July 2005 - Posts
So here we are at the NYC .NET User Group last night, and I was about 10 minutes into the presentation, when the screen started flickering. At first, I thought it was the projector, then realized that my video card was failing. After a few flickers, it just died. Right in front of 50 people or so. Luckily, the presentation was configured to run from a virtual drive, using Microsoft Virtual PC. Luckily, attendee (and fellow speaker/MVP kinda person)
Miguel Castro had a laptop with VPC installed, and I just connected my external hard drive to his laptop and went ahead with the presentation. Pretty amazing! Thanks to Miguel for his help, and to VPC for making it possible.
I'm in NYC for a visit to the local user group, speaking tonight for INETA. I love New York, but to be honest, mid-town Manhattan is not at its best in the summer. Every hotel is full, the streets are jam packed with tourists, and it's hot. Really hot. It's not the heat that's so bothersome (although it's really not fun), it's the crowds. I forget how crowded it gets here. On the other hand, I get to go out to dinner with pals Steve Forte and Andrew Brust, so that makes up for a lot. And it's another NY theater weekend, fitting three shows into Friday and Saturday. Hard to beat that...
I don't know about you, but when I'm in a hotel room and there's high-speed internet provided, I like to have some flexibility. I like to surf on the sofa, or in bed. That ethernet cable is like a shackle, tying me to the desk. In addition, I carry as little as possible when traveling. (I've found that I can get by on very few articles on clothing during a trip. Just don't stand too close.) So although I want to carry a wireless access point, I don't want much bulk.
I did the research. I read all the articles. No matter how you work it, those little wireless access points all involve tradeoffs. I finally settled on one that has been perfect for me. In every hotel room I've tried it in, I plug in the gizmo, turn on my laptop, and browse (sometimes I have to authenticate through the hotel's proxy, and perhaps pay some rediculous fee, but that works too). I settled on the DLink DWL-G730AP. I bought it 6 months or so ago, and I'm sure that by now there are shinier ones out there. But I rarely have encountered a gadget that provides so much satisfaction with so little cost, and such a miniscule density. It weighs just about nothing, and is no larger than 3 or 4 credit cards stacked up. In addition, the power brick is proportionally tiny.
There are some downsides: It only has a single ethernet jack, so if you want to configure it while you're connected to the outside world, you must be able to do that wirelessly. I thought this would be a problem for me, but it hasn't been. There are other, similar products that actually provide multiple RJ-45 jacks (for example, Linksys has one), but these tend to be larger/heavier. And I don't need the functionality. You may, and you'll need to factor these issues in when purchasing one. But I'll never go back--the G730AP is so easy to use, and so small, it goes with me everywhere when I travel.
As I'm sure many readers are aware (because I tend to write about the minutae of my life in very public places), I recently picked up my household and moved from a lovely home in Los Angeles to a small, but lovely condo in South Florida. Everyone who knows me said "What the heck are you doing?" And at this point, I have to agree.
In any case, a view of the ocean and the chance to walk on the beach any time I want just isn't working for me (there are other issues at play here, as well, but they would just sound like whining, but geez, does the neighbor have to slam her door that loud every five minutes all day and all night? Do they have to use the communal laundry machine on the floor nonstop?)--I miss a view of trees, and land. So, believe it or not, we're heading back across the country, to lovely rural NoCal (somewhere between Sacramento and Reno). The house is great, tons of land, room for horses (not a terribly likely occurance) and blackberry bushes galore. So what's the problem now?
It's actually so far out in the boonies that there's no connectivity. Yea, you can use dialup. But Verizon won't bring out a T1, you can't get cable, and DSL availability is laughable. I've been doing the research on rural options, and satellite is about it. Luckily, this technology has improved slightly since it first appeared ten years ago or so. DirecTV's offering (DirectWay) appears to cause only vehement anger among those who suffer with it. StarBand has less virtriol tossed at it, but it's still pretty ancient technology. Fewer people seem to hate this solution than do DirecWay. Finally, research found the solution I hope I'll be going with (they're not quite ready to install yet): WildBlue. Apparently, WildBlue uses a newer technology that gets better download and upload speeds, handles latency better (hey, it's a long way up to that satellite and back!), and doesn't barf so badly on inclement weather. In addition, WildBlue is by far the cheapest solution. (It doesn't support static IP at this point, but intends to next year. This is an issue. If you have a dynamic DNS service you like, let me know...)
I'm hoping for the best. If you're using dialup because you can't get any wired high-speed, consider WildBlue. And if you know of any way to get fixed wireless, or some other wireless high-speed solution, please let me know.
I'll report in with the results of both the high speed follies and, of course, the big move. Again. We're accepting volunteers to help transport the cats.