Wednesday, March 16, 2005

What's wrong with this picture I use a WiFi a lot, and Skype for VoIP. I use a Nokia Bluetooth headset with my mobile phone and a Logitech USB headset for VoIP. I sometime think "this would be a lot simpler if I just put a Bluetooth card into my laptop, because then I'd only have to use the Nokia headset for both my VoIP and mobile calls". Less to pack, and less to lose. But, maybe not sure a good idea: Bluetooth uses the same part of the radio spectrum as Wi-Fi wireless LANs. But whereas Wi-Fi uses a technique known as "direct sequence" to encode information, Bluetooth uses a different spread spectrum technique known as "frequency hopping." The Bluetooth transmitter hops 1,600 times every second to a different frequency inside unlicensed 2.4GHz radio band. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are not compatible: If a Wi-Fi system is transmitting a packet when Bluetooth steps through, that packet is lost. For this reason, some businesses have banned the use of Bluetooth on their property for fear of interference with their wireless networks. [ http://www.csoonline.com/read/020105/machine.html - Simpson Garfinkel, CSO Magazine, Feb 2005] 3:11:04 PM    comment []

What's wrong with this picture, Part 2 I'm back in Massachusetts, as state which (according to the Aer Lingus in-flight magazine "Cara") reaches up to the Canadian border and borders Vermont to the east and north (though not New Hampshire, which doesn't exist according to the map). I noticed that security between Dublin and London is tighter than the security between London and Boston, maybe because the recent major bank robberies in Ireland, north and south, meant that the cash may be travelling over to the UK for laundering. For the London-Boston flight, the security guards asked me to turn on my laptop but then said it wasn't necessary because it was warm, indicating that it had recently been used. hmm.   11:59:17 AM    comment []