IrDA

[xane]

Has anyone actually used the IrDA device on your motherboard ?

I was thinking of getting the Asus IrDA cable and trying it out, but its in short supply, and it costs around £17 which seems a lot for a cable and a sensor.

USB-IrDA devices are over £30, so they're not welcome.

Anyone tried using it for something, I was hoping to link up a Palm M100 on my Dad's machine ?

 

[Xavier]

better to use serial, the connection is no quicker via irda and it's generally extremely flaky...

 

[old.Jas]

You can't beat the 'coolness' of an IR connection though

I used to surf with a laptop or Psion 5 and an Ericsson with an IR port and modem built in. Only at 9.6k mind, and it took ages to dial up - but it was great on the train (until you go through a tunnel)

Also IR was great for printing stuff at college - just point the Psion at the printer and you have your notes for the lecture

 

[xane]

Problem is my Dad is running out of serial ports and converting some of his stuff to USB is getting expensive.

I had to ditch the ISA serial port card when he moved to a PCI only motherboard, and one serial port is permanently connected to a Graphics Tablet, for which the cheapest USB replacment is around £70.

So the remaining serial port shares between an old digital camera, a Sony camcorder, and his Palm M100, for which there is no USB connector, or the serial-USB converter is expensive or non-existant.

The easiest and cheapest solution so far is to use the IrDA built into the motherboard (an aging Asus P5A).

 

[Xavier]

go bluetooth!

I've got my T68 hooked up to meh lappy with a TDK USB bluetooth - it r0xx0r!

 

[PR.]

/me browses net with wireless card in his lappy

 

[old.Jas]

I thought about getting a wireless hub - but they are a bit slow arn't they? Only 11mb/s

 

[Xavier]

11Mbit is still 1.38mbyte/sec - unless you've got a 2Mbit pipe 11Mbit is fine

I stream everything including DIVX over my WIFI, no complaints sofar

 

[Xavier]

but seeing as bluetooth supports TCP/IP I still say GO LAN!! hehe

 

[PR.]

True it is slow at 11mb but for transferring small documents/downloads and 512k net access its cheap and works well even if the range does seem rather low, doesn't even cover the whole house

 

[old.Jas]

I think I'll wait until they improve the technology (in terms of range and bandwidth) before I buy into it.

Your right though - I can imagine it being really handy for net access anywhere

 

[Embattle]

For me bt still remains a sales gimmick

 

[Xavier]

one day you'll see the light...


a quick example of the usefulness of bluetooth...

My old phone was a T39, a rather spinky handset but it didn't do all that I needed and I HATED the flip... I wanted to stay with ericssons as all their new handsets are triband...

I've got several hundred contacts on my phone, the majority of which have multiple numbers or other details which my T39 was able to keep under a single username... I needed to get the numbers onto the new phone (T68) without copying via the sim as it completely louses up multiple contacts, sims have a very limited capacity...

normally the only way to do this would be a painstaking transfer, contact by contact over IRDA... bleh!

but both the handsets have bluetooth, all I had to do was turn the bluetooth on on both phones, pair them, and 'push' the phonebook across, in it's entirety...

total time taken - less than 15 seconds...

I've started delving deeper into what bluetooth can do for my LAN and now I've got all manner of bluetooth kit, the most useful of which is my TDK USB Bluetooth - I've now got wirefree GPRS access on my laptop on the move

 

[Embattle]

Lucky there was no other phones with bt around, as some conference recently went really badly when loads of bt devices went up shit creek

Not to mention that bt is something like 10 years old

Strange it may seem but i hate mobile phones and I'm not to fond of laptops

 

[old.Jas]

Imagine a bluetooth virus, or DDOS attack - nasty

 

[Embattle]

U heard about the Nokia phone one?

 

[old.Jas]

Yeah - but the phone software isn't really powerful enough to do that much damage

Wait until M$ software gets used on mainstream phones

 

[Embattle]

As things get more popular some dipshit will always make a virus.

 

[Embattle]

Although normally most can be avoided if a dipshit isn't operating the device

 

[old.Jas]

Hey - this is the public we are talking about here

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Jas
Hey - this is the public we are talking about here

Dipshits.

Email viruses are still the largest and most popular way of spreading viruses causing massive damage...why?

Because most dipshits from the general public open any thing attached to an email, even from people they don't know