I am afflicted with a common problem amongst techies and owners of many little electronic gadgets… I’d really like to be able to synchronize information among all of the devices. For me, this is especially crucial for my PIM data - I like having ready access to contacts, calendar items, etc. If I were running an Exchange or similar groupware server, this wouldn’t be a big problem, but I’m not. Having recently added a Macintosh into the equation, I’ve just compounded this problem. I just heard about a service called Plaxo that allows you to sync PIM data amongst computers and if your friends are using Plaxo, you get regular updates of their contact info. And, to make it even better, a third-party has recently released a product that allows you to sync Plaxo with a Mac.

But, after jumping in whole-heartedly, I found through some Web-trolling that there are or may be significant privacy concerns with this service. I spent some time cruising the company’s website and they seem very publicly dedicated to customer privacy, but that doesn’t seem to have allayed fears in the blogosphere. Anyone heard anything, have any thoughts (or alternate suggestions)?

If you haven’t seen Serenity, DO IT! Okay, now that you’ve done that, go read the synopsis at 0XDECAFBAD… It’s a great summary of many of the points that made Serenity so great!

The fine folk at NCsoft and Cryptic Studios must be getting closer to a full-fledged City of Villains product; this past week they opened the CoV beta to a wider audience of existing City of Heroes gamers. And… yours truly was lucky enough to be selected to join the growing ranks of beta testers. A day after I got logged in, they also lifted the NDA, making it so that we can actually talk about the cool stuff we see.

Beta play is still fairly limited, though… there are scheduled play sessions that tentatively run for 3 hours a night, Monday through Friday, and a few hours on Sunday. I’ve been on twice and have been having a blast. All of the new archtypes look cool, but I opted for a Mastermind. The big deal with MMs is that they can summon henchmen, like robots, ninjas or soldiers, to do their bidding. You have a certain degree of control over these pets and you can give them inspirations and heal them as you would other characters. You can only summon one at a time until level 12, which is kind of a bummer. Overall, though, it’s a pretty cool archtype with a good set of powers.

The first night I primarily ran solo missions, getting the hang of my powers and learning the lay of the land. The second night I joined a team and ran missions with them. By the end of the second night, I made it to level 6… I’m definitely eager to keep moving up and trying out new powers.

They’re running a big stress test all weekend, so I’m looking forward to logging in and checking that out (after I finish some of that pesky schoolwork)!

My poor blog has been sitting neglected for far too long. I’m not going to bore you with the usual excuses of why I haven’t been updating… at least not in this post. Maybe later.

Instead, I want to share a bit of personal tech news. Last week, the on-board Broadcom Gigabit NIC in my Dell Latitude D600 ceased to be recognized by the rest of the computer… for the third time since I bought it less than two years ago. Previously, Dell has overnighted a new logic board and replaced it, few questions asked. This time, the support guy said, “We don’t really want to ship you a new logic board.” So, I’m thinking, “Sweet, I am SO getting a new Dell.”

Wrong. I am SO getting to ship my laptop back to Dell, so that they can, in the end, do the same thing they would have done here, which is replace my logic board. Meantime, though, I’m kinda freakin’, because I’m in school and working and my laptop is my life… my spare brain, my only computer, etc.

So, I decided it was time to invest in a backup system. I could be boring and predictable and buy myself a PC desktop, but that would be, well, boring and predictable. Or, I could “buy a Mac, cuz they never have any problems(tm)!” In order to think through this decision, I called my brother (who has also re-launched his blog ), who helped me see the error of my Windows ways.

The long and short of this is… I bought a Mac Mini… went for the mid-line, with a 1.42 GHz, 512MB RAM, Combo drive, Bluetooth, AirPort Extreme. I was pleasantly surprised when the recent rumors proved true, and it arrived with a 1.5 GHz and 64 MB of Video RAM, rather than 32 MB. I’m in the process of getting it up and running and all configured with software, etc. So, if you know of any good Mac software I just can’t live without, drop a comment or send an e-mail.

WLAN architecture debates remind me a lot of the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz… but the issue isn’t “if they only had a brain.” The issue is where do they put those brains. Many companies, such as Cisco, have opted for a distributed intelligence, with a certain amount of processing taking place at the access point and the rest taking place at the centralized controller. While this is a reasonable solution, it can lead to increased costs for APs, since they require a bit more horsepower than other solutions. However, it makes it possible for the APs to work without the central switch.

We can think of this distributed model as the middle road in WLAN architectures, as there are two other architectures which are 180 degrees out. Colubris Networks, which has taken many hits in the past for their “heavy” access point design, has committed to their model of intelligence at the network edge with their Unified Services Network architecture. Colubris feels that future advances in 802.11 standards will require more processing power at the access point due to the corresponding increases in data rates. The Unified Services Network will draw together LAN and WLAN switching into a single device, providing a central point for management of your wired and wireless network infrastructures. The two products which support this infrastructure, the MultiService Controller and the Unified Edge Switch, are not yet available (June 2005 and 1H2006 respectively), so it’s difficult to gauge the effectiveness of this architecture yet. An interesting rumor floating around, though, is that the Unified Edge Switch will contain the Broadcom StrataXGS III WLAN switching chip. Analysts have speculated that the Broadcom chip would signal the end of stand-alone WLAN switch and Colubris seems to be fulfilling that prophecy.

At the other end of the spectrum is the new architecture that was just unveiled by Extricom Limited. Extricom has developed an extremely centralized WLAN architecture, with their central switch making all of the decisions for packet routing on the wireless network. The switch must direct all of the traffic because the access points have no capabilities of their own… no software, no storage, no smarts, just radios. The clients don’t even associate with the access point; instead, the access point funnels the traffic back to the switch for processing. Extricom’s claim is that this leads to an interference-free WLAN, because their architecture eliminates co-channel interference and latency issues due to roaming and re-association. We’ll be able to find out more in early May when the official product launch is scheduled.