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President’s Message
By Steven Dela
Things are beginning to roll along at Winners in 2005. We have
several interesting and informative meetings scheduled in the next
several months. We hope he can attend and contribute your ideas and
help the organization be valuable resource for our members.
Terry Currier attended CES in January, and he brought back lots of
news and stories about what we can expect from the electronics and
computer industry this year. Terry usually writes some extensive reviews
on those items he found to be the most interesting. Take a look what he
has to say in this month’s newsletter.
One of our major goals for this year is to provide a high-speed Internet
connection either at Orange Coast College or an off-site location. This
month, will try using cellular technology to tap into Verizon’s dial-up
phone system. As an experiment, we tried this in December and were
able to connect at 10Mb per second. That should be fast enough to view
Internet content, and still keep it an interesting meeting.
If this does not work satisfactorily, we are still awaiting word from
local Orange County library branches for the installation of Wi-Fi at their
locations. We may give us a try in the future just to see how fast we can
connect to the Internet.
Looks like one of the hottest gift ideas continues to be portable music
and video players. The prices of portable DVD players have dropped 40
to 50% in the last year. Still an expensive gadget, but people are finding
them handy for viewing movies and other content while on the move.
The Apple iPod continues to dominate the MP3 player market. In
fact, it’s getting to the point where the iPod is creating its own culture,
much like the original Apple computers years ago. Numerous
manufacturers have jumped on board to provide accessories for the iPod,
from headphones to very sophisticated player systems. Coupled with the
iTune’s music downloaded store, this combination is presenting a
formidable new business for Apple. Depending on which units you
purchase, iPod’s have a storage capacity of 20, 40, or 60GB storage
capacity. That’s enough to store 10,000 or more songs.
Other MP3 player’s are starting to move into the marketplace. I’ve
used the Creative Labs Zen Micro unit and find it very interesting.
Maybe not as easy to use as the iPod, it offers a cost-effective way of
storing your MP3’s and taking them on the road. With only 5GB of
storage space, it still can store 1250 songs at 128kbs.
Watch for more manufacturers and models to enter this growing
market in the near future.
See you at this month’s meeting!
Steve
was secure, she said, “I guess so.
Why?”
I once saw a demo by Linksys at
the Pasadena Computer User Group
of how to set up a wireless network.
There were so many steps shown, I’m
sure that even after being shown how
to do it, people were not going to
bother. I think I dozed off myself.
Wi-Fi defense from OTO Software
just could not be easier. I put the CD
in, ran the install, set it up, and then
thought, “I wonder if I should look at
the instructions.” Actually there are
no instructions other than, “Put in the
CD and start the installation.” It is
just so simple to use. If you have any
experience with computers, you can
probably figure it out. The 802.11b
wireless networking signal will
typically go out about 100 feet or
more with no interference. You know
those pesky walls just keep getting in
the way and shorting the distance it
can go. Well, the manufacturers have
an answer for that in the new devices
that are out. The signal on the new
802.11g is supposed to be up to 300
feet. The new 802.11n in prerelease
by Belkin and others has a range of
up to 400 feet.
I am using the new D-Link
DWL-2100AP – Access Point, with
the D-Link DWL-G650 Cardbus
Adapter. These are the new
AirPlusXtreemeG™. Where my
Belkin 80.211b access point could get
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WiFi Defense
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