Sunsets, Stars, West, Wind
Are your ready for the next chapter of Wi-Fi? Meet 802.11ax
http://gigaom.com/2014/06/12/next-phase-of-wifi-80211ax/
It’s articles like these that make me wish I’d stuck it out to become an electrical engineer.
Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/m/news/news.php?release=2013-370#.UrI0yLhME0M
50 years ago Christmas Eve, unto us was born DSN.
Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon
Verizon quietly unleashes its LTE monster, tripling 4G capacity in major cities
Happy I’m a Verizon customer.
Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon
During my Thanksgiving break, I ordered a new Bluetooth headset. I desperately wanted to assuage my boredom while walking Apollo during the evenings, and if I could listen to music or, even better, audiobooks, I thought it would encourage me to walk longer and get more exercise. Earlier in November, I took advantage of a sale NewEgg had on headsets, but that first pair went over my head and made my ears extremely uncomfortable. My daughter liked them, so I sent them south to her as a pseudo-Chirstmas gift. That first headset had superior sound for music listening, but I couldn’t overcome the ear cartilage torture side-effect.
I’ve had the second LG headset for nearly a month now and I wear it daily. Most of the time, I can’t even tell I have it around my neck. The LG Behind-the-Neck headset is very lightweight and the actual ear buds are nicely unobtrusive. I often wear my sunglasses and a scarf without hampering their usefulness or tangling them up. One of the niftiest features of the headset are the magnetic receptacles for the ear buds. When I remove them from my ear canal and lay them against my body, they will often snap back to their ‘home’ spot.
If I’m listening to an audiobook, which I do quite frequently since acquiring this headset, and I receive a phone call, the headset vibrates on my neck and plays a ring tone in my ear (I always have my phone on silent/vibrate). It automatically pauses my audiobook when I click the answer call button found on the left hand nacelle. When I finish with the call, my audiobook automatically resumes.
The battery life is purported to be ten hours of talk or music listening time. I have only run the battery down once. As a rule, I charge it overnight every two or three days. The range is about thirty feet, so I can leave my phone in the center of the main floor and have good coverage for most of the house. The power switch is simple, and I do love simple designs. Simple works. No holding a button down for a certain number of seconds. Just slide the switch to either ‘On’ or ‘Off.’
Pairing with a Bluetooth device is also exceptionally easy. No need to hold a button down for another second/different designated number of seconds. Once the headset is on, it connects to my cell phone. No muss, no fuss. Again, simple works.
The price was right as well. In fact, if you want your own pair of LG Behind-The-Neck Stereo Bluetooth Headset w/ Music Streaming/ Call Waiting Support (HBS-700), you can still get them (as of December 29, 2012) for the same price I did: $39.99 (including free shipping). My husband liked them so much, I bought him his own pair a couple of weeks ago.
I woke up to a green ‘n’ yesterday morning in my Notification alerts on my Nook Color. Even though I use my Nook Color daily, I had no idea another software update was coming down the pipe. The last update arrived in the late Winter/early Spring. First thing I did (on my laptop, not my Nook) was to read the ‘What’s New’ section on the B&N Nook Color Software Updates page:
The NOOK Color Ver1.4.3 update contains new features and enhancements, including:
- Zoom view in comics and graphic novels
- 2-Page mode in landscape for viewing PagePerfect™ and PDF documents
- Other minor system enhancements
Meh. I don’t read comics and graphic novels, so what do I care about my ability to zoom while reading those formats?
I quickly tested the second feature enhancement, since I had just received my astronomy club newsletter via e-mail a couple of days earlier. The Reader software loaded the PDF and I flipped the Nook Color to landscape orientation. The first time I did this, the Reader application appeared to reset itself, taking me back to the Home screen.
So, just to be on the ‘safe’ side, I did a shutdown on the Nook Color and let it sit powered off for a few minutes. I turned it back on and then returned to reading my astronomy newsletter PDF. This time, I could see the two page view in landscape orientation, but the Reader application did seem to have problems with the odd page at the end. In other words, unless there’s an even number of pages to display side-by-side, the Reader application doesn’t display anything for the last page, just a blank black screen. Once I flipped the Nook Color back to portrait orientation, the final page became visible.
I had hoped that the ‘Other minor system enhancements’ might have improved the wireless functionality of the Nook Color, but alas that does not appear to be the case. For the most part, I have very few issues with the wifi on my Nook Color, so long as I have access to visible wireless networks, like my own personal ones at home and those provided by libraries or lunch time hotspots near my work.
But whenever I need to access a hidden secured network, I run into extreme difficulties. My most recent frustrations include a change to the wireless networks provided by my employer. At the end of May, we completely redid our wireless networks to include a visible internal secured network (for laptops mostly so you can walk into a conference room and not have to plugin a cable), a visible secured guest network (for clients and venders) and a hidden secured network (for iPhones, iPads and other tablets). For most of June, my Nook Color had no problem connecting to this hidden network. About a week ago, something changed and now the Nook Color refuses to find or connect to the hidden network. I’ve created and recreated the connection information a half dozen times with the same results … no connection. I contacted the network engineer about the hidden network, but he assures me no changes were made to that hidden network recently.
So now, when I get to work, I just turn the wifi off on my Nook Color, so it won’t sit there scanning all day long and wasting the battery. When I take my lunch break in the break room, I can still read my ebooks, but I can’t check my e-mail or the weather or any other normal activity that requires Internet access on my Nook Color. I can retreat to the lobby and connect to the free wifi provided by the Kansas City Public Library, but that’s such a hassle.
I have another ten months on my extended warranty on the Nook Color. By then, I’ll be itching to wipe the internal storage and root it to a true Android tablet, unless I make the jump to a smartphone, like the Samsung Galaxy S III or the Galaxy Tablet.