Buffalo 1
Wireless Networking, Home and Away
I have a Buffalo ISDN router, unfortunately we live outside the required distance form a branch exchange which is unlikely to achieve critical mass, so it is a necessity.
We have three computers – one which is connected via a Buffalo USB adapter, a laptop which has a wireless PCMCIA card (sorry, PC-card) and a second desktop which is close enough to the router to merit a wired connection. Oh, and let’s not forget the compact flash wireless card for Little Dell, the PDA.
The most obvious advantage is that, no longer are there wires trailing all over the house. There are some other benefits too. Backups are a theoretical breeze – theoretical because one still has to remember to set them off. With the addition of printer sharing, anybody can print to any printer, very handy when that inkjet cartridge runs out and there aren’t any more in the drawer – a common phenomenon with two pre-teens in the house.
There are some problems, but nothing is particularly insurmountable. The range of the PocketPC card is, well, hopeless – probably about 5 paces at best. This might be half useful if the router was in the middle of the house, but it is in the bottom corner. Of course, I could buy a wireless repeater or a higher power aerial, but for now it’s not the end of the world.
The Buffalo range itself – well, let’s just say its not for the faint hearted. Things have improved on the Web site since I first started going there, but the PC-Card (Sorry, PCMCIA) driver is offered without warranty or support, hardly a motivating factor. As far as I can tell, this is the same version that was available two years ago, so I would have hoped they’d have things worked out by now. Still, everything works – mostly. The line doesn’t always drop when it should, and it is difficult to suspend a laptop PC.
Buffalo seem to deny they ever made an ISDN box, which makes me just a tad concerned when I have one right next to me.
Data access speeds are – well, slow. This is 802.11b here, but don’t expect to be pumpung a DVD from one computer to another with 802.11g either, particularly if there’s someone else contending for the packet space.
Works quite well for a small business operating from home, but the complications for a larger company in terms of who pays, or worse, who supports.
Out and about is – well, interesting. Having walked the streets of Soho looking for a Hot Spot (honest!), I can say that there is still some work to be done here. It’s the same in other parts of London, never mind other cities. And don’t be fooled into thinking that things are different in the land of the brave, either – while I was in Boston I stumbled across a wireless provider in a backstreet and he recommended me a bar where he’d installed a connection. After a boring time trying to work out what was wrong with my laptop, I went back to the provider and we ended up down in the kitchens, trying to resolve problems with the connection.
Now, don’t get me wrong but most normal people will not be in a position to try to repair the wireless link, but it does illustrate the need for highly reliable equipment. Many places are just not designed to be wired for wireless.
The reach can be extended as well. I happened to be at a conference in desperate need of sending a 12 Megabyte file to a client (via Groove, if you’re interested), and the wireless came into its own. It did help inordinately that there was a BT Openzone stand, and some bright technical young things to resolve the teething problems
Perhaps the real advantages will come when other devices start to plug in, such as the Linksys media converter, that lets me watch photo slide shows on my TV, or listen to MP3’s through my stereo.
USB
If you want to see what’s coming next, you only have to check on eBay, as enterprising Korean manufacturers have discovered it is an efficient way of missing out the middle man and shipping direct.
The Aladdin USB dongle has been used in the past, and Aladdin now have a dongle that can
One thing’s for sure – this is a form factor we’re going to be seeing plenty more of.
MP3’s
There is an issue however – for a start, copying CD’s to MP3’s is not legal in this country. Hum. Also, the most bizarre mechanisms that the music companies are putting in place is preventing CD’s from being listened to in all stereo’s let alone CD walkmans and car CD players. That’s before even getting to the car CD players.
I propose a bit of consumer power here. I understand that there need to be some legal rules imposed, and stealing is still stealing. What I can’t understand is that it should be the record companies that define these things, and not the consumers. Whatever happened to consumer rights?
Here’s some contractual statements that can be applied:
I will not buy this music unless:
It is readable on all devices I choose to play it on, including DVD players, computer CD-Roms, games consoles, car CD changers, and CD walkmans
I am permitted to make a copy for my own personal use in any format that I choose, which will probably be MP3. I can load the songs onto any device that takes my fancy, and play them to anybody who is interested.
I can lend them out to whoever I like, and they can listen to them as much as they like, and can copy them to any format they like
I understand that the purchase of this music is a license to play the music. Should I already have a copy on tape or record, I can purchase an upgrade at a reduced price. If I already have a copy, I am able to download, burn, digitise or otherwise acquire any other format I choose for my own listening.
There are some things that will not change. People love packaging – as illustrated by the repeat sales of DVD’s that include an additional, material, or a poster, or a balloon. People love stuff – would you give your mother a copy of the latest XX album that you had downloaded and burned yourself?
The record companies want to have their cake and eat it, prompted mostly by the costs of marketing and promotion in order to get their material played. The question is – would the alternative model fare any worse, for example spending half of what is currently spent on promotion, putting out a broader variety of artists, and spending more on the production and packaging?
Towards the perfect device
© Jon Collins July 2003
The question is, can one size fit all? Yes, and it’s small, argues Jon Collins
“There can be only one,” Sean Connery told Christophe Lambert in Highlander. That is the correct spelling, by the way, Christophe is a Frenchman, which is why he always appears to get less than his fair share of dialogue. But I digress. “There can be only one” is a mantra that could equally well be applied to the device market, as anyone who has lugged around a PDA, laptop, mobile phone, external CD player, MP3 player and camera will tell you. The list doesn’t include the other essential - a portable printer - but I don’t want you to know just how sad I really am. There can be only one, not least to save on osteopathy bills, but also to solve the inherent issues of integration, communication, synchronisation and software compatibility between the lot of them. Whatever this “one” is, it needs to perform all the functions of the rest without compromising on performance. Potentially an impossible goal. Indeed, maybe it is impossible, which is why I’d like to propose a different approach.
I have recently been experimenting with these USB storage devices that seem to be proliferating at the moment. Natty little things, they plug and play with the most recent versions of Windows and Linux, meaning that the data they contain can be accessed on any recent computer with a spare USB port. Handy for backups, neat for file transfer, a good little floppy disk replacement I thought to myself. But then I started thinking a bit harder, and their true potential started to become apparent.
For example. I’m currently using a USB storage device for all of those things. But also - and here’s the (hopefully) clever bit - I have an email application that I run from the device. It’s called nPOP, and the beauty of it is that it is self-contained - it doesn’t use the registry or any external files or directories to run. This means, I can plug my USB device into any Internet-connected computer and check email across all my email accounts, without having to specify them one by one and without relying on an email service provider. Sure, there are such things as email providers with Web access, and I could configure one to check my email, but they are rarely sufficiently functional to provide the full service. This package also provides an address book, it can work with attachments, and so on. So, when I travel, I can rely on the fact that there will be computers where I am going.
This USB-storage-device-centric model can be extended to encompass other applications. Of course, first it is necessary for them to be hot-plug compatible, and the majority of modern apps are not. Which brings me to the leap of faith, and something which I shall be checking out. What about Java? If a standalone Java virtual machine can be installed, then an entire operating environment is provided without recourse to the host operating system. There are already a plethora of productivity apps (i.e. small, useful ones) for the Java VM, including instant messaging software such as Tipic. And PIM software, though I haven’t tested the packages I have seen. Even if Java isn’t appropriate, maybe a browser-based approach would work, for example using CGI. It should be possible then, to develop a portable environment.
What about those common apps, such as Word and Excel, I hear you shout. Spot on, good point. The answer is, that the common bloatware packages are already commodity items, and do not require any user information. Therefore they can exist quite happily on the host computer, separate from the user’s own apps that exist on the USB device. When I plug in to a computer, I would expect there to be a basic suite of apps. Fortunately, in most internet cafes, they already are.
While we’re on the subject of what-abouts, what about all that other stuff, MP3, cameras and the like that I mentioned? USB storage devices already exist that are also MP3 players. There are already MP3 players that are cameras, or vice versa - it’s difficult to tell sometimes. So, given the above, it is not unreasonable to expect a device which is storage, camera, voice recorder and music player in one (not to mention mobile phone). Given developments in this area, it’s probably a matter of months away. All some savvy manufacturer has to do is bundle a similarly useful software suite on the device, enabling it to plug and play and become a truly portable environment. Provide Java VM’s for multiple platforms, and support SD Cards, and it really will enable anyone to work with anything on the move. Indeed, the software suite could equally well exist on an SD card as the device itself. We just need a mobile device supporting Java, which is USB storage compatible, with an SD-card slot, and we have everything we need. Given all this, it becomes apparent that maybe we’re not looking for a single device after all, rather a USB-compatible storage mechanism that will work with everything we throw at it.
There is no technological reason why everybody that wants to, couldn’t be carrying a complete application environment on their phone, MP3 player or just on an SD card in their wallet. That’s possible today. Add some imagination and we could talk about having some e-money on the device, which is deducted by the host computer in micropayments per minute used. We could also recommend public kiosks – such as those provided by BT – supporting this model, and proliferating as people realise they no longer have to lug unergonomic hardware whose weight is determined largely by their inadequate batteries.
It sounds simple, but imagine if everyone was doing it, it would bring the truly mobile world one step closer.