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Grex > Agora56 > #63: the near future of networked homes? | |
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| Author |
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| 25 new of 290 responses total. |
drew
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response 166 of 290:
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Feb 4 06:44 UTC 2006 |
I handled that problem by running the modem with speaker continuously on. (AT
M2).
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keesan
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response 167 of 290:
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Feb 4 13:38 UTC 2006 |
Another solution, for $8/month, would be voice mail with SBC, but people would
still need to wait 3 hours to be called back.
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keesan
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response 168 of 290:
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Feb 5 03:04 UTC 2006 |
Net10 says you have to buy their phone, you can't move over the SIM.
Our friends have a cell phone already, they bought it 2 years ago used ($2?)
with cradle/charger) and once put some minutes on it with Verizon and used
it once or twice and lost interest. I think we can get them another
rechargeable lithium battery in some shell for another cell phone, for $1,
at Kiwanis, and charge it so they can use it for 911. He is on the computer
6-7 am and 4-6 pm and she is used to this. He forgot there was no problem.
Today we stopped at Kiwanis to get a ride with him and Jim went to get a modem
and he asked me 'what am I waiting for?'. 'Jim'. We tried to set him up to
browse without images and turn them on only as needed, and cache them for 24
hours, but he likes to see the latest stock charts and can't remember how to
load images so now we are back to the slow method again. We made him a script
'e' to go directly to email, but one to go directly to a login page sent Opera
into an endless loop (99.9% cpu usage). He has four bookmarks and is happy.
We told him to tell all his friends to write him at his webmail instead of
grex but also made him a 'g' script to ssh to grex, where Jim set him up to
go straight into Pine email. Now we are all set to make another such computer
for anyone else who wants to go on the internet in 30MB or less.
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keesan
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response 169 of 290:
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Feb 8 20:49 UTC 2006 |
Jim charged for two days the Motorola cell phone from our friends that they
had not used for 2 years. The battery reads 3.3V now. How does he test
whether it is working? Where would he look for an ON or POWER button, or how
else can you test it short of phoning 911? The LCD screen has nothing on it.
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tod
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response 170 of 290:
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Feb 8 20:53 UTC 2006 |
He should be able to turn it on and get a message from the local provider's
network.
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keesan
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response 171 of 290:
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Feb 8 20:55 UTC 2006 |
HOW does he turn it on and who is 'the local provider'?
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tod
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response 172 of 290:
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Feb 8 22:06 UTC 2006 |
dial a #
the voice message should tell you who the local cell provider is
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keesan
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response 173 of 290:
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Feb 9 02:18 UTC 2006 |
How do we dial a number without turning it on first?
If it is sitting in the cradle it is lighted and has some writing on the
screen, but when removed from the cradle it is blank. Does this mean the
battery has too little current?
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bru
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response 174 of 290:
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Feb 9 03:43 UTC 2006 |
push the red button and hold it down for 10 seconds, it should turn on. You
wouldn't know anyone who has a used bike for sale cheap.
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keesan
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response 175 of 290:
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Feb 9 16:07 UTC 2006 |
Kiwanis has used bikes for $10. Reuse Center has used bikes for negotiable
prices, probably $10. If you promise to keep the bike indoors when you are
not using it, Jim could tune up whatever you bought if you biked it to us,
which is easy to do from Kiwanis. Look for something with the newer style
of brakes that does not say Murray or Huffy or Sears on it. Aluminum wheels
are also better quality, lighter and don't rust. Jim might be willing to meet
you at Kiwanis some time. We gave away our extra bikes already.
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ball
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response 176 of 290:
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Feb 24 09:20 UTC 2006 |
Tracfone (and probably other prepaid mobile phone companies)
use phones with custom firmware that prevents their use with
a different provider and prevents people from using phones
from other service providers.
Keesan: let me know if you need a Tracfone.
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keesan
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response 177 of 290:
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Feb 24 15:54 UTC 2006 |
Thanks, but our friends appear to have given up on the idea of a cell phone.
They tried one 2 years ago and left it recharging since then.
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ball
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response 178 of 290:
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Feb 27 01:45 UTC 2006 |
I should post a rant to the electronics conference about
equipment designed with defective charge circuits that can
cook a battery.
A wireless LAN should be a feature of my next home. I will
even install one here if I am able to arrange broadband
service. DSL would probably be least expensive, but as
mentioned in the telephone wiring item I'm struggling to get
a phone jack installed. :-/
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keesan
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response 179 of 290:
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Mar 6 21:42 UTC 2006 |
Jim asks, if you have DSL and a network, does the main computer need to be
left on all the time in order to use the DSL on another computer? If so, I
presume you don't need monitor or keyboard, and maybe you can run it from RAM
and have the hard drive powered down. How much power would a server like this
use? He is thinking about using one wireless PCMCIA network card to share
a neighbor's DSL, then cabling a couple of other computers to that one. We
have a desktop PCMCIA slot for the card.
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rcurl
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response 180 of 290:
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Mar 6 22:01 UTC 2006 |
I would think so as how else would the wireless card get power? We also have
a Ethernet LAN for two Macs, but have a separate wireless adapter on the
network - i.e., not in one of the computers but plugged into the LAN.
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twenex
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response 181 of 290:
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Mar 6 22:17 UTC 2006 |
Re: #179. To use DSL on more than one computer, the best idea is to get a
router which allows you to connect it to an ADSL "modem". The router then
connects to the computers; either by wires, or wirelessly. (Some routers have
both wireless and wired connections, typically 32 of one and 4 of the other).
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keesan
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response 182 of 290:
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Mar 6 22:55 UTC 2006 |
We don't have DSL service, the neighbor does. We want to pick up his service
wirelessly and then wire our computers together with network cable. We have
a hub. We don't need 32 connections. Someone gave us a box with a wireless
router and a wireless PCMCIA ethernet card and we have a PCMCIA slot in one
desktop computer. Do we need the router or just the card? We can connect
our computers via nullmodem cable and share a phone connection that way
(telnet from one to the other, or use kermit to connect).
This is not important, we can just try to make DSL work on one computer in
the living room and listen to streaming audio with it. I am giving up on the
Detroit classical station, it has too many 30 sec noisy commercials and
traffic reports from 3:30 to 7:00 pm, which is when I would have listened to
it because the other stations stop playing music then.
We could run the sound from the sound card to the digital piano as Aux in,
but I think it is optimized to sound like a boomy grand piano.
First we need to get ndiswrapper working to use this wireless card in linux.
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nharmon
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response 183 of 290:
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Mar 7 01:13 UTC 2006 |
I would be very carefull about setting up a wireless network with a
neighbor in order to share broadband internet. Without said neighbor's
permission, this is clearly illegal. However the law concerning a
neighbor sharing such a connection is still a bit hazy and I wouldn't
want to be the first person to have to defend myself against a phone
company's lawyers.
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keesan
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response 184 of 290:
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Mar 7 02:19 UTC 2006 |
A different neighbor was going to let us use his but he moved. They were
thinking of Pringle antennas between houses a few houses away. Of course we
would have permission. How would it hurt the ISP? The neighbor might
experience a slightly slower connection if we listened to the radio at 32K/sec
on their 1.5MBit/sec connection. Jim points out that if people don't want
to share their connections they can set up a password to use them. We have
udhcpc, they would probably run some server for udhcp with password required.
How does this work with wireless connections at libraries?
We are still nowhere near having a usable wireless network card since the
stupid thing was designed to require Windows. SOmeone in our group tried to
compile ndiswrapper to let linux use the Windows driver for the card. There
may also be a linux module for a new kernel available.
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nharmon
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response 185 of 290:
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Mar 7 03:01 UTC 2006 |
> How would it hurt the ISP?
Lost revenue. The question is, whose service is your internet
connection? Is it the ISP's, or is it your's after you have bought it?
This is quite a grey area, but precedence is on the ISP's side, and
theft of service laws do have some teeth.
> Jim points out that if people don't want to share their connections
> they can set up a password to use them.
I think that is a dangerous attitude to have. You cannot trespass onto
someone's property because they left the gate unlocked, just as you
cannot trespass onto someone's computer network because they didn't know
to set a password. This is something I tell kids who think "war driving"
is cool: Do you really want to be at the mercy of some old guy who
doesn't know how his wifi works being told by the police that he needs
to press charges because that will prevent these things from happening
again? For them, its a good way to ruin their lives.
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marcvh
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response 186 of 290:
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Mar 7 03:40 UTC 2006 |
Actually, you can enter someone else's property if their gate is
unlocked. In order for there to be any reasonable chance of a
trespassing charge, the owner has to somehow ask you to leave. This can
be done in person, or can be done by posting signs, or any number of
other ways. Heck, if you leave your front door unlocked someone can
even enter your house and you can't charge him with breaking & entering
(since there was no breaking) or much of anything else unless you can
somehow show intent to do something illegal.
Unlike homes, however, ISPs do have terms of service, and they typically
permit sharing the service only within members of the same immediate
household living at the same address (that's what Comcast's says, for
exaxmple.) Tapping into your neighbor's ISP isn't any different from
tapping into your neighbor's cable signal because you don't want to pay
for HBO.
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slynne
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response 187 of 290:
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Mar 7 03:49 UTC 2006 |
I imagine there are ways to set up a shared network though. I know that
there was a woman who was going to buy the house next door and she had a
plan where she was going to get some super fast connection and then
share it with me and with the neighbor on the other side of her. I dont
know what kind of connection she was thinking of getting but she thought
it would cost $150/mo. I imagine that would have been a different
situation than DSL or Cable.
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tod
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response 188 of 290:
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Mar 7 04:24 UTC 2006 |
re #184
Yagi pringle antennas are neat if you can mount them well. Good luck with
that.
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jep
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response 189 of 290:
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Mar 7 13:42 UTC 2006 |
I got a wireless network router (Linksys) and some adapters, and have
networked a couple of Windows 98 computers in the kids' rooms. My
stepdaughter is getting a computer from the Rotary Club in a couple of
weeks. When she gets it we'll move the router to her room, a more
central location for our network, and then it should work a little
better for everyone.
I don't know anything about network security. The network is wide open
right now. How risky is this, and how should I deal with it?
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tod
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response 190 of 290:
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Mar 7 17:20 UTC 2006 |
re #189
Setup WEP on your router and the Wireless machines. You're basically
broadcasting everything you do on your computer and also opening yourself up
to who knows what.
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