Tuesday, December 29, 2009

my new wireless router

I didn't own a wireless router because I don't own a laptop/notebook (a modern laptop anyway). But since I still have my cousin's Toshiba Satellite laptop which hasn't been picked up for like a month and I wanted to test the wireless connection, I decided maybe to get a router for future testing of laptops. And one day, I guess I'll get one of my own.

Anyway, I went to Best Buy. The cheapest one they had was a Belkin for like $40. Then I went to Wal-Mart and saw the same thing for $31. Wal-Mart it is.

I set it up and the laptop connected readily enough with no security.

Then I set up WPA security. Unsuccessful connection. Evidently the laptop doesn't support WPA? Because I didn't see that option on the network card properties.

Switch to WEP. Type in the key. Still couldn't connect.

Go back to Setup software and save configuration to flash drive (for some reason it didn't work on my old 512MB flash drive, so I used my 2GB one). Plug flash drive into Toshiba. Run Wizard. Hey it connects! Maybe I had typed in the key wrong?

Shut down. Reboot. Now it cannot see anything (no networks anywhere).

Beats me. Go outside and dig some weeds.

Come back. Hey it's working now. (Don't ask me why.)

I see on the net that the Toshiba Wireless LAN Mini PCI Card does support WPA with a newer driver.

Installed the drivers. It updated from 7.62.0.390 to 7.82.0.550.

Change encryption to WPA2. Run setup and copy setting to flash drive.

Delete old settings on computer. Run Wizard from flash drive.

Hey it's now working on WPA!

network authentication WPA-PSK
data encryption TKIP

Move computer to patio (so it's not right next to router).
Still working OK. Though the connect bars is one less than maximum (though it was max when I first moved it.)

So now I finally have a working wireless router connected to my DSL modem. (I guess I'll be using it instead of my 10 Mbps hub to connect my desktop.)

***

[12/30/09] One thing I notice is that I lose connection when I run the Microwave. The Toshiba then automatically connected to the Kokua Wireless. Well, it was $31 after all..

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

warmest decade on record

The decade of 2000 to 2009 appears to be the warmest one in the modern record, the World Meteorological Organization reported in a new analysis on Tuesday.

The announcement is likely to be viewed as a rejoinder to a renewed challenge from skeptics to the scientific evidence for global warming, as international negotiators here seek to devise a global response to climate change.

The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s, and so on,” Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the international weather agency, said at a news conference here.

The unauthorized release last month of e-mail messages between climate scientists in Britain and the United States has provided new ammunition to global warming skeptics. Some of the messages seemed to suggest that some data be withheld from the public. Mr. Jarraud said the release of the climate analysis was moved up from year’s end to coincide with the international conference on climate change.

The data also indicates that 2009 was also the fifth warmest year on record, he said, although he noted that the figures for the year were incomplete.

The international assessment on temperatures from 2000 to 2009 largely meshes with an interim analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, which independently estimates global and regional temperature and other weather trends.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Pradaxa

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH’s blood- thinning pill Pradaxa may provide a more convenient alternative to the standard therapy for potentially deadly clots, researchers said after a study comparing the two medicines.

Pradaxa prevented clots in the legs and lungs as effectively as the generic drug warfarin with no increased risk of major bleeding, a complication of anti-clot treatments, according to a study published online today by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society of Hematology conference in New Orleans. Boehringer’s drug posed a lower risk than warfarin of bleeding in general.

Newer medicines like Pradaxa and Xarelto from Bayer AG and Johnson & Johnson don’t require the regular checks that warfarin does to ensure patients are getting the right dose. The need for regular monitoring has left doctors wary of prescribing the older treatment for more than six months to a year.

The Boehringer pill “is a far more convenient drug,” since levels in the body don’t react with foods and other medicines the way warfarin does, researchers led by Sam Schulman, a professor in the department of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, wrote in the study.

Pradaxa reduced the risk of bleeding by 29 percent compared with warfarin, the study showed. Twenty of the 1,274 patients who took Pradaxa experienced major bleeding, compared with 24 of the 1,265 patients who took warfarin.