Media Watch

Iowa State Patrol Chief Col. Robert Garrison joined us for the June 28 show.  He says research shows there will be 25% fewer traffic deaths after the new law takes effect.  For a 170-pound male, a blood alcohol concentration of .08 can be attained with four to five drinks in the first hour.  You can burn off about a drink an hour.  There is a book and a web site that can help you reduce your risk of being arrested for drunk driving. This site also features a chart that can help you estimate your Blood Alcohol Concentration.  ( Chart )

Apples says it's going to release ITunes for Windows by the end of the year.  I've been saying for months that I would not pay $1 per song from Apple's ITunes.  Why?  1) You don't get a disk; 2) it's a propriety format; 3) there isn't the selection I want.  with WinMX, I can get the songs I want and I'm not out $1 a pop.  I have thousands of songs that I wouldn't have if I'd bought them online.  Face it RIAA, they aren't worth thousands of dollars. I would have bee happy to pay a flat monthly fee (something like $5/month) to continue using Napster, so that the artists could get something out of the deal.  My tastes are mostly 70s and 80s music, and let's face it, there have been no big dollars for anyone in the older music genres.  But I guarantee that the minute people can get whatever they want, you'll see a lot more of the older music being sold and subsequently more licensing dollars being charged. What does an...

Mercury News is reporting that Wireless Switch makers are thriving, and gearing up to go public. While that may be a scary scenerio for the consumers of such wireless gear, it means that wireless is soon going to dominate the LANs and WANs in the office working environment. Security has been the missing link that kept corporations from buying into WLANs, however that same apprehension is creating a store-bought WLAN culture, and that is sure to spill a few company secrets.)

According to Reuters, Nokia's per-user revenues is about $55. Nextel's $70 per user. So, Nokia says it'll borrow Nextel's walkie-talkie feature and provide faster internet by installing EDGE and 3G technology on its mobile network network. When? Possibly mid 2004.  Big deal .  ( News )

Fifteen lawsuits, two billion spams.  Microsoft, Yahoo, EarthLink and America Online agreed to cooperate to solve some of the technical issues associated with spam.  ( News )

Yahoo News Techweb is reporting the IEEE approved 802.11g, the newest wireless networking standard. The Standards Board of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), established the standards for wireless hardware capable of transmitting data at speeds up to 54Mbps while maintaining backwards compatibility with the ultra-popular 802.11b gear that runs at a much slower 11 Mbps. Both specifications use the 2.4GHz band of the radio spectrum. The report says 802.11g's ability to co-exist on the same network as 802.11b has been the long-touted key to the standard's acceptance in the corporate world. Wireless LAN (WLAN) hardware certified under the new specification can initially be used with an 802.11b infrastructure -- access points, wireless networking cards, and so on -- and then as a corporation requires fatter wireless pipes, serve as the foundation for a mixed, or 802.11g-only, WLAN. This three-year process opened the door for lab...

Rob Cook writes: "Before assuming that it wasn't installed correctly you need to consider two things. 1) Is there a surge protector and if so is the phone line plugged into it? If yes bypass the surge protector (SP) and see if the modem works when plugged in directly to the wall. If it does replace the SP as it is broke; and 2) If after bypassing the SP the modem still dosent work plugged in directly to the wall then the phone line itself needs to be checked by the phone company. If there is no dial tone the modem will never work. Software will not matter one bit. I spent over a year working for an ISP in tech support, this was a very common problem espicaly after a T-storm." Danny writes: "Excellent point, Rob! Thanks for the input"