Saw this little bad boy on the plane tonight and thought I would post it here so I don’t forget about it. I don’t really have a need for it right now, well of course I do, but apparently you can’t get one anyway. Belkin has made a wireless USB hub so that you can connect up to four USB devices in a remote location (up to 30 feet away). Pretty cool if you want to put an array of USB drives in a hide-away location so that you can keep them from getting ripped off or to free up some desk space. Pretty spendy at $200, but I am sure that will change in the near future.

By the way, I sold my Tivo Series 2 with a lifetime subscription for $375 plus shipping.

It is about time…at least I am sure Danielle feels that way. I am putting the D-Link DI-514 up on the blocks or available to anyone who wants it really. It is a wireless router that has served us over the past few years. It was a cheap purchase in order to get wireless internet access in the house when my Linksys WAP 11 decided it did not want to let me get into the config. I plugged the WAP 11 back in today, because the DI-514 was giving me grief for the past week, and it works perfectly. The WAP 11, while a little dated, is a great platform for two reasons: One, it is simply an Access Point so there is not a ton of technology and things to break inside of it. Two, it has awesome range and the ability to easily add some high gain antennas if I need to. I thought about adding an antenna to the DI-514, but the antenna port does not have a threaded connector. The antenna that comes with it constantly falls off because there are no threads on the router’s antenna port. I am not sure what the hell that is all about, but it is annoying as hell to say the least.

So, if anyone has a need for a wireless router, give me a holla y’all, and I will hook you up if I still have it.

tags: d-link, linksys, product review, wifi, wireless

UPDATE: Best price I have found on the Parrot 3400 LS-GPS car kit

I was hooked up big time by the in-laws, my sister and her boyfriend when they gave me the Parrot 3400 LS-GPS (the same unit as the 3400 LS, but with GPS receiver) Bluetooth hands free car kit for my birthday. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about the whole Parrot brand, but I did some checking on line and there was very little “sucks” stuff written about them so I thought I would give it a whirl.

I found the 3400 LS-GPS on line at Installer.com and they seemed to have good prices as well as harnesses and the know-how to help with my first attempt at installing anything like this. I checked online and then figured it would be best to call to make sure that I ordered the right parts. Not to get into it here, but we had a little misunderstanding and I am going to do a little write up on my experience with Installer.com…I would recommned buying there as I think they are knowledgeable and have just about everything you need to install electronics in your car, just that they might want to change their policies a little bit. Anyway, back to the 3400 LS-GPS.

Installing in a Chevrolet Tahoe

I have a 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe with OnStar and the Bose stereo installed and I wanted to run the Parrot 3400 through the car stereo just like the new cars with Bluetooth handsfree kits in them work. This was not a problem as I received the BT-1858 harness to plug right in between the factory harness and stereo. There are only a few steps involved in installing the 3400 LS-GPS in my Tahoe and here they are:

1. Remove the ash tray
2. Lower the tilt on your wheel to the bottom
3. Set the emergency brake.
4. Put the key in the ignition and put the transmission in 1
5. Remove the dash bezel. Start by popping the bottom right corner (above the ash tray slot) and slowly working around, counter-clockwise, until you have it all removed.
6. Carefully remove the bezel and put it in the back seat.
7. Remove the factory stereo by depressing the quick-release clips on the left and the right of the stereo.
8. Carefully slide out the factory stereo and remove the ~20 pin plug (the bigger one) and plug in the corresponding plug from the harness.
9. Plug the factory harness into the BT-1858 harness.
10. Secure the Parrot 3400 LS-GPS brain under the dash (I placed it towards the windshield under the dash.
11. Test out your setup to make sure everything works. The stereo, the Parrot, etc.
12. Run wires for Parrot to where you want them while the dash is off. Take your time.
13. Arrange the harness wires into the cavities (on top) under the dash so that you can re-install the factory stereo.
14. Re-install the factory stereo.
15. Re-install the dash bezel.
16. Show all of your friends and wife how cool you are.

Mounting the Controller

I was having a tough time figuring out where I was going to mount the 3400 LS-GPS, until I plugged everything in and got it working. At first I thought that I was going to have to mount the “head unit” someplace under the windshield with a clear line-of-sight out of the Tahoe. But, plugging everything in and moving the head unit around before I buttoned everything up allowed me to see that the 3400’s GPS receiver was sync’ing up with satellites in a lot of places that I would never imagine it would. I ended up mounting the head until/GPS receiver to the center of the dash, directly under my OnStar buttons. In the 2001 Tahoe, the OnStar buttons for the OnStar phone, service and emergency are in the center of the dash and not on the mirror. I used the supplied piece of velcro to temporarily mount it up and I may do something a little more permanent in the future if that does not work out.

Pairing with the Cingular 8125

The menus on the Parrot 3400 LS-GPS are very intuitive and I will not get into them other than to say that pairing it with my Cingular 8125 (Windows Mobile 5) phone was a snap. I was quite impressed with the Parrot for working with the supplied harness without any tweaking or need to run power. When it paired with my phone the first time, I was super stoked. No reason that it shouldn’t, but we all know that things rarely go as they should. Heh, as I am writing this, my wife just called from my car (her check engine light came on this morning so she is in the Tahoe) using the Parrot handsfree kit. Of course, she wants to use her Motorola HS820 headset rather than the handsfree kit (sigh), but it sounded great. I didn’t even know she was on the car kit when she called. Nice. BTW, it paired with her Nokia 6682 just as easily…too easily apparently. From what I understand the 3400 supports up to 5 paired devices.

GPS Receiver

I do not have navigation software installed on my Cingular 8125, but I do have Microsoft Pocket Streets, which I believe has some kind of functionality for showing you where you are on a downloaded map if you have a GPS receiver paired up with the 8125…but, I have to check on that. I did have my laptop down in the car to try and update the firmware on the 3400 with while I was putting it in and I paired it up using the Belkin Bluetooth CF adapter I have in there (I have a CF slot in my IBM laptop…schweet). I paired everything up and Microsoft Autoroute 2006 (the European version of Streets and Trips 2006 which I used in Italy) showed that we were in San Francisco…so clearly that was working. I will have to re-install Streets and Trips 2006 on the laptop to test out the GPS functionality on the 3400, but from the screen indications, it is synced up with 5 to 7 satellites most of the time and it is not out in the open where it is mounted. So, we will see how well it works at 80mph.

Pictures of the Installation in the Tahoe

I have to take some pictures of the Tahoe installation, but as I mentioned, the wife is driving it right now down in the Peninsula. So, I will have to get some up here this weekend.

tags: 3400, bluetooth, car kit, chevrolet, electronics, gadgets, handsfree, installation, parrot, tahoe

Looks like CalTrain is not as retarded as I thought they are. ABC reported last week that they are testing a WiMaxx / WiFi setup on a 16 mile stretch of track between San Francisco and San Jose somewhere. The system is using WiFi locally on the trains and transmitting and receiving to base stations outside of the train using WiMaxx. Pretty slick.

Now if they can just let people on the train more than 5 minutes beforehand, when there are 200 people waiting, the train is clean and ready and the north entrance to the station in San Francisco is blocked because people are lining up to get on the train.

tags: caltrain, san francisco, wifi, wimaxx, wireless