Improving WiFi Reception: An Improved Answer

In the Wall Street Journal on May 17, 2007, Walter Mossberg answered a question about improving WiFi reception. I think his answer could be improved.

He starts with "A more powerful router might help..." I am reasonably familiar with WiFi wireless networks and the power ratings for routers are not a standard topic. Even finding the power rating for a router is probably going to be difficult. While a stronger signal should help reception, anyone reading this needs to be informed as to what constitutes a low, medium and high power ratings for routers.

He also says "You might look for a new router that features a technology called MIMO...".

While true, this is not really the point. The point is to get a pre-N or draft-N router. They all use MIMO, something a non-techie shouldn't need to know. There are many important facts about Pre and Draft N routers that he failed to point out such as: their effectiveness varies greatly, there have been at least five (by my count) generations of "early" N routers, to get the best performance you need to pair an early N router with a matching WiFi adapter and, unlike WiFi G, there is no interoperability between brands.

Then he says "There are also various boosters and repeaters that can be used, though some of these require more technical expertise to install than most folks have."

If it takes technical expertise then its not a suggestion for the audience Mossberg claims to serve. A much better suggestion, and one that does not take technical expertise, is to buy a better antenna and connect it to the existing router. There are omnidirectional antennas that transmit the signal in all directions and directional antentennas for use when you only need the better signal in a single direction. Also, this would serve a heads-up to anyone buying a new router - get one where the antennas can be removed and replaced by better antennas should the need arise.

Then there is what Mr. Mossberg did not say.

The first and easiest step is to change the channel. The G flavor of WiFi uses a single channel, numbered 1, 6 or 11 (I'm simplifying this a bit). If your neighbor has a strong signal on channel 6, for example, it will interfere with your network if you also use channel 6. Determine the channels used by the strongest signals near you, then configure your network to use a different channel. Windows XP does not display the channel used by WiFi G networks, but pretty much all other WiFi software does.

Finally, the router is not the only end of the network that can be improved, so too can the network adapter in the computer.

You might try a USB based WiFi adapter because it lets you move the adapter around to get the best signal without moving the computer. I forget the exact spec, but USB wires can be pretty long. Then too there are PCMCIA (a.k.a. PC Card) network adapters that have very large antennas.

Posting viewed times since May 31, 2007

Passing off opinions as fact

In the Wall street Journal on March 27, 2007 there was an article on page C12 called Microsoft's Brighter Vista. The point of the article is that while Vista is not selling well now, it may sell better in the future. The sub-title is “Soft Start for the System May Yield to Strength Ahead As Chip Glut Pares PC Costs”.

The starts out saying that Vista sales have been slow because Windows XP works well enough and hardly anyone will upgrade an existing computer from XP to Vista. Fine. But then regarding the “improvements” in Windows Vista the article says:

“Those that are important, such as easier searching and stronger security, do justify using Vista on a new PC….”

This is a matter of opinion all the way around, yet it is presented as fact. Whose to say which "improvements" are important and which are not? Who's to say what justifies Vista on a new PC? There is no one right answer and no consensus amongst us computer nerds. A non-technical business person, no doubt the standard WSJ reader, comes away with the wrong impression.

Also, changes in Vista from Windows XP are referred to as “improvements”. Is this a press release or an investment article? Sounds like a press release. Anyone who has used a computer knows that not all changes are improvements. Whether a change is an improvement is a matter of opinion. Again, opinion being offered as fact.

And speaking of facts that may not be facts, the article says that “20 million copies of Vista have been sold since the January launch”. I have seen this number disputed by someone more familiar with the details than I. However, whether the number is in dispute or not, since it comes from Microsoft, which has an obvious motivation to paint a rosy picture, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Yet, the authors state this number as fact without mentioning the source of the 20 million number.

The article predicts a wave of PC buying due to lower prices and that these sales will boost Vista since “most PCs now come with it loaded…”.

This gives the wrong impression. Pretty much all personal computers marketed to consumers come with Vista (think Kool-AID). However, Windows XP is alive and well in computers marketed to businesses. They still buy XP because of reasons explained below and they have the clout to get what they want. After all, no one would turn down an order for thousands of Windows XP computers.

The reason they say "most" and not "all" PCs come with Vista is that anyone can buy a new PC with Windows XP pre-installed, a fact that I fear too-few people know. In my opinion (note: this is not a fact) opting for XP instead of Vista is the right way to go (more below). If nothing else, it's the path of least resistance. And there are other choices in new computers besides XP and Vista: the Mac and Linux.

Since the point of the article is that Vista sales may take off, the reasons not to get Vista on a new computer are omitted. There are many such reasons:

• Software incompatibly
• Hardware incompatibility
• Inevitable bugs in new software
• The learning curve

Heck, just two days after this article appeared, Walter Mossberg answered a reader question in the same paper that started with: “I have just bought a new Dell Vista computer. None of my backup software now works”. Join the crowd guy. In his response, Mossberg complained about the lack of Vista-compatible drivers.

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The choice of OS on a new computer brings up an interesting point. Since XP has been around for so long, will it be this generations QWERTY keyboard? That is, will it be a good enough, usable standard that everyone is familiar with, so much so that changing to something else, even something marginally better, just isn’t worth it? We’ll see.

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The authors, Robert Cyran and Edward Chancellor don’t work for the Journal itself, they work for breakingviews.com an organization that claims on its website to offer “punchy, relevant, timely opinion to the world's financial elite.”

One of the credited authors has a background covering the pharmaceutical industry and a degree in economics. The other specializes in finance and investment. Perhaps not the best backgrounds for offering opinions on the pros/cons of a computer operating system.

WSJ article on running Windows on a Mac

This is a review of an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on March 20, 2007 called Apple Opens Doors by Running Windows by Nick Wingfield (only available to wsj.com subscribers). The subtitle is: Ability to handle Microsoft operating system may help macs make some inroads.

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The article says that you need to buy a copy of Windows to use on a Mac. However, it does not say which version(s) of Windows. There are many versions of Windows as we all know, except apparently the author, who repeatedly refers to "Windows" as if it were a single thing without different versions/editions.

To fill in the blank, the Parallels virtual machine lets you run pretty much all versions of Windows on the Mac, even Vista. In fact, it also supports many versions of Linux and even other Operating Systems such as OS/2. The Boot Camp feature from Apple is very different. It only supports Windows XP Home and Professional. No Media Center edition. No Vista. In fact, it only supports the SP2 versions of XP. And, it only supports the more expensive "full" version of Windows XP, not the cheaper "upgrade version". As of March 23, 2007 CompUSA was selling the upgrade version of XP Home for $100 and the full version for $200. The upgrade version of XP Pro was $200, the full version was $300.

The article refers to VMware as new "virtualization" software and refers to Virtual PC as older "emulation" software. They are, in fact, both virtualization software and compete directly. Not to be too nerdy, but they both do emulation.

The article says both Parallels and VMware on Macs take advantage of Intel chips to make it easier to run Windows. A little of this is true, but it gives the wrong impression.

First, from the user point of view, the process of running Windows is the same whether the software takes advantage of Intel chips or not. There are new features in Intel processors specifically designed for virtual machine software. And giving hardware assistance to virtualization software is also done by new processors from AMD. If you have one of these new processors, and a version of virtualization software that is capable of exploiting the new features, then your virtual machines will run faster. What is made "easier" is the programming job of VMware and Parallels as the processor can now do some of the work the software used to have to do.

Omissions

OK, we're running both Windows and the Mac OS on the same computer. Can they share files?

What about the copy of Windows you run on the Mac? Does it have to be a new copy? Can you take the existing copy on an existing computer and run that on the Mac? If this interests you, read about the transporter feature of Parallels.

The terms Host Operating System and Guest Operating System are not used, let alone defined. They are necessary terms when discussion virtualization software.

What about Linux? Articles on Macs and Windows never mention Linux. Likewise, articles on Linux and Windows never mention Macs. Readers need some perspective.

Windows on a Mac was possible way back, before the switch by Apple to Intel processors. The company that actually developed what is now known as Virtual PC was Connectix. Microsoft bought them out and wasn't very interested in software that ran on Apple computers.

More bad advice from Walter Mossberg

In the March 8, 2007 Mossberg Mailbox column in the Wall Street Journal, a reader asked how he could make sure that no one could piggyback on his WiFi wireless connection. Walter's response was:

"Turn on the password feature in your router, and don't tell anyone the password. You'll usually find the password setting in the installation software that came with the router."

Not quite.

When discussing wireless routers, there are two passwords. I can just imagine the poor reader of the newspaper changing the wrong password and thinking he is safe. False security is worse than no security.

The first password is needed to login to the router itself. Routers have internal websites that you use to make configuration changes, and access to the internal website requires a userid and password. This password has nothing to do with WiFi wireless signals/connections.

By the way, this password should be changed when a new router is installed because all the bad guys know the default passwords. I have an earlier posting on this blog about how important it is to change this router password.

The password that prevents someone from piggybacking on your wireless connection is referred to in all the technical literature as a "key". If the reader looks around the internal router website or the router documentation for a "password", he won't find this. All references to "passwords" refer to the first password, not to the key.

Not to get too technical, but this "key" relates to an encryption standard, either WEP (bad) or WPA (good) or WPA2 (good). And there are good keys and bad ones, an important concept omitted from the response.

So, which password was Mr. Mossberg referring to? Did he have the right concept and use the wrong term, or did he have the wrong concept and use the correct term? Beats me. The PC industry is too new to have a concept of malpractice, but if the shoe fits...

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Update: On March 15, 2007 Mr. Mossberg issued a clarification. See Securing a Wireless Network. Certainly a step in the right direction, but...

Quoting: "To enable the encryption key, use the router's setup software to turn on security".

There are multiple mistakes in this sentence.

You enable encryption, you do not enable the encryption key. Encryption is the lock, without the lock, having a combination does nothing.

This ignores the fact that the older type of encryption, WEP, has multiple keys/passwords. Only the newer type (WPA) has a single key/password.

Once the router is working, there is no need to use its setup software. Instead you log in to the internal website in the router to make changes.

You don't "turn on security". What he meant to say was you turn on one of the three types of encryption. Routers have multiple types of security, a point he makes later. Mac address filtering, for example, is a security feature having nothing to do with encryption. So too, disabling remote administration, turning off UPnP and not broadcasting the SSID.

Quoting again: "On newer models, the strongest security system is called WPA..."

WPA is not a security system, it is an encryption system (see above). And, the strongest system is actually WPA2, not WPA.

There is a big omission here: for WPA and WPA2, the length of the key/password is critical. Short is bad, long is good. To encourage long keys/passwords you sometimes see references to a "pass phrase". This means the key/password can be an entire sentence. And it should be. A very long key/password is not an ongoing typing annoyance because it only has to be entered once on each computer that want to access the WiFi network. If your WPA key/password is "dog" or "rose" you have no defense at all from a determined bad guy.

And, WPA is not a single thing. There are multiple types of WPA and the people Mr. Mossberg claims to write for need to be told this. Simply put, home users want WPA-PSK. This is also called WPA Pre-Shared Key and WPA Personal. They do not want WPA with a RADIUS server.

Finally, anyone serious about WiFi security should turn off the WiFi network when not in use. There is an option in the router to turn off the radio transmitter that is the wireless network. No hacker can break into a network that doesn't exist.

Mr. Mossberg is loose or sloppy with words/terminology. When nerds are talking amongst themselves, they can be sloppy with terminology because they all understand anyway. But when writing for a non-technical audience, it is important to be very precise when describing something technical because they don't know the ropes.

And there is no excuse for making technical mistakes, something the editors at the Journal share the blame for. Apparently no one reviews his work.

Walter Mossberg Wrong Again

Walter Mossberg is the computer columnist for the Wall Street Journal and is not qualified for the job. There are many examples of his lack of qualification and today offered another. Someone who wanted to buy a new computer but did not want Vista asked him if it was possible to wipe off Vista and install Windows XP (read column).

The answer is yes and Mr. Mossberg said the answer is yes. But the question assumes that every new computer on the planet is sold with Vista. This is not true now, it won't be true in the near future and I'm fairly sure it won't be true long term.

Consumer machines come with Vista. As Mr. T used to say: I pity the fools. However, computer companies also sell PCs for use in businesses and they can be purchased with Windows XP. I think you are much better buying XP as opposed to Vista, but that's another story (and one where Mr. Mossberg again shows that is unqualified when it comes to computers).

Large corporations won't use Vista for a long time for many reasons. One is that their current machines can't run it but, most importantly, because they employ some qualified computer nerds that know not to depend on a new Operating System for at least a year or at least a service pack. Probably longer. No computer company is going to refuse orders for hundreds of XP based machines from large companies. Thus, you can depend on being able to buy a machine with XP for quite a while.

There is another advantage to computers targeted to businesses; they come with much less "junkware" pre-installed. Despite the tiny font for this sentence, its a big advantage.

I have said this many times: You don't read PC Magazine for Mutual Fund advice and you shouldn't read the Wall Street Journal for computer advice.

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Update:
February 20, 2007. Mr. Mossberg responds:

As much as you might enjoy the thrill of pointing out alleged errors in newspapers, my answer to the question posed by my reader was 100% correct. In fact, your email (and blog post) said: "The answer is yes and Mr. Mossberg said the answer is yes."

Your email suggests I should have gone beyond answering the question and instead questioned the question itself, which is not what I do in these short Q&As. Plus, you are seriously confused about my role. I write for consumers, and only consumers (people you dismiss with the snide comment: "I pity the fools.") I don't write for IT people or techies (a group to which you say you belong.) So your advice about what businesses and computer nerds do, or should so, is irrelevant.

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Update:
February 21, 2007. Regarding Mr. Mossberg's comments:

Saying "As much as you might enjoy the trill of pointing out alleged errors..." is making this personal which it never was. Regardless of any pros/cons about the messenger (me) any discussion should be on the facts.

Not that is matters in this regard, but I don't enjoy pointing out errors. They sadden me. My profession is letting people down. I run computergripes.com and the theme there is one of disappointment, not one of anger.

Regarding: "Your email suggests I should have gone beyond answering the question and instead questioned the question itself..." Yes! Absolutely. That's what experts do, they advise people who are not experts, even advising them when they are asking the wrong question. But, in too many respects, Mr. Mossberg is not an expert.

Mr. Mossberg claims to write for consumers. Well, consumers are often better off buying personal computers targeted at businesses. I have always advised my clients to do this to avoid the ton of pre-installed software on consumer machines that gets in the way (at best), slows down the machine, makes the operation more confusing and makes Windows less stable. Someone went so far as to write a utility dedicated to uninstalling the "junkware" from Dell machines, Dell being among the worst in this regard. The fact that buying a business oriented machine lets you get XP instead of Vista just makes this even more important.

Sidenote: There are four regulars (myself included) on the Personal Computer Show on WBAI. Recently a caller needing to upgrade Windows 98 machines asked if he should go with Vista or XP. We all, immediately, said to get Windows XP. The four of us never agree on anything, but this is was a no-brainer. I mention it, in part, because recently Mr. Mossberg advised his readers to wait for Vista and avoid getting Windows XP. Between the four show regulars there is over 100 years of computer experience.

Mr. Mossberg implies that all consumer machines ship with Vista. Most do, but not all. Lenovo sells new desktops with XP (as of yesterday) as does Velocity Micro. HP does too in the outlet section of their web site. But again, focusing on a consumer targeted PC is a mistake in the first place.

My line about "pity the fools" is joke, referring to something Mr. T used to say. Apparently, it didn't come across as intended. I'm a consultant and almost all my clients are consumers. I do indeed feel sorry for consumers who have little or no training with computers and often get bad advice. And documentation in the field is a disgrace. A brutal disgrace. Heck, even billions-in-the-bank Microsoft doesn't ship Windows with a manual.

Not to pick on the Journal or Mr. Mossberg, I'll modify my motto: You don't read PC Magazine for Mutual Fund advice and you shouldn't read any newspaper for computer advice.

Dumb Article on Dumb Terminals

There was an article today in the Wall Street Journal called Dumb Terminals Can Be a Smart Move (this is one of the very few articles that the paper makes available for free on their web site). As is typical of most computer articles in newspapers the technical information is, to be kind, incomplete.

For starters, this long article fails to mention Citrix, for a long time the dominant player in this field. Citrix is to thin client computing as Xerox is to copiers. Also omitted is any mention of the server versions of Windows and the specific feature (terminal services) that enables thin client computing. It is impossible to give the reader a reasonable understanding of the subject of thin client computing without some discussion of the server side impact.

The article gives the impression that dumb terminals are cheaper than PCs which is not always true. Back a few years ago when I was more familiar with this subject, many dumb terminals were more expensive than new low end computers. This is still true today. The HP model pictured with the article is $200 - sort of. HP says this price is "applicable to the lowest-price configuration for this model; prices for this model with the features displayed here will vary." Wyse doesn't list prices on their web site and only sells through resellers - a sure sign that it's expensive. Neoware is up-front about their prices. Their Linux based models range from $260 to $1,100, their WindowsCE models range from $360 to $1,050. They also sell Windows XP embedded models for $480 to $1,150 and thin client notebooks start at $750, roughly the same starting price as real notebook computers.

Much of the article is about how "dumb terminals" are cheaper, but it avoids the server side costs, which are huge. The software to run applications remotely is expensive and complicated to set up. The techies in charge need a lot of training to get up to speed (a hidden cost). And then there is the hardware cost for very high end servers.

There are downsides to thin client computing that are not mentioned in the article.

For one, network access to a server running your applications is critical. Should there be a networking problem, employees do the crossword puzzle until it's fixed. Also, just like with mainframes, many users compete for resources on a single computer. If the machine is not configured right, or suffers a problem or is hogged by one user doing something resource intensive, multiple users feel the pain. In fact, the whole idea of thin clients is a throwback to the mainframe model of computing - with both its pros and cons.

Another downside, user psychology, is mentioned in the article, but there is more to say about it. Resistance to thin clients comes from users that can no longer install software. Instead they can be limited to running just approved corporate applications. This sounds great for security and for keeping software up to date (think Windows Update) but if a user wants or needs other applications, they have to fight with the computer techies to get approval. It's easy to see how this may not go over well.

Artists are another problem not mentioned. Thin clients are not appropriate for people dealing with photographs, videos or any type of graphic work. These applications require high resolution, lots of colors, fast response time and lots of cpu horsepower.

The article quotes a Gartner employee as saying: "It's a paradox. People want their cake and eat it, too. They want the security, they want the consistency ... but they want the functionality of a PC." There is no paradox at all, the techies want security and consistency while end users want normal PC functionality.

Quoting the article: "... the basic terminals appear to offer improved security. Because the systems are designed to keep data on a server, sensitive information isn't lost if a terminal gets lost, stolen or damaged."

While true, this is far from the whole story. Thin client devices have ports for connecting all sorts of external devices that can be used to save files. As with a real PC, a person can stick a thumb drive into it and copy all manner of files.

The article gives the impression that the choice is either standard personal computers or thin clients/dumb terminals. This couldn't be more wrong. Almost every Fortune 500 company uses software from Citrix to run remote applications. As described here, the application is installed on a server computer running special, expensive software and remote users with real PCs access these application servers over the corporate LAN or the Internet. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the Wall Street Journal itself uses Citrix software in this way.

Some applications run normally on a personal computer while others are run remotely on application servers. The remote applications are run using software from Citrix that is either installed on a personal computer or accessed via a web page. This is a hybrid approach and one that is much more common than exclusive use of thin clients.

I have no idea what this sentence in the article means: "H-P, of Palo Alto, Calif., last week announced that a line of its slimmed-down PCs, which reside in the data center and enable users to connect through a thin client or other devices, was being made available in Europe, Canada and China for the first time." Nothing about thin clients/dumb terminals has to with PCs residing in a data center, it's all about high end servers in the data center. And if the PCs are in a data center, who cares about their height and width?

The article discusses a thin client laptop that connects wirelessly to "the network". Which network? The LAN of a company or the Internet? It doesn't say. And which wireless; WiFi or a wide area data network such as EV-DO or WiMax or HSDPA or UMTS? It doesn't say.

Whew.

By the way, you can get a feel for running remote applications at windowsvistatestdrive.com a site that Microsoft set up to let people try/test drive the Vista operating system. I found it slow, but your mileage may differ.