Q. In MatLab, if you issue the following command:
save 'file.txt' a b c d e -ascii
in what order will the variables a, b, c, d and e be written to the file?
A. Who knows?
Presumably the variable names are being stored internally in a hash table. Iterate over that hash, and the order of the variables will be undefined. Gah!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Airport? Airport!
So we got one of them fancy new Apple airports here in the lab. It's actually something that someone bought for themselves, but I spent some time playing with it before it got gobbled back up.
The good: It looks cool. Apple seems to have a serious crush on the "I am a box" look -- think recent iMacs, but this one is turned on its side, like AppleTV (or whatever it's called).
Also good is the USB port, which allows you to hook in a printer for network access (nothing really new with that) and also a storage device, which can be shared as a file share. That's new. Note that if you want to do both, you'll have to hook in a USB hub.
The so-so. The box now considers a lack of a WI-FI password an "error." You can have an open network but, if you do, you have to watch an annoying yellow light blink on the outside.
The "what were they thinking?" 802.11n, which this box now supports, has a theoretical max data rate of over 500Mb/s (it's true, I read it on wikipedia) and a "typical" rate of 200Mb/s.
I did some benchmarking with an 802.11n-equipped Mac to the unit and could not get, under best conditions, better than about 80Mb/s to or from it. Sure, that's a lot better than standard 802.11g speeds, but only by about 3-4x.
I did some playing around to try and find out what was going on. Then I suddenly realized I only had the hub plugged into a 100Mb/s ethernet (wired) port. So I plugged it into a gigabit port. Guess what? The "I'm talking to a gigabit device" light on the gigabit port didn't turn out.
Long story short: It only has a 100Mb/s ethernet port on it, and appears to be wired internally only for 100Mb/s. So it's never gonna give you all that gooey, gooey 802.11n love.
The good: It looks cool. Apple seems to have a serious crush on the "I am a box" look -- think recent iMacs, but this one is turned on its side, like AppleTV (or whatever it's called).
Also good is the USB port, which allows you to hook in a printer for network access (nothing really new with that) and also a storage device, which can be shared as a file share. That's new. Note that if you want to do both, you'll have to hook in a USB hub.
The so-so. The box now considers a lack of a WI-FI password an "error." You can have an open network but, if you do, you have to watch an annoying yellow light blink on the outside.
The "what were they thinking?" 802.11n, which this box now supports, has a theoretical max data rate of over 500Mb/s (it's true, I read it on wikipedia) and a "typical" rate of 200Mb/s.
I did some benchmarking with an 802.11n-equipped Mac to the unit and could not get, under best conditions, better than about 80Mb/s to or from it. Sure, that's a lot better than standard 802.11g speeds, but only by about 3-4x.
I did some playing around to try and find out what was going on. Then I suddenly realized I only had the hub plugged into a 100Mb/s ethernet (wired) port. So I plugged it into a gigabit port. Guess what? The "I'm talking to a gigabit device" light on the gigabit port didn't turn out.
Long story short: It only has a 100Mb/s ethernet port on it, and appears to be wired internally only for 100Mb/s. So it's never gonna give you all that gooey, gooey 802.11n love.
Get the ball rolling!
Someone has to make the first post!
The idea here is that we can present a more informal account of things going on at the lab - what we're doing, what's captured our collective and individual imaginations, what's frustating us, who won the last round of Mario Kart Double Dash, that sort of thing. Posts might be more or less technical, depending on the mood of the individual making the posting. (Who that individual might be on any given occasion will remain a fascinating mystery.)
The idea here is that we can present a more informal account of things going on at the lab - what we're doing, what's captured our collective and individual imaginations, what's frustating us, who won the last round of Mario Kart Double Dash, that sort of thing. Posts might be more or less technical, depending on the mood of the individual making the posting. (Who that individual might be on any given occasion will remain a fascinating mystery.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)