tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98762712024-02-28T11:21:56.983-08:00Požar's Random Rants...Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-24750539647635608092010-04-13T21:45:00.000-07:002010-04-26T11:10:08.696-07:00Ubiquiti Rockets and a 50Km Path Over Water...This last fall, we put in a 50Km 5.8Ghz link from the center of San Francisco (Twin Peaks) to the South East Farallon Island lighthouse using Ubiquiti <a href="http://www.ubnt.com/rocketm">Rockets</a>. At first the link was unusable. This was mainly due to the fact that the long distance and shooting over water causes the received signal to vary wildly. This cased the radios to frequently and rapidly try to change the MCS (modulation scheme) and would make the link very lossy. Here are some settings I had to settle on to get the links to work.<br /><ul><li>Do not enable auto-negotiate for the signal rate on long links. The radios will auto negotiate data rates when the receive signal level changes. This will momentary drop the link while the ends sync up. If the signal is bouncing frequently this will make the link pretty lossy or not usable at all. </li><li>Long links or links that are being interfered with will likely have problems with modulation schemes that have an amplitude component such as QAM. If so, use a modulation scheme that doesn't have an amplitude component like BSFK where you can leverage "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_effect">Capture Effect</a>". This would be MCS0 (1 chain) and MSC8 (2 chains).</li><li>Fix the distance of the link to about 30% over the calculated distance. The auto-magic calculation that AirOS does typically is wrong with long links.<br /></li><li>Turn off AirMax on Point to Point links. AirMax is used to manage multiple clients on one AP more fairly. Not needed for P2P.</li><li>Use as narrow of a channel you can support for the bandwidth you need. As per the AirOS manual...</li></ul><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Reducing spectral width provides 2 benefits and 1 drawback</b>.<br /></div><ul><li>Benefit 1: It will increase the amount of non-overlapping channels. This can allow networks to scale better</li><li>Benefit 2: It will increase the PSD (power spectral Density) of the channel and enable the link distance to be increased</li><li>Drawback: It will reduce throughput proportional to the channel size reduction. So just as turbo mode (40MHz) increases possible speeds by 2x, half spectrum channel (10MHz), will decrease possible speeds by 2x. </li></ul>Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-6172006633801621852010-01-13T09:14:00.000-08:002010-01-13T09:50:36.231-08:00Airfields of Yesteryear<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIWzCIjcEcAgfar7937-04qMpqC8i4btA5002ci7S35frCepjNSaWVs1omCRQb9FhMtjbIjTjTdOYSwYo7Mvo9z0TWKDM5LMTE8JREt8K-ZKJpgsvxuZxf65hBvpVgN__C2N2I/s1600-h/BayMeadows_CA_45_sw.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIWzCIjcEcAgfar7937-04qMpqC8i4btA5002ci7S35frCepjNSaWVs1omCRQb9FhMtjbIjTjTdOYSwYo7Mvo9z0TWKDM5LMTE8JREt8K-ZKJpgsvxuZxf65hBvpVgN__C2N2I/s320/BayMeadows_CA_45_sw.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426277023292493858" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">An <a href="http://timpozar.blogspot.com/2008/11/uncovering-history-through-national.html">older post of mine</a> talked about looking back at history with the little geodetic survey benchmarks you see in the sidewalk and at the base of older buildings. Modern archaeology has always interested me and if you are interested too, there is a wonderful site documenting abandoned airports around the US named "<a href="http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/index.htm">Abandoned & Little-known Airfields"</a>.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> It covers the history and evidence left behind when general aviation was more popular and strange little military operations that were out in the middle of nowhere.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">As I have just spent the last 25 or so years living in San Francisco, it was a surprise to find out about strips that I didn't know about such as the <a href="http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_SanFran.htm#baymeadows">Bay Meadows Airport</a> in San Mateo and the <a href="http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_SanFran.htm#marina">Marina Airfield</a> next to Crissy Field in San Francisco. Marina Airfield was the first terminus of the United States Post Office Department Trans-Continental Air Mail Service.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Growing up in Fresno, I remember the remnants of <a href="http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_Fresno_N.html#furlong">Furlong Field</a> just out Shaw Avenue. </span><span class="text_exposed_hide" style="font-size:100%;">...</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="font-size:100%;"> Good to see it documented here so it isn't forgotten as development has pretty much obliterated any trace of it.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />Sad to see so many fields disappear with the wane of general aviation in this country. It is just too expensive for most to own or lease a plane and keep it up. Land is being sold to developers as cities can see better tax revenue with a shopping center than an air strip.</span>Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-85312898344090425162009-08-21T12:29:00.000-07:002009-08-21T13:10:00.575-07:00Small form-factor broadcast console...Mackie set the standard in inexpensive, small form-factor recording and sound consoles. I own a 1402 VLZ console that fits in a small brief case and sounds great. The problem is that it is the wrong console for most of the work I do that will need a console. Coming from the broadcast side of the world and not the recording side, I want things like a cue buss that sits at the end of the fader travel, or the control room monitors to mute when I turn on the mike so I don't get feedback. I want logic that I can switch a CD player into play when I bring up the fader or hit a start button. None of these "features" are typically required on recording and sound consoles and that was where the biggest market for companies like Mackie are.<br /><br />Allen & Heath, a respected name in recording consoles, has just come out with their first stab at a broadcast console in the same sort of form-factor as the Mackie 1402. It is called the <a href="http://www.allenheath.co.u/UK/DisplayProduct.asp?pview=110">XB-14</a> and has most of the Bells and Whistles that I have been looking for. I have been told by Mark Haynes at <a href="http://www.leosaudio.com/">Leo's Pro Audio</a> that they should have one in next week to test drive and I am looking forward to seeing if they got it right.<br /><br />One "down" side of the console is the price. It is selling at just under $1,400. I have seen it advertised at $1,200. The Mackie 1402 is running around $500. I can see that the XB-14 has a some extra features to make it more of a broadcast desk, but $700 more? I hope some of these boxes sell to encourage folks like Mackie to compete for this market.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-13687236569902339302009-08-04T10:02:00.000-07:002009-08-04T10:53:13.351-07:00Great tool for checking Line of Sight...Google Maps has opened up access to resources that would take considerable work and expense to access. Just purchasing software that can do ray tracing over a geographic area 10 years ago would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now "<a href="http://www.heywhatsthat.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">HeyWhatsThat</span></a>" has leveraged Google Maps to do just this and it is free.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDP674JFQ7-0a_6WbdFqEz8nrZA1HGBeNGNw602QB0v33q1lBFFR1hP8pBrhS24oMJKHbXSv5_IpWdOw203OdRdyQ-_jwPloAZgG5HYJhKwDtkDZrrLARLLMdx-KK3Ac2eR250/s1600-h/TwinPeaks.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDP674JFQ7-0a_6WbdFqEz8nrZA1HGBeNGNw602QB0v33q1lBFFR1hP8pBrhS24oMJKHbXSv5_IpWdOw203OdRdyQ-_jwPloAZgG5HYJhKwDtkDZrrLARLLMdx-KK3Ac2eR250/s320/TwinPeaks.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366163198844327138" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">Now, why would I be so interested in this site? Being a bit of a wireless geek, it is a great starter tool to understand how much coverage area a mountain top has. In the example shown in the right you can see the coverage area from the Twin Peaks communications site in San Francisco. The orange/red overlay indicates area that this site can see. You can see the shadowing of some of the hills of San Francisco affecting the coverage area.<br /><br />At the top of the frame, shows a panorama of the skyline seen from that site. The list on the right shows what mountain tops can been seen and distance to them.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">HeyWhatsThat</span> is a great starting point in checking out coverage area. I wouldn't throw away your <a href="http://www.edx.com/">$50,000 coverage software</a> just yet as that will be a bit more accurate using better algorithms to calculate coverage such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longley%E2%80%93Rice_model"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Longley</span> Rice</a> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">TIREM</span> as well as their own tweaks.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div></div>Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-70199470622095212142009-06-29T18:17:00.000-07:002009-06-29T18:50:54.142-07:00Major Rant - Title 24In its every intention, <a href="http://www.energy.ca.gov/title24/">Title 24</a> tries to reduce power consumption for new and remodeled buildings. In its current structure, it can make it worse.<br /><br />I really have been trying to be aware in my design and purchase of lighting in our new kitchen remodel. I have been looking at every different lighting option and in particular, LED in the assumption that anything that doesn't have a "heater" in it and creates waste heat, is good (BTW, this is a whole other blog regarding LED lighting). One of the first things I ran into in my design is California's Title 24 requirements. At least up to August of this year, California has standards that have a rather strange way of promoting and calculating effective power usage for kitchens.<br /><ol><li>There is no limit on the power you can put into the lighting of a kitchen. (a bad thing)</li><li>The wattage allocated for high efficacy lighting must be 50 percent or more of total lighting wattage. (a bad thing)</li><li>Any fixture that can take non-high efficacy lighting devices like incandescent will be counted at the maximum wattage of the fixture. (a bad thing)</li><li>High efficacy lighting is based on the number of lumen per watt (a good thing)<br /></li></ol>What this means is if you have 200 watts of low efficient lighting, you must have 200 watts of high efficacy lighting which makes no sense at all. In fact it could force you into putting more high efficacy lighting in that you need. In addition to this, the old screw-type Edison base for light bulbs is a standard. There are many more compact florescent bulbs out there designed for this base than for a proprietary pin-type base for recessed lighting. Guess which one is cheaper? In order to "comply" with title 24, you need to use non-standard fixtures.<br /><br />If they really want to "fix" this, they could just limit the number of watts per square foot and strike out this silliness with standard lighting fixtures.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-8974840752845690882009-06-25T17:22:00.000-07:002009-06-25T17:40:25.178-07:00The Farallon Islands' Web CamFor some time now, as someone has had an objective to get broadband in remote areas of the world, I have been looking at some lonely islands 50Km off the coast of San Francisco known as the Farallon Islands. Back in 2001 or so, <em></em>at a past Bay Area Wireless Users Group meeting, Simon Barber, suggested that we hook the island up as the main island is staffed and they just had basic two-way radios for communication to the main land. For various reasons it never quite happened until this year when a number of different interests and funding fell into place.<br /><br />I was introduced to folks at <a href="http://drupal.airjaldi.com/">AirJaldi</a> who were looking for locations in the Bay Area to test their radio deployments. I have access to a number of hill tops around the Bay Area and suggest to them that we put a link into the Farallons. I called US Fish and Wildlife and was pointed to the <a href="http://www.prbo.org/">Point Reyes Bird Observatory</a> as they do the day-to-day operations and science on the islands. At the same time I reach out to them, the California Academy of Science was looking to put a high-definition web cam out on the island to stream back to the public. Bingo, we have funding and very interested parties that want fast bandwidth to the island.<br /><br />After much work in planning, purchasing and deployment, the <a href="http://www.calacademy.org/webcams/farallones/">Farallon Cam</a> was turned up a couple of weeks ago. <br /><br />It hasn't been smooth. Some of the problems encountered have been links failing due to <em></em>interference or hardware failure. This has caused the stream to be down more than we wanted to, but it did show for a small budget, that consumer grade unlicensed radios can provide decent bandwidth tens of km to provide the infrastructure for applications like streaming video, voice, data, etc.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-23289090257395199162009-06-25T17:12:00.000-07:002009-06-25T17:21:52.614-07:00Startbucks Gold Card..Months fly by and I get back into the mode of throwing out pointers and thoughts again. <br /><br />I came across a nice little deal in the last couple of weeks; the <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/gold">Starbucks Gold Card</a>. For $25 a year you get 10% off of over-priced purchases but what hooked me was the fact you also get 2 hours a day of free <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">WiFi</span> at a Starbucks <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ATT</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hotspot</span>. Nice little deal when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ATT</span> wants to ding you for $6 to $10 for some part or whole of a day. Just 4 or 5 two-hour visits pays this thing off. The pricing works well if you are a light user of these spots. If I was more of a road warrior then I would look more at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Boingo</span>. As someone that is looking for a place to do some work between meetings, it fits the bill.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-73174314353970405662008-11-27T20:04:00.001-08:002008-11-28T09:24:21.264-08:00Uncovering history through National Coast and Geodetic Survey benchmarksGads it has been a while. Between conferences, work and play, I let this site languish a bit. Well, here is a cool thing to do and not a rant.<br /><br />In walking around, do you ever look down and see a small circular brass marker that are embedded into rock, concrete or even buildings. They were placed by the National Coast and Geodetic Survey and are survey benchmarks.<br /><br />A good description of these benchmarks can be found at:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.peakbagging.com/Benchmark.htm">http://www.peakbagging.com/Benchmark.htm<br /></a></div><br />Many of these were surveyed and planted there at the turn of the last century. As there has been some time elapse since most of these were established, there is some interesting history that can be gotten by looking up these sites and reviewing the data sheets for each marker. Fortunately, the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has this data on line. By going to:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_radius.prl">http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_radius.prl<br /></a></div><br />and entering your longitude and latitude and a radius of the area you want, you can get nearly all of the markers. I say "nearly" as I have found markers that are not in the database. Once you get the listing of markers in your area, tell the page to get the data sheets for the markers. Each data sheet is a bit messy to ready and you can get some guidance on how to go through them from the "<a href="http://www.peakbagging.com/Benchmark.htm">peakbagging.com</a>" URL above. <br /><br />Once you have the data sheets, try to find the markers. It is much like <a href="http://www.geocaching.com/">geocaching</a> in tracking it down, 'cept you don't leave or take anything once you find the spot.<br /><br />What has been interesting to me when I have gone looking for the markers, is the history of the site during the time the markers have been established. Looking at the data sheets you can see the descriptions of the site at the time it was established and when they revisited the site every 30 years or so. You will find the changes in the area documented in these sheets. For instance, living in San Francisco, I was interested in seeing markers in my area. What I found was a establishment of a long forgotten overseas radio station near my house on Ocean Beach or be able to review how South of Market had changed from a massive Southern Pacific rail yard to a trendy geek enclave.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-76904967622061705742008-09-03T20:58:00.000-07:002008-09-03T22:07:46.171-07:00Homebrew GSM with OpenBTSUnlike most of San Francisco who was at <a href="http://www.burningman.com">Burning Man</a>, I was out this last week at the <a href="http://www.strawberrymusic.com">Strawberry Music Festival</a> so there was another gap between postings. There are a couple of interesting stories from Strawberry I will get into later. But for now...<br /><br />I was having lunch with John Gilmore who was freshly back from Burning Man. Stories abound the festival but one that I zeroed into was the experiment of one of the camps at Burning Man to build a GSM celluar service on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio">Software Defined Radio (SDR)</a>. John was certainly tracking this as he help start <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio">gnuradio</a> which is an open-source SDR package that is currently lead by <a href="http://www.comsec.com/">Eric Blossom</a>. Matt Ettus is a another notable as he had created the default <a href="http://www.ettus.com/">hardware platform</a> that Gnuradio runs on.<br /><br />SDRs are radios where the hardware is designed to be very general purpose so as to receive and/or transmit many different types of modulation and frequencies. The software for SDRs do all the work of setting the frequencies and what to do with the received signals. Hence the name of Software Defined Radio where the software models a hardware design that would create a building block such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-sideband_modulation">single-sideband modulation</a> or a <a href="http://hem.passagen.se/communication/quadcoil.html">quadrature FM detector</a>. As such, a critical component in an SDR is an Analog to Digital (ADC) or a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) where the software will do all the math in the digital domain of the analog wireless signal.<br /><br />What was interesting to me with this deployment was the fact that <a href="http://openbts.sourceforge.net/">OpenBTS</a> project built an SDR radio that would transmit and receive on cellular GSM frequencies and become a base station for GSM cell phones. Not only that, they took an open source phone switch called Asterisk and, using VoIP and the Internet connection at Black Rock City, provide cell service to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_switched_telephone_network">public switched telephone network PSTN</a>.<br /><br />Providing service at Burning Man was a stroke of genius as the OpenBTS folks had a great test bench of almost no existing cell coverage there and thousands of attendees that have their cell phones turned on. In fact, this test site was a bit too successful as every GSM phone tried to associate with their setup in almost an inadvertent denial of service attack. Their rig, had a hard time keeping up with the cell phone requests. After they resolved this issue, they were experimentally passing phone calls from Black Rock City off to real telephone numbers around the world.<br /><br />Now, this is all fun playing with Asterisk and OpenBTS in the middle of North America where wireless phone service is taken for granted. For instance, in the United States we usually have at least two or three base wireless phone carriers providing service to an area. Although these deployments are ubiquitous in first world countries, the current cell phone tower installation is expensive and financially prohibited in deploying in third world nations or even many lightly populated areas in the US. Using Asterisk that easily replaces a 10s or 100s of thousand dollar phone switch help reduce the cost of deploying wireless cell service. In the case of the Burning Man deployment, OpenBTS was able to put a rather effective Cell site for under $5,000. With this low cost of deployment and the combination of OpenBTS and Asterisk vast areas of the earth that are not covered by phone service now could be covered by open source cell phone deployments.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-81781646489368330302008-08-25T15:52:00.000-07:002008-09-03T20:58:03.354-07:00Musicina BlenderWhew!<br /><br />I just came away from a week and a half contract gig that had me working from 7am to 11pm many of the nights. Hence the period of radio <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">silence</span> from me. So, I need to get my Blog legs going again.<br /><br />In the mean time, I just reconnected with a friend and ex-coworker of mine from back when I was the Chief Engineer for <a href="http://www.kksf.com"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">KKSF</span></a>. Nick Francis is now at <a href="http://www.kplu.org"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">KPLU</span></a> in Tacoma Washington and has always been a creative guy. He has started up a new blog called <a href="http://musicinablender.tumblr.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Musicina</span> Blender</a>. It is a list of mash-up that Nick creates. It is pretty interesting how Peggy Lee's "Fever" can have a reggae beat in what Nick calls "<a href="http://musicinablender.tumblr.com/post/47281814/peggyleevsbobmarley">Reggae Fever</a>". Or Dylan goes Pop with "<a href="http://musicinablender.tumblr.com/post/44631265/beatles-dylan01">Positively Fifth <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Beatle</span></a>".<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>Check it out.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-2600867355424691932008-08-13T15:12:00.000-07:002008-08-13T15:27:21.838-07:00Ancient Audio Streams<a href="http://craphound.com/">Cory Doctorow</a><span class="byline"><a href="http://dynamic.boingboing.net/profile/Cory%20Doctorow"></a>,</span> posted "<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/12/old-time-record-enth.html">Old time record enthusiast rips and posts thousands of 78RPM tracks</a>" on BoingBoing today that points to a collection of 78s on the net. One of the commenter's of the post pointed to the "<a href="http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/">Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Pilot Project</a>" (CPDPP) that UCSB runs since 2002. The CPDPP has about 8,000 archived and available for download.<br /><br />One feature on the site that I have been checking out is the various streams of recordings. For instance, you can get "<a href="http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/speeches.php">Historical Speeches on Cylinder</a>", "<a href="http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/audiotheater.php">Pioneers of Audio Theater</a>" or "<a href="http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/wwi.php">Popular Songs of World War I</a>". I have been glued to listening to "<a href="http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/moran.php">Operatic Cylinders from the William R. Moran Collection</a>".<br /><br />I doubt that these streams will give <a href="http://somafm.com/">SomaFM</a> a run for the money, but it is certainly worth checking out.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-16987610040342883642008-08-13T13:57:00.000-07:002008-08-13T14:46:03.258-07:0050-in-1 Electronic Kits...Once upon a time, back in the days of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever">stone knives and bearskins</a>", Radio Shack made a series of kits for the budding electronic engineer known as 50-in-1 kits. (You could get bigger sets that promised up to 200 different things you could make.) The kit would be a box with a nice wood frame and a cardboard top that had bunch of different electronic components on it like resistors, capacitors, diodes and one or two transistors. Each of the components would be tied to a little spring that you would bend back to insert hook-up wire into. No soldering and it was a breeze to take apart. The kit would start off with something simple showing how circuits are made using a switch, a light bulb and a battery. It would end up showing you how to make a tunable AM radio or oscillator.<br /><br />I had one of these kits when I was a kid. My sister and I split the cost of buying one and I ended up monopolizing the use of it. It was at this point when I was a kid, I knew I was going into some line of electronics. I loved following the directions and learning the art and also trying to design my own buy taking there design and "bending" it so the oscillator would run a little faster or slower or pick up a different spectrum of radio to listen to.<br /><br />Radio Shack has long since stooped producing these kits. I think Radio Shack is missing an opportunity here as they are very visibly sponsoring things like the <a href="http://makerfaire.com/">Maker Faire</a> and other <a href="http://www.makezine.com/">MAKE Magazine</a> Projects efforts. So where Radio Shack, dropped the ball on this a company called <a href="http://www.elenco.com/">Elenco</a> has put out a similar 50-in-1 kit. Amazon <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-EP-50-Electronic-Playground-50-in-one/dp/B00000IUD2">sells them</a> for less than $25 each. Cheap! Having a 9 year old son that has a technical bent, meant we had to have one. It was a great time bonding with him on how to build a simple circuit and creating something more complex like an AM radio. It is well worth the $20 investment. (Actually, I have to credit <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/280/375">David Diaz</a> for buying it for my son at Fry's.)<br /><br />Elenco has a number of pretty cool electronics kits that you can buy and put together with your kids. Their model <a href="http://www.elenco.com/fun-875.htm">"FUN-875"</a> is a radio controlled race car that took my son and I a couple of evenings to put together. Once we did, we had a pretty nice little car that ends up being pretty sturdy too.<br /><br />So, three cheers to Elenco for making electronics a little more accessible to kids again.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-42444574753835855182008-08-12T15:28:00.000-07:002008-08-12T15:36:24.043-07:00Fiber for SF - Part IIIChristopher Mitchell wrote back with these comments:<br /><ul><br />I don't think WiFi is a good way for a city to encourage broadband. You note many of the problems, but I also just view it as uneconomical in the long term.<br /><br />However, I think there is value in WiFi in certain circumstances. The value of WiFi for a city that has substantial fiber assets is to provide coverage for muni functions and perhaps those who know what they will be getting. Building inspectors, social workers, many city employees can be more productive in the field with wireless broadband access but they need greater capacity than the cell networks currently offer and they can save substantial money when they can put nodes anywhere due to abundant backhaul afforded by the fiber network.<br /><br />I agree that indoor access should be handled by the building owner or occupant. WiFi doesn't penetrate much and offers poor speeds anyway when multiple users are on it.<br /></ul><br />Christopher is being an activist for St. Paul, Minnesota. I hope he can get further in getting St. Paul to think about deploying broadband over fiber than we have gotten with San Francisco.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-76964782482401795062008-08-09T10:43:00.000-07:002008-08-09T11:51:11.548-07:00Some of My Favorite Free Music Streams...I am a music addict. I always have to have something going on in the background or at full blast. I love getting turned onto new music or just toe-tap to a golden oldie. Although I have a decent size library of music, it gets a little old some times and I want to tune into something new. This is where I launch iTunes and bring up some of my favorite streams.<br /><br />I have to start off with the one that tune into the most and have a lot of respect for; <a href="http://www.radioparadise.com/">Radio Paradise</a>. Bill Goldsmith is a pioneer in many ways on the net. He built out <a href="http://www.kpig.com/">KPIG's web site</a> and streaming. Just before he left KPIG, he started up his own streaming station and moved to Paradise California. Hence the name. To use an over-used word, the music is eclectic. Rock, Blues, Folk, World, etc. The way I like it.<br /><br />Bill has a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zillion#Zillion">zillion</a> different streams to pick, from 31 to 192 Kb/s and WinMedia to MP3, depending on what you are using to listen to it on.<br /><br />Speaking of KPIG, there are a number of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americana_%28music%29">Americana</a> streams to pick up out there. Another old friend, Felton Pruitt has a site called <a href="http://www.fatmusicradio.com/">FAT Music Radio</a>. The music hearkens back to the station that was the predecessor to KPIG and where Felton worked, KFAT. <a href="http://www.kfat.com/">KFAT</a> defined Americana radio and the music.<br /><br />Roger Coryell (another good friend from my broadcast days) has a site called <a href="http://www.twangcity.com/">Twang City</a> that falls into the Americana camp but with a bit more "Twang" to it. You just have to tune in to see what that means.<br /><br />I mentioned earlier that I love getting turned on to new music and tapping my toes to the oldies. At <a href="http://www.beyondthebeatgeneration.com/">Beyond the Beat Generation</a> I get to do both. They have the more arcane selection of underground and pop of the later half of the sixties.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.auralmoon.com/">Aural Moon</a> picks up were Beyond the Beat Generation leaves off. Dedicated to progressive music from the sixties on toward the current day. You can bump into Brand X, Genesis, Gentile Giant, King Crimson, Yes and the more arcane artists of the progressive movement.<br /><br />Then there is the point I just need to chill and the best place to do that is at <a href="http://somafm.com/">SomaFM</a>. Over the years Rusty Hodge has been putting extraordinary effort into developing the streams that makes this place the reference for trance, ambient, electronica and lounge streaming. Perfect for those late nights when you want something to listen to as you head off to join <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Nemo">Little Nemo in Slumberland</a>.<br /><br />All of the streams I mentioned above are only available on the web. They are "listener sponsored" so they don't get the big bucks from commercial institutions. Streaming uses bandwidth and power, that they need to pay for. Throw them a buck if you can. Some of the sites get some kick back from places like Amazon if you follow the links to buy a CD. This is also a good way to help them out.<br /><br />Later, I will write about terrestrial stations (AM/FM) streams that you should check out.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-52971447182226200812008-08-08T13:39:00.000-07:002008-08-08T17:08:27.339-07:00Why you should never use zip (wire) ties...Lets get geeky...<br /><br />A good argument against zip ties was very well documented by a friend of mine, Steve <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Lampen</span> at <a href="http://belden.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Belden</span></a>[1]. It gets down to the fact that, as with any wire, you have a transmission medium. Much like coax and open line, you need to have a constant impedance through out the length of the line, else your signal will not arrive on the other end the way you may want due to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">mis</span>-matches in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristic_impedance">impedance of the wire</a> causing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_wave_ratio">standing waves</a>.<br /><br />What determines the impedance of a transmission line is the dielectric (the material between the conductors, the diameter of the conductors and the distance from each other. Zip ties typically will change that with the amount of pressure that is used for installation of the ties.<br /><br />Additionally, you have to be careful in how you tie your cables together. Everyone wants a neat looking installation and will likely have a nice even spacing between ties. With the change in the characteristic impedance of the ties and spacing them out evenly, you get a really big notch in the frequency response of the line that is based on the distance of the ties. It is actually better to randomly space the ties.<br /><br />Cable lacing with flat waxed string is one of the better ways to tie down cable. It provides for less pressure on the cable and is also less of an obstruction when you have to work with adding more or moving cable around the area that you have previously tied down. Many <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">colos</span> and Central Offices (CO) I have worked with have banned wire ties for these reasons.<br /><br />A great <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">alternative</span> to lacing is VELCRO[2] or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velcro">hook and loop fabric straps</a>. Velcro has the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">advantage</span> that it can be quickly moved around and doesn't bind or change the cable specification. Typically it is used to bind a bunch of cables together. You may still need to use lacing to tie that bundle down to a wire tray. <a href="http://www.riptie.com/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">RIPTIE</span></a> was one of the first companies to sell VELCRO for cable bundling. They have nice individual ties but they are expensive. If you don't mind not having a fancy tag on your ties, then just get a roll of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">VELCO</span> from pretty much any dealer. Wrap the cable and cut as needed. You can even get different colors to identify different bundles. Such as using the <a href="http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Resistor_Codes">resistor color code</a> to indicated bundle numbers. At <a href="http://www.unitedlayer.com">my last company</a>, we would use one color for core cables and another color for customer facing cabling.<br /><br />And again, check out <a href="http://www.belden.com/pdfs/PDF/hdcarltp.pdf">Steve's report</a>.<br /><br />[1] <a href="http://www.belden.com/pdfs/PDF/hdcarltp.pdf">http://www.belden.com/pdfs/PDF/hdcarltp.pdf</a><br />[2] VELCRO is the registered trademark for the <a href="http://www.velcro.com/">Velcro Industries</a>' productTim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-40800563926353005212008-08-08T11:27:00.000-07:002008-08-08T11:49:57.055-07:00More on Fiber for SF...I got a very nice email from Christopher Mitchell who is with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">ILSR</span></span>) which is a non-profit that "provides technical assistance and information to city and state governments, citizen organizations and industry". The report give a great overview of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">different</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">technologies</span> that are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">available</span> for municipal broadband deployment and can be seen at:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newrules.org/info/munibb.html">http://www.newrules.org/info/munibb.html</a><br /><br />I sent Mr. Mitchell back the comments below on this report:<br /><br />Much like other reports in this area, it sees <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">WiFi</span></span> as a solution that I have always had grave doubts about. You can see my "report" concerning this at:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.lns.com/papers/part15/Regulations_Affecting_802_11.pdf">http://www.lns.com/papers/part15/Regulations_Affecting_802_11.pdf</a><br /><br />It really comes down to the issue that these deployments on unlicensed bands (i.e. ISM bands) can't guarantee an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">uptime</span></span> for the service due to interference from other users on the bands. There is also the fact that 802.11 really has very poor interference handling.<br /><br />The <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ILSR</span></span> report says that wireless is needed for mobility. I really don't think there is as much of a need for a municipality to address this. There area a number of other companies that are already addressing this and, as I see it, the real need for broadband is in the home and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">business</span>. With that, mobility can be address a couple of different ways. First off cell phone providers do this pretty well for outdoor use. For indoor deployments, that really has be handled by the building owners or tenets. Penetrating walls at any frequency and especially at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz is very difficult.<br /><br />I do strongly support fiber deployment and it being owned by the local government. The last mile is where 90% of the cost in broadband deployment is. Most of this is artificially high as there is only one or two carriers for the last mile in an area. If we can have a municipal deployment then any Mom-and-Pop through existing incumbent can be on equal footing for providing services to an area. We will see competition at that point.<br /><br />As no one company can the justification of a city wide fiber deployment, it is up to the city to make this happen.<br /><br />I have been involved in actively supporting this idea for some time with the city of San Francisco. As such I have <a href="http://www.lns.com/papers/sfbroadband/BARWN_to_RFI_Revised.pdf">provided comments</a> and have worked with the city of SF that outlines a basic working and financial model for the city to deploy fiber.<br /><br />At this point, I think most cities have a much better and more realistic view of how the technology works, we just need to bring more material to them to justify how municipal broadband will <span style="font-weight: bold;">financially</span> work for a city.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-62538280415505463842008-08-07T11:41:00.000-07:002008-08-07T13:29:45.017-07:00Fiber for SF...It isn't like there hasn't been any screaming in the past about putting fiber in when San Francisco digs up the streets for the new sewer system, but Tim Redmond makes it seem so in this <a href="http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=6865&catid=4">recent editorial</a> in the SF Bay Guardian. San Francisco Board of Supervisor Tom Ammiano proposed this <a href="http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/bdsupvrs_page.asp?id=27864">nearly 4 years ago</a>. His proposal to study deploying fiber was stalled for more than three years by the Mayor's initiative to deploy WiFi with Google and Earthlink. Once that deal died, when Earthlink couldn't figure out how to make a buck off of this plan, then San Francisco started to study this again. I have to throw some of the blame at Mr. Amiano's office as they didn't try to push this study through during the three years it was stalled. <br /><br />Mr Redmond does make a point. San Francisco will miss this opportunity to significantly reduce the cost of installing fiber for the city and the city residents if they have to go back and dig up the roads again. Just like they missed the opportunity to do this 10 years ago when there were nearly a dozen different fiber providers installing fiber in the ground and they city could have demanded that a portion of those strands be handed over to the city. Or the city could have pulled city owned fiber when other companies were pulling theirs.<br /><br />The City did eventually come out with a <a href="http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/tech_connect/SFFiberFeasibility.pdf">fiber study</a> that raves about the opportunities with city-wide fiber deployment. Lets hope that it has an impact with the city's direction on municipal broadband.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-63388889462222035562008-08-07T10:34:00.000-07:002008-08-07T10:37:25.494-07:00More on Duplicate Email MessagesMy other "fav-o-rite" mail user agent (MUA) is <a href="http://www.mutt.org">Mutt</a>. Seems that Mutt has a nice duplicate mail detection scheme already built in. You can see details of it at:<br /><br /><a href="http://ronny.haryan.to/archives/2005/06/15/tip-remove-duplicate-emails-with-mutt/">http://ronny.haryan.to/archives/2005/06/15/tip-remove-duplicate-emails-with-mutt/</a>Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-57948436863731313952008-08-06T10:15:00.000-07:002008-08-06T10:29:44.078-07:00Metro Traffic adds tens of millions of virtual traffic reporters via cell deal.From "<a href="http://www.insideradio.com/">Inside Radio</a>" for August 5th....<br /><ul><br />Metro Traffic adds tens of millions of virtual traffic reporters<br />via cell deal. Westwood One’s Metro Traffic and AirSage partner<br />to use cell phone signals to provide faster alerts, more<br />reliable travel times and better alternate route suggestions.<br />AirSage compiles anonymous data from signals sent from 53<br />million Sprint Nextel mobile phones on traffic flow and speed.<br />AirSage’s network covers 150,000 miles of roadway, compared to<br />fixed-traffic data sensors, which monitor real-time traffic for<br />about 7,000 miles of interstates. The new reporting technique<br />will begin rolling out next month.<br /></ul><br />What a great idea. Typically folks have been dependent on getting traffic info from the sensors that folks like CalTrans puts in the road bed.<br /><br />I would expect that the technology wouldn't be too complex to do this. You just need to track when a particular cell phone gets handed off between cell sites. Since the tower locations (Lat/Lon) are known, you can determine speed. You can even use the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law">Inverse Square Law</a> and smooth out the signal strength the cell site is getting to see how fast someone is going towards or away from a cell site.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-29392373924559183312008-08-06T10:05:00.000-07:002008-08-06T10:10:38.877-07:00The Trouble with Imap and Thunderbird...One annoying thing about Imap clients like <a href="http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/thunderbird/">Thunderbird</a> is you can end up getting a bunch of duplicate messages in various folders from copying messages from your Inbox. For instance, I have one folder with about 17,000 messages in it and a bunch of duplicates that are just taking up space, bandwidth and CPU cycles when I open that folder.<br /><br />This is where a really nifty Thunderbird plugin comes in handy with the amazing name of "<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/956">Remove Duplicate Messages</a>". With a simple download, install and a restart of Thunderbird and I found I had about 1,000 messages that were duplicates in that folder, or almost 6% of the folder. In another folder that has my <a href="http://www.nanog.org">NANOG</a> mailing list, I found about 10% of the messages were duplicates.<br /><br />The defaults are pretty sane, where it will keep the first message it finds and delete all duplicates after that message. Just right click on the folder (control-click for Mac OSX) and you will see in the menu "Remove Duplicate Messages...". It will start to scan your folder and then give you a list of duplicate mail it found. You can scan through what it though where dups to verify and then click "Delete Selected" to have it move to the trash the duplicate messages. Quick and easy.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-82507464172466286032008-08-06T09:59:00.000-07:002008-08-06T10:05:18.637-07:00Restart...Here we go again.<br /><br />I have recently "retired" from a 9 to 5 life and hence I have a couple of spare minutes to rant about things in the forum. It may be to a "null" audience or someone may stumble across it and find it useful. Heh, that is what the Internet is all about, a way for anyone to publish ideas and thoughts. "Once more unto the breach"...<br /><br />TimTim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-44522917093208659862007-06-18T11:18:00.000-07:002007-06-20T10:05:05.253-07:00It gets down to the last mile...Internet access for all will be determined by the cost of access. The last barrier to access is the "last mile".<br /><br />And this brings up a story...<br /><br />A year ago, the City of San Francisco had a problem. They wanted to deploy broadband access to one of the housing developments that the <a href="http://www.sfha.org/">San Francisco Housing Authority</a> runs. The Alice Griffith (aka Double Rock) housing development is located in the south east corner of the city. Many of San Francisco's housing developments are down there such as Hunter's View, Hunters's Point West and Sunnydale.<br /><br />In the extreme south/east corner of San Francisco where Alice Griffith is, there is only one broadband provider, Comcast. They really were not that interested in helping this project out as they already have a contract with the city to provide cable to the housing development as part of their franchise. The other San Francisco broadband provider is AT&T (aka, Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, Pacific Bell, SBC). AT&T did not install DSL in this area. With that, in order to get broadband to Alice Griffith, San Francisco was about to ink a deal with AT&T for two DS-1 connections that would give Alice Griffith 3Mb/s for $1,300 a month(1). You would think that since Pacific Bell's original corporate office was located in San Francisco that AT&T would have some interest in helping out 3 Mb/s of broadband. Nope. They wanted the bucks.<br /><br />Right now, wholesale broadband costs anywhere from $10 a month per megabit to say $100 a month. At my company we get it on the cheaper end of that range. With the assumption that AT&T needs to cover say $30 a month for the wholesale cost of 3 Mb/s, that leave a tidy profit of $1,270 per month.<br /><br />Ok, we need to count in the cost of the copper to Alice Griffith. AT&T typically charges about $12 or so a month for each copper pair to DSL providers. Two DS1s will take either two pairs or four pairs depending on the technology AT&T is using to transport it (HDSL vs. standard DS1). Right now AT&T use 1 pair for DS1. So assuming that AT&T makes zero profit off of the $12 a month they are charging DSL providers (yeah, right), then the cost for the copper is $24 a month. Ok, $1,270 - $24 leaves around $1,246 net profit.<br /><br />How can AT&T charge this? Simply there is no competition.<br /><br />When we at <a href="http://wps.com/about-WPS/TLG/index.html">TLGnet</a> (San Francisco's first ISP) first started out in 1990, we were paying $5,000 a month to UUnet for bandwidth via a DS1. Of course we had to pay for the DS1 to get it to us. That was about $500 a month. Since then, bandwidth is in the $20 a Mb/s per month range and DS1 costs are exactly the same. The last mile cost in 1990 was 9.1% of the total costs. Now it is about 87% of the total costs (assuming say $100 for the bandwidth and $650 for the DS1).<br /><br />Wholesale bandwidth has plenty of competition from folks like AT&T, MFN, MCI, Savis, Level3, XO, Global Crossing, among other "tier one" providers and have dropped bandwidth prices to about 3% of what it cost us in 1990. Like San Francisco, last mile providers have no competition and have not changed their pricing at all. The various telecom acts to reform this has very little if any impact for the end user.<br /><br />It was interesting that even Comcast didn't try to make a buck here. They just said no. If you counted on at least two providers providing competition, you would be disappointed.<br /><br />On the next rant, I am going to look back in San Francisco history for precedents to this issue.<br /><br />(1) It so happens my <a href="http://www.unitedlayer.com/">ISP</a> is 4 blocks away from Alice Griffith and we put in a 5.8GHz radio link to it. Now they have 50Mb/s of free access as opposed to the 3 Mb/s that they would have had to pay $1,300 a month for.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-34854380337064188852007-06-13T17:58:00.000-07:002007-06-13T18:11:39.706-07:00Freeing up the net...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpQhyphenhyphenS3-eERgekP4qdo12132UuCgc353-ZxASuG-u7VjzBgnmy21Z5ikScuxu3hyphenhyphenDBubobDbJLQDgI72gR6JULHSCfZqgCjToWFnSscDwgpD_0uknzhjkoc5LuDkjTlqVqHhjK/s1600-h/CIMG2222.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpQhyphenhyphenS3-eERgekP4qdo12132UuCgc353-ZxASuG-u7VjzBgnmy21Z5ikScuxu3hyphenhyphenDBubobDbJLQDgI72gR6JULHSCfZqgCjToWFnSscDwgpD_0uknzhjkoc5LuDkjTlqVqHhjK/s320/CIMG2222.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5075719353128401074" border="0" /></a><br /><img src="file:///Users/pozar/projects/nanog/2007/40/Nanog%20200706/CIMG2222.JPG" alt="" /><br />Arriving at SEA/TAC to fly back to San Francisco from NANOG 40, we find that there are two commercial WiFi providers, AT&T and T-Mobile. As our flight was delayed an hour we had a couple of hours to kill so we were "Jones-ing" for a net connection. Fortunately, one of our group had an AT&T account and well all had MacBooks.<br /><br />So, Pete (on the left) connected to AT&T, shared the connection to his ethernet port which was connected to my MacBook via the red cable and my MacBook was sharing it back out on my WiFi interface so Matt (on the right) could connect. We were all happy campers.<br /><br />Now if there is a way to do this without paying AT&T...Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-26161527618475698422007-06-09T19:21:00.001-07:002007-06-09T19:21:52.338-07:00So much has changed...Gads... Has it been more than three years?<br /><br />Right around the time of the previous post, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This was a relapse and it was pretty far along before it was found. In short, he tried one chemo treatment and it just took him out quicker. He passed away the end of January. About 5 days later, my mother had a stroke that eventually ended her life 10 days after Dad passed away.<br /><br />Needless to say, this was a very stressful time. Not only both of my parents passing away within days of each other, but I was the executor of the estate and had to address the funeral for both, accounts, lawyers, etc.. My sister Kim, was and still is a great help in this time.<br /><br />Blogging was definitely not a priority. I only recently look at it again as I am back into a place I can dedicate some time working on it.<br /><br />I miss both my parents and I am grateful for the help and support I have with my family.<br /><br />The blog was originally meant to contain rants on democratizing global communications. It is still a very guiding purpose for me, but I want to not box myself into just that here. I hope you won't mind.Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9876271.post-1104530141482070622004-12-31T13:40:00.000-08:002004-12-31T14:13:44.976-08:00Welcome...Seems that I have been encouraged by folks to start a blog.
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<br />I tell folks that I only want to deal with ISO layers 3 and below but it seems that I get into these rants with folks that apply to 4 and above and they say it should be documented. Hmmm... Ok, I'll bite.
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<br />A little background on me... One of my main "themes" in life is to give tools to the world that help them express their ideas. I have this rather utopian idea that if everyone has tools to exchange ideas then the world will be a better place. Everyone should have access to the printing press and the distribution system to get the ink to the folks that want to read it.
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<br />So, I have been involved with starting community radio stations, hooking up personal networks like FidoNet to the Internet, starting ISPs, co-founding anti-spam companies and starting up free community wireless networks.
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<br />My actions and thoughts are mainly liberal with some libertarian thrown in.
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<br />As you can figure out from above, in the coming posts, I want to cover technology and how it relates to giving folks access to the printing press and distribution.
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<br />We'll both see how this goes... :-)
<br />Tim Požarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05965296557159066389noreply@blogger.com