Monday, June 16, 2003

Tucked away in the hills of Wisconsin is a group of monks who have decided that jumping on the imaging and printing bandwagon would be a financially rewarding way to support their monastery, the Cistercian Abbey. Good-bye illuminated manuscripts, hello inkjets. The business, which operates LaserMonks, offers up to 75 percent discounts for businesses and individuals on printing and imaging supplies, including toner cartridges, inkjet cartridges, refill kits, copier toner, even cash register ribbons. "A Canon or Epson inkjet that they're selling for $20 or $25, we've got it for like $3 or $4," Bernard McCoy, one of the monks who is leading the project, said, adding that the quality of remanufactured cartridges has improved markedly over the last two years. "We're just a small, simple monastery in many ways, but I'd love to take on the big boys," McCoy said, referring to national retail chains OfficeMax and Office Depot. "David and Goliath is perhaps an apropos way of saying what we're trying to do." McCoy said his hope for the business is to be able to support the Abbey's operating expenses and charitable giving, which together run about $120,000 annually. If things really take off, any additional profits will be given to charity. 5:38:04 PM

It's hard not to love the spirit of ingenuity and entrepreneurship behind the Super Cantenna, a $19.95 range-increasing Wi-Fi antenna from Wireless Garden of Carlsbad, Calif. -- or the vision of its founder and president, Jason Brook. Brook's idea -- he calls it "cans across America" -- is that his company's inexpensive antennas could be used to create ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage by linking and extending the range of existing and soon-to-be-deployed public and freenet access points. The Cantenna's design, of course, is inspired by and based on the famously homespun Pringles can antennas used by Wi-Fi war drivers and freenet operators. Only it's much better, says Brook -- good enough in fact to use in commercial networks....Brook and his team optimized every aspect of the Super Cantenna design for Wi-Fi, making the can wider and longer (12 inches) than a Pringles can and carefully engineering the placement of the probe.... The result is a directional antenna that delivers 12 dBi of gain, compared to ratings of as little as 2 dBi for the antennas built into Wi-Fi access points. That translates into greater range....Wireless Garden has two new products coming -- Wireless Booster antennas -- that offer even greater range because they're longer. The 18-inch XL ($30) delivers 18 dBi of gain, the 24-inch XXL ($50) delivers 24 dBi. Testing was still underway at the time of writing so Brook would say nothing definite about range. He insists his Cantennas are easy to install. You need a cable -- a pigtail -- to connect it to the antenna port on the radio. They typically cost about $20. The Wireless Garden Web site offers a pigtail finder -- select your access point or router model from a drop-down list and it tells you which pigtail to buy. Many PC card adapters of course don't have removable antennas and some access points don't either. But the Super Cantenna works with most access points. You will have to remove one of the existing antennas to attach the pigtail. The remaining antenna will continue to provide omni-directional coverage. Aiming the Cantenna is simple, Brook says. "It really is just plug in, point and shoot -- like pointing a rifle." 4:07:55 PM

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