it amplifies the noise, but it will bring the signal above the receivers' internal noise floor. The most important factor in the noise performance of a receiver is the noise figure of the very first gain/loss stage after the receive antenna. Put in a low-noise gain stage here and the NF of the entire system drops. (This is why satellite receivers have a preamp at the dish, not at the receiver at the other end of the coax, and why broadcast TV amps should be at the antenna, BEFORE the coax run)
WLAN receivers (especially budget ones like Linksys, D-Link, and almost any mainstream Prism2/2.5/3 implementation) usually don't have the best receive sensitivity because a good preamp at 2.4 GHz costs $$$. This preamp is a cheap way around that problem.
If you want a good example of why a preamp will help you - Use Kismet (a passive receive-only monitor) with:
a) A Prism-based card
b) An Orinoco card
c) A Cisco card
You'll notice that given almost identical antenna designs and identical signals at the receive location, the Prism-based card has horrible receive sensitivity, the Orinoco is INCREDIBLY good (compared to the Prism), and the Cisco is even better. (Not as much improvement as Orinoco vs. Prism, but still noticeable)
Note: High-end Prism-based cards like the Demarctech ReliaWave are exceptions. The Reliawave beats Orinocos and even Ciscos I believe.
So you can get a LOT of receive performance improvement with just a transmit power amp/receive preamp on one end. Especially when the receiver in the AP isn't particularly hot. (I think most APs are better than cards, but at the card end, you'll see a lot more benefits from adding a preamp to a Prism based card than to an Orinoco or Cisco card, since the Prism has the worst receiver and as I mentioned before, the very first gain stage is the most important.)
Well, maybe for Microsoft and their love for bloatware, it is, but in general, interpreted languages are NOT the solution.
Interpreted = slow. Period. Even with nifty stuff like Java JIT compilers and such, Java is still slow and bloated. I remember the Java version of AOL Instant Messenger - It could drive a machine with 256M of RAM into swapspace without lifting a finger. Yes, that was a particularly badly coded craplet, but I have yet to see ANY Java applet/application that could compare in speed/small footprint to a C program (or even C++) program that did the same thing.
And in this day and age, we are returning to having to return to small, efficient code thanks to embedded devices such as PDAs.
All it takes is a little bit of competence and a few extra utilities to check (and even prevent) buffer overflow vulnerabilities from occuring. I don't remember the exact name, but there's even a preprocessor for GCC that will check for vulnerable code and fix it.
You have the title wrong - It's 405, not 401.
Just be careful where you host your movie, or it will become 404 - The Movie.
Unless you can config your phone to ONLY accept incoming messages forwarded via sneakemail, this won't help the user one bit - This spam will simply bypass the sneakemail account and go right to his phone.
Yes, it's a useful way to give out an SMS contact address without giving out your phone's direct address, which you can revoke if it starts receiving spam. But once spam starts coming directly to the phone, you're screwed.
And it's not the user's fault in this case - He didn't do anything to sign up for these spams, it happens that he has inherited the spam that a former user (to whom it was likely not spam) had.
Some people find Guinness WAY too bitter, even if they like darker (Stouts/porters) beers. (I'm one of these people) - My favorite beers are all stouts and porters, but I can't stand Guinness. It's just not that good of a stout...
It's obvious that he used your license plate to get your name and address from DMV records.
I suggest you do something similar - Find out if Ralsky owns a black Jaguar.
If his neighbors don't know who he is and what he does for a living, calmly educate them as to wheir the shit in their mailbox is coming from.
http://www.spambouncer.org/ - Procmail-based, also includes this feature. Also easy to rip out the bounce subroutine and integrated it with your own recipes if you wish, as I have.
I've seen at least two people suggest GPS receivers, and one suggest a WWV receiver.
These both aren't going to work - Most likely his machines are in a place where he is NOT going to be allowed to run a serial or antenna cable up to the roof of the building. GPS signals can NOT pass through the roof of a building (they have trouble even passing through trees), and most structures that hosting companies use use quite a bit of metal in their construction, so even WWV isn't going to get inside.
Using a GPS receiver is a good solution for a home user - NMEA-capable receivers are cheap (As little as $35 for the old Rand-McNally StreetFinder units for Palm IIIs on eBay, if they're still available) and accurate to within a second at least. But it's not a solution for anyone who doesn't own the building their server is located in.