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Tim Higgins

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Related posts

Wideband WLANs on the way?

The final standard is still over a year in the future and the Wi-Fi certification process for draft 11n products is about 3-5 months away. But companies are continuing to put this Beta-test-in-progress (which you, the consumer, are paying to participate in) into end-products beyond wireless routers and adapters. We've already seen draft 11n integrated into notebooks, and now Apple and D-Link have integrated it into networked media players.

The AppleTV announcement revealed that draft 11n capable hardware (from Atheros, it turns out) had already been integrated into existing Core 2 Duo MacBooks, MacBook Pros and Core 2 Duo iMacs (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac). All you need to do is run an "enabler" app, buy a new version of the Airport Extreme (in new Mac mini form factor) and voila, you have an interference generator for your 11b/g network. But something that Apple has done right is to put concurrent (or simultaneous) dual-band capability into its draft 11n products. This raises the cost, but also the flexibility since connections in both bands can be made at the same time.

What else are you reading?

The response to my previous post looking for bloggers was completely underwhelming. So let’s try a different approach. I’d like ...

Wireless Intruder Alert Systems

Something I'm surprised I don't get more questions about is how to tell when someone (who you don't want there) is trying to use your wireless LAN. I swear there used to be a simple application that came with early Macintoshes called "Knock Knock" that would pop up a dialog when someone attempted to connect to your Mac. I'm looking for something similar, preferably free, that runs on Windows.