YAW-Yet Another Weblog

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:09:46 GMT

Sputnik's launches two new products: Sputnik Central Control 2.2 and the AP 120 WiFi Access Point.

Fri, 25 Jul 2003 03:10:10 GMT

Saw this in the Post-Dispatch as well. Not sure how well it will work. 6 APs over a 42 block area.

St. Louis-Fi. Couple sets up 42-square-block area with free Wi-Fi in St. Louis: Following Michael Oh's model with Newbury Open Network, the folks behind O2Connect donated $25K of gear and their time plus what they estimate as ultimately more than $1K per month for the pure good will of it all. [via David Ponder]... [Wi-Fi Networking News]

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 15:50:44 GMT

Excuse me, I need to reboot my taxi...

Technology Review: When Rebooting is Not an Option. Q&A: MIT computer scientist Larry Rudolph. This solution has worked so far. But very soon it's not going to work for, say, devices in our houses. It won't be clear what to reboot. The vision of Oxygen is that there's no PC that is the center, there's no central server to which everything is connected. [Tomalak's Realm]

In the mad dash to develop and market new technology some things have been left by the wayside. The most important is reliability. There was a saying from back in the bad old days of mainframes, "If builders built houses the way programmers write software, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization." Serious work needs to be done on providing reliable operating systems (neither Windows or OS X qualifies yet) and training programmers to design fault tolerant code.

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:42:45 GMT

RoboDemo module released for Flash MX. eHelp Corp. has released the RoboDemo FLA Module, an add-on to the RoboDemo tutorial software that lets Macromedia Flash MX users import RoboDemo projects. RoboDemo, which is Mac OS X compatible, records the use of any application, or on-screen activity, and instantly creates a movie in Macromedia Flash format with visible and audible mouse clicks. Flash tutorials created with RoboDemo can be further enhanced in Flash through the addition of extra effects, animation, and ActionScript. The RoboDemo FLA module creates FLA files from RoboDemo projects; the files contain the elements from the original project, and can be fully edited in Flash, unlike a SWF file. [MacCentral]

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:55:29 GMT

Teaching fundamental(ist) values...

Bush family tips on frugality and ethics
So Laura Bush has begun a recurring segment on CBS' "The Early Show" promoting children's literacy and including an Early Reader's Club with a featured book. The first was Book! Book! Book!, which she read from on the show. One of her staffers had bought that copy at A Likely Story, an Alexandria, VA independent bookstore. To the dismay of independent booksellers, though, the segment promoted Amazon, alone, as where to buy books. Afterwards, the staffer returned the book to A Likely Story . [Meme Machine Go]

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:03:36 GMT

Software for the Type A parent...

Dr. Spock Would Be Prould - Tracking Your Baby with BabyTracker
That is Dr. Spock, not Mr. Spock, although he would be proud too if he had any emotions. ;) "If you want to be a better parent and you want to keep, organize information about your baby, track his/her development at anywhere and anytime. The BabyTracker for Pocket PC is right solution for you. BabyTracker is the first line of parenting tools designed to easily capture and track the important information of baby. With BabyTracker parents and caregivers can easily organize care information about their baby." Any expectant parents out there? This would be a good substitute for the typical baby book. There is a trial version and you can buy it for $19.95. It requires an ARM processor to run, so it should be ok on iPAQs with Pocket PC 2000 and any 2002 or higher device. There is no limit on the numbers of babies it supports. [Pocket PC Thoughts]

Fri, 11 Jul 2003 17:06:59 GMT

If the price is right, this could be useful...

Geiger Counter for Wi-Fi?. Kensington intros WiFi Finder: Small, lightweight, and useful? I don't know the price, I don't know when it ships, but it'll tell you when you're within sensing range of a Wi-Fi network (802.11b or g) using three lights to indicate signal strength. [via Cord Campbell]... [Wi-Fi Networking News]

The only question is, what's the right price for a toy like this. I certainly wouldn't pay more than about $30 for one.

Fri, 11 Jul 2003 17:03:37 GMT

In the category of neat toys I want to own...

New barcode scanner built for ArcaneWare's Library. ArcaneWare has released its US$199.95 ArcaneReader USB Barcode Scanner, which is designed to work with Library, the company's personal book cataloging utility. It's compatible with Mac OS X 10.1 and later. To use the new handheld solution for scanning Bookland EAN ("ISBN") barcodes into Library, you'll need version 1.1 of the US$10 software and a powered USB port. Library will import a book after it's scanned with the ArcaneReader, then automatically fill in the book's title, price, page count, publication year, publisher, and color cover art using Amazon.com. [MacCentral]

Thu, 03 Jul 2003 15:43:19 GMT

So when do we move beyond the Hunter/Gatherer Stage?

Useit.Com: Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster. Information foraging is the most important concept to emerge from Human-Computer Interaction research since 1993. Developed at Xerox PARC by Stuart Card, Peter Pirolli, and colleagues, information foraging uses the analogy of wild animals gathering food to analyze how humans collect information online. [Tomalak's Realm]

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 21:31:39 GMT

This keeps getting better and better...

Martian NetDrive adds iTunes Music Sharing support. Martian Technology has announced the addition of iTunes Music Sharing capabilities to its NetDrive Wireless products. Music Sharing is a feature introduced with iTunes 4. Leveraging Rendezvous, Apple's term for zero-configuration networking technology, iTunes Music Sharing enables iTunes 4 users to share their playlists with each other, streaming music (though not downloading it) between computers. With iTunes 4.0.1, that streaming capability is restricted only to local area networks (LANs) working on the same subnet. NetDrives are fanless, wireless Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems that provide dedicated file sharing and storage capabilities for IEEE 802.11b-equipped home and small office networks. IEEE 802.11b the wireless networking specification used by Apple's AirPort products and downwardly compatible with Apple's newer AirPort Extreme hardware. NetDrives use the SMB file sharing protocol, and are compatible with Macs, Windows PCs and Linux boxes. [MacCentral]