Copacetic

Sean talks about long range bluetooth (the tease) and  then bursts our bubble, but the picture at the end of the article is priceless.

Today’s gouge, the Netgear DG834UK, wireless Modem and router. On Expansys.ie €78.95 on dabs.ie €67.05.

Belkin Wireless High Speed Mode USB Adaptor €63.83 at expansys.ie (including VAT, postage and packing). The same adaptor at www.dabs.co.uk is only €42.

I know registering .ie domains is expensive but come on!

 Infoworld reports that PA Semi launched its first product today. These are the ex-Digital guys that brought you the Alpha chip.

Here’s a video of the GooglePlex’s in a container that Robert Cringely wrote about some time ago. 

Robert Cringely’s latest article Google On is more about IBM than Google. My IBM contacts tell me its burning up bandwidth all across IBM. Further to quote one insider (from an Irish perspective at least) ‘He nailed it”.

Here’s how he describes whats happening at IBM,

The heart of a company culture can be discovered if you look at the compensation system. IBM’s major incentives right now are for signing business and cutting costs. In many IT firms, IBM included, billable hours are important. This results in a system where little is done to improve service efficiency, because doing so would lead to fewer hours and less revenue. Efficiency kills, so at today’s IBM it is generally avoided.

James Trevelyan writes cogently on why Robots are not an appropriate solution for landmine clearance. Readers will be aware of my previous post on this topic where I proposed a robotic solution. Well James well and truely sank my boat with his excellent analysis of why robots won’t work, then in the last paragraph he gives me renewed hope,

Sandia Laboratories and some other groups are working on highly sensitive chemical sniffers which could develop into devices to be carried by robots into unknown areas to see whether there are residual traces of explosive vapour. Dogs can also be used in this context - the MEDDS system used in South Africa for instance - see the US Army Website.

Here are some other relevant links from James’s website,

• General overview on Demining research
• Common myths about demining
• An excellent paper on robotics in general with some significant detail on a robot that could successfully shear sheep

MSNBC reports on Scott McNealys resignation as Sun’s CEO. Jonathan Schwartz the current COO takes up the cudgels as the new CEO.

I won a free wireless router at the Irish Blog Awards a few weeks ago. Its a Linksys WRT54GL, but came with FON software pre-installed. I have nothing against FON and their aims but I found the software hard to use and configure. So this week I reflashed the router with the original Linksys software.

This is a straightforward process. First connect the router to a PC via a bit of ethernet cable. Now boot the router and login via http://192.168.0.1 (it might have been http://192.168.1.1). Go to the system table and look for the upgrade dialog. This upgrade dialog allows you to select a local file to upgrade the router. You can download the Linksys firmware from the linksys website. So download that file and feed it to the upgrade dialog.

The upgrade screen will print out some messages about unpacking the file and once it prints done you have completed the upload. The final step is to press the button on the front of the router to reboot the system. The light behind this button will flash furiously for a few minutes and when it settles down you have a fully configured and working original Linksys router.

Full docs are again available on the Linksys page.

Engadget reports on a 64GB (yes sixty four, six four, gigabyte) USB key drive.

Now with a key this size I can carry around a complete copy of Windows or Linux and all my data. I no longer need a PC with a hard disk, I just need a BIOS enabled processor and a screen. Oh and a USB port…