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February 27, 2003
Computers and Things
I've been using an Apple Powerbook Titanium for the last 2+ years now running OS X for as long as I've had the machine. I've enjoyed it for many reasons, but there have always been a few dark spots on it. Recently these spots are getting to be much larger, more annoying, and plenty visible.
The main culprit is the Airport wireless ethernet card. The card works alright for me, nothing great. For example, trying to surf the web via the Airport (being the only one on it mind you) is noticeably slower than if I were to plug into the ethernet (yes I know the technical differences).
There are times when the Airport card just can't even download files that it just looked at. When trying to build some software, I can forget about using the internet as it seems large builds kill the cards capability to continue functioning. Thankfully all these issues can be worked around or dealt with somehow. Not saying that they should exist at all, but they aren't the number one priority.
The biggest problem, lack of signal strength. It seems that while I can pick up various signals close by (100 ft max), those that others can find with ease are not to be seen by me. This is typically a problem for normal use and has been worse in the past week while working and having to hunt for a nice hot spot for use. I'm starting to look into using an external antenna based card to see if that will solve any of my issues. I'm really disappointed for the first time with the signal strength issues.
On the other side I've discovered that I don't have any presentation software. This could be a big problem in Montreal, as I have to make a presentation there. So I bought a copy of Keynote. What a nice change this software is from Power Point and the mistakes in designing slides. Mind you, Keynote has the advantage of taking the best of Power Point and trying to do something new without having had to go through years of backwards compatibility support. Too bad I'm running out of disk space now...
Posted by Dan at February 27, 2003 09:36 PM