Technology
Cisco Valet router or Fon 2.0N :
by kiran on Aug.02, 2010, under General, Technology
Should I buy “ease of setup” Cisco Valet router or “smart router which can get more things done with ease of setup” aka Fon 2.0N .
I’m not writing a PR for Fon 2.0N nor this is a marketing blog for Fonera. I’m working on home automation on a tighet budget and have been looking at various devices and saw the video from cisco valet routers and after reading through the specifications , I had this question: why buy Cisco Valet routers when you can do the same and get more things done for lesser price . I’m talking about the Fon 2.0N router from Fonera . I’m an happy Fon 2.0N user for over 8 months and the setup is a breeze so it should satisfy the networking newbies as well (defaults works as well ) and can create seperate network for outsiders/guests (meaning no need to share you private wireless SSID/WEP keys). So question is why someone should 150$ for just “ease of setup”.. Fon works on opensource and also downloads torrents, converts 3G to Wifi, is media/print server, can handle youtube/picasa/megaupload/rapidshare . It actually serves large audience including newbies/geeks/students/wireless enthusiasts .
check this link from networkworld newsletter where the author tells that linksys E-series routers from cisco itself does all the above with lesser price tag..Even then, Fon 2.0N should be a better choice.
Looks like Cisco is trying to appeal consumers with “ease of setup” as their pitch…but will they succeed or will this be yet another router from cisco…?
What I have to admit is, I liked the product design and from what I have seen, they seem to have avoided the usage of technical terms including “router” and they use wireless hot spots/internet access which helps many users though… Since I haven’t tried the router hands-on and my impression was based on the router specs and videos from cisco, I might be wrong as well. If anyone has hands-on experience , let me know or let me know if I’m missing something
Nokia N95 8gb with firmware ver 31.x.y
by kiran on Feb.05, 2010, under General, Technology
Updated to the Firmware 31.x.y, I should say, I’m not all impressed with the performance..its slow and i can feel the difference..I use emoze for checking emails of all my accts incl outlook and it painfully slow when i invoke it..
On the positive, I no longer have the sound when the camera clicks..apparently theres a law in US which says whenever a camera clicks, it has to have a sound..
Second diff I noticed is, I see PTT (push to talk) options ..not that I want to use it as radio , but feels good to know that N95 has so many features…
Hopefully, I will be able to uncover few more in coming weeks…
BTW, I had to change to EURO1 using NSS to test this firmware
Cool HW technology Demos & Ads
by kiran on May.29, 2008, under General, Technology
Cisco On-stage Telepresence : http://www.musion.co.uk/Cisco_TelePresence.html
Hand Cellular tech ad from QCOM ( its friggin cool) :
I’ll continue to update these links as and when I find something interesting in Hardware/Semiconductor space.