June 14, 2003

I want wireless!

And when I say "wireless" I mean 802.11b (or g, I suppose, that'd do) wireless everything. I've this perfectly fine Airport card in my iBook, yet to do anything at home I'm tied down with cables. There's the network cable (since I don't have a basestation... yet) but also two or three USB cables thumped together for the printer, keyboard, and mouse. (It's a wireless rechargeable Logitech M700 mouse that I got because I wanted to not be tied to the keyboard for my sessions at OSCON. Very nice, even better than I expected. That's an entry for another time, but the short answer is "Go buy one, you'll like it". Though it does take some getting used to after using trackpads and trackballs for the past few years)

I want an 802.11[bg] capable wireless USB hub so I can plug in all the cables, dongles, and what-have-yous to it, and have my iBook use them via a network connection to it. None of this silly "hang another dongle off a USB port" the way that you have to do bluetooth. I want my bluetooth wireless dongle hanging off the wireless USB hub, dammit!

Don't suppose anyone knows of one of these beasts that works under OS X?

Posted by Dan at June 14, 2003 03:57 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Having been a trackball user for eons, I have to ask what caused you to move over to a mouse, and specifically the Logitech one that you have?

Posted by: Brett at June 14, 2003 11:32 PM

The main reason I got the mouse was for presentations. It's wireless, so I can carry the thing around with me up in front of the room and can make the presentation slides pop forward and back without having to dive for the keyboard, which is something I dislike--it feels kind of unprofessional, and it ties me to the desk. (Given that I tend to get a bit frenetic in front of a room this might not be a bad thing, but...) I used one of the bluetooth presentation doodads last year, complete with built-in laser pointer, but it was $200, a bit much for me given that I don't do that many presentations. It was really sweet, though.

This model mouse has a rechargeable battery as well, so I don't have to worry so much about the battery going flat--as long as it's been in the cradle for half an hour or so I'm good to go. The thing also has a bunch of buttons in convenient places for presentation use, so it's working out nicely for that.

I also really prefer a mouse to a trackball for playing Diablo II, but that's not really a good reason to drop $80 on a multibutton mouse. :)

Posted by: Dan at June 14, 2003 11:40 PM

FWIW (he says, after re-reading the original post) my main pointing gadget is the trackpad on the laptop, which I've gotten really used to, and do like. Much better than those damn little trackpoint things, which hurt to use long-term. (At least the one on my old HP laptop did, until it broke)

It actually takes a lot for me to use an external keyboard or mouse, as I prefer to kick back with the laptop on my lap, or head down to the local coffee shop to work, where the external USB gadget would just drain my batteries faster.

Posted by: Dan at June 14, 2003 11:43 PM

Its called bluetooth :)

Get a couple of bluetooth-usb adapters and enjoy, plug them all together, and you should be setup.

Mix that with Rendezvous http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/rendezvous/
and you have geek heaven.

Posted by: Sterling Hughes at June 15, 2003 12:24 AM

Bluetooth needs a dongle, though, and dongles are evil! Now, I wouldn't mind hanging a bluetooth dongle off an 802.11b/g enabled wireless USB hub, but that's another matter entirely.

Posted by: Dan at June 15, 2003 09:59 AM

Besides, think of all the cool stuff that you could do with a USB-to-802.11[bg] bridge... Bluetooth is cool and all for short-range stuff, but 802.11[bg] transmits /routable/ data.

Mmmm... USB over Ethernet...

Posted by: Gnomon at June 15, 2003 10:30 AM

I remembered seeing something in a catalogue which fairly closely matched what you wanted. The only problem when googling was remembering which manufacturer's catalogue it was. :-) So yeah, I haven't tried it myself.

Belkin. F8T030. Bluetooth base-station, with an ethernet port and a couple of USB (1.1) ports and print-server software, so that you can just attach a printer directly.

Review:
http://www17.tomshardware.com/network/20030408/

Site:
http://www.belkin.com/
click "Bluetooth" under "Network/Sharing" on left
click "Bluetooth Access Point with USB Print Server"

$169 ...

HTH,

Posted by: Phil at June 18, 2003 10:58 AM

The Bluetooth Dongle seems a bit expensive. In fact all Bluetooth tech is preatty expensive.

Posted by: Tom at September 29, 2003 10:08 AM

you can get wireless acess points with usb printer connector, but i dont know if anything else (kb mouse hard drive camera) can be used. if you wanted bluetooth, you can get a pmcia card that slides into the computer... mac has pmcia yes? also, most mac notebooks can be upgraded internally with bluetooth

Posted by: driftwood at January 2, 2004 11:18 PM