wireless network
Linux Training Week: Setup & Compatibility
February 15, 2010
If you saw our introductory post yesterday, you’ll know that this week on Zath is Linux training week! Over the next week, I’ll be using Ubuntu version of Linux in place of my norm of Mac OS X and Windows 7 to see how it stacks up against its rivals and whether it’s viable for the average computer user to make the switch.
Installing Linux on your hard drive is a much easier affair than it used to be, with an almost automated GUI that takes you through the necessary steps of installation. One of the computers I chose to install Ubuntu 9.10 on was my Mac Mini. I chose to install it side by side with Mac OS X as I didn’t want to erase my personal data or swap out the hard drive in the Mac Mini as it’s a rather tricky operation inside such a small case.
Continue reading »VLC Remote iPhone App Review
January 16, 2010
I use VLC Media Player for all of my video playback, as it will play anything you throw at it with great support for many formats. When I heard that VLC had released an application on the iTunes AppStore to remotely control the VLC Media Player, I was very excited to see how it worked and despite some minor gripes I have with it, I wasn’t disappointed.
You’ll find two versions of the application available: a VLC Remote free version and a VLC Remote paid version for £1.79, or $2.99 in the US store. I’d recommend purchasing the full version, as it allows you to browse through your files on the selected computer, including any external drives (this is essential for me, as all my media is stored on my external hard drive) so you don’t have to leave your chair!
Continue reading »Netgear DGN2000 Review (ADSL 802.11n Wireless Router)
December 5, 2009
I was without internet access for the majority of last week, something I hope never happens again, due to my ancient wireless router finally deciding to stop working. When shopping for a new router I was completely spoilt with choice, but managed to narrow it down to one: the Netgear DGN2000 wireless router. The DGN2000 is an 802.11n ADSL router, available for between £60 and £80.
Upon opening the box, I found a ‘Start Here’ leaflet with a CD enclosed which contained a setup utility for Windows as well as Mac and Linux functionality.
Bearing in mind the last time I bought a wireless router was a considerable number of years ago, I expected to be inputting all my ISP information manually in a rather tedious manner! However, after getting myself ready for the struggle I was pleasantly surprised to find that the setup process was extremely simple and mostly automated.
Continue reading »Pub Landlord Fined £8000 For Customer’s Pirate Download On Wi-Fi
November 30, 2009
One of the great things about Wi-Fi networks is that they are dead easy to set up, and thus let people easily access the Internet when they’re out and about – and that is why thousands of restaurants, pubs, fast food outlets and cafés (such as Starbucks) across the country are jumping onto the Wi-Fi bandwagon. But some may be feeling a little less confident about their decision thanks to this recent news.
The managing director of ‘The Cloud’ which is a company that provides wireless hotspots for the aforementioned establishments has said that over the summer a pub owner has been fined £8,000 because one of the people using his Wi-Fi illegally downloaded copyrighted material.
The owner of the rights to the material (the identity of which is not known) took the pub owner (the identity of which is also unknown) to court, and the result was this fine which presumably aims to persuade others to take stricter measures.
Swindon To Get UK’s First Free Wi-Fi Mesh Network
November 18, 2009
One of the problems with Wi-Fi is that it doesn’t have that great a range – yes its easily enough for your house, and maybe for your cheapskate neighbour as well but there is only really two ways to link up a large area using wireless networking: WiMax or loads of Wi-Fi access points, and it may not surprise you to know that here in Britain we’ve generally opted for the brute force option when it comes to this problem.
This example is one that is set to continue, but it is not that which is interesting in this example. No, it’s that Britain is set to have its first “Wi-Fi town”, and for a reason not yet disclosed it will be the 160,000 strong town of Swindon.
Continue reading »Starbucks UK WiFi Hot Spots Now Free To Its Customers
October 6, 2009
Starbucks coffee shops are now offering free wifi hot spots to their customers! In the past they have offered a wifi internet access facility, but you would have to pay each time you went and wanted to use it, thankfully Starbucks have changed their policy and now offer this as a free reward for registered users of their Starbucks Card.
For people such as me, who sometimes like a change of scenery when working on their computer, this means I can now head down to my local Starbucks and get some actual work done without the need to be paying separately for a internet-enabled wifi hot spot or sign up for a mobile broadband dongle on a contract.
Continue reading »Travelling With My Netbook – Part 4
August 3, 2009
This is the forth part of my netbook related tale telling the story of my travels through France with a netbook, and we are continuing on the road with my netbook on my lap and a glint in my eye. If you missed reading “Travelling With My Netbook – Part 1″, “Part 2″ or even “Part 3″, be sure to read those first!
Onwards we traveled to our destination at Cap Ferret, netbook in hand (or to be more exact on lap), and soon enough we arrived and set up camp. As you can imagine exploring isn’t too easy with crutches, but fortunately it didn’t take me too long to find what I was looking for despite the fact that we were on a campsite in the middle of nowhere – WiFi.
Continue reading »Travelling With My Netbook – Part 3
July 22, 2009
This is the third part of my netbook related tale telling the story of my travels through France with a netbook. We’re continuing on the road to France with my netbook on my lap and a glint in my eye. If you missed reading “Travelling With My Netbook – Part 1“ and “Part 2”, be sure to read those first!
We left off at my friend’s house where I was staying the night to catch the early ferry, and it was here that I was reminded of the interesting task of naming your wireless network – by having a quick look at the networks around this London suburb I was able to deduce the names of many of the neighbours simply by their unimaginative wireless names.
Continue reading »Belkin N+ ADSL Wireless Router Review
July 14, 2009
I’ll be honest from the start with the review of the Belkin N+ ADSL modem wireless router – it has a flaw and it’s a pretty fundamental flaw if you want to use it for one particular purpose like I did, but more on that later…
I bought the Belkin N+ ADSL wireless router as a replacement for the aging Belkin N1 ADSL modem wireless router which needed replacing as the “quirks” it had were finally proving too much to live with, but rather than talk about that here, I’ll update the original review after I’ve finished this one.
Suffice to say despite my reservations of buying Belkin again, I looked around some of the big well-known review sites and they seemed to like the Belkin N+ with some of them having it as their wireless router of choice. Therefore I thought I’d give them another chance.
Continue reading »3rd Generation iPhone – Low Power Wireless 802.11n?
April 6, 2009
We recently reported about the new iPhone 3.0 software that Apple are planning to launch later in the year for existing iPhone/iPod Touch owners and also for a rumoured new 3rd generation iPhone, which from looking into the development specification of the iPhone 3.0 beta software, people are perhaps getting a sneak peek at what can be expected from the next iPhone product.
Wireless radio component specifications contained with the iPhone 3.0 beta software would indicate support for a new Wireless/Bluetooth chip model – the newer and faster Broadcom BCM4329 chip instead of the older BCM4325 found in the iPhone 3G. This would add support for the 802.11n standard and would mean there’d be several benefits to the 3rd generation iPhone.
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