The (old) Licquia Family Blog
This is the old blog site, powered by a simple blogging system called Blosxom. It's here to keep old links from breaking, and for whatever historic interest might remain.
Here's the current site.
This is the old blog site, powered by a simple blogging system called Blosxom. It's here to keep old links from breaking, and for whatever historic interest might remain.
Here's the current site.
Clay Shirky is really, really smart. If you want to be "hip" to the tech industry, his site is a really good place to learn about what's going on.
Yesterday, he posted an essay on the new cell phone networks being built right now. If you watch TV, you've probably seen the ads where the wife beams pictures of her spaghetti dinner to her poker-playing husband, who immediately rushes home. That's one of the things the new 3G networks are supposed to make possible.
Another service these new phones provide is something like cable or DSL Internet access, but without the wires. It's also not quite as fast and a whole lot more expensive, especially if you want to hook something that isn't a phone to the network.
That last point turns out to be really important in a world where cheap wireless Internet access is already available. If you've never heard of WiFi, or 802.11 wireless networking, go check out the networking section of your local Best Buy (or look online). For a little over $100, you can buy a little box you plug your cable modem or DSL into and an expansion card you put into your laptop or desktop PC. You can then put the PC anywhere you want, without having to worry about cable or phone jacks. If you have a laptop, you can wander around the house with it and keep your connection to the Internet. Most of them will also handle connection sharing if you have more than one computer. For a little more, you can buy little boxes that do both wired and wireless connections, so you can wire your PC and use wireless on your laptop or PDA.
The big story recently has been how businesses and other institutions are starting to install these little boxes in order to draw customers and increase productivity for their workers. Among these are universities, coffee shops, fast-foot restaurants, airports, and hotels. This makes availability of wireless networking "clouds" good enough that you don't feel the need to browse the Web on your cramped cell phone in the middle of a cornfield, especially not at cell phone prices.
So read the Clay Shirky article, and keep it in mind when thinking about upgrading your cell phone. Make sure you really want the stuff they're promising, and that it's not too expensive. Better yet, look around for cheaper alternatives, like WiFi.
Mar 29, 2003 | Comments are no longer available