WombatNation

I set up a NetGear WGR614 wireless router (802.11 b and g) on my home network yesterday. So far, things have gone very smoothly. The biggest problem was reacquiring valid IP addresses on the Mac, Linux, and Windows boxes. I previously used a Linksys BEFSR41 as a router and a DHCP server. It uses a 192.168.1.x subnet, while the NetGear router uses a 192.168.0.x subnet. Therefore, when I switched out the routers, I had to force all my computers to release their previous IP addresses and request new ones.

In hindsight, I now wonder why I wasted so much time and money on Linksys gear before. When all I had was the Linksys BEFSR41, a Power Mac G3 desktop, and an IBM ThinkPad T23, everything was fine. Then I added a Dell Dimension PC running Windows XP. If the Dell and the Mac were connected to the Linksys router (not necessarily even turned on; just connected by Ethernet cables), then in anywhere from a few seconds to about thirty minutes, the Linksys router would lockup. Even after powering it off and back on, it might take 20-30 minutes before the router would respond. I could use the ThinkPad and the Mac together with no problem. I could use the Dell and the ThinkPad together with no problem. But, if the Dell and the Mac were connected at the same time, the Linksys router would try to commit suicide.

I sent email to Linksys customer support describing the problem in great detail. No response. I tried again. no response. I guess that’s their strategy for saving money on customer support.

Despite this painful experience, I bought a Linksys WAP11 access point. When used with the ThinkPad, it worked great. Then, we bought a Powerbook G4. After hours and hours of tweaking the network configuration for the PowerBook, I finally got it to connect to the WAP11.

But, the signal strength sucked. Our house isn’t very big, but I couldn’t even sit in the living room (about 40 feet, albeit through lath and plaster walls) from the WAP11. Sure, the titanium cased Powerbook is known for poor wireless range, but this was ridiculous. Even worse, the WAP11 would randomly lock up after anywhere from a few minutes to a few days after using the Powerbook. Fixing it required unplugging and replugging the power cable for the WAP11.

Then I read about the Linksys Wireless Signal Booster. Despite my nightmarish experiences so far with Linksys networking gear, I foolishly bought the Linksys WSB24. Of the three pieces of Linksys gear, this one was actually the most reliable. That is, it didn’t crash several times per week. However, it added only about 15 feet to the distance I could wirelessly roam from the WAP11. That additional distance was definitely not worth the $80 I paid for it.

The NetGear WGR614 is an absolute dream compared to my pile of Linksys junk. Not only is it far more reliable, but the signal strength is as good or better than the combo of the WAP11 and the signal booster. Also, web browsing with the Powerbook is 2-3 times faster. I always wondered why the PowerBook was so slow when connected wirelessly instead of wired. I thought it was a problem with the Airport card. No, as I should have known all along, it was yet another indication of how crappy the Linksys products are. Also, instead of hours of fighting with the Linksys and Mac OS X networking configurations to get the Powerbook to connect to the WAP11, it took me less than a minute to get the Powerbook to connect reliably and securely to the WGR614.

Reminder for later: to get a new DHCP allocated IP address on Red Hat 9 Linux (assuming eth0 is the primary network interface) without having to reboot, do the following as root:

#killall dhcpd
#/sbin/dhclient eth0

I had been using Rhythmbox/Music Player to play MP3s and Oggs on Linux, but today I found a much better app for my needs called Zinf.

Rhythmbox looks very promising, but I ended up running into too many problems with it. Visually, it is an iTunes clone. The biggest problem was that it would not play 192 bps constant bit rate MP3s that I had ripped with Music Match Jukebox on Windows. At some point, I will update the version I have installed of the GStreamer media framework that Rhythmbox relies on and give it another try. Either that or try to use Rhythmbox with Xine for the backend.

Another big problem was that it used 5-10% of the CPU while playing music. Zinf uses less than 1% of the CPU. That makes a big difference when you are trying to do a lot of other work while listening to music.

Finally, Rhythmbox was really, really slow to start. My music library is currently about 40 GB. By the time I finish ripping all my CDs, it will probably be about 70 GB. If I rip all my LPs, too, I could easily end up with a library over 100 GB.

Zinf does the simple things very well, but it also has room for improvement. Better Unicode support for MP3 tags would be really nice. Although it doesn’t have as many audio drop-outs as Rhythmbox does when I’m doing other CPU intensive stuff, it does happen every now and then.

A recent article in Forbes.com states that the 2006 World Cup in Germany will be broadcast only in wide-screen format. On conventional TVs, the image will be letterboxed.

Philips Electronics struck this broadcast deal with FIFA. Philips, of course, is a major manufacturer of TVs and would love to start selling more of their higher profit margin, wide-screen TVs.

The problem for TV manufacturers is that they are still on the short end of the network effect. People are hesitant to buy wide-screen TVs until there is enough content available that would take advantage of the format. Apparently, all the DVDs that provide the full 16:9 aspect ratio in which the movies were originally filmed hasn’t been enough. Broadcasters and their content providers are hesitant to produce and broadcast wide-screen content until enough consumers have wide-screen TVs. Otherwise, they face the ire of all the consumers who are unhappy to see all those pixels “going to waste” when the content is letterboxed on their current 4:3 aspect ratio TV.

This hopefully won’t be an issue for us, as we plan to actually be in Germany for World Cup in 2006. For the games we don’t attend, we will try to find pubs, bars, or restaurants with wide-screen TVs. I expect that most places in Germany will have upgraded by then.

We almost certainly will have purchased a wide-screen TV at home by then, anyway. I need to read more about the Broadcast Flag (more here) to decide if we need to make the purchase in time to beat the July 1, 2005, implementation of this seemingly quite misguided ruling by the FCC.

The best friend of one of my friends at work recently moved to China. He forwarded this photo of his new microwave oven.

I can just hear Saddam saying, “Chemical Ali, set the oven to CHAOS. Not the wimpy 0.1 kg setting. Go for the full 1 kg.” Or maybe that was Dr. Evil.

Even more frightening would be the deadly White Fungus and CHAOS combo. Clearly, a pre-emptive strike was necessary. Hopefully justice will prevail and we will restore the Popcorn setting to microwave ovens throughout the world.

Three Wise Companies Help Santa Face Peak Season Using Voice Technologies and the Web

Now here’s something every kid will love. Santa Claus and his elf Pixel have been outsourced as VoiceXML applications. I guess wages for customer service reps at the North Pole have gone up too much.

Sign up at www.talktosantaclaus.com to have your children confused by a Text-To-Speech driven elf. The Santa Claus bits are all pre-recorded audio. All silly criticisms aside, I think it’s a really cool idea.

First you provide some information about your child (pet, spouse, or unsuspecting friend at work) – their name, some sage advice (Stop asking if we’re there yet; No beer until you’ve finished your breakfast), and an item they want for Xmas. If you provide an email address for the lucky victim, she will get an email address with a phone number to call and a secret code to provide. After going through the sign-up process, you can give it a trial run. Do it now. You won’t regret it. C’mon, all the lazy parents are doing it. I don’t even have kids and I did it.

French speakers are in luck. The companies that developed the application, Elix, Nü Echo, and CONCEPT S2i, are all in Quebec. They provided both French and English versions of Talk to Santa Claus.

Until I get a lot better at typing on the Treo 600’s mini keyboard, I think I’ll leave most of my posting for a regular keyboard on a regular computer. I certainly won’t be writing the next War and Peace on the Treo keyboard. It is a mighty fine machine, though.

The photo to the left is unlikely to be actual size, unless you are using a very low resolution screen. The actual size in inches is 2.36 x 4.41 x 0.87 (width x height x thickness).

After roughly a day of usage, here are my initial comments:

It passes the pocket test. I was worried it would be too bulky, but it fits just fine. No belt strap-ons for me.

The alarm tone and other built-in tones are short and very pleasant sounding. Every time I hear the shrill bee-dee, bee-dee, bee-dee alarm tones screaming out from an older Palm device, I want to drive hot, sharpened pencils into the … okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s pretty annoying. The Treo comes with a much nicer set of built-in tones.

It’s not the best phone for quick dialing. While I like having access to all my contacts synced from Outlook, I almost never call probably 95% of the contacts in my addressbook. The numbers are there just in case. The “first initial then last name” search cabaility is good, but it’s too many buttons to press. I definitely need to figure out the bookmarks/speed-dialing thing quick. Either that or pay for Sprint PCS Voice Command, since the Treo doesn’t have built-in voice dialing.

It’s the big screen or nothing. My wife’s Samsung S-105 flip phone has a nice, albeit small, color screen on the inside and a simple mono screen on the outside. The mono screen doesn;t draw much power, so it is always on. The Treo doesn’t offer that option. Therefore, you have to turn on the main screen if you want to know the time, see the signal strength, see if I have voice messages, etc.

The phone gets excellent signal strength on the Sprint network. My old phone was a Sanyo SCP-4000. The Treo 600 gets a significantly better signal on the Sprint network than the Sanyo did. On my drive to work, the Sanyo sometimes dropped calls and often had a really tinny sound when the signal was weak. I used the Treo on a conference call during my drive to work this morning, and the sound was flawless the entire time.

If you have a Clie, don’t upgrade the Sony and Palm software with the Treo software. Lots of the programs that come with the Clie work only with the Clie. I ended up having to delete nearly ten programs off my Treo after the initial sync.

The Blazer web browser is awesome.

I’m posting this entry from my rocking new Treo 600 cellphone/PDA/camera/email client/web browser/time consumer. I’m using the keyboard and web browser on the phone to access the standard MT interface for posting new entries.