Spring odds and ends

By Mark Gibbs
Network World, 05/13/02

This week, we return with Spring NetWorld+Interop lag . . . that curious state created by too many late nights, too much partying and too much Las Vegas. That said, a good time was had by all.

Anyway, being spring, we need to do a little housekeeping: Regarding our recent foray into the nether world of Web services and specifically XML Schema Definitions, reader James Bailey wrote to point out: "I tried using Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net to create XML Schemas and noticed that they use a different definition . . . than the one stated in your article. The format is quite different."

Indeed, the current Microsoft documentation on Microsoft XML Core Services 4.0 (what used to be called the Microsoft XML Parser and we think the renaming is completely pointless) refers to the Feb. 13, 2001, version, whereas the version we cited is dated May 2, 2001. Do we really need to say anything about why Microsoft is sticking with the older specification? No?

Anyway, this week we have a small, network-scented potpourri of odds and ends for you. First, we'd like to briefly touch on Agere Systems' Orinoco Point-to-Point Radio Backbone Kit.

If you were interested in our column on creating longish-distance 802.11b links (1 to 2 miles) by making antennas out of Pringles cans, but would prefer a packaged and, for that matter, supported and actually legal solution (as far as the Federal Communication Commission is concerned), then this kit is for you.

The kit consists of two tubular Yagi antennas, mounting kits for same, cables and two access points. When assembled and configured, the link acts as a dedicated bridge with routing (which optimizes throughput by not transmitting traffic that isn't relevant to the remote end), offers 128-bit RC4 encryption, SNMP Management Information Base II management, Routing Information Protocol 2, Adaptive Dynamic Polling (which steps the transmission data rate up or down according to radio frequency conditions) and transparent virtual LAN tagging.

Our friend Michael Fairchild offered to test the system for us and set up one end at his house (which is on a hill in Ventura, Calif.) and the other end at a friend's house on the beach (also in Ventura where, for some reason, SBC Communications can't supply DSL access). There is a clear line of sight end-to-end, but it is a pretty poor one with trees framing the line.

Michael tells us that setup is brain-dead easy, and so far they have a signal, but only a weak one. This is, we understand, probably because of a combination of misalignment - one of the trickier parts of setup - and the trees we mentioned. There's something called the Fresnel Effect caused by physical object surrounding the line of sight that degrades radio signals.

The two ends are roughly 2 miles apart so if the Fresnel Effect wasn't an issue, they could, according to the product specification, expect a data rate of 11M bit/sec (taking other factors such as rainfall into effect).

In fact, under ideal conditions this data rate applies up to 3.4 miles. At 4.1 miles, 5.5M bit/sec can be achieved, which drops to 2M bit/sec at 5.0 miles and 1M bit/sec at 5.9 miles.

Pretty cool, and at a price of about $2,000, affordable. Michael plans to fool around with the alignment this week, so more as it happens.

Our next item is a pop-up killer that works really well. It is called Popup Ad Filter from Meaya Software. This has to be about the best pop-up killer we've used and is not only capable of handling every pop-up we could find, but it also doesn't get in your way and can be configured to allow pop-ups on specific sites. It also keeps a log of all the sites it has suppressed pop-ups from, which makes for interesting reading if you are so inclined.

We really like this tool and at $25 it seems reasonably priced. It gets 10 gearteeth out of 10!

Our final snippet is to note that we tried the latest version (4.0) of AlohaBob's PC Relocator, which seems far more robust than the previous version, which didn't work at all well for us. We need to finish beating it up before we can rate it but so far, so cool.