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Get Pumped Up – It’s the Start of Another Work Week!

Posted November 7, 2011
Filed under: Cisco | Tags: Braveheart, Cisco, commercial, spoof, wireless

Here’s an inspiring video for you to start off your work week. 🙂

What are Two Things That Make Me Smile? Hockey & Wireless!

Posted October 19, 2011
Filed under: Architecture, Cellular / Mobile Phones, Cisco, Implementation/Integration, Interesting Articles, Social Media | Tags: Bypass, Cisco, Fan Vision, hockey, LA Kings, Phoenix Coyotes, stadium Wi-Fi, video, wireless

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OK, I thought I would pass along an interesting article where two of my passions – hockey and Cisco — intersect. Here is an article on Light Reading about Cisco & Verizon updating the Staples Center in Los Angeles for in-stadium video. Apparently it debuted at last night’s LA Kings game.

In-stadium connectivity is becoming increasingly more popular. This article mentions controlling several different video angles. I have a similar stand-alone device from Fan Vision that I use at Arizona Cardinals home games, although that works off of UHF technology. Fan Vision — if you are listening, *please* expand into hockey. PLEASE…

The light reading article I mentioned earlier also talks about fans ordering concessions from their seats. This is something that we already have at Coyotes hockey through a vendor called Bypass. I have tried to use the Bypass Lane at hockey games, but my in-stadium cellular signal isn’t sufficient to place the order, and there is a lack of public Wi-Fi. What makes it particularly frustrating to me is that I know the arena *has* Wi-Fi, but they don’t segment a guest SSID for public consumption. This would not only drive more sales for Bypass, but improve the overall fan experience. I can also see in-stadium Wi-Fi making it easier for fans to post pictures, videos, etc. to their favorite social networking sites, which essentially extends the team’s brand outside of the event space.

The Light Reading article also mentions social networking, in the context of “digital dissing”. I always thought they should run those boards on the jumbo tron where you text your message to a certain number, and then it plays your message. Obviously, they would have to have some good content filtering, but it would be FUN.

While I am happy for the LA Kings and the Staples Center, the Kings are in town tomorrow night to take on *my* Phoenix Coyotes. Let’s Go Coyotes!

Vegas! Who’s With Me?

Posted May 25, 2011
Filed under: Industry Events | Tags: cloud, Forrester, IT Forum, mobile, social, video, wireless

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I am making the trek up to Las Vegas tomorrow to attend Forrester’s 2011 IT Forum. The event actually starts today and runs through Friday. It is being held at The Palazzo (which is part of The Venetian Hotel and Casino).

In year’s past, Forrester has used UStreamto broadcast many of the keynotes across the internet. I don’t have the specifics, but it’s worth a search, when keynote presentations run from 8:30 – 12:30 Pacific Time (Friday morning keynotes end at 10:05). Personally, Friday morning’s keynotes are of particular interest. The first is titled “iPads And Torches And Droids — Oh My! Mobile’s Not In Kansas Anymore“. That is followed up by another session called “Killing The Laptop: How IT Solutions Amplify Business Productivity On Tablets and Smartphones”.

After the morning keynotes, the afternoons are packed with 3-4 sets of track sessions. The track that really jumps out at me so far is one called “Transform Processes That Touch Your Customers”. It has sessions on topics such as next-gen CRM and customer service through social technologies.

The content is spot on. For example, last year, I heard Ted Shadler speak about his book, Empowered, which mentions the rise of four key technologies: social, mobile, cloud, and video. In my opinion, those four areas absolutely dominated the IT mindset in the past year, and are only growing in importance.

Like any conference, beyond the actual content, one of the most valuable aspects of attending are the networking opportunities. In the past, Forrester has done a good job of trying to connect people with similar interest with role-specific ribbons to add to attendee badges. They also put placards on the lunch tables to group people with similar interests. Forrester also offers one-on-one meetings with their analysts — at no extra cost for attendees.

Please let me know if you are attending the forum (or happen to be in Las Vegas for something else), and would like to meet up. If you are unable to attend, keep a look out here, my Computerworld Blog, or my Twitter stream for a recap of what I find the most interesting and relevant. You can also keep a tap on what’s happening at the conference with the official Twitter hashtag, which is #ITF11 .

CWAP Beta Course – Recap

Posted April 19, 2011
Filed under: External Training, Industry Events, Interviews, Video | Tags: CWAP, CWNP, Kevin Sandlin, ubiquitious Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, wireless, wireless certification, wireless training

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If you read my latest posts, you already know that I attended the Certified Wireless Analysis Professional beta course hosted by the CWNP program in Atlanta, GA last week.

I really enjoyed all the side bar discussions between attendees. There were at least 3-4 vendors represented, as well as VARs/Integrators and enterprise wireless network administrators. I spoke about my favorite side-bar discussion, which was about locating wireless devices through spectrum analysis on my Computerworld blog.

Attending the course also really reinforced what a big believer I am in the CWNP program. It’s great to see a vendor neutral training and certification body in our field. I really think that along with the IEEE and Wi-Fi Alliance, they have done a great job promoting and educating the community about wireless technology, which helps drive growth / adoption, which is good for everyone involved.

Therefore, I wanted to take the time to interview one of the CWNP co-founders, Kevin Sandlin, to have him explain about the program and how it fits an emerging trend in the marketplace:

It’s a Wireless World…

Posted November 26, 2010
Filed under: General | Tags: funny, humor, Wi-Fi, wireless

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A little levity regarding the ever-expanding nature of wireless… Happy Friday!

Update – Xirrus at US Open

Posted November 17, 2010
Filed under: WLAN Vendors, Xirrus | Tags: Signal Share, United States Tennis Association, US Open, wireless, Xirrus

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I told you there was more to come on this one…

The project for the United States Tennis Association (USTA) was done in conjunction with a partner of ours, Signal Share. I can tell you, Signal Share is doing some exciting things in the wireless space.

The U.S. Open also had other arrays that were installed in a more permanent fashion. This is a picture of one such array taken from the perspective of where array in the first array was located.

Super Tuesday Poll – Ethernet Adapters

Posted November 16, 2010
Filed under: Ethernet, Poll Questions | Tags: Ethernet Adapters, Super Tuesday Poll, Wi-Fi, wireless

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It’s been awhile since I have done a “Super Tuesday” poll, so I thought I would throw one in today. You should answer this question for your primary computer, whether that be a desktop, a laptop, a tablet PC, or whatever.

I can’t give any “I voted” stickers away, but take satisfaction in the fact that you are shaping the (wireless) direction of America…. 🙂

Related Posts:

Wireless Gift Guide (Cont.)

Posted December 21, 2009
Filed under: General | Tags: BlueAnt, Pet Rock, Playstation 3, wireless, Wireless Gift Guide

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There are only a few more shopping days before Christmas. If you have procrastinated until this point, perhaps you should view the “wireless gift guide” I recently published on my Computerworld blog.

I have one addition to the list:

BlueAnt Supertooth Light – I can’t believe I excluded this one from the list because I actually *received* one of these as a Christmas gift this year. It’s a Bluetooth speakerphone/microphone that hangs on a car sun visor. And as Sheldon from the TV show, Big Bang Theory says, “Everything is better with Bluetooth”. I actually had a similar device from a different manufacturer and didn’t like it –mostly because it wasn’t loud enough. The call quality on both ends is excellent with the BlueAnt device.

I also wanted to expand on two of the original suggestions:

PlayStation3 – The Wi-Fi on this does a lot more than I originally anticipated. Not only does it allow for free online game play, but it facilitates game updates. Once such example of this is in sports games where updated team rosters can be downloaded from online servers. You can also stream movies directly to the PS3 from NetFlix.

Pet Rock – My Computerworld editor actually pointed out this reincarnation of the pet rock: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/c208/ Oddly enough, this version of the pet rock *isn’t* wireless. Uhg…

How Stuff Works – 802.11n MIMO

Posted January 24, 2009
Filed under: 802.11n, MIMO | Tags: 2x3 MIMO, 3x3 MIMO, 802.11n, MIMO, wireless

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If you have been following my blog, you know that I have a poll regarding the greatest challenges to 802.11n deployment in the enterprise. (Here’s your chance to rock the vote!)

One challenge for replacing desktop Ethernet with wireless is speed. Perhaps the widest publicized enhancement to 802.11n is that of MIMO (“my-moe”) antennas, which stands for “Multiple Input, Multiple Output”. How does MIMO work?

To answer that question, let’s look at how a classic 802.11 wireless transmitter operates:

802.11 Classic Transmitter

In this case, the signal is sent out of one antenna. The signal is received by both antennas at the other end, but only one signal is processed and sent up to the MAC layer. Antenna diversity helps in the fact that the best signal is the one that is processed, but remember that it is still a single antenna that processes the receives and processes the RF energy.

Let’s compare that to a MIMO antenna structure:

MIMO Signal Processing

In this case, we have three transmit antennas and three receive antennas (often referred to as 3×3 MIMO). The black, green, and red lines above each represent their own signal. With MIMO all three signals are received and processed up the stack. This significantly improves the receiver’s “ability to hear” and it represented in the graph above by the orange line.

You may hear different implementations of MIMO such as 2×3 and 3×3. The first number is the number of transmit antennas and the second number is the number of receive antennas. If you hear 3x3x2, the last number refers to the number of spatial streams, which I will discuss in another post.