I just took delivery of a new laptop for work.  It’s a Lenovo Thinkpad T60p.

What’s very odd is that whenever I boot it, just before it connects to my wireless network, it does something that kills the router.  Everything else still works inside my home network.  I can ping everything *except* the router and while the router’s switch appears to continue to function, the WAN light stops flashing and stays steady. 

I have to go in the other room and unplug the router for a second before it’ll start working again.

It’s like the laptop is sending some kind of packet ‘o doom to the router or something.  Perhaps a malformed DHCP request? 

The AP is actually a Belkin Pre-N router running in AP mode and the router (a DLink DI-604+) handles the DHCP request. 

This should be interesting to debug, other than I don’t have the time or patience to be mucking with it right now.

I guess I just won’t be rebooting the laptop anytime soon… 

I got off on a tangent with my previous post about the $398 Wal-Mart laptop.  My intent was to write about a possible ripoff situation with some other laptops that are being advertised at Office Depot.

A reader who wishes to remain anoymous sent me this link to the Black Friday site about the situation:

Going against my gut feeling, I posted earlier about Office Depot’s $299 (after-rebate) laptop computer: I thought this was Office Depot’s attempt at flying straight. Nope, it’s pretty much border-line con.

The math broke down like this:

$579.99 + ~7.5% tax (this varies by region, I used 7.5% because I think it’s a median value) = $623.50

$623.50 – $280 in rebates = $343.50 + a free printer (including tax).

Granted, this laptop wasn’t as powerful as Walmart’s, it was still $50 cheaper and a comparable alternative. Unfortunately, to order this, you had to go to a retail Office Depot location and have a Customer Service Representative punch in the Configuration Number to order it for you. But that’s not all. Since Office Depot would be shipping to you, they were charging a near minimum $50 shipping fee. One BFAds user reported he was quoted a shipping and handling fee of $78!

The shipping fee would bring the laptop to $400, which would be after rebates and would be a lesser system than Walmart’s. I personally apologize for this over-sight and hope you accept my apologies.

In the original post I said how horrible Office Depot’s rebates were, as evident by the following sites: Ripoff Report, Reseller Ratings (1.52/10) and Shopping.com’s amount of users that will never shop at Office Depot again. And perhaps my favorite thing about all of this, Office Depot owns the site OfficeDepotStinks.com. They are apparently aware of the mass dislike directed towards them!

Office Depot’s less than honest business tactics are not supported by BFAds.net. We will no longer be posting any of their items or Black Friday advertisements. We suggest you look at more respectable office supply stores such as OfficeMax (whose Black Friday sale has ABSOLUTELY NO REBATES) or Staples.

I haven’t experienced this directly, and I have gotten Office Depot rebates in the past.  If true, though, this is a horrible tactic to suck you into the store and then jack up the price through hidden fees. 

Where possible, I prefer to deal with places that either have instant or electronic rebates, as these seem to be the easiest to get processed.  But beware of hidden fees.  This is especially true if the laptop (or PC) has to be custom-ordered.  If it isn’t off-the-shelf, be careful and stay alert.

I see that Wal-Mart has a Compaq laptop (V5305WM) on sale for $398 in their stores. The specs on that laptop don’t seem too bad, and no rebates are required so you don’t have to gather receipts, send them off, get rejected, then curse them for ripping you off.

It sometimes amazes me just how far down prices go when the technology is well behind the bleeding edge. For comparison purposes, I bought an eMachines M6805 about 3.5 years ago and it cost $1549.99. This Compaq is comparable in features (better in some areas) and slightly lighter and slimmer.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

It would appear that XM and Sirius are having an impact on terrestrial broadcasters, and like the Empire, they’re trying to strike back.

The radio wars are escalating. In a one-two punch aimed at enlisting regulators to their cause, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and National Public Radio want the Federal Communications Commission to investigate alleged misdeeds by satellite radio companies XM (XMSR) and Sirius (SIRI).

On Oct. 12, National Public Radio CEO Ken Stern wrote to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin alleging that the satellite broadcasters’ devices interfere with NPR broadcasts. And last week, David Rehr, president and CEO of the powerful NAB, fired off two letters to Martin alleging several regulatory violations.

It would appear that XM hasn’t been quite as diligent as it should have been with regards to following FCC rules with its repeaters, but this whole effort has the stink of sour grapes about it.  It seems, from my viewpoint, that the NAB wants to hobble XM rather than compete with it in the marketplace.  And if the NAB can further hobble XM (and Sirius) by making it subject to content restrictions, so much the better for them.  Or so they think (more on this at the end).

For example, this just seems silly to me:

In its second claim, the NAB contends that XM and Sirius shouldn’t be allowed to give away their products for free to new car buyers or online. Last week, Sirius streamed Howard Stern’s program for free on its Web site.

The NAB argues that such freebies ought to subject satellite radio to the same FCC regulations as those governing terrestrial radio. That likely would trigger restrictions, for example, on language and other racy content.

I think that NAB is trying to insinuate that this somehow brings in FCC broadcast standards, but if that’s the case, then all the podcasters would face a similar fate.  As far as I know, those standards only apply to content transmitted over the “public” airwaves, not to generally-available content.  To get a “free” subscription in your vehicle, you still have to be registered with XM or Sirius (it’s actually your radio’s serial number they use), so it’s still a subscription model and is not generally available to the public over the air.  Further, web content just doesn’t come under the FCC’s purview as I noted.

And then there’s poor NPR, being blasted off the air by all those inconsiderate and uncultured boors who don’t know not to interfere with their betters:

Finally, there’s the third complaint, from NPR, which claims that many FM modulators, used to feed programming from portable satellite radio devices into car stereos, exceed FCC power requirements. That means a driver listening to NPR might suddenly hear a blast of obscenities from Howard Stern from a car as far as 100 feet away. NPR stations have received hundreds of complaints from listeners, says Mike Starling, chief technology officer of NPR Labs, which has studied the issue.

In July, NPR Labs measured FM modulator levels in traffic in the Washington, D.C., area. While it found that 30% to 40% of the modulators exceeded FCC-mandated power levels, the study couldn’t conclusively determine whether satellite radio devices or, say, unrelated MP3 players used in cars were the violators, says Starling.

The majority of these modulators are just devices you can buy at nearly any store these days.  And in fact, it’s up to the FCC to make sure they’re properly regulated.  If they’re out of specifications, then it means that either the FCC failed to do its job or that the distributor of the device itself is in violation.  To say this is directly an XM or Sirius issue is silly, other than where XM or Sirius markets radios with built-in modulators.  But even that is a tenuous link, as XM and Sirius do not make their own equipment, but rather resell equipment from other manufacturers.  It’s up to those manufacturers to follow the FCC rules for transmitter output.

Regardless of whether an FM modulator’s output power is out of specifications, the issue of bleedover on NPR frequencies shows something that I think is interesting about how the market values NPR.  Specifically, it would seem that a significant number of people would prefer to use the frequency for their own purposes rather than listen to NPR.

Personally, I went to XM (and have had, and could live with, Sirius) because I couldn’t stand terrestrial radio.  Even in the unlikely event that the NAB and NPR were somehow able to drive XM and Sirius out of business it would not result in them gaining me as a listener.  I’d just go back to listening to MP3’s, like I did before XM was available in my area.  Although now I could also get more content and have it updated in a more timely fashion (i.e. podcasts).  There were no iPods or podcasts in 1999 when I got my first in-vehicle MP3 player (which required burning CD-ROM’s with the content) and flash-based MP3 players were pretty limited at the time.

This is all rather petty and just makes the terrestrial broadcasters look desperate to me.  It certainly won’t help them gain listeners. 

Forget those cheesy Bluetooth headsets that make everyone think you’re talking to yourself in public. 

With this iconic device, everyone will know exactly what you’re doing:

But if you absolutely have to have Bluetooth, there is a model for you.

I’ve recently been experimenting with VoIP through AT&T’s CallVantage service for my business line (at the request of my company, as CV would save money over my current Verizon setup, which they are reimbursing).  Unfortunately, thanks to the FCC, there are some very obnoxious features included with the service.

The big problem is that the FCC has MANDATED that all “interconnected VoIP providers” also provide 911 services:

All interconnected VoIP providers must automatically provide 911 services to all consumers as a standard, mandatory feature without consumers having to specifically request this service. VoIP providers may not allow their consumers to “opt-out” of 911 service.

An “interconnected” provider is one that “allows you to make and receive calls to and from traditional phone numbers.” 

First, AT&T won’t even consider providing you VoIP service unless you live in an area where they can access the 911 center to send information.  In those areas where they can provide 911 service, they’ve implemented a set of obnoxious and bothersome rules for making sure you haven’t moved the Telephone Adapter (TA).  Every time the TA is powered off or loses Internet connectivity, you are REQUIRED to reconfirm your address with them.  This is to guarantee that you haven’t picked up the TA and taken it with you on a trip or something.  The problem is that you pick up the phone expecting to make a call, dial a number, and then instead of getting connected your call is rerouted to a voice prompt where you have to confirm the address.  Only after doing this is your call completed.  And if you happen to access the CallVantage website, the first thing it does is prompt you there (in big ugly RED letters).

<Update>
It occurs to me that this prompt isn’t very useful, since if you’re in a hurry to make a call (i.e. join a conference call) you’re likely just to press “1” regardless of where you are.  And it’s especially annoying in that you have to listen to the entire spiel before you can press a key, unlike nearly every other VRU in the world where you can enter the digit as soon as it starts talking.  There’s no incentive to give the correct address, especially if changing the location/address will take you even longer.
</Update>

Unfortunately, the dingbats at the FCC, in making this “mandatory” and not allowing “opt-out” have made it so that I get bothered if there’s a momentary power or Internet interruption.  Since I have a “regular” line there’s no need for me to use the VoIP line for 911.  In any situation where my regular phone line is out, my Internet service would also likely be out, since they’re both provided across the same fiber link.

There ought to be a way for people who have a regular landline available to them to opt out of this nonsense.  But the FCC, in protecting me from myself, has decided that its one-size-fits-all solution is best and that it knows better than I do what’s best for me.

While I’m rambling on about ham radios, I suppose I ought to mention a feature of the Yaesu radios that I was curious about called ARTS, which stands for Automatic Range Transponder System.

This feature is found on a number of their handhelds as well as several of their mobile/base units.  You set both radios to the same simplex frequency and DCS code, then activate the ARTS feature.  The radios will transmit for about 1 second every 25 seconds and will listen the rest of the time for a signal with the same DCS code.  When a signal with the right DCS code is received, the radio announces that it’s “in range” (with a beep and text on the display).  After one minute with no received signal, the radio will announce that it’s “out of range.”  Radios with ARTS also have a feature that will store your callsign and send it every 10 minutes via CW (“DE [your callsign] K”) to satisfy FCC identification requirements.

Just out of curiosity I tried it between the FT-60R and the VX-7R, but I didn’t really see much utility for the feature.  First, everyone using it would be required to have a Yaesu radio.  Second, it seems like an awful lot of transmission activity, which might wear down your battery.  It’s also a one-to-one relationship, so a base unit operator would have no way of handling multiple HT’s in the field (which is one of the few uses I could see for the feature, as it would allow the base operator to use his more powerful radio to call the HT with a message to move in closer to maintain communications).

I did several different searches on Google using combinations of “Yaesu” and “ARTS” (i.e. “A.R.T.S.” and spelling out the words) to see if anyone was using it or had an opinion, but the only hits I got were either from Yaesu marketing materials (including listings with several online stores) or from radio reviews.  No one that I could find seems to be using it (or if they are, they aren’t saying anything about it online).

I’ve had a Yaesu FT-60R HT for about a year and a half now.  While I did quite a bit of research before buying it, actually using it showed me where my research method was faulty.  The radio itself is good, in that it does what it says it will and I’ve had no technical issues with it.  It even survived a very heavy rain at the beginning of this month.  The problem is that it’s damn complicated to operate.  When I did the research I downloaded the manual and read a good portion of it, but the complication didn’t really show itself until I actually tried to use it.

The primary complication is that most of the keys perform three functions.  The first function is on the key’s face and the second is marked above the key.  The problem arises in the third function, which is not marked anywhere on the radio’s face.  Consider the “1” key.  Pressing “1” in VFO mode enters the digit.  Pressing FW+1 enters “squelch type” selection mode (i.e. choose CTCSS, DCS, or none), and the text “SQ TYP” marked above the key at least helps you to remember the function.  However, pressing and holding the 1 key activates weather band receive mode.  There is no marking on the radio to indicate this.  You have to read the manual and memorize this fact if you ever want to listen to the weather band. 

Another member of our CERT just bought a Yaesu VX-7R to replace his previous radio which died after being exposed to a heavy rain.  I played with it for a little while last Thursday night and was immediately struck by how much easier it is to use than my FT-60R.  The “triple overload” (i.e. press-and-hold) options on the FT-60R have generally been moved to menus on the VX-7R and the use of press-and-hold is much more limited (i.e. pressing and holding the digit keys now results in the radio’s operating state being stored in the corresponding “hyper” memory location).

Most features and modes of the VX-7R can be accessed through the menus or shortcuts to submenus that are marked above the keys.  For example, to enter menu mode, you press MonF and then 0, which has “SET” marked above it.  Activating weather band receive mode is MonF+3 (3 has “WX” marked above it).  This is far more intuitive that trying to remember that you have to press and hold “1” to get to the weather band.  Setting the CTCSS mode and tones is done via MonF+8/TONE, which activates the submenu that is specific to tone encoding and squelch.

To get an idea of the difference in operation, consider trying to access a repeater at 146.94 that uses CTCSS encoding to activate the repeater (but which doesn’t send it on the repeater output) with a tone of 110.9.  Both assume you’re in VFO mode to start (i.e. this isn’t already programmed in).

FT-60R:

• Enter repeater frequency (the radio will know it’s a repeater frequency and automatically determine the direction and offset, unless ARS has been disabled).
• Press FW, then press 1/SQ TYP.
• Rotate the selector knob until “TONE” is displayed.
• Press PTT to select.
• Press FW, then press 2/CODE.
• Rotate the selector knob until 110.9Hz appears.
• Press FW again to activate the tone (note inconsistent activation behavior between SQ TYP and TONE selection menus).

VX-7R:

• Enter repeater frequency (ARS, which is the default, will automatically set direction and offset).
• Press MonF+8/TONE to activate TSQ submenu.
• In menu item #1 (SQL TYPE), press MAIN/SUB until TONE appears.
• Rotate selection dial one step to get to menu item #2 (TONE SET).
• Press BAND key to activate value selection mode.
• Press MAIN/SUB until 110.9 appears.
• Press BAND to deactivate value selection mode.
• Press PTT to save and activate the settings.

The selection behavior is more consistent with the VX-7R in that MAIN/SUB are used as up/down buttons and BAND is used to activate entry/selection mode for certain submenus that have numeric or text settings (as opposed to those with discrete settings, like the SQL TYPE submenu above).

Another area where the VX-7R is superior is the size and resolution of the display.  The FT-60R uses a segmented-style LCD with backlight, while the VX-7R uses a matrix-style LCD with backlight.  The VX-7R can display icons as well as variable sized text.  This allows for more expressive menu items, which makes them easier to understand.  For example, when setting the lock mode on the FT-60R, you have to first select the LOCK menu item, then selecting “LK K+D” on the next screen means that the lock function locks out the keypad and the dial.  On the VX-7R, the menu shows the full text “KEY+DIAL,” and fits everything onto one screen.

Here are a few screen shots for comparison.  Sorry about the glare and fingerprints.  It’s harder than it looks to get good pictures of shiny, curved, clear plastic items.

FT-60R in VFO mode:

VX-7R in memory mode with dual receive turned off (same repeater and settings, though):

VX-7R in dual receive mode:

So now I’m the owner of both an FT-60R and a VX-7R.  I suppose that if I’d known at the time I bought the FT-60R what I now know about the VX-7R I would have probably bought the 7R.  However, in favor of the FT-60R, it was about $200 less and the VX-7R had features I never thought I’d use or need (like 6m operation and submersibility).  The price difference has changed since then, though, and the VX-7R is now only about $120 more than the FT-60R.

While I’m at it, I’d like to note the quick service of Austin Amateur Radio.  I ordered the VX-7R last Friday morning, received a ship notification on Friday evening, and received the radio Monday afternoon.

That last post reminded me of something that comes up from time to time when the issue of cell phones in theaters is discussed.  Talk frequently turns to jamming or blocking cell signals to prevent the problem.  In the United States, at least, jamming is illegal.  But I don’t think some variation of Faraday Cage technology (such as the “magnetic wood” mentioned in my jamming link) would be an issue.  It seems to me that a property owner has the right to create an RF quiet zone.

But any talk of blocking always brings up someone complaining about how they have some critical need to get cell or pager signals 24×7.  They claim they’d sue the theater owner if they missed a page (the usual case is of a doctor who misses a critical page).  But I’m curious as to how they handle the fact that some buildings are already natural Faraday cages in that if the building has enough structural steel or rebar it can block signals.  It seems to me that as long as the theater makes its blocking technology conspiciously known that these people wouldn’t have any reason to complain.  If the market really demands a theater where people can take pages and phonecalls, then someone will provide one.  So instead of going to the nice, quiet, relaxing theater that I’m going to be at, they can go on down to the rude-and-noisy cineplex down the block. 

I was reminded of this by the discussion thread associated with the article on the Star-Telegram’s website, and this comment in particular:

I agree that a pleasant movie-going experience is important, especially with the prices of admission these days. I also take comfort in knowing that if my son’s babysitter or care taker for the evening needs to reach me due to a minor or major emergency she can do so by text messaging or calling me on my cell phone. I always keep my phone on silent but it’s not a freedom I would be willing to give up in order to see a movie in an AMC Theatre.

Isn’t the point of hiring a babysitter that you have someone who knows how to handle problems or to at least dial 911 if something bad happens?  From this sort of attitude you’d almost think that no one ever left the house before cell phones were invented.

Diebold’s voting machines have been under fire for quite some time because of a number of security issues.  The latest black eye for them concerns the crappy locks they chose for the units:

The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet.

On Wednesday we did a live demo for our Princeton Computer Science colleagues of the vote-stealing software described in our paper and video.  Afterward, Chris Tengi, a technical staff member, asked to look at the key that came with the voting machine.  He noticed an alphanumeric code printed on the key, and remarked that he had a key at home with the same code on it.  The next day he brought in his key and sure enough it opened the voting machine. 

This seemed like a freakish coincidence — until we learned how common these keys are.

Chris’s key was left over from a previous job, maybe fifteen years ago.  He said the key had opened either a file cabinet or the access panel on an old VAX computer.  A little research revealed that the exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars.  It’s a standard part, and like most standard parts it’s easily purchased on the Internet.

As usual when the government tries to fix things they get worse, rather than better.  After the 2000 election fiasco, many people began pushing for electronic voting systems.  However, I’m not convinced that these systems are ready for prime time.  Our voting system here was recently replaced, with the old “complete the line” optically scanned ballots being replaced with an electronic tablet that reminds me of a cross between a Speak-n-Spell and an Etch-a-Sketch.

The beauty of paper is that there’s a non-volatile, non-electronic trail that shows the intent of the voter.  If a voting machine crashes it can take its votes with it, which is why a paper trail is vital.  Oddly enough, it seems that Diebold was very much against having a paper trail of any sort.  I haven’t followed where that ended up, but any system without a paper audit trail that retains a record of the votes is a fiasco waiting to happen.  If you think the outcry in 2000 (from idiots who couldn’t be arsed to read the instructions) was bad, just wait until a whole voting precinct’s results are lost when a memory card goes Tango Uniform.

Link via Slashdot.