Wireless all- In-One for Dummies- P13 ppsx

Book VI Chapter 1 Choosing and Using Cordless Phones 339 Choosing Your Frequency Table 1-2: Pros and Cons of Cordless Frequency Bands Band Pros Cons 900 MHz Cheap, won’t interfere with Wi-Fi Usually little or no security, limited range 2.4 GHz Price is right, more secure than 900 MHz secure Possible conflicts with Wi-Fi 5.8 GHz Clear, likely more secure More expensive You have an array of choices when purchasing a cordless phone. The impor- tant option is the frequency band on which the phones operates. Cordless phones are available in 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.8 GHz models. Generally, as the frequency goes higher, so does the maximum distance you can take the handset from the base station, and the clarity gets better. Watch out, how- ever, for interference from other sources of radio waves, physical structures like walls, and the weather. Here are what the three frequency bands offer. 900 MHz You can buy one of these phones pretty cheaply, but many manufacturers are phasing them out, favoring instead the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz models. If you’re on a budget, you can buy one of these analog models for less than you paid for this book — but I wouldn’t recommend it (the phone, not the book). Why? The prices of 2.4 GHz phones are very reasonable and cover a larger area with less likelihood of interference. Also, higher frequency phones offer more conversation security: It’s fairly simple to listen in to a 900 MHz analog signal with the right equipment. 2.4 GHz Quality and price meet here. This is the sweet spot for cordless phones; most of them made today operate in this frequency range. They offer more clarity and range than you get with a 900 MHz phone. Given the number of 2.4 GHz models, you can find them in a wide variety of configurations, choosing the features you want and not paying for ones you don’t need. You can buy 2.4 GHz phones in analog and digital models. These phones are also available in multiple-handset models, which let you 340 Featuring Cordless Phones add more handsets as you need them. Some models let you have as many as eight — seemingly enough for every room of your house. While the addi- tional phones need a nearby AC outlet, they don’t each need a phone jack. You can find 2.4GHz phones in a huge variety of configurations with any number of features. Some contain digital answering machines. Some allow you to add up to eight handsets to the same base. Extra handsets usually come with a charging dock for which you need an AC connection, but you only need a phone jack for the base station itself. Unfortunately, phones that operate in the 2.4 GHz range can interfere with some Wi-Fi wireless networks (802.11b and 802.11g, but not 802.11a or 802.11n). 5.8 GHz These phones have an exceptionally notable advantage over the other two kinds of phones: The 5.8 GHz band is less populated, but that’s changing quickly. Along with an increase in clarity and distance, cordless phones using this frequency are the perfect fit for a home that has a Wi-Fi network and other interference on the 2.4 GHz band. The 5.8 GHz phones tend to be feature-packed affairs that get expensive quickly, although with the frequency growing in popularity it’s only a matter of time before cheaper 5.8 GHz phones emerge. Featuring Cordless Phones If the confusion over frequencies isn’t bad enough, you have to decide between a myriad of features when shopping for a cordless phone. From caller ID displays to multiple-handset models, you have much to discover before plopping down your greenbacks. You find some of the features on cordless phones: ✦ Caller ID. If you subscribe to caller ID service through your local phone company, this feature is a must. If the phone’s not enabled for caller ID, subscribing doesn’t make any difference. When you get an incoming call, the caller’s phone number and possibly the name (if you pay for this ser- vice) appears on the handset’s display. ✦ Call waiting ID. Call waiting ID is a cool feature. While you’re on the phone with someone else, you can see who is trying to reach you by glancing at the display on your phone. If you want to take the new call, you flash over to the other line. When you’re done, if the first caller is still waiting, you can flash back to him or her. Contents Chapter 1: Choosing and Using Cordless Phones 335 Cutting the Cords 335 Choosing Your Frequency 338 Featuring Cordless Phones 340 Avoiding Interference 341 Book VI Chapter 1 Choosing and Using Cordless Phones 341 Avoiding Interference ✦ Digital answering machine. I thought everyone who needs to record calls signed up for voicemail through their phone company. I guess not. Long gone are the days of cassette tapes; the answering machines built into these phones are digital, which have far less recording capacity. One benefit is that long-winded callers have fewer seconds to leave their messages, sparing you some rambling. Sometimes you can even set the length of messages your answering machine will take before cutting off the caller. ✦ Multiple handsets. You can do several things with these phones:  • Adduptoeighthandsets(dependingonthemodel)forusethrough- out your home.  • Answeracallusinganyoneofthephones.  • Transferacalltoandfromahandset.  • Pageahandset,makingthesetupsimilartoanintercomsystem.  • Plugeachhandset’scradleintoapoweroutlet;theydon’trequire separate phone jacks. ✦ Two-line phones. These models can handle multiple phone lines. If you have a second line in your home, consider this feature. My household uses a two-line phone — one for business and faxing and the other for personal calls. ✦ Speakerphone. This feature is always handy, especially when stuck on hold with a credit card company or other sadistic entity. You can push the appropriate button and leave the handset in its cradle, using the speakerphone located in the base station. Better still are handsets with speakerphone built-in; you can carry them around and have speaker- phone conversations while you do other stuff. Avoiding Interference As I mentioned earlier, if you have a Wi-Fi network in your house, I don’t recommend the purchase of a 2.4 GHz cordless phone. If your household is constantly using a baby monitor, that could be a problem, too. Even micro- wave ovens, which operate on the same frequency, can create problems. Never situate the base of your phone near a microwave, because if some- body decides to heat up last night’s dinner while you’re on the phone, you’ll experience loud and annoying interference. If your analog phone has interference, you hear it as static and hisses. A digital phone will probably fade in and out or have a shorter range, or even cough up sounds like buzzing or beeping (but not technically static). 342 Avoiding Interference The best way to eliminate or reduce these kinds of interference problems is to move the phone’s base station around the house, seeing if a different location makes any difference. If you already have a Wi-Fi network and pur- chased a 2.4 GHz phone without reading my wise admonitions beforehand, you still have hope. Just turn off the network when you’re using the phone and vice versa (as annoying as that can be). However, you may find the two coexist peacefully. Chapter 2: Picking Peripherals In This Chapter ✓ Cleaning off your desk ✓ Choosing wireless peripherals Y ou may be focusing on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks and forgetting some of the more “peripheral” uses of wireless technology. In this chap- ter, namely, I’m literally referring to peripherals — for your computers. A peripheral is really anything that’s not an internal, integral part of your desktop or laptop computer. Examples include keyboards, mice, trackballs, external hard drives, speakers, and game controllers. (It also includes print- ers, but they’re covered in Book III, Chapter 4.) While these all once were tethered to your PC via wires, more and more of them are sold in cordless versions. In this chapter I highlight a few of the cordless peripherals you can buy. Unplugging Your Desktop Logitech, one of the largest manufacturers of cordless mice and keyboards, has shipped literally tens of millions of cordless peripherals worldwide, including keyboards, mice, and trackballs. You may see peripherals called cordless or wireless. I guess I like wire- less because this book isn’t called Cordless All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. It’s a good thing, too, as I picture a cordless phone disguised as a Dummies book. I’d love the look — I’ll gladly take a black-and-yellow phone any day — but holding a book to my head for an hour could be tiring. Of course, some cordless peripherals still come with cords. The base stations usually plug into a USB port (found on the back or front of your computer) on your computer and then sit somewhere on your desk — but probably out of the way and out of sight. Others simply require USB dongles to communicate with your computer — no wires at all. 344 Using a Cordless Mouse One of the annoying things about corded, or wired, peripherals is when you attempt to move a mouse but the cord is hung up on something else on your desk. As you pull the mouse toward you to move the cursor down, the mouse stops, the cursor stops, but your eyes (and sometimes your hand) keep going. This little disruption can totally throw off your suspension of disbelief if it happens when you’re in the middle of a game. Switch to a cordless mouse, and you’ll never experience that particular problem again. Of course, cordless mice have their own issues, but I’ll get to them a bit later. Using a Cordless Mouse Microsoft and Logitech are two of the largest makers of cordless mice. Various other companies manufacture similar cordless peripherals, includ- ing game controllers, which are described later in this chapter. Microsoft mouse Microsoft has a massive line of cordless mice, including things like the Wireless Laser Mouse 7000, the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000, and the SideWinder X8 gaming mouse. It also has cordless notebook mice, which are more compact versions of standard mice, such as the Arc Mouse and the Mobile Memory Mouse 8000. Many of these operate in the 2.4 GHz range and allow for up to 30 feet of wireless range. Bluetooth peripherals work similarly to the cordless mice and keyboards I mention in this chapter A Bluetooth base station can simultaneously inter- act with several devices, including appropriately equipped cell phones and handheld computers. I discuss mice and keyboards that use Bluetooth wire- less technology in Book VI, Chapter 5. Logitech introduced the first radio-frequency (RF) cordless mouse in 1991 and the first cord- less keyboard-and-mouse combination in 1998. Logitech cites a study showing that eight out of ten U.S. consumers know about cordless peripherals. It’s a sizeable market, with Logitech estimat- ing that retail sales of cordless mice and key- boards total $230 million a year. That’s a growth rate of nearly 50 percent. It seems I’m not the only one cutting the cords and opting for a wireless desk. Seems logical Book VI Chapter 2 Picking Peripherals 345 Using a Cordless Mouse SideWinder X8 Mouse A dedicated gaming mouse, the SideWinder X8 Mouse is equipped with a 2.4GHz connection, a tilt scroll wheel, 12 buttons (7 of which are program- mable), and something called Play and Charge. That’s a charging cable that allows you to continue playing even if the built-in battery dies during a gaming session. The grooviest thing about this mouse is that the thumb buttons, tradition- ally placed horizontally along the left side of the mouse, are, in this mouse’s case, vertically placed for easier access. With programmable mice, gamers can program stuff they’d normally have to do with the keyboard to mouse buttons. This includes in-game actions like jumping, changing movement speeds (walk/run), ducking, and so on. Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 This killer mouse goes beyond optical tracking. Like most high-end, modern mice, it doesn’t use a ball or a visible LED for movement; it uses a laser. This makes for much more precise tracking over just about any kind of sur- face you can imagine. The Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 also includes 2.5 GHz Bluetooth technology, a rechargeable battery, and more. Logitech mouse Logitech also has a wide range of wireless mice. You can order them online at www.logitech.com. This itty-bitty, portable mouse is the exact mouse I use with my notebook computer. It’s small, yet features big technology. It’s a laser mouse, it comes with a USB receiver the size of a nickel (literally), it’s oddly palm-friendly for its size, and it runs on two AAA batteries. I just leave the little receiver plugged into my notebook’s USB port all the time. When the computer goes to sleep, I just wiggle the mouse and it wakes right up. The mouse has two main buttons, two buttons nestled to the left of the standard left mouse button, and a scroll wheel with tilt sensors. (See Figure 2-1.) It really has just about everything a full-sized mouse might feature, but it’s pocket-sized and easy to bring around the house, or even anywhere to which I may travel, and to use with my Wi-Fi enabled notebook for computing all over the place. 346 Using a Cordless Mouse Figure 2-1: The Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse Trackballs I’m no expert, but I’d say trackballs are a niche market. If you haven’t seen one, it’s basically a mouse with the ball on the top rather than the bottom. The unit stays in place as you move the ball (and hence, the onscreen pointer) with your fingers. Trackballs are good for precision work (graphical work) and certain games. However, if you don’t know if you need one, you probably don’t. Logitech has two wireless trackballs. One is the Cordless TrackMan Optical and the other is the Cordless TrackMan Wheel. The TrackMan Optical is the fancier of the two and costs about $10 on the street. The TrackMan Wheel has a street price of about $50. Both models have lots of buttons. The TrackMan Wheel has its ball on the left side instead of on top. You use your thumb to operate the ball, rather than your fingers. Finding the Home Row: Keyboards You also can find keyboards that are wireless. Want to know more? Read on! Microsoft wireless keyboards Microsoft sells wireless keyboards and mice as a set. It offers about a dozen sets, some of which are Bluetooth enabled. The sets have different features, depending on the price tags. They range all over the place, from basic sets to elite sets. Book VI Chapter 2 Picking Peripherals 347 Using a Cordless Mouse Some of the keyboard sets come in ergonomic models, which I can’t stand. If you don’t know what ergonomic means, you probably have seen one of the keyboards, anyway: The keys are split into two groups, positioned at angles that more closely mimic the normal angles of your wrists. They cut down on injuries to your wrist but also typing precision. Bury me with my Logitech Wave keyboard (below). Logitech wireless keyboards Logitech also has a range of cordless keyboards and keyboard/mouse sets. The standout is called the Cordless Desktop Wave (See Figure 2-2). The Wave keyboard comes in a corded version; the Wave desktop has the same keyboard in a cordless form and a mouse to go with it. I prefer a different mouse, so I use the Wave keyboard without the mouse that came with it. Call me a rebel. Figure 2-2: Cutting the cord with Logitech’s Cordless Desktop Wave keyboard (it looks beat up, but it’s actually well loved) 348 Book VI: Other Networking Technologies Contents Chapter 2: Picking Peripherals 343 Unplugging Your Desktop 343 Using a Cordless Mouse 344 [...]... printer may have shipped with one as well The popular formats for photos include the following: ✦ JPEG: JPEG is the most common compressed format for digital pictures and was developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group High levels of compression can reduce picture quality ✦ TIFF: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a picture format originally developed for scanners TIFF supports file compression, but... Entertaining Yourself Wirelessly There are wrinkles and variations to even the most common formats For example, WMA can rip music from CDs losslessly Apple’s iTunes also has a lossless ripping format available Most music compression schemes throw away some data — usually not data that affects the actual sound However, audio purists prefer formats that keep all the data These lossless formats include Apple... competing formats Apple’s iTunes, for example, uses AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) as its normal format Windows Media Player and Microsoft’s Zune software encode music in WMA (Windows Media Audio) The reason for competing formats is so that the companies can protect the music from unauthorized copying — this is also called DRM (digital rights management) The closest thing to a universal standard for compressed... Entertaining Yourself Wirelessly Since 802.11b, two newer wireless networking (Wi-Fi) standards have emerged suitable for home wireless networks: 802.11g and 802.11n 802.11g boosts bandwidth up to 54 mbps (double that for some products), while 802.11n supports throughput as high as 600 mbps, although most current products max out at around 256 mbps Book VII Chapter 1 356 Entertaining the Wireless Way Some... different raw format RAW format is used mostly in digital SLRs Entertaining the Wireless Way 355 The good news is that most digital media adapters capable of showing pictures handle most of the common picture formats The confusion and variations in standards that prevail in the digital music world aren’t quite as common in the arena of digital photos Hollywood on a hard drive Video and wireless networking... receiver For example, on my system, I have the Squeezebox connected via a copper RCA digital coax cable to an input on my Onkyo A/V receiver — one that’s set up normally for a CD player If you’ve just unpacked the Squeezebox Duet, plug in the charging stand and charge the remote control for a few hours The unit ships with two small power bricks — one for the remote charging cradle and the other for the... music is bought or ripped from CDs using iTunes, you want a player capable of playing back music encoded with Apple’s AAC format If your music is in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, make sure that your player can handle WMA playback Entertaining the Wireless Way 353 A word on formats CDs are easy: There’s really only one type of audio CD, known as Red Book Audio CD, which is the actual color of the... specific devices and show you how to set them up and connect to your wireless network Think of these as examples; you may choose different gear, but the principles of installation and setup are the same In this chapter, I cover some basic knowledge, so you can understand exactly what I’m trying to do Entertaining the Wireless Way The goal for a wireless entertainment experience falls somewhere between listening... shows a typical media player configuration on a wireless network HDTV / Home Entertainment System Desktop PC Wireless router Figure 1-1: PCs connect to the digital media adapter over the home network Digital Media Adapter Connections to PC from router may be wired or wireless Connection to Digital Media Adapter from the router may also be wired or wireless Laptop Starting out with digital music You... video formats include the following: ✦ MPEG (MPEG-1, MPEG-2): Commonly used in Web video, DVDs, and other common commercial applications ✦ MPEG4: AVCHD high-definition standard, plus portable media players, including the iPod and Sony PSP ✦ WMV (Windows Media Video): Used by Microsoft’s Windows Media Player ✦ ASF (Advanced Systems Format): Another Microsoft standard for digital containers for streaming . Player. ✦ ASF (Advanced Systems Format): Another Microsoft standard for digital containers for streaming video. ✦ AVI: Audio/video interleave is an earlier format for Windows video file. ✦ Xvid. trackballs. You may see peripherals called cordless or wireless. I guess I like wire- less because this book isn’t called Cordless All -in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. It’s a good thing, too, as I picture. and Magazines 412 Reading eBooks for Free! 414 Converting PDF Files for the Kindle 414 Contents Wireless Home Technology 349 Chapter 1: Entertaining Yourself Wirelessly In This Chapter: ✓ Starting