Oh Microsoft, you crack me up...

While I understand the significant contributions Microsoft has made to technology over the years, there is no question they are the Wayne Szalinski (Google it) of the computer industry. Rather than simply putting toast into the toaster, Microsoft designs lengthy and time consuming devices to do the same thing. They write memory-hogging programs that require SQL Server running in the background (taking up nearly a gigabyte right there) to do something other programs can do with half the processing power and a quarter of the RAM.

Case in point was an email response I received from a Microsoft technician today regarding a software issue. Here is the text from the top of the response:

The following is an email for a support case from Microsoft Corp. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE--your email will not be added to the case if you do.  Instead, FORWARD your response to the email address COMPMAIL@MICROSOFT.COM and place your text after the keyword 'MESSAGE:'.  Also, delete all other text above and below the keywords 'CASE_ID_NUM: SRnnn' and 'MESSAGE:' to ensure proper delivery of your email.  Thank you.

I think I need to contact a Microsoft technician to figure out how to properly respond to their email. At least it was good for a laugh.

Alfa AWUS036EH vs. Gsky 500mw USB adapter

And now begins our second round of Alfa vs. Gsky wireless testing. After we posted this comparison of the Alfa 500mw adapter vs. a Gsky 500mw adapter a few weeks ago, we have been getting a number of requests for more tests. Several readers asked how the Alfa 300mw adapter (model AWUS036EH) stacked up against the Gsky 500mw adapter (since the Gsky did not come out as well as the Alfa 500mw adapter). For full results in PDF format, including images, click here.

To summarize what's in the PDF file, the Alfa 300mw adapter performed slightly better in terms of range and signal strength. The difference was nowhere near as great as it was with the Alfa 500mw adapter in our previous test. This time the Gsky came fairly close. How is this possible considering the Gsky adapter has 500mw of output compared to 300mw for the Alfa AWUS036EH? The answer is two-fold. First, 300 and 500 are the respective numbers of the maximum output for each adapter. In most environments with most antennas, adapters will not be operating at their maximum output power. While the output power does make a difference, one thing often overlooked is chipset. The Alfa 300mw adapter has the same Realtek chipset as the Alfa 500mw adapter. The Gsky uses a less-sensitive version of a Realtek chipset.

Let's take a look at the sensitivity numbers. In this case, the Alfa 300mw adapter has the following receive sensitivity (the numbers recorded are negative, so in this case the lower the better, as such, -90 means greater sensitivity than -80):

11 mbps -86 dBm at 8% packet size
54 mbps -68 dBm at 10%

The numbers for the Gsky are:

11 mbps -82 dBm at 8%
54 mbps -65 dBm at 10%

The Alfa 300mw has the edge at both transmission rates, though the margin is not as great as it was between the Alfa 500mw and the Gsky. At the time of this writing, when factoring in shipping options the Alfa 300mw adapter is about $5.00 less than the Gsky.

Alfa AWUS036E vs. Alfa AWUS036EH vs. Alfa AWUS036S (Ralink) USB adapter

We completed a comparison test that offers a look at three adapters from Alfa, the 50mw AWUS036E (that number is fifty, not to be mistaken with the 500mw AWUS036H model), the 300mw AWUS036EH, and the 80mw AWUS036S which has a Ralink chipset. The full results of our test can be viewed in PDF format here.

There were no big surprises. The winner was the AWUS036EH 300mw model which has the same chipset as the AWUS036E 50mw model, but more output power. The AWUS036S has a different chipset, a chip from Ralink. The chip proved to be less sensitive, but the range was pretty good. At the time of this writing the 50mw AWUS036E model from Alfa is about $5.00 cheaper than the 300mw AWUS036EH model, which in turn is about the same price as the 80mw AWUS036S model. So if you are looking for the best range of the three and the best sensitivity, the AWUS036EH model is no doubt the way to go. If you are on a budget and need a good quality adapter with external antenna port and don't need piles of output power, the AWUS036E model is a great option. We would recommend the AWUS036SS model to those folks who specifically need a Ralink chipset.

Perseverance and the Apple Super Bowl commercial

There's no question times are tough out there for a lot of folks. When things are good, everyone thinks they know how to be prosperous. Bad times give many people a rude awakening. What you thought you knew doesn't apply anymore. Working your way up the corporate ladder to a comfortable retirement seemed to be a safe way to go through life, until layoffs and disappearing retirement funds came along. Working for yourself as an entrepreneur seemed to be another good way to succeed- until suppliers dried up, clients stopped paying, and bankruptcy loomed. The truth is there is no sure fire way to do well in life and avoid all pitfalls. But there are some things you can do to help you get through tough situations. Perseverance is key.

Case in point, I was reading an article not long ago that referenced Apple Computer's first Super Bowl ad. It came out in 1984 and helped launch Apple into a fight against IMB for computer industry dominance. Apple became a household name, the artistic anti-brand that stood out among boring PC clones. Leap forward 24 years and Apple is doing very well. Look to the person on the left of you, then to the person on the right- chances are they both have an iPod. They may both have iPhones too. It's easy to look at Apple as a revolutionary and successful company. But they also had a dark period. Any Apple fanboys reading this of course know that going into the 90's the company had fallen on tough times. They lost their fight against IBM, their market share was down,  and Steve Jobs, Apple's legendary founder, had been pushed out of the company. But Jobs wasn't done for, nor was Apple. Perseverance is such an easy thing to teach our kids, but it is much harder in practice. The purpose of this post isn't to write at length about the history of Apple or label Steve Jobs as some type of god. It is simply to remind us all that perseverance can pay off. If your an entrepreneur, keep doing what your doing. Find someone who has been through tough economic times before and learn about things you can do to help. If your working in a company fearful of being let go, don't sit around in panic mode, get your resume ready and freshen up some of your skill sets. If you're out of a job and don't see any work on the horizon, think about what you can do to make yourself stand out when companies are hiring again. Perhaps learn a second language, or go back to school for a little bit. I know reading a simple blog post isn't going to fix what's wrong, but doing nothing won't fix what's wrong either. I'll close with a post of the Apple Super Bowl ad- there is no better time than now to shake things up the same way the ad's lead character does.

Low cost 802.11n WiFi has arrived!

By now you've probably heard about 802.11n, the next standard in wireless networking technology. With transfer speeds and range up to six times better than the current standard (802.11g), 802.11n is a must for web users into media sites like YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon's Video on Demand service.

Most likely the one thing keeping you from upgrading is price- not only do you have to buy an 802.11n capable wireless router and an 802.11n adapter for your PC, but you have to buy an 802.11n adapter for all computers that connect to your network, because the way the 802.11n standard works if there is one computer connected to your network with an old 802.11g adapter, that means all computers on the network are limited to 802.11g connectivity. Yeesh, that means you have to buy one adapter for your daughter's laptop, one for your husband's PC downstairs, and another for the desktop in your office! Sounds expensive- and time consuming to figure out what different adapters you need.

The good news is we have been working hard to come up with a solution for you, and we have done just that. For about the price of one 802.11n adapter in a retail store, you can buy three of our discounted 802.11n wireless USB adapters. And because they work on any PC (running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista) that has an available USB port, you can get one of these for each computer you have- no need to worry about buying a different type of adapter based on whether the computer is a laptop or desktop.

Mac user? No problem- while this particular adapter discussed above is not Mac compatible, we do have Mac compatible 802.11n USB adapters at low prices too.

New Product: Linksys WUSB54GS Wireless USB Adapter

As a long time seller of Linksys products, we are excited to say we just got in a big stock of WUSB54GS model USB adapters. The WUSB54GS is exactly like the WUSB54G model from Linksys, but up to 35% faster! And you don't need a special Linksys router to enjoy the fast speeds, the SpeedBooster mode can be enabled on the adapter for use with any router.

Why should you be excited we are carrying this item when you can go buy it in any retail store? Perhaps because or price is less than half that of major retailers! Check it out...

Alfa AWUS036H vs. Gsky 500mw USB adapter

We've been getting a lot of questions about how a new wireless USB adapter from a company called Gsky stacks up to the Alfa AWUS036H 500mw USB adapter that we sell (we ran a head to head test which we will discuss further down, but if you want to get right to the test results, click here).

The Gsky adapter looks a lot like the Alfa model, it also boasts the same maximum output of 500mw. We went ahead and got one of the Gsky adapters online, after all if there is an adapter out there that can perform as well as the much heralded Alfa long range adapter, it is certainly something we would want to inventory.

The first thing we noticed when we hooked it up and looked at some of the documentation was that claims on some web sites that it is a clone of the Alfa AWUS036H 500 mw adapter are not true. The Alfa adapter has a Realtek 8187L chipset, while the Gsky has the 8187B chipset, also from Realtek but with lower receive sensitivity. We should note for Linux users that the Alfa 500mw adapter is plug and play in Backtrack 3, while the Gsky with the 8187b chipset is not- it was not recognized by Backtrack 3. We also found out that with the Gsky you can only transmit at high output when using 802.11b throughput or lower. If you want to have an 802.11g connection (54 mbps), the output drops to just 30mw (yes, that's thirty, not 300).

The biggest difference though was the actual receive sensitivity. Here is a look at what you get with the Alfa (the numbers recorded are negative, so in this case the lower the better, as such, -90 means greater sensitivity than -80):

11 mbps -91 dBm at 8% packet size
54 mbps -76 dBm at 10%

Here are the numbers for the Gsky:

11 mbps -82 dBm at 8%
54 mbps -65 dBm at 10%

Seems like a pretty big difference, especially at the 802.11g/54 mbps level.

Okay, but numbers aren't everything, so we decided to pit both adapters head to head using an indentical 8 dBi antenna to see how the above differences manifested in actual usage. The adapters were positioned in the same place, one after the other, with the same 8 dBi antenna connected to each one. The tests were run 2 minutes apart. For comparison purposes, we also tested the Alfa 50mw (fifty mw) AWUS036E model. We have put the results into this PDF file here.

The final conclusion?

Alfa 500mw AWUS036H- detected 16 APs, 3.2/5 bars average signal strength
Gsky 500mw- detected 9 APs, 1.5/5 bars average signal strength
Alfa 50mw AWUS036E- detected 8 APs, 2.9/5 bars average signal strength

As the test demonstrates, the Alfa 500mw adapter gets the best range, and the best signal strength compared to the Gsky. The Gsky gets a slightly better range than the AWUS036E model from Alfa, which we have priced at $24.97 at the time of this blog post. But the AWUS036E model is more sensitive.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Okay, it's from the Onion. But as we sell a lot of Mac products and work with a number of different Mac laptops and desktops, we thought it was pretty funny.

Rhapsody killer?

Last year we wrote an article about RealPlayer Rhapsody, a service from Real Networks that introduced a subscription model to music downloads to compete with the pay-per-track system available from Apple's iTunes. While we fully understood that Apple's iTunes and their iPod music players possessed a "cool factor" not likely to be taken down by Rhapsody, the point of the article was to demonstrate the cost effectiveness for consumers of a subscription model compared to paying for each track. While we did not come right out and say it, we concluded that it would be unlikely that Rhapsody would be able to take a large piece of market share from Apple- not because a subscription model does not make for a good business model, but instead because Real Networks was not as big a player as Apple.

Now a new player has entered the market with a subscription model, and they are playing to win. That player is everybody's favorite whipping boy, Microsoft. Bill Gates and company are not new to the music market. They launched their "Zune" music player as a competitor to Apple's iPod in 2006, and quickly found that Apple was not going to be easy to overtake. The Zune was just one in a long line of handheld music and video players being offered by dozens of companies. Key to Apple's success was the popularity of iTunes, the service which provided content to iPod users (iTunes of course provides content to computers as well). The Zune never amounted to much because it lacked this type of service- until now...well until this past September anyhow.

In September Microsoft launched Zune 3.0, and this fall has been dedicated to marketing the project. While we don't want this to read like an advertisement for the service, we do need to explain what the service does in order to detail how it plans to compete with iTunes. Much like the aforementioned Rhapsody service, you pay $14.99 a month and you can listen to unlimited songs in the Zune library on your PC or a compatible MP3 player. The songs are not DRM free and cannot be copied to CDs. There is one big difference between Zune and Rhapsody though, and that is that included in the $14.99 monthly fee are ten free DRM-free MP3 downloads, which would cost $9.90 over at iTunes. So if you would normally buy at least ten songs a month on iTunes, with Zune you will be paying just five bucks more each month for the added bonus of being able to listen to any song you want on your computer or MP3 player at any time.

What's missing from this service though is the same thing missing from Rhapsody, and that is the "cool" factor that Apple brings to every product it creates. Critics have dropped bombs all over Apple TV, a weak attempt from Apple to enter the home entertainment market, but several bloggers have noted that there are enough Apple fanboys out there to keep the product afloat. Apple's iTunes service is a far superior product compared to Apple TV and already has a strong foothold in the music download market. To unseat it, Microsoft will need to do more than just bring added value to the industry. Perhaps they should change the name from Zune to Mojave? Oh, that's right...

It will certainly be tough for Microsoft's Zune to knock iTunes off of its pedestal. But Zune will more than likely keep them sweating over at Real Networks as Rhapsody suddenly looks like a dated concept. In addition, Microsoft has staying power and multiple channels through which they can promote Zune. It will be an interesting battle ahead, but witnessing the last ten years, we wouldn't bet against Steve Jobs right now.

New Product: Low loss RP-SMA to N Male extension cable/pigtail

A lot of folks have asked us if we will begin carrying an extended line of WiFi accessories such as pigtails, cables, and outdoor antennas. The answer is yes, and we have already started to get in some new items. New this week is our special low loss RP-SMA to N Male extension cable.

This cable is 5m in length with an impedance of 50 OHM. But what sets is apart from the crowd is its special low loss cable which limits the cable loss factor experienced when using antenna extension cables. This cable has an RP-SMA connector on one end which connects to many of our USB and PCI wireless products. On the other end it terminates into a N male connector for hook up to a wide array of outdoor and long range antennas.