The iPad 3 is without a doubt the best tablet on the market right now for viewing photos and editing and managing as it happens. I’ve been searching for a workflow for a while with the device to get from photo to internet edited and uploaded and come as close as I can so far to almost what i’m looking for.
Looking for a tablet, why not they are a great mobile computing solution, that on the go computing while you are out and about. This is the computing of the new millennium for an active mobile community who likes to share their lives on the go.
Wireless networking is de rigeur these days, but in large buildings or crowded urban environments it can sometimes be difficult to get connections working reliably throughout a facility. Extending your WiFi network allows you to provide strong coverage through a home or workplace while allowing wireless devices to roam about and keep connectivity. The most reliable way I’ve found to extend WiFi network coverage is to create a single network with multiple Wireless Access Points, connected via a wired backbone to a single internet router. Here’s how this is done. Many times I’ve arrived at a client’s home or office to find a plethora of WiFi networks in place: Smith Family Front and Smith Family Rear, or in a business ABC Corporate WiFi, ABC Sales and Jim’s Network. Not only does that mean your computers and smartphones need to join and remember multiple network passwords, but you are probably using multiple routers (and thus multiple DHCP servers and NAT conversions) on the network. A better alternative is to create a single WiFi Network – Smith Family or ABC Corp WiFi – that is available everywhere via multiple Wireless Access Points (WAPs) thoughout the structure. This provides a single sign-on for convenience and security, and allows you to roam throughout a facility on the same network. Each WiFi device should be configured to broadcast the same wireless network name (SSID), and use the same password and method of wireless security (WPA2 encryption is best). This image below shows a configuration for an Apple Airport router, other vendor’s equipment will work similarly. The second important setting is to make sure you have only one router handing out DHCP addresses on your network. For most homes and small businesses this will be the device which connects to your internet provider (Cable, FIOS, DSL, etc.). Your primary router may include WiFi (like an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule) or may be wired only, but either way this should be the only device on the network with a DHCP server enabled. On all other devices – if they have routing capability – turn off DHCP capability. This prevents potential IP address conflicts and keeps all equipment on the same network subnet. With Apple Airport gear this is via the Internet tab, turn Connection Sharing to Off (Bridge Mode). Many brands of WiFi routers have a dedicated bridge or wireless access point mode. With others (like the wildly popular Linksys gear) you can disable DHCP services, tape over the WAN port and give the device a fixed IP address on your network to use the router as a WiFi bridge (additional instructions here). WiFi coverage tends to drop off about two rooms or one floor away from the transmitter, varying with the construction of your building. Additional WiFi routers or access points placed throughout your structure about every three rooms or two floors apart will balance out and broaden coverage. In crowded WiFi environments like an office downtown in a major city, you may need to place WAPs closer and on every floor. Large metal objects, old plaster walls with wire mesh grids inside, or new metal-and-concrete structures can weaken or block signals, so some placement experimentation may be required. Modern WiFi devices will default to using Automatic channel selection, and in most cases this is fine. If you are in an area with many competing WiFi signals, you may want to use scanning software (like iStumbler on the Mac or a WiFi Finder for the iPhone/iPad) to see what’s around and choose a channel which has relatively little traffic for your setup. If you set the channel manually, use the same channel on all access points to flood your network with a strong common signal. Once you’ve configured and placed access points throughout your facility, you need to network them together. A wired backbone is by far the most reliable way to distribute WiFi coverage throughout a structure, and provides a central LAN for fixed computers and devices like printers or non-WiFi equipped gear. Standard network cabling uses cat5 or cat6 (GigE) ethernet lines, and runs can be up to 500 feet long. If you don’t have enough outputs on your primary router to run a cable to each access point, a switch can be attached to any port to provide additional ethernet jacks for distribution. Many newer homes and businesses have ethernet cabling and wall jacks already installed. With older buildings a bit of elbow grease or an electrician’s help may be required to get things setup. Connect each ethernet cable to your primary router or switch on one end, and to your remote access point on the other. This kind of setup creates a wired-to-wireless bridge in each remote location, nodes that provide WiFi coverage for each area. If running ethernet cabling isn’t an option, another solution is to use powerline networking. These devices plug into your electrical outlets and bridge your network over in-wall power cabling. This is very convenient, though in practice the brand of equipment used and the condition of your building’s electrical wiring will dictate how speedy and reliable this solution is. Another popular method for extending your WiFi network range is to use a WiFi extender, or a wireless extension feature built into a WiFi router. These devices pick up on existing WiFi signals and rebroadcast them to give a signal boost and extra range. The extender needs to be placed closer to the primary transmitter than a second wired access point would be, in order to stay in range of the original signal for relay. Configuration should account for the same details as above: use the same network name and password for the extended/repeated signal as the original network, and turn off any DHCP or routing capabilities on the device. You’re just looking to bridge and extend a signal, not create a new network. In my experience WiFi extenders can be a hit-or-miss proposition. Some of my clients have had very good luck with WiFi extenders, others find them unreliable. A wired backbone is preferable when available. For additonal tips on troubleshooting WiFi issues, see How To Fix Common WiFi Problems [MacRx].
Create a Single WiFi Network
Plan Your Placement and WiFi Channels
Use a Wired Backbone When Possible
Use WiFi Extenders as a Fallback Choice
If you follow the popular tech press the common thread is that the Cloud is the future, the death knoll for DVD/CD media has already been rung with Apple’s recent Lion install over the App store. You can bet that other OS’s won’t be far behind.
The cloud is where you will do your banking, store your files, type your documents, basically live your life.
I think we can all agree its not if, just when. Dropbox, Evernote, Apple MP3 Player, Google Apps, Salesforce all brands out there now, being used, making money, doing well and there are the next generation already in beta from the masters of the Cloud such as Amazon, Apple and Google.
The cloud however has a chink in its armour, one which we like an elephant in the room are ignoring. It doesn’t matter how much we put our life in the hands of the cloud will be an issue for a long time to come.
The Problem is internet connectivity, something you essentially need 24x7 if your life is in the cloud, which no doubt you have at home, however if you are out of your home, it becomes harder to use the cloud. Companies are having to filter out and lock down their networks. Not because they hate you using Facebook, Google Apps etc, because its not a secure environment out there. City based wifi is patchy at best, and 3G is even more so (in the UK at least) its also not cheap, its the kind of expense which goes first in the current cost saving economy.
So getting connected while you are out and about is not easy, not impossible, just patchy.
Then there is the issue of speed. 4meg is the UK average on our up to networks, this is however download speeds, not upload speeds, which are closer to kbs than mps
So the question is how do you get your content up to the cloud, if your upload speed is terrible?
Its ok for a few documents, However i’ll share with you an example.
I’ve paid for 50Gb dropbox service, and did so so i can keep my Photos safe backed up on drop box, however i have over 12,000 photos over 15Gb of images. on my Talktalk network connection at home i can uplaod to dropbox at about 90KB/Sec which means i’m looking about 2 weeks to upload my photos to Dropbox (or any other cloud based backup service) .
You may think, and would be right, it’s an excessive example, however is Apple have their way, the master plan for iCloud is to basically get your data from your Mac to the cloud sh you can share it on your OSX and IOS devices.
The chink in the armour is the connection speed to the internet, both up and down, until 3G is common place. And if you think it is already, get on a train from London to Welwyn Garden City or Bournemouth or Brighton and i promise you 10 minutes out of London your connection will drop off.. Where most do you need constant connectivity but on a long boring train journey.. So no downloading your books on the amazon Kindle, accessing the Google Maps service to plan your trip, check the weather or find a place to eat..
And this needs to be sorted out, now not in 3 or 4 years time,then we have the capped downloads.. I’m sorry 5Gb a month before i need a mortgage per MB is not cutting it for data coverage either. In the UK its only in the last few months that a glimmer of “all you can eat” 3G has stuck its head over the parapit.. again however at a cost..
Without these issues, of speed, caps and ubiquitous connectivity being sorted out at home, out and about and on the move, the cloud will roll out, but it will be an up hill battle to sell it long term and the cycle or Thin to fat client will go circle again..
IEEE has just announced a new Wireless standard 802.22 that can cover up to 12,000 square miles. The standard is actually for Wireless Regional Area Networks or WRAN which uses the white spaces left in the TV frequency spectrum.
This new wireless standard is expected to bring internet connectivity to large areas which are less densely populated that did not have coverage previously. The WRAN will be able to deliver up to 22 Mbps without interfering with existing TV broadcast stations.
It’s a long way from a standard to a working product, but I’d love it if this became available in my bandwidth-challenged town.
Frustrated by Apple’s reticence to release a Mac with a built-in 3G modem for everywhere internet connectivity? Don’t sweat it, Apple may have something else in mind: Super WiFi that would allow your MacBook to connect with your Time Capsule from up to 62 miles away.
Best of all? That tech just got one step closer to reality.
So you know the standard 802.11n WiFi that you can find in every Apple product, from your MacBook to your iPhone? The IEEE — which is the standards organization that governs all of WiFi — has just officially published WiFi’s next-gen standard, IEEE 802.22.
Utilizing white space frequencies that were previously hogged up by analog television broadcasts, IEEE 802.22 will allow you to transfer data at speeds up to 22Mbps to devices as far as 100 kilometers from the nearest transmitter.
The possibilities are obvious: as long as you are within an hour’s drive of your house, you could use Super WiFi to connect to the internet on your iPhone, iPad or MacBook.
Of course, standards being published are much different than hardware shipping, and we may have a while to wait before the first Super WiFI MacBooks start pumping out, but with the publication of the spec, Super WiFi just got a big step closer to being a part of all of our lives.
There is a portable program from NirSoft software called Wireless Network Watcher v1.05 that you can use to see what devices are connected to your wireless network. This software is free and comes in two distinct packages. One of these packages is available in a zip file that, once extracted, provides a portable application to check your wireless Internet connection. The other package, also available as a free installation package, can be used to constantly monitor the wireless Internet connection that runs in the background of your Windows operating system.
The internet is mobile, i belive we all agree on that, other than in the office i can’t remember a time i plugged anything into an Ethernet connection and most of the ultra thin laptops and all of the tablets are forgoing them…
So why is it, in this modern global economy i’m faced when leaving the country to either sell a kidney to raise enough cash for roaming 3G OR use the ropey Wifi connection in a hotel..?
The experience starts when you hit the airport. of ALL the places which could benefit from free Wifi its an Airport, a few choice adverts for companies in Duty free, offering groupon style discounts over the next n minutes. This could if done right fund the whole Wifi in the airport. Provide deals people want and tax the shops not the customers. Instead we have Boingo a company a bit like the sheriff of nottingham. Robbing the passengers to feed its shareholders..
Very few people are going to be streaming videos they want to check email, the hotel or weather for their destination, check trains etc..
However experience shows me that while the outlandish costs for Wifi in the UK are there, in europe i don’t think the idea of mobile internet has even perculated into thier thought process. Munich, Zurich, Rome and Venice airports plenty of “hotspot” signs no actual hotspots. Maybe the cleaner unplugged them?
Outside of the airport, if you have a 3G tariff in the UK, when you get to your destination turn on your phone and get ready to be charged just for turning you phone on. I got an SMS from orange informing me i woud be charged £3+ a MB of data and £1.50 for sending OR RECEIVING an SMS..
I would’t feel so bad, other than the days when each country has their own Mobile phone providers are long gone, the big companies like Vodafone, 02 and Orange all pretty much have networks setup globally and its not costing them any more to put the data through a cell tower in Italy than in North London as the data is still routed and redirected.
There is the option of Hotel Wifi, however i put all my traffic through a VPN because powering up my Macbook Pro i was able to see 15 other Macbook devices on the network and get data off of 5 of them, no firewall setup straight access for everyone direct to the users hard disk. and i don’t want to think about who is sniffing packets on the hotel wifi…
So come on Mobile data providers of the world, its time to kick it up a gear, we are all going mobile, we are all paying you for the privilege to eat at the buffet which is 3G technology, you remember the one which you bought at a high rate because of the dubious auction system it was sold under.. Well now we are ready to start using it it ernest and you need to start plying us with the same deals which you’ve been doing on your voice networks for years. We want the all you can eat buffet all over the world, not the picky bits someone else has prodded at the end of the party.. We will pay for entrance, but really a surcharge on top of every service?
Nobody with binocular vision would consider replacing a functional natural eye with a digital camera. But Tanya Vlach’s vision is monocular, after losing one of her eyes in a car accident. A matching ocular prosthesis gives the San Francisco native a normal appearance, but it’s unable to provide vision — in its current state, at least. Vlach turned to Kickstarter for donations that would allow her to install a unique, waterproof in-eye camera, theoretically capable of transmitting 720p HD video wirelessly to a mobile app, and zooming and capturing still images using a blink-activated sensor. Features also on the wish list: facial recognition, a dilating pupil that changes based on light, infrared / UV capture, and geotagging, just to name a few.
Every time I come home from work, my dog looks so guilty, I try to touch the pillows on the couch to see if they’re still warm, I check for tell tale signs of dog hair in the middle of my nice clean bed, all while he slinks around knowing he’s done something. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I’m just about to find out…
Whitson Gordon — Wi-Fi provides a convenient way to connect the computers in your home without dealing with the hassle of wires, but Wi-Fi is also slow and unreliable compared to a wired connection. Wireless may be the way of the future, but here are some of the best ways to go wired where it counts.
Kevin Purdy — Whenever I cajole my way onto This Week in Google—a web show that requires reliable streaming video—the support staff insists on a hard-wired connection to the router for video chat. It’s a pain, but the reason is plain: Wi-Fi is, according to a study of 14,000 connections, 30 percent slower than cables in most homes and offices.
Mounting your Android phone to transfer files is fast and efficient, but nothing beats the convenience of a wireless file transfer. Today, we’ll show you how to transfer files between Android and your computer without a USB cable.
There is no doubt that when it comes to cross platform VoIP systems there is one company which right now are head and shoulders out in front. Skype have been pushing this technology and codec for a long time, long enough to have survived several buyouts and legal disputes. However they still end up being the service people seem to be using.
