Tag: wifi

Categories
Funny Internet

Over Logging

Linksys On Southpark

Southpark last week featured an internet outage as a plot. Pretty clever though I was disappointed to not see 1 reference to the series of tubes. I’m not sure if the reference to Linksys (Cisco) being responsible for the Internet being down was a complement or an insult. Though those Linksys boxes are infamous with just dying like that until you power cycle. Any other brand seems to have figured out how to not have that issue. Linux firmware on a Linksys also seems to remedy it. References to “Independence Day” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” were clever.

You can watch it online by clicking on the screen grab.

Categories
Apple Hardware

AirPort Extreme’s Shortcomings

Apple is now shipping the AirPort Extreme. I personally think it’s a pretty nice wireless access point, but it has a few shortcomings which would make me a little hesitant. I’m hoping on the 2nd gen they fix it up a little. To be fair, I haven’t found the perfect Wireless device yet and AirPort Extreme’s shortcomings don’t exactly put it out of the running. For the price I’d expect to see more. Here’s what popped into my mind after reading more about it. Why is this on my mind? Because I just saw some great pictures on unboxing the AirPort Extreme.

  • 10/100 Ethernet – Now 100Mbps is pretty good, but when 802.11n is supposed to reach 540 Mbit/s, I expect Gigabit Ethernet. Especially on a device that expensive.
  • 3 Ports Switch – At first glance you may think the device includes a 4 port hub. The reality is it’s a 3 port hub. The 4th is the uplink (where you plug your modem in). Granted you can get a switch for cheap, it’s not the same. All that money, wireless capacity, and your sharing a wired 100Mbps port? Something is not right.
  • VPN Endpoint – Apple still hasn’t included a VPN Endpoint. Apple includes support for common VPN protocols like L2TP, IPSec, PPTP with Mac OS X for a while, as does Windows. A built in VPN endpoint would be a great addition.
  • Security – Documentation doesn’t mention anything about Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) or DoS protection. Instead it mentions a vague “NAT firewall”. Not quite sure what that exactly is.
  • Other Features – Also lacking is WMM (Wireless Multi-media) , IGMP snooping, and UpNP (though I don’t care too much about UpNP). If there is support for any of this, it’s not mentioned anywhere I could find. Not even a mention about WDS, which was the most surprising to be missing from the list of acronyms. According to a comment below WDS does exist.
  • It’s not 802.11n certified – Truth is nobody has certification because the standard isn’t official yet. I’d personally like to wait to ensure I get something that is certified.

On a sidenote, did anyone else notice that neither the Airport Extreme website, nor the Apple 802.11 page give any numbers in regards to 802.11n performance? It won’t say more than “Up to five times the performance and up to twice the range compared to the earlier 802.11g standard.” I found it very strange to see no numbers “up to XMbps”.

Categories
Apple

Apple 802.11n Upgrade Fee

According to CNet and Engadget, the upgrade for 802.11n support on Intel Macs will be $1.99 ($2 in my book). Not much, but rather sad considering you already purchased the hardware, this is merely a regulatory deal. I presume we’ll also see sales tax.

Now will Apple break the mold and deliver 802.11n upgrades for older hardware? I’d love to eventually upgrade my Mini, but don’t really like the idea of an ugly external adapter hanging around my desk. Internal is so much cleaner. If I do have to go that way, I’d likely buy an Ethernet bridge rather than any sort of USB adapter, since that doesn’t waste USB bandwidth and won’t hog a USB port.

Categories
Apple Politics Software

SOX Tax for Upgrades?

A very interesting piece by iLounge is creating a little buzz today. Hopefully in the next few weeks it will become clear if this is really true, or just FUD. Given my development background, and business education (especially going to school post-Enron) this was particularly interesting.

Most software and hardware products these days are updated after release through software updates to enable features that either weren’t reliable enough to be turned on when released, or weren’t possible (waiting for standardization, licensing, testing, certification, etc.). It’s not at all uncommon.

It’s no secret Apple has been shipping computers for several months with 802.11g/n cards, but calling them 802.11g. Presumably all it takes is a firmware upgrade, and it’s ready to go. Now it appears that because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) [pdf], they are required to charge a small fee to enable the feature because:

…supposedly prohibits Apple from giving away an unadvertised new feature for one of its products.

The logic in a way makes sense, but this raises a lot of business ethics. If an update enables added security (such as changing a default in a software firewall), does the software developer need to charge an upgrade fee according to US law? What about when Microsoft added support for WPA2? Presumably at least some of the buts utilized were in Windows prior to that update.

Here is an even more twisted example: Starting this spring with the new Energy Policy Act of 2005 in effect. Daylight Savings Time has changed. It starts earlier and ends later. For accounting and legal purposes you must correctly date your records, for example in Quicken/Quickbooks, or even timestamp on email could also be important. Does Microsoft need to charge for this upgrade to comply with SOX? Remember, this patch isn’t a bug “fix” since nothing was “broken” (the functionality was correct). This patch adds support for the new Daylight Savings Time. Hence it’s technically a [boring] feature to an existing product (Windows). Just like enabling 802.11n.

But what about Nintendo Wii or Playstation III which will presumably be getting firmware updates along the way to enable new features. I’m pretty sure Sony would be bound by the same laws. Not sure about Nintendo since it’s traded on the Nikkei Stock Exchange.

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer. I hope the Apple lawyers messed things up here and really misinterpreted the law. Since this is pretty messed up. I have a good feeling we’ll be learning more about this in the upcoming weeks.

Update [01/19/2007]: It’s Apple speaks: It’s $1.99.

Update [01/20/2007]: It’s not SOX, it’s GAAP causing the issue. CNet discusses.

Categories
Apple Hardware

Post MacWorld SF Observations

My predictions, like many others were mostly off. So here’s my observations of todays festivities and announcements.

Continue reading “Post MacWorld SF Observations”
Categories
Apple Hardware Software

MacWorld SF

It’s MacWorld tomorrow. I’ll be watching the net closely to see what the almighty Steve announces. I’ve got the following predictions:

  • Mac OS X 10.5 Announced (99% Chance) – That means I get to be a geek and preorder from the Apple store.
  • More Video/Movies On iTunes (95% Chance) – This will be a big focus since Apple really wants this market.
  • .Mac Overhaul (80% Chance) – Don’t really care about this one personally since I don’t use the service.
  • iTV (72% Chance) – I doubt it’s ready. Either an announcement to expect summer delivery, and/or a more detailed preview. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they are ready.
  • Incremental Bumps For Various Computers (70% Chance) – Rather lame and generic for a prediction, but I think at least 1 computer line (most likely iMac, and Mac Pro) will see a speed bump. For the Mac Pro it would make most sense, since Intel just announced Quad Core Xeons.
  • Airport Extreme 802.11n Edition (68% Chance) – The rumors exist, and I think there is a decent shot. They likely need it for iTV.
  • Phone (60% Chance) – If it is, it will be the fabled ‘iPhone’, though likely under another name. Only reason I give it 60% odds is because of all the press. Otherwise I’d put it down to 25%. I don’t think it’s extremely likely, but there is to much press to ignore. Then again, I’m still waiting for my Apple PDA (ended up being the iPod).
  • New iPod (51% Chance) – I’m going out on a limb here. Despite pretty much no press, I think it’s time for the full screen iPod, with a true chipset designed for the purpose of video. I mentioned this before.
  • Software Upgrade(50% Chance) – Very likely some software, either an iWorks upgrade, or iTunes version.

So there are my predictions. I do believe it will be a very busy MacWorld with more announcements than usual. I expect volume to be one of the more notable things. A lot of things on all fronts. Not so much of a war on Microsoft, but a big grab at the “digital lifestyle”.

Lets see how I pan out this year.

Categories
Hardware Networking

Intel Centrino Suckage

I noticed this a few months ago, but never gave it much thought until recently. My Laptop has a Intel 2915 A/B/G Wireless Card, more commonly known as the wireless portion of the Centrino package. It’s pretty decent in regards to power consumption, and performance is typically not to bad. But I’m growing rather tired of it’s antics (took me a little bit to ID this one).

I can wirelessly download a file from my local file server on my LAN at approximately 19Mbps. Yet I can’t seem to break 10Mbps WAN even though Comcast supports “PowerBoost” (traffic shaping) in my area to burst downloads. My Mac Mini G4 with it’s built Airport Extreme, which is really some Broadcom chipset (not sure which exactly since no specs seem to be available) does get as much as 20Mbps bursting on WAN traffic. This leads me to believe the issue is somehow related to the Intel 2915 card.

The access point itself uses the TNETW1130GVF chipset, which is actually used to certify 802.11g devices.

I could always witch to Lenovo/IBM’s 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini-PCI Adapter II, which is based on the Atheros AR5BMB-44 (apparently in the AR5004 family). The only downside is the lack of EAP support. Not that I employ EAP, but you never know what you run across or end up needing in the future.

Downside is having to open up the laptop and remove the keyboard/palmrest to reach the wireless card, not to mention the $70 for the card itself. This isn’t really something that seems really worthwhile at the moment.

The question of the day is why does Intel still can’t get it right. The web is littered with reports of connection problems. Thankfully I don’t get disconnects. I just don’t seem to get the performance I should. For having “Excellent” signal quality rating in the Connection Status Window, I’d expect more performance.

Categories
Hardware

Stick to Certified WiFi Gear

Gartner is warning against early adoption of 802.11n citing the need for more testing, and waiting for the specs to be truly finalized before adoption (likely 2007).

I couldn’t agree with them more. 802.11 gear is only good if the devices are “Certified” (not to be confused with “Compatible”). I’d bet that 90% of problems people have with wireless gear is simply because they choose “Compatible” rather than “Certified”. One meaning the manufacturer feels it’s good enough, the other meaning it’s up to the specifications.

I really don’t believe in “Turbo Mode”, and all these other proprietary addons to WiFi hardware. They can’t even get the basics right (look many still aren’t Certified).

Early on (I think it was 2001) I started playing with some early Linksys hardware, uncertified. A real drag. As soon as I started putting Certified equipment in place, the certified equipment worked flawlessly, while non-certified gear still had occasional problems. Now I’m only buying certified hardware, and everything runs very nicely. You especially see problems with non-certified gear when mixing brands. Right now I have 3 different WiFi Adapters connecting to an Access Point from yet another vendor. Not a problem.

A word of the wise, if you insist on reliability, always get certified. You can lookup your products here to see if they are.

Categories
Apple Networking

Windows Loopback

Why does windows have a crummy loopback interface?

Once again, thank you Mac OS X for being there for me.

Edit: oh yea, 802.11 support isn’t to good either. Not sure whose fault that is. Took me a few minutes to figure that out.

Categories
Apple

Mac Mini is online

I got my Mac Mini back today. Bliss. Airport Extreme/Bluetooth card for $99+tax. I decided to officially name the system “mini me”. I’m having fun already, though I got to get some sleep, and go back to school tomorrow… looking forward to the next time I get to play with my mini. 😉