802.11g is Ratified, another Bluetooth alternative on the way

The IEEE finally ratified Draft 8.x of , which means vendors should be releasing firmware updates any time now to iron out any kinks. And yes, we will definetly have "raw" 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz band (around 20Mps "real" bandwidth, which is a vast improvement over 's effective throughput ot 5-7Mbps with a tail wind).

More interestingly, though, something called 802.15.3 was ratified too. At first glance, it seems to be a Bluetooth-like technology, or a hybrid of and Bluetooth (i.e., a simpler technology than Bluetooth for the same 1-50m range, and also in the 2.4GHz band).

The great thing about standards, as always, is that we have a lot of them.

More RAQ550 Goodies

I've given up on building a RPM for the RAQ550. The main reason was that I had to set up 4.3 on one overnight, but I had been doing the dependency dance for a while now (building packages that needed packages that needed packages that... oh well), and simply couldn't find the time to rebuild all the required RPMs properly.

Those I did rebuild, though, work like a charm. But although retrofitting 8 and 9 RPMs (and dealing with the differences in RPM formats, tools, etc.) was fun, I've decided recompiling from source has added advantages - I keep having to add extensions for RADIUS, Flash, etc., and having the source around helps a lot.

Anyway, I'm drafting a new for setting up from source without breaking the administration interface at RAQ550/Packages/PHP, loosely based on the Sun KB Notes for doing the same on a Qube 3 but with a slightly better method (i.e., more detailed, more future-proof and with backups). It's about a third done, but I'll be adding to it over the next couple of days as I do it over again on a third box and iron out the kinks.