Twiki Blog Archive 2002-03

Sunday, 31 March, 2002

Happy Easter!

Saturday, 30 March, 2002

A glorious spring day - the first, I think, where temperatures stayed above freezing overnight. It warmed to the sixties today, and we opened the windows and vacuumed and cleaned and dusted in anticipation of guests for Easter dinner, and in celebration of the season.

Work consisted of two hours of weekly reports and invoicing. The rest of the day was computerless. No complaints!

Friday, 29 March, 2002

Richard Stallman talks about how software patents are bad for everyone here.

More links on wireless and security:
http://www.advisor.com/Articles.nsf/aid/SMITT619
http://www.pasadena.net/presentation/wireless.html
http://www.bitshift.org/wardriving.shtml

http://wardriving.com
Okay, so maybe you don't just want local wireless, you want it on both sides of the lake. Check this out: http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/antennas_2400.html
And, of course, the free (as in speech) guys are in on the idea:
http://www.seattlewireless.net/

Thursday, 28 March, 2002

Last night was the March meeting of the Greater Boston FoxPro Users Group. Excellent meeting!

Barb Bowman is a Windows XP MVP with a gret interest in wireless. Check out her column at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/bowman/december03.asp.

Spent a few self-indulgent moments listening to my favorite radio station -- WBUR -- playing through RealPlayer on my laptop. The only thing was, the laptop wasn't wired. It's using an 802.11 radio signal to receive the streaming signal from my wired LAN, which in turn is using TCP/IP over my cable TV cable. Thousands of dollars of equipment and technology to listen to a radio station 30 miles outside its broadcast zone. You gotta wonder.

Wednesday, 27 March, 2002

Bummer. Just crashed Opera and lost everything. Let's start again...

Setting up the wireless was pretty smooth. Two hours, start to finish. Here are a couple of interesting links:

http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/Wap11Hack
http://www.wi2600.org/mediawhore/nf0/wireless/docs/802.11/WAP11/fun_with_the_wap11.txt
http://www.gigafast.com/drivers/SNMPV1743.exe
http://www.wi2600.org/mediawhore/nf0/wireless/utils/

Far more interesting (and more harmless) are: http://www.practicallynetworked.com/index.htm
http://www.dslreports.com

Tuesday, 26 March, 2002

Forgot to mention, as part of setting up the Twiki, that I needed access to text configuration files in Unix format - CR only, no line feed. On the Twiki site, there was a recommendation for the freeware Programmers File Editor, PFE, http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe/ It worked great out of the box, with no issues. Looks like it has a zillion features. Hope to get the time to dig into it.

Added [Next] and [Previous] links to the blogs, manually for now, but eventually via a template, I hope.

Yesterday, I bought nearly everything I needed for a wireless network. All LinkSys components, from Best Buy: Access Point (WAP11), PC Card (WPC11), PCI card (WMP11) and USB Adaptor (WUSB11, v 2.5). Psyched to get it all assembled, but want to make sure to flash the firmware to the latest version, get the latest drivers, and set it up securely from the beginning.

All done. Two hours of careful manual reading, downloading and updating, and I'm updating the Wiki with no wires attached to the laptop. Wireless rocks!

Monday, 25 March, 2002

Starting to enjoy this blogging stuff, although I wish I had more time for it. And for a few thousand other things in my life. Almost done with my speaker's notes for Automating Email.

Mouse gestures in Opera are cool. The right-mouse-button-down and left maneuver is so easy! (That sends the browser back to the last page.)

Just spent a half-hour writing a thoughtful email, using the built-in Opera email client (the mail started as a link off a web page). Hit the "Send" button when done. Error messages a-plenty. Something wrong in the configuration. But the text is gone. A waste of time. I hate computers.

Of course, given a little time to flail away, I found the mail, buried in the Opera Outbox. Don't think I need another mail client, just yet. Next time, I'll stick with Outlook.

Also spent some time with Blat http://www.interlog.com/~tcharron/blat.html and Blat.dll http://www.geocities.com/toby_korn/blat/. Great stuff, and the price is right - free! I'll have to see if I can implement Blat here - I saw a mention on the Twiki site for it, and I don't think that the native email logic is working here. I got an email when I became a registered user, but I am not seeing emails for changes to the site.

Sunday, 24 March, 2002

Wireless networking still fascinates me. http://www.netstumbler.com has some interesting information, as do all the major vendors: D-Link, LinkSys, Nexland, 3Com, Zoom, and on and on.

http://www.80211-planet.com, 802.11 Planet is an interesting site, too.

Saturday, 23 March, 2002

Bill Gate's comments on NT: "In a weak sense, it [NT] is a form of UNIX." http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches/industry&;tech/uexpo.asp

And, from a completely different angle, some interesting insights into the development of Windows 2000 and the effects of their source control programs, old and new: http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/invitedtalks/lucovsky_html/

Friday, 22 March, 2002

Yet another link for a PDF printer, this one from Dane Prairie Software. Only $35 per user. Looks very good! -- TedRoche - 22 Mar 2002

Thursday, 21 March, 2002

Welcome, Spring!

• Roche Manor at dawn, 2002-Mar-21:
  
• Check out the folks at Fine Print. Interesting products, good prices, and a great web site! Good clean layout.

Wednesday, 20 March, 2002

Ted Roche and Associates, LLC picked up another client yesterday. Exciting stuff. And Winter did the "out like a lion" thing, with a wicked snowstorm. Didn't get home until 11:30 PM.

Tuesday, 19 March, 2002

The private MVP newsgroups have had some fascinating discussions on wireless, although I'm a little concerned with setting something up on the home office LAN. A high school is 100 yards away, through the backyard. Reports of 802.11b cracking of WEP-protected WLANs makes me concerned. Until today, I thought my choices were limited to 802.11 flavors a and b, with a faster, more expensive, but just as insecure. Today, I ran into HomeRF, which apparently has been around for a couple of years, and HiperLAN/2, a European import, and power-line based home lans from Linksys. TMI - too much information!

Another item of interest today is http://www.books24x7.com, a place to read books online, for a fee. The annual fee, $299 for an individual, may sound stiff, but that's only 6 books at $50 a year. I easily go through that many. Worth considering.

Another CoolLink for those with too much time on their hands: "The Sad Parable of OS/2" http://www.linuxandmain.com/features/os2retro.html - some very good PC History, not too much Microsoft-bashing. Interesting stuff.

Monday, 18 March, 2002

Fixed the links in the upper right corner, after realizing they were stored in TwikiPreferences. So much to learn!