kdmurray.blog

The crossroads of life and tech

Monthly Archives: March 2007

DD-WRT: Routers the Next Generation

I realize it’s not a new technology (its on ver. 23), but its one I’ve recently adopted.  We’re planning on doing some re-arranging to put an office in the house, and that means computers in different rooms.  What I need now, I said to myself, is a way of extending my wireless network to another room… preferably with a router on the other end too so I can plug in a non-wireless computer.

The problem: The firmware for my Linksys WRT54G doesn’t allow that, at least not easily.

Enter the DD-WRT firmware package to save the day.  This package gives you full “god-mode-like” control over your router’s settings, and thus your entire wireless network.  Multiple routers can be placed in the same space to allow a WLAN to be extended to a much greater range (this is the same basic principle as a cellular network).  The principle is referred to as a Wireless Distribution System (WDS), with the individual access points acting as repeaters.

Next week I’ll be picking up the second node for my Wireless home network so that I can finally move that other computer upstairs!  :)

DD-WRT has a ton of other features including the ability to host a hot-spot of your very own.  This is particularly useful for small businesses who may wish to offer wifi connectivity on their premises.  Check out the DD-WRT wiki for a full rundown on what this package can do.

For additional information on tricking out your Linksys WRT54G, check out Aaron Wiess’ article “The Open Source WRT54G Story” on wi-fiplanet.com.

Outlook 2003 RSS Plugin – RSS Popper

xml.pngRecently we’ve begun to deploy some Web 2.0 technologies within the workplace, namely blogs and a wiki.  The team I’m on is fairly technical, and in some ways its a bit surprising that none of us had tried something like this before… but that’s a post for another day.

With the increasing popularity of the tools, it became evident quickly that browsing through all the pages on a daily basis to help monitor content and just stay on top of things.  The solution: an RSS reader of course.  I’ve been used to using SharpReader on my older Windows machines, and since I’ve moved to the Mac I pretty much rely on the Google-tabs pages to track all the headlines.  But in the office I quite literally live in my outlook.

Enter RSS Popper.  This is a quick to install plugin for Outlook which places a “mail items” folder under your mailbox, and fetches all of the new entries from specified RSS feeds, and can do each feed at a custom interval if need be.  This is a basic plugin, there’s no doubt about that, but its quick and reasonably reliable.

Try it out, download your copy of RSS Popper from the website.

Jeff Cowan – Where’d this guy come from?!

Canucks Vintage JerseyAcquired by the Vancouver Canucks on December 30th 2006 after claiming him off waivers from the LA Kings, Jeff Cowan has suddenly become an offensive force to be reckoned with scoring five goals in his last three games (after not scoring since last season).

The Canucks acquired Cowan primarily to be a role player, to add some grit and toughness to the Canucks’ lower lines. In his first few games, it was clear that Cowan was going to make that difference.

In listening to Brook Ward and Dave Tomlinson last night on the Team 1040, they raised a good point. Even the knuckle-draggers of the NHL were at some point in their hockey career the most skilled player on their team. That’s why they made the NHL. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when we find people like Jeff Cowan, or former-canuck Gino Odjick, being able to score some very skillful goals.

I’ve just had to edit the first paragraph, Cowan scored again. Wow.

New Toy – Palm Tréo 700wx

Recently I’ve had the ability to trade in my old cell phone for a new one, and if you’ve seen my old phone you know it was it was a real upgrade.

Working for a company whose public values state that it’s a company with an eye on the future, it was finally time to get rid of that old clunker and replace it with something a bit more up to date.

Over the past week or so, I’ve tried to put it through its paces. Trialling both the unit’s hardware and the Windows Mobile 5 OS. For the most part performance and service have both been quite good. I’ll go a bit more into detail on some of the individual items below.

Handset Size & Shape

Palm Tréo 700wxI’m not a small guy, and I think that’s part of the reason I don’t find the large or bulky. I’ve handed it to several people in the past couple of weeks who have almost exclusively commented on the unit’s size as soon as it hits their palm (pun fully intended). Overall the size and shape aren’t bad, however for a unit of this size, the screen resolution should be a bit higher than the standard 240×240 pixels. The only real structural issue is the wide stubby antenna at the top of the device. Eliminating this would make the unit much sleeker, and somewhat more attractive to the style-conscious “crackberry” addicts.

Keyboard

Tréo Keyboard zoomAt first glance the Tréo’s keys seem to be placed very close together, and with fairly large fingers, I was certain that this would be an issue for me. As a result I was happy to find that because the keys are domed quite steeply, this increases the distance between the tops of the keys which greatly enhances its usability. The one disappointing thing with the keyboard is the lack of a colon ( : ) symbol. This is particularly annoying when trying to email someone a URL, or preface a bulleted list. However the included “soft-keyboard” can be quickly pulled up and the colon inserted averting the colon-less disaster, but considering that there are two shift keys and the “period” key has no alternate function, this would have been a nice addition.

Applications

The included applications integrated seamlessly with my office’s exchange servers. Setup took less than two minutes. All of the essential mail functions are there, and sync up nicely with my inbox. However the lack of ability to add a flag to messages (which is how I sort out my “todos”) was a bit annoying. I’ve had to create a TODO folder which I can sync up to get around this. Synchronization with the calendar is outstanding. The ability to see everything I have upcoming in my calendar right through to the end of time is great. I no longer have to power up my laptop in the morning when I wonder “Gee… when is that first meeting? Was it 8:00 or 8:30?“. The one thing I would like to see added to the Handheld-Exchange synchrionization is my Outlook Notes. The notes on the handheld need to be synced up using the USB cable, which is something I find myself doing quite infrequently. The included Pocket Word, Pocket Excel and Pocket Powerpoint tools are pretty useful, with Word’s zoom-out feature being particularly useful on the 240×240 display.

Battery

Thus far, and granted the unit is still quite new, the battery has held up very well. I’m able to get through a full day of moderate usage with juice to spare. The charge times are reasonably fast and the myriad of power-saving options should make it easier to conserve more power on a day where the unit is used more heavily. I have read a few reviews to the contrary however.

Future Features

Other than what I’ve mentioned so far, there are a couple of things that I think Palm could learn from its competitors. Both RIM‘s Blackberry and Motorola‘s Moto-Q have scroll wheels. This feature makes browsing web pages and long documents much more intuitive, particularly since nearly everyone is used to having some sort of scrolling assistance on their mouse or trackball. Also, providing a bit more internal memory would eliminate the almost instant need to purchase an SD card to expand storage. 64MB worth of data won’t go far, and with the drop of Flash memory to record lows it shouldn’t be too difficult. Heck, even the freebie giveaway USB thumb drive I received at last year’s Cognos seminar was 128MB. Lastly, adding a WiFi connector to the unit would cut down on the amount of relatively costly EvDO airtime that data users would consume. Though there aren’t many devices out there now which support all these modes, UTStarcom has proved it can work in a similarly-sized package.

Overall I’m very, very happy with the Tréo. It has done everything it promised, and I’ve even found a few add-on applications which have made it even more invaluable (I’ll get to those another day). If I had to give it a rating, it would be 7/10. On the plus side, usability of the entire interface from touch-screen to keyboard is excellent, and battery life seems to be as good or better than its competitors. Cons would have to be resolution, lack of a scroll wheel and the missing colon key.

Check out another review at PalmInfoCenter.com