12. October 2009 by admin.

* I came across a problem - in using Comcast Cable TV [Basic Cable] with new Flat Panel HDTV’s. Comcast doesn’t publish the list of channels that you can tune directly from your shiny new TV. They only publish the channels as they work using their rented cable boxes (Set-Top Boxes.) I searched on the Internet and many people seem to want the same thing. So I decided to do the Fort Lauderdale (Oakland Park), Florida area. It takes a long time to do this… so I hope it’s helpful to someone else besides me.

I don’t like to have to surf around tons of channels trying to find something interesting. I want to know what channels I have - and how to punch them into my remote control directly. If I want to watch History Channel - I want to go directly to it. If I want to watch Discovery Channel - I want to go directly to it. I also want to to know what’s in High Definition (HD) and how to go directly to those channels - without having to suffer through the 480i resolution old-style NTSC channels - if I don’t have to. I did find out that some channels just aren’t in HD. I’m surprised they couldn’t do more of the other channels (USA, TNT, TBS, DISCOVERY, HISTORY, … etc.) in HD as well.

Anyway I have attached my list. And also a SHORT LIST that I made for myself. You might want to make your own SHORT LIST because you may not like mine.

Any corrections, information, or comments [thank you’s - invitations for dinner and beers - moneys you want to throw at me] please contact me. Email works for most things.

Fort Lauderdale (Oakland Park) QAM and NTSC Channel List

Oakland Park (Fort Lauderdale) ALan’s Short Comcast Channel List

* These are also available at: http://www.marinetelecom.net/QAM-FTL/ - which should help even after this blog has many more entries and this blog post has pushed off the main page (and would be difficult to find.) 

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

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10. October 2009 by admin.

So, how can I …

How can I get customers to use/play with WiFi Hotspot Sharing System, some interesting stuff about WiFi…

I just came across this:

http://www.cepro.com/article/how_to_debug_wifi_and_optimize_wireless_in_the_home/

* First off… Some interesting things about the new 802.11n (as in November.)

Don’t Leap to 802.11n

I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about 802.11n, the newer WiFi technology. Unfortunately, 802.11n, in my opinion, is not ready to be professionally installed as a wireless infrastructure for your customer.

Its major problems right now are:

It’s still in draft form and will be until mid-2009, the major reason that no commercial WAP utilizes 802.11n. Interoperability is still a problem.

It has so many mode variations — 576 to be exact — it’s just not possible to predict performance between any two devices.

in the presence of competing ‘g’ networks (even in a neighbor’s home) it will “fall back” to g speeds

It is subject to many of the interference problems of ‘g’ .

It can seriously screw-up existing ‘g’ networks

Something that most people forget is that to utilize its potential higher bandwidths (over about 60 Mbps) requires it connect to a 1000Base-T wired network.

(Maybe they have fixed some of those problems by now?)

* But here is what initially caught my eye. Many of the Hotspot Sharing Systems (often called “External WiFi”) that I deploy on marine / yachts … have a Signal Strength reading in dBm to tell you how strong a WiFi Hotspot’s signal is. I tell my customers that the lower negative numbers are the stronger one. The lower the negative number the stronger the signal is. But how high of a negative number is too high to be useable?

This chart was at the above link.

FIGURE 1. 802.11G Data Rate vs. Path Lost

Figure 1. Data rate vs. received signal strength for two popular WAPs. Both exhibit a common “cliff” effect where data rate drops off quickly.

According to this chart, it looks like getting past -80 dBm is rapidly approaching the point where Internet Speed might suffer. Keep in mind that it’s a shared medium (Hotspots are shared by others…) and the typical Internet link supplying a hotspot is 12 Megabits per second or slower. Many are 2 Megabits per second or slower.

So, you might be able to operate down into -90 dBm and still get 1 or 2 Mb/s of Internet Speed. Assuming your system can hold that signal and there are no other factors affecting your resulting Internet Speed. (I have seen that even with good signal in some very crowded marinas … things can can get really ugly with a lot of WiFi users.)

Anyway I thought it was interesting. If any of my Marine WiFi Hotspot System users test this out in their travels - I would be interested in hearing about your experiences - especially using this chart as a basis. So just how weak of a Hotspot Signal could you lock onto and have useable Internet?

Thanks!

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

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10. October 2009 by admin.

* Alan Spicer’s Note: I found this today while looking for a graphical representation of WiFi Channel Frequencies showing the overlapping and non-overlapping channels. I had an occassion on a marine vessel (motor yacht) today to use the knowledge of what channels can be used in WiFi, in not only 2.4 Ghz but also 5 Ghz, by access points (or access point / routers) that are (or could be?) within each others signal pattern (you could call it their “footprint” as the do with Satellite Signals reaching the Earth.) Anyway I found the article to be not only interesting but refreshing in the way the author describes OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) as an analogy (analogous to…) a Rythm Guitar Player and a Lead Guitar Player [OFDM and FDM.] I am obviously not the author of the article, I only wish I was. I am now a fan of the author and his web site, as well as the web site that I found it on.

http://www.cwnp.com/community/articles/understanding_ofdm_-_part_1.html

and…

http://www.wirelesstrainingsolutions.com/

Written by Rick Murphy    
Wednesday, 23 September 2009 
The 48-string Guitar

(I placed this picture just for visual effect because of the title and analogy discussion in the article. But I did download the http://www.guitar-chords-laboratory.com/ Guitar Chords Laboratory and it’s a pretty cool program, if you have an interest in playing the guitar at all. It is able to show chords and actually play them…)

Like the sidewalk under your feet, always solid, never doubted, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is the rock that supports current and near-term wireless technologies, including 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11n, WiMAX, and LTE. As a wireless professional, you’ll be working with OFDM-based technologies for the foreseeable future. An understanding of OFDM will give you an edge in designing and maintaining the networks under your care.

802.11a and 802.11g are the “tried and true” members of the 802.11 family of wireless local area network (WLAN) products. Both 802.11a and 802.11g (802.11a/g) make use of OFDM. The manner in which these two technologies exploit the features of OFDM is relatively uncomplicated, which makes them good choices with which to begin our exploration of OFDM. Once we have a good working understanding of OFDM and are able to visualize its operations it will be much easier to understand the changes that 802.11n encompasses.
 
802.11n is the most recent addition to the 802.11 family of WLAN technologies. In development since 2002, it has now officially been ratified by IEEE ballot and is published for use by the networking community. Because of its advanced features and higher communications rates, we can expect a gold rush of activity surrounding this new amendment. 802.11n has already proven that it can provide much higher data transfer rates than were possible using earlier forms of wireless technologies. The higher speeds of 802.11n are realized thanks to innovations such as Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), wider channel bandwidth options (40 MHz), and improvements to existing mechanisms such as OFDM. One specific improvement to OFDM is the way in which 802.11n takes advantage of previously unused (by 802.11a/g) subcarriers. To appreciate these improvements, it’s necessary to explore what subcarriers are in the first place and how they were used previously, with 802.11a/g.

WiMAX and LTE are cutting-edge, broadband wireless technologies that hold great promise for delivering high-speed connectivity within wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs). These are important “next gen” technologies and the way they use OFDM is a bit complex. For that reason we’ll postpone our examination of WiMAX’s and LTE’s use of OFDM until later in this commentary.

Before there was Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), there was Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), a reliable but slower wireless signaling method. These two multiplexing techniques will be compared, against two common forms of rendition used in guitar performances, namely lead and rhythm guitar. The reason to do that is to give a recognizable analogy of something invisible and alien (OFDM) to something familiar and pleasant (music). The first comparison makes the assertion that FDM is comparable to lead guitar, while the second is of OFDM to the chords produced by a rhythm guitarist.
 
For the first example, we’ll compare the use of FDM, with a single-carrier, to the performance of a lead guitarist fingering the notes of a riff. Each string is sounded clearly and separately as the guitarist presses briefly behind the frets, while plucking the strings with a pick. This action continues in a swiftly moving serial progression to the end of the score.
 
That’s similar to the way in which FDM single-carrier* signals are transmitted. In FDM, an input data stream arrives at the transmitter radio chain to be modulated serially, onto a single-carrier channel by means of some form of phase modulation (BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, or 64-QAM). Each modulation event induces a clear and separate pulse, called a “modulation symbol”, which represents a select portion of the bits that make up the input data stream.
 
Just as the sound from the guitar travels through the air to reach a listener’s ears, FDM induced signals also propagate over the air interface where they likely encounter a receiving antenna. With music, the listener’s ears pass the guitar sound onto auditory nerves, which deliver the sounds to the brain, where the sounds may be interpreted pleasantly (or not). In wireless, the receiving antenna, directs the FDM signal to the receiver’s radio chain where processor chips decompose the modulation symbols back into the original information bits and send them to the higher network layers for interpretation.
 
In the second example, a rhythm guitarist presses down on several strings at once, while strumming the pick across all of the strings. This action produces a “chord” which is a composite sound made up of multiple individual notes played together. Each note still maintains its individuality, but what’s heard by the listener is a melodic, composite sound containing all of the individual notes superpositioned as one.
 
To play chords, the rhythm guitarist positions fingers on the strings in pre-defined patterns much like an OFDM radio prepares the data stream to be transmitted by performing a serial-to-parallel conversion. The guitarist strums across all of the guitar’s strings to sound the chord, while in OFDM, subcarriers (analogous to the guitar’s strings) are created through a mathematical function called Inverse Fast Fourier Transforms (IFFT). 802.11a/g allows 48 subcarriers to be individually phase modulated to represent bits from the input data stream. Once induced, the individual modulation symbols combine into a single transmission burst known as an “OFDM symbol”, which is comparable to the chord produced by a rhythm guitar. At the receiving side, the OFDM symbol is recovered through a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) operation, the reverse of the IFFT operation, which splits the composite OFDM symbol back into its component, modulation symbols. Like the guitar chord, an OFDM symbol efficiently packs more information into each burst. The bits represented by the modulation symbols are queued and presented to a parallel-to-serial conversion step, resulting in a bit stream that can be copied to baseband and sent up the protocol stack.
You can think of the way that OFDM is used in 802.11a/g, as a rhythm guitar with 48 strings. That gives a clear, high-level, auditory and visual analogy of this use of OFDM. But to be more precise, there are really 64 subcarriers created by the 802.11a/g IFFT/FFT functions. It’s just that, only 48 of them are used to carry user data. In order to take this investigation deeper and to prepare for more complex versions of OFDM, it’s now necessary to leave our guitar analogy and talk about OFDM straight-up.

* for FDM multi-carrier, try picturing a jam session with several lead guitars
 
To be continued… Watch for “Understanding OFDM - Part 2 – Subcarriers Unstrung” –

Summary of Part 1

OFDM is used in current and soon-to-be released wireless communications technologies.
FDM can be compared to the single notes played sequentially by a lead guitarist
OFDM can be compared to the multi-note chords produced by a rhythm guitarist
Like a chord produced by a guitar, an OFDM symbol contains multiple information components
802.11a/g uses a form of OFDM which creates 64 subcarriers
Only 48 of these subcariers are used to represent bits from the input user data stream.

Rick Murphy’s Homepage - http://www.wirelesstrainingsolutions.com

(Obviously please visit cwnp.com and Rick Murphy’s Homepage - you can bet I will be.)

P.S. It’s very interesting to read about not only what happens at the Computer Networking Level, but also what happens at the Radio / Communications Level - of how this stuff works. And surely this can be beneficial to those of us that actually deploy both WiFi 802.11 and Cellular 3G (3.5G and 4G) systems for our friends and customers. 

Additional references I looked at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonality#Communications

In mathematics, two vectors are orthogonal if they are perpendicular, i.e., they form a right angle.

Communications

In communications, multiple-access schemes are orthogonal when an ideal receiver can completely reject arbitrarily strong unwanted signals using different basis functions than the desired signal. One such scheme is TDMA, where the orthogonal basis functions are non-overlapping rectangular pulses (”time slots”).

Another scheme is orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), which refers to the use, by a single transmitter, of a set of frequency multiplexed signals with the exact minimum frequency spacing needed to make them orthogonal so that they do not interfere with each other. Well known examples include (a and g) versions of 802.11 Wi-Fi; Wimax; ITU-T G.hn, DVB-T, the terrestrial digital TV broadcast system used in most of the world outside North America; and DMT, the standard form of ADSL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiplexing

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) — essentially identical to Coded OFDM (COFDM) and Discrete multi-tone modulation (DMT) — is a frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) scheme utilized as a digital multi-carrier modulation method. A large number of closely-spaced orthogonal sub-carriers are used to carry data. The data is divided into several parallel data streams or channels, one for each sub-carrier. Each sub-carrier is modulated with a conventional modulation scheme (such as quadrature amplitude modulation or phase shift keying) at a low symbol rate, maintaining total data rates similar to conventional single-carrier modulation schemes in the same bandwidth.

OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for wideband digital communication, whether wireless or over copper wires, used in applications such as digital television and audio broadcasting, wireless networking and broadband internet access.

The primary advantage of OFDM over single-carrier schemes is its ability to cope with severe channel conditions — for example, attenuation of high frequencies in a long copper wire, narrowband interference and frequency-selective fading due to multipath — without complex equalization filters. Channel equalization is simplified because OFDM may be viewed as using many slowly-modulated narrowband signals rather than one rapidly-modulated wideband signal. The low symbol rate makes the use of a guard interval between symbols affordable, making it possible to handle time-spreading and eliminate intersymbol interference (ISI). This mechanism also facilitates the design of single-frequency networks, where several adjacent transmitters send the same signal simultaneously at the same frequency, as the signals from multiple distant transmitters may be combined constructively, rather than interfering as would typically occur in a traditional single-carrier system.

OFDM Transmitter (Idealized system model)

OFDM Receiver (Idealized system model) 

—

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net - http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

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9. October 2009 by admin.

FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt … was mentioned here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/01/6597.ars (I don’t know how they managed to make the PICTURE cover the majority of the article.) but interestingly that page says, in part:

“those devices completely obliterating a cell tower? A network’s regional network? How about going so far as to completely disable cell phone service for an entire coast?? If you’ve heard of an instance of any of those, I’d like to know about it.? Jobs’ is convinced that an ill-designed iPhone app could wreak havoc on Cingular’s network: ”

That was written in 2007. It sure sounds like AT&T is crying about almost exactly that, the iPhone users are wreaking havoc on their (formerely Cingular) network.

AT&T Wireless CEO Hints at ‘Managing’ iPhone Data Usage
Mark Sullivan, PC World

Oct 7, 2009 7:11 pm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/173320/atandt_wireless_ceo_hints_at_managing_iphone_data_usage.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

(Dart Board… Throw darts here!)

Ralph De La Vega, C.E.O. and

president, AT&T Mobility. (Photo: AT&T/Microsoft)

CTIA Conference, San Diego–AT&T Wireless CEO Ralph de la Vega bemoaned the disproportionate wireless bandwidth usage of iPhone users in a speech to wireless industry professionals here today, and hinted at an unpleasant way of dealing with the problem.

Alans Photo Note: Maybe AT&T Should get some of these? And put them near where there are large infestations of iPhone users????

From: http://www.cellular-tower-rental.com/

De la Vega talked about the enormous growth in demand for wireless broadband service in the US, and about the immediate need to free up more wireless spectrum to accommodate that growth.

But spectrum is hard to come by these days, and, as De la Vega pointed out, even if new chunks of spectrum could be reallocated quickly, it still takes a few years to build the networks that use that spectrum.

Meanwhile demand for mobile broadband rockets upward among wireless users. De la Vega cited research showing that demand for wireless broadband has grown 5,000 times in the last three years. That growth as roundly expected to accelerate in the coming years.

But all that data usage is not evenly spread across AT&T’s wireless customer base, De la Vega says–far from it. He cited AT&T research showing that just 3 percent of AT&T’s smartphone customers [read iPhone users] use 40 percent of all smartphone data, that they consume 13 times the data of “the average smartphone customer,” yet represent less than 1 percent of AT&T’s total postpaid customer base.

Big problem—but AT&T management should have seen this coming a year ago. Or maybe they did, but getting Wall Street to buy into the idea of aggressive and costly network upgrades is like pulling teeth without anesthetic—lots of screaming.

So in the absence of new spectrum and new, faster 4G networks, what does AT&T intend to do about the growing demand in the near term?

De la Vega’s comments on this subject really caught my attention.

Without the proper management of these networks, De la Vega said, regular data users will be “crowded out” by the small number of users [read iPhone users] who use massive amounts of data.

“We have to manage the network to make sure that the few cannot crowd out the many,” De la Vega continued. He said the words “crowded out” at least five times in that part of his keynote address.

But what exactly does De la Vega mean by “proper management”? That kind of talk reminds me of Comcast’s much-maligned strategy of throttling down the bandwidth allowance of users who routinely download large torrent files.

(more at the link above…)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/is-att-about-to-clamp-down-on-heaviest-wireless-data-users.ars

Ars Technica.com also talks about the AT&T Clamp Down on the Heaviest Wireless Data Users…

AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega took his turn in front of the CTIA conference to argue that the wireless industry doesn’t need any net neutrality regulation. He also suggested that AT&T would be doing something about its heaviest data-using wireless customers.

By Chris Foresman | Last updated October 8, 2009 1:12 PM CT

Yesterday at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2009 conference, both FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega gave keynote addresses. While Genachowski stressed the importance of developing “sensible rules of the road” for wireless network neutrality, de la Vega strongly urged that wireless networks must be managed, repeatedly suggesting that net neutrality regulation would let a few heavy data users “crowd out the many” on its 3G data networks.

(more at the link…)

Alan Spicer’s Note: Maybe if “Wall Street” wants to cry about spending the funds needed to upgrade the networks to handle the current user base, and the future user base, then “Wall Street” should stop getting the profits from the wireless networks. It just sounds like a lame excuse as to why they cannot upgrade their networks. Is there really that badly a lack of funds to do this? I mean come on! 4G is coming. Sprint’s already doing 4G with WiMax. Does AT&T want to be in the back? Or do they want to be in the Forefront of Technology and Wireless Service?

So they should go to Portable Cellular Tower Rental and strap on some towers and some bandwidth and quit crying about it. If “Wall Street” is telling them which direction to go, then maybe they need to stop listening to them. Tell “Wall Street” if you want your stock to continue to be of value then the buildout of upgrades to meet the current demand, and the upgrade to 4G, are Must Haves.

You just can’t tell iPhone users that they get “Unlimited Data” plans but cannot use it in an unlimited fashion. You can’t really honestly tell anyone that they cannot use the Internet in an unlimited fashion. If you are doing that, then you are an idiot.

In case you missed the memo, wireless is replacing landline, for voice and Internet. And its happening in droves. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. You are smack in the middle of what will be the mass majority of communications and entertainment now and ever increasing in the future. So here’s your memo. Get over it. And get to work on this.

—

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954-683-3426

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7. October 2009 by admin.

In an email … someone writes and asks:

I have visited your website. Is there anyway to network unlock these
units? Ericsson W25.

******************************************************************************* 

* My replies:

They are unlocked already. That’s the way they come. It’s not an Apple iPhone. By the way Ericsson W35 replaced the W25. W25 not currently available. Read blog.marinetelecom.net and or the W25 and W35 web sites below for the details.

Thanks.

—
Alan Spicer

You probably already know … It’s a WCDMA/UMTS/GSM product. So that means it works worldwide on any cell carrier that follows that technology line.

I’m attaching a brochure for W35 as it replaces the W25 1-for-1 drop in replacement. Smaller sleeker look. Adds the HS Upload capability which the W25 didn’t have. So now it’s the full HSPA. Backward compatible to GSM with Edge and GPRS for use in areas that haven’t upgraded yet.

UMTS often called 3GSM. HSPA often called 3G+.

* Makes it’s own Hotspot where ever it travels. 10-28vDC and comes with 110vAC to 12vDC adaptor. Built-in Antenna for in coverage use. MCX jack for external antennas (which we do on marine/yachts a lot.) Wired CAT5 (Fast Ethernet) 4 port Switch-hub built-in. Makes it’s own network… Full NAT/Router capability. Plugs quite easily into an existing network infrastructure (assuming you know the ramifications of doing so…)

* A simple Sim Card change changes cellular carriers. No “Jail Breaking” needed such as you need to do with an iPhone. Provides Internet via WiFi for iPhone, iPod Touch, Laptops, Game Machines with WiFi. Anything WiFi can be transported portable or mobile.

* Dial-Tone and Cellular Voice Service (with compatible plan) to standard home or office RJ11 phone equipment, and provides a Cellular Voice Line to most PBX Systems (we do this a lot o marine/yachts as well.)

* USB Storage device sharing using standard Windows Networking (SMB) for USB sticks and external hard drives. Printer sharing as well.

* Fax but that only currently works in Australia as it needs a Fax-Over-IP (T.38) Provider. We recommend for mobile fax to use: Efax.com over the 3G+ Internet Services wherever you may roam.

P.S. If you need other carriers covered such as Sprint, Verizon. I’m also an Authorized Partner for Cradlepoint (shown on http://www.marinetelecom.net.)

*******************************************************************************

P.S. If GSM/UMTS/HSPA (e.g. AT&T, T-Mobile in the U.S.; WCDMA/GSM/UMTS Worldwide) + Voice to Analog Telephone or PBX is important - Ericsson W35 is your choice. If you want to be totally U.S. Cell Carrier Independent - using Express Card or USB Laptop-type Cards - and Voice over IP (e.g. Vonage) if you need Voice, then Cradlepoint is a very good choice there. For external antennas on those cards you have to make sure that you get a card with an external antenna jack, and figure out the plumbing for your external antenna. Many on land, automobile - users won’t need an external antenna at all. Ericsson W35 quite readily accepts and external antenna. And we do them on a regular basis.

Note: The Ericsson W35 is already an “unlocked” cellular mobile broadband router. If you use Laptop Cards in Cradlepoint … those Laptop Cards can still be “locked” to the carrier that sold them. *BUT* Cradlepoint allows you to use any compatible Laptop Card. That’s the unlocked part. I can’t help you with locked Laptop Cards or Cellular Devices beyond what I’ve just stated.

—
Alan Spicer

DBA Alan Spicer Telcom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
Computer Services, Wired/Wireless Networking,
Cell/Sat/Landline Communications, General Consulting…
Marine, Business, Small Office and Home Office (SOHO)

* Cost Savings and Integration of Multiple Internet Technologies
on board Sail and Motor Yachts * Documentation, Operating
Instructions, and Support after the Sale *

* http://www.marinetelecom.net/
* http://www.internetforyachts.net/
* http://www.wifiyacht.net/
* 954-683-3426

Mobile Internet! Step up to the HSPA 3G Fast Internet!

Ericsson W35 released in the USA. This you’ve gotta SEE!!
Better looking presentation than W25 (you might not want to
hide this one in the Doghouse!) + High Speed Upload which
the W25 did not have.
http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35/

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7. October 2009 by admin.

Nobel Physics Winners Changed Our Lives

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/173187/nobel_physics_winners_changed_our_lives.html?tk=nl_bdx_h_crawl

Like the Internet? Own a digital camera? If so, please take a moment to thank today’s three Nobel prizewinners (sic: prize winners) for their discoveries.

The three American scientists, honored today with the 2009 Physics prize, helped give us modern telecommunications–including the Internet–and digital photography. Fiber optic cable makes the high-speed communications possible, while charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are the cornerstone of digital photography.

Sad (sic: It’s sad, or Sadly) it took 40 years to honor these great men–their work was done during the 1960’s–but good health has smiled upon all three, now in their 70’s and 80’s. (Nobels are not awarded posthumously).

(more at the link above.)

 Other persons commented on there…

“Now we know who to blame for dinner time telemarketing calls, comprimising pictures of all kinds of things and the porn on the internet.”

“”The three American scientists, honored today …. ”

Correction: One Brit, one Canadian and one Yank. But let us not dwell on trivialities and share the honours fairly.

“in another 40 years we’ll be honoring a new generation of American scientists ….”

“Really? Only if they are “late learners”. The majority of current COLLEGE levers don’t know the difference between a double deck bus and an truck - unless they check on their iLemming dictionary!”

* Alan Spicer’s Note: Wow! People are so mean online. At least the college level persons are checking *somewhere*. They can’t be that dumb. And yes - many discoveries are international discoveries. In fact many famous ones are contested as having been discovered around the same time both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

God Created the Heavens and the Earth. The rest of us just knocked some pretty neat kits together out of stuff we found around….

—

Alan Spicer Telecom / Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954-683-3426

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7. October 2009 by admin.

Google.com’s home page is now displaying a Bar Code instead of their usual logo. Frequent visitors to Google.com know that they often celebrate special days by changing their “G o o g le” logo to transform it to make it a theme for the event. For example recently they used Morse Code (being a Ham Radio Operator and Communications guy - as you can image - I loved it!)

It’s the aniversary of the invention of the bar code … and you can click on the bar code logo and it will take you to google.com search output explaining about the significance of the date.

It seems to be a valid Code 128 Bar Code according to my test on http://www.barcoding.com/upc/. While I was there I went ahead and made my company name in bar code as well. Who could resist? I love codes!

It’s a thumbnail here in this post, but click on it to see the full sized image.

Here’s Google’s Bar Code generated by Barcoding Inc. for comparison against what Google is displaying now.

This one’s full size, it will fit a bit better in the blog than mine would, so you don’t have to click on it.

Here is the one Google.com has up as it’s logo today:

It saves as a bit-map file … so I hope that’s ok.

The top result (search) from clicking Google.com’s bar code logo today is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100700130.html

Which says…

Michael Arrington
TechCrunch.com
Tuesday, October 6, 2009; 9:43 PM

Google’s new logo is a  barcode which, as far as we can tell, says “Google.” Today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code. Inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver filed the patent on October 1949, and it was granted, No. 2,612,994 (pdf), on October 7, 1952. The original patent was for a system that would encode data in circles (a bulls eye pattern), so that it could be scanned in any direction.

The barcode on the Google homepage is Code 128 encoded, which is a standard way of encoding ASCII character strings (ie. A-Z, a-z, 0-9, etc.) into a barcode. It would be safe to assume that Google used their own open source barcode project, ZXing, to generate the barcode. The same library is used in Android for barcode recognition.

Google regularly changes its logo for holidays and other special events. Here’s their 10th birthday logo from last year, for example. More recently they celebrated Gandhi’s birthday. Google hosts some of their holiday logos here, and fan created logos here.

We had to double check that the barcode in this instance was correct (some of the geeks here insist the barcode isn’t 100% correct), since Google have previously messed things up a little when they try and talk geek dirty.

(More at the link… Please visit www.washingtonpost.com and thank them for this article. It is rather interesting.)

* P.S. As you can see from my post here on my blog, I also couldn’t resist confirming that the barcode was correct - at least on some level. Not that I doubt google’s capabilities, but as they hinted to in the Washington Post article, it’s a geek thing!

Here’s a contest … Email me what this says and I’ve give you $25.00 off on the purchase of an Ericsson W35. Here goes:

 . -   . - . .   . -   - .  +  …   . - - .   . .   - . - .   .   . - .  +  - -   . -  . - .   . .   - .   .  +  -   .   . - . .   .   - . - .   - - -   - -

—

Alan Spicer

“Happy Bar Code Day”

Dih-Dah Dih-Dah-Dit (end of work *AR*)

G O O G L E

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6. October 2009 by admin.

The Ericsson W25 has been exhausted from availability and has been discontinued. If you have one already you might want to keep it as a classic. Calls continue to come in insisting on the W25, and I can understand why. Owners and potential owners may prefer the more robust look of the W25, when compared to the W35. I’ve also been told that some may think that because the W25 has continued to sell for a higher price than the W35 - that the W25 is somehow better than the W35. I guess that’s the old “You get what you pay for” thinking (which is often correct, by the way.) But let me assure you that the W35 is everything the W25 is and more. It was redesigned and the cost lowered to try and get more out there. To sell more. It seemed to scare more of you than it sold to? If anyone wants to pay $750.00 for the Ericsson W25 + + Quality in the Ericsson W35 just let me know. It’s worth it. The rest of you are welcome to take $310.00 off that and have one for $440.00 + shipping. It’s almost worth getting 2 of them. One for the yacht and one for the car/truck/house.

The W35 now includes the full HSPA (both Higher Speed Upload, and Download) the W25 only had Higher Speed on the Download Side. But many people need to SEND things faster these days as well. It’s a bit of an ISP tradition - mostly because of available technology, not by design, for Internet to be Asymmetrical. So we get slower speed on the Upload as compared to the Download. Cellular 3G has done this as well. And finally the technology caught up with “what we’d really like”! Sometimes you need to send documents or pictures by email. And usually with Asymmetrical Internet connections this took a longer time to send than it would have taken to receive it. But now the BANG is back in your BUCK and most of the Cellular Carriers on GSM - UMTS - have upgraded their systems to support the full HSPA. So that means More Cowbell on the Upload side to go along with the fast Download speeds.

In the Ericsson line… you only get that in the Ericsson W35. The W25 only had the High Speed Download. The W35 has both.

Now they did change the case (the enclosure) in the W35, so it’s not just a W25 on Steroids … it has a new Sleek High-Tech looking case as well. It’s smaller … still can hang on a wall or a bulkhead in a yacht… and it’s just as robust and strong of a product as the W25 has been. And it’s less expensive. (what did he just say?) Yes, it’s hundreds of good old American Dollars $$$ less expensive than the W25. It comes with the same support from Alan Spicer - and the Ericsson 1 Year Warranty just like the W25.

So now what’s keeping you from getting one????

Ericsson W25 - No Longer Available - Discontinued Product……………………..
Ericsson W35 Price $440.00 + $25.00 Shipping (U.S. and Canada Locations)
How Fast can a W35 Upload and Download? <- Click there to see. Click BACK
or Reload that page to try all 3 examples (link opens in a new browser window.)

These and other stories at… http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W25 and http://www.marinetelecom.net/Ericsson_W35.

* In other news - I have updated many web pages so you should definately visit them again. Two of them have been mentioned above for the Ericsson gear, but http://www.wifiyacht.net has also been updated. I’m still providing Marine WiFi (Marine WiFi Hotspot Sharing Systems) for sail and motor yachts - and there are some exciting things in the works on there. I want you to have the best Cellular 3G/3G+ Internet, and the best WiFi Hotspot Sharing systems on your marine vessel. (Not to leave out those on land and mobile applications, where many of these products can fit quite well also!)

—

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

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