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Dirt and Stuff

[img src="00375--dsc06600croppedandresized--20031019-2353.jpg" width=400 height=378 align=left clear=all]
This is what happens when you get a vacuum after not having one for 2 months.  That’s just from my room, just from vacuuming one time.  Mmmm.  But on the bright side, this new vacuum with the clearness and bagless features is very fun to use.  The junk is all swirling around in there like a tornado while it’s running.

It occurred to me that I should point out that my homeserver guide is actually really easy.  It looks intimidating because of how long the page is, but it’s only that long because I explained everything step by step.  It does take some time, but it shouldn’t actually be difficult at all.

In other really really cool news, my car mp3 player now has a tiny wireless network card that plugs into the USB port, and I installed software and configured the system so that it detects any wireless networks within range and displays info about them on the LCD screen.  I can also synchronize the music library with my home library without taking the system out of the car now  :)  and with a single keypress, no less.  Next task is teaching it how to log on to any public networks it finds.  There are text-based IM clients that I’m looking in to, and web browsing works... in text-only mode, of course, but that’s perfect for reading things like blogs, or checking simple stuff like weather, or whatever.

Posted by Anthony on Oct 19, 2003 | 4 replies
Filed under: General

Comments:

01. Oct 20, 2003 at 02:57pm by Patrick Copland:

Re:  tiny wireless network card, I think you are more like James Bond than anyone I know (except the drinking, gambling and  philandering part).

A friend of mine uses X-10 wireless cameras to keep tabs on his neighborhood.  They are a very good deal.  You can get a sweet package for about $80 with multiple wireless cameras and many connectivity options.

I hope to put together a PC unit this Winter for my car.  You leave some pretty big shoes to fill though!  Keep up the cool projects!  Really like to hear about the open source as well.  Bye!

02. Oct 20, 2003 at 08:34pm by Anthony:

Heh.... James Bond, eh?  Well shucks :)

Some interesting things I learned on the way to the grocery store today:

-- In that ~1 mile, there are 23 wireless LANs (and those are just the ones that are close to the road)
-- 11 of those 23 require no encryption keys to log on
-- 2 of those 11 belong to CVS Pharmacy and Advance Auto Parts

What’s interesting is that I didn’t have to connect to any of these networks -- they are all acting as beacons, broadcasting their information to the world.  And in terms of the NIC, there’s apparently a difference between so-called promiscuous mode where you’re just listening for open nets, and a mode where you’re actually logged on to a net.  On top of that, the driver for my card seems rather buggy.  It works pretty well, but if you try to query the signal strength or link quality while it’s transferring any decent amount of data, it gets upset, and sometimes doesn’t come back until you unplug and re-plug the card.  And from my cursory attempts at connecting to my own net using DHCP, it seems that just switching from promiscuous to connected mode can cause the driver to bail, too.

I’m using the linux-wlan-ng driver and kismet for monitoring, by the way.

03. Oct 29, 2003 at 12:07am by andy:

who needs laptops! we just need a production model of anthony’s car =D

04. Oct 29, 2003 at 11:18am by Anthony:

Hear, hear.  I need sponsors or something  :)

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