I've heard that Calgary, Alberta is looking at doing the same. Various companies in town have been asked to present proposals, ranging from cellular companies, telcos, isps, and tech firms. One of the latter I'm familiar with has proposed a cisco mesh solution using new aerospace gear. The plan is to use this network for emergency services and the like, at first anyway. Streaming video form security cameras to a squad car at 120mph for example. That = challenging for 802.11.
lots. during my time in tech support/helpdesk/support of friends I've found several cases where a user buys router, plugs in router, turns on laptop and sees 3 networks called "dlink" "wireless" "linksys" whatever and just pick whatever. Or the software just picks one, often the wrong one. After I lock down their AP with WPA *and* MAC filtering, and put them on their own AP, they are amazed at the speed of having their very own internet connection.
*no one* is to blame in this but the vendors of wireless products. If cars were sold in a state that the doors did not lock unless you had a basic knowledge of auto mechanics and had to open up the hood and adjust a few things, there would be outrage until auto makers stepped up and made doors lock by default, or at the press of a button. Home wireless gear should ship with at least WEP enabled, and the unique WEP key printed in the manual or even right on the unit. Windoze automatically asks for your WEP/WPA/whatever password, it's not hard to look at the thing and then type it. This could even be used as a way to get lusers to read a page or two of the manual.
Can I mod this article flamebait ? My main personal annoyance with slashdot is that regardless of an article's subject, the comments are always filled with rabid open-source chest-thumpers. So I actually cringe when I see an article actually relating to open source. The articles are fine, I just wish the meganerd commenters that freak out about anything mainstream that *just works well without spending all afternoon in your mom's basement tweaking config files* would give it a rest sometimes.
really ? that's odd, I set up point to point wireless links for work all the time that work indefintely. Pro gear like cisco/moto/canon/etc helps but you can get a perfectly reliable with a cheap-o router and decent antenna, that reaches miles.
okay read it a bit.. "and not when everyone around me, just far enough away from the church, would have it."..
"I would build a sixty-plus foot tower so I could intercept the signal! "
Why not buy one or two $30 wireless routers and a directional antenna and share with a neighbor that isn't behind a church then. Honestly.
Umm are you sure.. I just checked about a dozen major US cities and zillow has far inferior resolution imagery than googlemaps/earth/terraserver/msn/etc., is a tiny display interface, doesn't give directions...
(and also is a crappy real estate tool surrounded by spam)
If you want the best, check out the new Google MOON, with excellent hi-res images.. http://moon.google.com/
I'd been using paypal for years without issue aside from big fees, but recently I think fraud and scammers has really picked up on Ebay - and combined with paypal's policies is a really efficient system for screwing people out of money.
Myself and several others I know personally have ran into cases of buying things on Ebay, paying with paypal right away as usual.. and just over a month later when the thing hasn't shown up yet, attempted to file the item not received within Ebay, or attempted to dipute the paypal payment and have it refunded - only to find they both have a policy of doing absolutely nothing after 40 days.
I'm in Canada, and a lot of items ship from the states - taking 2 months to get through customs is not abnormal, so waiting 40 days isn't an unusual thing to do, especially when the seller is repeatedly assuring you the item is on it's way. I guess we just have to be less trusting of people and cancel right away if a waybill tracking number isn't provided.
People I know are part of a large community of people who buy and sell custom jewelry, they always pay each other up front with paypal before the jewelry is crafted, which takes some time. Because of paypal's 40 day policy (which was unknown to any of them) a few scam artists have ripped them off hundreds of dollars.
I think the policy to not do anything about fraud (seriously, they just say "too bad") if just over a month has passed since payment is silly, and scammers are starting to be more and more aware of this policy and are using it to rip people off.
I, for one, welcome our new google overlords. Really. I was perfectly happy with paypal (aside from obsurd fees) until I had to dispute anything or required their customer service for anything. Paypal/Ebay is a nightmare to deal with, and will screw you over if anything anywhere in their pages and pages of small legal print says they can (it probably does in almost every situation).
I'm right onboard with http://www.paypalsucks.com/ now.
Sorry, I meant I already had the laptop. It's an inspiron 8200 which runs about $500 today (I payed about $3000, luckily they gave me an insp. 9300 for free this year when I wrote them a nasty email). Card is USB2
I've never had the joy of trying tivo, but that's likely the best route for the average consumer.
Yeah I'm not sure if you need Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2gb ram, 400gb disk, or 430watts of power to watch TV or a dvd. The easiest thing to mark of that list is obviously the windows OS, mythtv or any of the free PVR softwares out there are vastly superior
Total Cost $2,276 USD, what a bargain!
Personally I just used an oldish laptop (few ghz, gig ram, 128mb vid) and a good $150 tuner card, mythtv (or gbpvr, or whatever) and wireless keyboard, mouse, remote.
Smaller, quieter, and a bit cheaper. Total cost -- $200~
Many corporate firewalls (at least the ones I've implemented) filter content in addition to URL, so typing an IP address won't help you. Recently the web filtering solutions I've installed have also done man-in-the-middle SSL interception so using HTTPS won't help either, the filters see the content there too.
Watch out for black helicopters
There has been WAP enabled ICQ/MSN and similar for about five years now, prior even to colour screens. Yeah, it was ugly, but it's not new, aside from the specific way they are doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard that Calgary, Alberta is looking at doing the same. Various companies in town have been asked to present proposals, ranging from cellular companies, telcos, isps, and tech firms. One of the latter I'm familiar with has proposed a cisco mesh solution using new aerospace gear. The plan is to use this network for emergency services and the like, at first anyway. Streaming video form security cameras to a squad car at 120mph for example. That = challenging for 802.11.
lots. during my time in tech support/helpdesk/support of friends I've found several cases where a user buys router, plugs in router, turns on laptop and sees 3 networks called "dlink" "wireless" "linksys" whatever and just pick whatever. Or the software just picks one, often the wrong one. After I lock down their AP with WPA *and* MAC filtering, and put them on their own AP, they are amazed at the speed of having their very own internet connection.
*no one* is to blame in this but the vendors of wireless products. If cars were sold in a state that the doors did not lock unless you had a basic knowledge of auto mechanics and had to open up the hood and adjust a few things, there would be outrage until auto makers stepped up and made doors lock by default, or at the press of a button. Home wireless gear should ship with at least WEP enabled, and the unique WEP key printed in the manual or even right on the unit. Windoze automatically asks for your WEP/WPA/whatever password, it's not hard to look at the thing and then type it. This could even be used as a way to get lusers to read a page or two of the manual.
Can I mod this article flamebait ? My main personal annoyance with slashdot is that regardless of an article's subject, the comments are always filled with rabid open-source chest-thumpers. So I actually cringe when I see an article actually relating to open source. The articles are fine, I just wish the meganerd commenters that freak out about anything mainstream that *just works well without spending all afternoon in your mom's basement tweaking config files* would give it a rest sometimes.
I personaly blame the ter-rihsts. We should launch operation free the red spot from the ter-rihsts at once.
really ? that's odd, I set up point to point wireless links for work all the time that work indefintely. Pro gear like cisco/moto/canon/etc helps but you can get a perfectly reliable with a cheap-o router and decent antenna, that reaches miles.
okay read it a bit.. "and not when everyone around me, just far enough away from the church, would have it." ..
"I would build a sixty-plus foot tower so I could intercept the signal! "
Why not buy one or two $30 wireless routers and a directional antenna and share with a neighbor that isn't behind a church then. Honestly.
er, what? Wouldn't GPRS or something be a little more bang for buck ? (no, I didn't RTFA)
Umm are you sure.. I just checked about a dozen major US cities and zillow has far inferior resolution imagery than googlemaps/earth/terraserver/msn/etc., is a tiny display interface, doesn't give directions...
(and also is a crappy real estate tool surrounded by spam)
If you want the best, check out the new Google MOON, with excellent hi-res images.. http://moon.google.com/
by google maps you mean google earth- the *3D* map viewer ?
I'd been using paypal for years without issue aside from big fees, but recently I think fraud and scammers has really picked up on Ebay - and combined with paypal's policies is a really efficient system for screwing people out of money. Myself and several others I know personally have ran into cases of buying things on Ebay, paying with paypal right away as usual.. and just over a month later when the thing hasn't shown up yet, attempted to file the item not received within Ebay, or attempted to dipute the paypal payment and have it refunded - only to find they both have a policy of doing absolutely nothing after 40 days. I'm in Canada, and a lot of items ship from the states - taking 2 months to get through customs is not abnormal, so waiting 40 days isn't an unusual thing to do, especially when the seller is repeatedly assuring you the item is on it's way. I guess we just have to be less trusting of people and cancel right away if a waybill tracking number isn't provided. People I know are part of a large community of people who buy and sell custom jewelry, they always pay each other up front with paypal before the jewelry is crafted, which takes some time. Because of paypal's 40 day policy (which was unknown to any of them) a few scam artists have ripped them off hundreds of dollars. I think the policy to not do anything about fraud (seriously, they just say "too bad") if just over a month has passed since payment is silly, and scammers are starting to be more and more aware of this policy and are using it to rip people off.
I, for one, welcome our new google overlords. Really. I was perfectly happy with paypal (aside from obsurd fees) until I had to dispute anything or required their customer service for anything. Paypal/Ebay is a nightmare to deal with, and will screw you over if anything anywhere in their pages and pages of small legal print says they can (it probably does in almost every situation). I'm right onboard with http://www.paypalsucks.com/ now.
sorry, that was me, I had tacobell for lunch.
um... what ?
I couldn't agree more
run away ! run away !
heh, IE7 oddly enough, but it's my work PC so I'm not worried :)
This article reports him the president of "AdsCPM Network." http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/the-ski-dream- funded-by-a-spam-fortune/2006/02/13/1139679533728. html
Which is mysteriously under construction right now. Handy archive.org has a copy from last month:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050125100919/http://a dscpm.com/
I'm pretty sure I don't care or know if it does onboard video compression, but I'm using a hauppauge card which I think is about as good as it gets in the USB world. http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_pvrus b2.html
Sorry, I meant I already had the laptop. It's an inspiron 8200 which runs about $500 today (I payed about $3000, luckily they gave me an insp. 9300 for free this year when I wrote them a nasty email). Card is USB2 I've never had the joy of trying tivo, but that's likely the best route for the average consumer.
Yeah, I had an old dell laying around. You could pick it/equivalent up these days for less than $500, so lets say total cost $700 max
Yeah I'm not sure if you need Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2gb ram, 400gb disk, or 430watts of power to watch TV or a dvd. The easiest thing to mark of that list is obviously the windows OS, mythtv or any of the free PVR softwares out there are vastly superior
Total Cost $2,276 USD, what a bargain! Personally I just used an oldish laptop (few ghz, gig ram, 128mb vid) and a good $150 tuner card, mythtv (or gbpvr, or whatever) and wireless keyboard, mouse, remote. Smaller, quieter, and a bit cheaper. Total cost -- $200~
Get back to work
Many corporate firewalls (at least the ones I've implemented) filter content in addition to URL, so typing an IP address won't help you. Recently the web filtering solutions I've installed have also done man-in-the-middle SSL interception so using HTTPS won't help either, the filters see the content there too. Watch out for black helicopters
There has been WAP enabled ICQ/MSN and similar for about five years now, prior even to colour screens. Yeah, it was ugly, but it's not new, aside from the specific way they are doing it.