You live in a home as we all do, whether an apartment, condo, townhouse, single-family, duplex, etcetera. You also use a computer in your home.  OK, I know that last one isn’t true for everyone but if you are reading this I will make that assumption.  You may be thinking about upgrading your internet connection; either a more modern Wi-Fi router or hard-wired with multiple outlets around your home…which way should you go?

One thing to consider is that Wi-Fi requires you to set up one additional component for somewhere around $50; whereas, wired requires you to run Cat5 cable throughout your place with a significantly higher cost.  (Cat5 is twisted pair high signal cable. Think of COAX cable with the wider phone plugs on the ends or RJ-45.).  The cost and inconvenience could be a limiting factor.  If you are doing some rehabbing of your home or building a new home, the decision becomes easy.  Wire your home if at all possible.

But isn’t Wi-Fi any good?  Absolutely, Yes!  But Wi-Fi does have some limitations.

As Bill Testerman, of Silicon Logic, states regarding wireless, “Distance and the speed of your connection are inversely proportional.  Thus, for a given frequency band, higher speed always means lower distance.  You want to sit 50 feet from your access point?  Prepare to sacrifice performance.”

Unfortunately he goes on to say, “The only workaround is high-power radio transmitters, which are limited by the FCC to fairly low values, due to potential interference and other issues.  With a wired connection, you don’t suffer nearly this significant a loss over distance.”  People in the know state that for a high-quality Cat5 or 6 cable you can get about 300 feet from the source with little to no loss of signal strength.

Basically, wired is solid, wireless has some limiting factors.

Simply stated, with Wi-Fi the further you are from the source, the greater your broadcast signal degrades.  Also, other factors interfere with your signal.  Construction materials, i.e., drywall, concrete, metal, etc. in your home can slow down the waves along with wireless phones, copper wires in your walls, running HVAC, etc.

After all that “bad” news I will say that for my internet use, wireless router is fine.  I can surf the net, work from home, or watch videos including Netflix and Hulu, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, etc. I like it and for $39.95 it was well worth the investment in the wireless router and a quick set up.

I have wireless in my home and love it…best of all I can sit on my back porch to work, or watch movies and play online – not necessarily in that order.  Yes, some days the signal is a little weaker than others.  However, I have investigated and found that this is often due to my service provider, whom I won’t mention here since they have lots of lawyers and I have none.

Tags: apartment condo, building a new home, cable, cat5, frequency band, inconvenience, limiting factor, logic states, phone plugs, rehabbing, rj 45, router, signal cable, silicon logic, single family, testerman, townhouse, wi-fi, wifi, wireless

Several weeks ago I commented about wireless mice.  Since then I have received a surprising number of emails with regards to mice.  The major one seems to be that some people think the blue light laser mice work great on glass and an equal number say they do not.  Since I do not have one I cannot toss in my two cents worth.  All of you “blue lighters” out there need to keep me posted.

Several others asked me if there is even a need for mouse pads today.  I have a couple of different answers for you.

If you have a mouse with a large gray ball on the bottom I would say, “yes, definitely”.  The mouse pad will help the tracking ball on the mouse work much smoother.  It also makes it easier to keep that area of your desk clear of junk.  You know like water drops, papers and other things that get in the way of your mouse.  It is also easy to clean the pad if it does get dirty.

If you have an optical mouse, either wired or wireless the need is not as great.  I have wireless mice, as you read about in that previous column.  I always use a mouse pad for my desktop computers.  I think it is psychological but it keeps that area of the desks clutter-free.  However, with my portables I do not use a mouse pad.  I do not feel like carrying around something else in my already overloaded backpack.  I think it would be goofy to pull out my little mouse pad and lay it on the table a Panera’s.

Now, after all this talk about mouse pads I have to get you to take a look at a very interesting site that I found this week.  I was at a friend’s place of business writing a column.  I asked if he had a mouse pad that I could borrow since his table was glass and mine would not function.  He brought me his that was an (in my opinion) exact duplicate of an oriental rug that my mother used to have…but it was a mouse pad.  With the fringe and all?!

I flipped it over and on the back it had the URL where you may purchase them online at  Mouserug.com.  The Mouserug site has a large number of mouse pads that look great.  The one that I am going to purchase is the “The Claire Murray Liberty Mouse Rug”.  I may put it off for a while as the price is a little higher than I like for a mouse pad, a little less than $20.

By-the-way, I had an article published on the Microsoft.com site last week.  Please go take a read and let me know what you think.

Tags: microsoft, mouse pad, rug, rugs, wireless