6. January 2010 by admin.

Netbooks are popping up everywhere … even onboard yachts. Well believe it or not most things that pop up elsewhere in the world do pop up on yachts.

Netbooks can be slightly lesser powered than their more expensive full laptop counterparts, so my recomendation is to try them out HARD. Run what you really want to run, or simulate it as much as possible, before you take the plunge. Many of them run Intel Atom or similar CPU’s, and Intel Atom even has Dual-Core versions out. But be careful because I have seen some of them perform rather slowly… You might check this out:

http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/18/1433/Mobile-Wireless/informed-cio-netbooks.html

Informed CIO: Netbooks
 
Download
The New Option: Netbooks
Challenge Notebooks’ Dominance

We’ve seen laptop alternatives before—bricks, iPAQs, smart pads and “ultra portables” that were never quite cheap or convenient enough to take a real bite out of the market. What’s different about netbooks? Simple: They’re really, really inexpensive and provide better functionality than any smartphone. We’re not surprised that consumers and business users alike are snapping these babies up like Twitter stock options.

Still, some CIOs wonder whether netbooks are ultimately a consumer play. The answer is unquestionably no. In our recent InformationWeek Analytics Windows 7 survey of 1,414 business technology professionals, 36% of respondents said they already have some level of netbook use in their organizations today. This saturation is expected to grow to 72% of companies over the next 24 months, with 19% planning extensive deployments.

While you can’t ignore the category, CIOs do need to educate themselves on what netbooks are capable of today and how the landscape of competitors, hardware options and OS choices will dramatically change over the coming two years. In this report, we’ll outline 10 key questions you need to review to see where netbooks fit within your organization.

Table of Contents
3 Author’s Bio
4 Little Device, Big Impact
4 Figure 1: Current and Future Netbook Use
6 Figure 2: Typical Device Configurations
7 Figure 3: 2009 Consumer Reports Usability Scores For Laptops and Notebooks
9 Figure 4: Impact of Vista and XP Use on System Policies
12 Figure 5: VDC: Netbook Unit Shipments Through 2013

10 Questions to Ask:
5 1 | Does everyone understand what a netbook is—and is not?
7 2 | Have we mapped our employees’ computing behavior?
8 3 | Can they play a role in our cloud and virtualization strategy?
8 4 | What’s our current plan for mobile phones?
9 5 | How are we going to manage them?
10 6 | How is our green policy shaping up this year?
11 7 | How open are you to Microsoft alternatives?
12 8 | How open are we to Intel alternatives?
13 9 | How will our organization account for these devices?
14 10 | Are netbooks just a fluke?

* Now you probably don’t need all of the information in there, but it might be an interesting one to browse. If you’re on a yacht and need information *like* this contact me and I’ll hook you up.

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

Posted in General Computer onboard Sail and Motor Yachts | No Comments »

6. January 2010 by admin.

I thought this was funny enough to share, on:

http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/18/126/Mobile-Wireless/review-wireless-lan-analysis-tools.html

In the document it has an Executive Summary - Wireless Analysis Tools - sidebar, which says, and I quote:

Q: Users complain that your WLAN misbehaves every day around 1 p.m. Do you:

a. Blame it on employees surfing the Web at lunchtime;
b. Assume it’s just the nature of WLANs to be
erratic; or

c. Tell the whiners to be thankful they have a
WLAN at all?

The right answer is “none of the above.”

* I know there have been *some* times when Yacht Captains or Engineers want to tell the whiners to be thankful they have a Wireless Network, and Internet at all…

But we all know that’s not the answer. Crew these days for yachts are expecting Internet Access - at least *most* of the time. And we might even be at the tipping point where potential crew will walk because of lack of Internet connectivity onboard a yacht.

Anyway, I thought that would be a funny way, or a fun way, to talk about the subject. I am now in my 6th year working for Marine Customers, mostly Sail and Motor Yacht Customers, assisting with and providing Onboard Networks and Internet Systems - as well as Assisting With and Cleaning Up / Improving existing such Systems.

Well there yah go…! Happy New Year!

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

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

+1 954-683-3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

Posted in Computer Networking onboard Sail and Motor Yachts | No Comments »

6. January 2010 by admin.

As a 2010 recommendation (carried over from 2009)…

802.11n WiFi Standard recommend at least for the “inside” of yachts for now…

802.11 “N” the new standard for wireless access points and client networking devices (such as laptops, pda’s, and smart phones), is an addition to the older 802.11 “B” and 802.11 “G” that we’ve been using for a few years now. I have been recommending 802.11 N capable wireless access points for “WLAN” - Wireless Local Area Network - to yachts throughout 2009. When you get 802.11N you get backward compatibility for 802.11B and G client networking devices as well.  WLAN basically is the wireless equivalent of Catagory 5 / 5e / or 6 wired networking within (inside) a premises. So for Yachts and other Marine Vessels this means your “inside the boat” method of accessing the “Boats Onboard Network” which usually also (through router or routers) gives you access to the Internet (the “WAN” - Wide Area Network, which these days is just a “techy” way of saying “The Internet Connection”.) If you can get both 2.4 Gigaherts (Ghz) along with 5.0 Gigaherts Wireless Access Points in the process that would be even better. 5.0 Ghz (Dual Band Access Points)  is used by some Apple Notebooks and may be available in newer Windows Laptops or as an add-on Network Card. 5.0 Ghz will be less used than 2.4 Ghz since the majority of the zillions of WiFi Users are still on that band. So 5.0 Ghz may be less prone to interference and may give you a dedicated “radio” to talk to in such and access point. If the captain, for example, had a 5.0 Ghz WiFi Card in a laptop and everyone else used 2.4 Ghz, he basically gets a seperate band/channel to himself.

For the outside connection, the WAN or WWAN - Wireless WAN connection to WiFi Hotspots I still do NOT recommend 802.11 “N” because Hotspots will not be using it, and the benefits of it may be lost in an outdoor longer range environment.  WiFi Hotspots won’t have 802.11 “N” because it’s MIMO (Multi Input, Multi Output) Multi-Antenna design. WiFi Hotspots will not at this point have Multiple-Radio, Mimo, Multi-Antenna installations - and might not have this for quite some time, if ever. 802.11 N takes advantage, rather than suffering from, close in, lots of obstacles (multipath radio signals) in the way, and uses it to your advantage. Outdoors this just might not work out that way. There just won’t be that many bounces on obstacles or need for multiple antennas. This may change in the future. If anyone knows of an Outdoor WiFi System that uses 802.11 N please let me know.

References: http://analytics.informationweek.com/abstract/18/1733/Mobile-Wireless/research-why-802-11n-will-revolutionize-connectivity.html

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11n

—

Alan Spicer (KA4UDX)

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

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

+1 954-683-3426

communications (at) marinetelecom.net

Posted in Computer Networking onboard Sail and Motor Yachts | No Comments »