MSI Wind goes back 

Apparently the problems I've had this weekend are connected to an incompatibility between the MSI Wind netbook and my Airport Extreme router. At least there's a correlation, when the Wind is on, the router goes down, quickly, within a minute or two. If I turn off the wifi adapter on the Wind, I can leave it on indefinitely and the router works without a hitch. Or if I turn the Wind off, everything is fine. Or if I return the Wind to Amazon. :-(

Another piece of data, my networking problems started at the exact moment that I first turned on the Wind.

Conclusion: The Wind goes back to the factory and I travel with the Eee 901, for now at least. It has none of these problems, the Airport Extreme likes it, and it likes the Airport Extreme.

Netbook nuisances deja vu 

With all the troubles I've been having with my Mac network, which thankfully (knock wood, praise Murphy, IANAL, my mother loves me, etc) seems to be cured, I haven't had much time to try out my new MSI Wind that arrived on Friday.

My attention is finally there, and now I'm reliving all the problems I had getting started with the Asus Eee PC 901, but unfortunately I don't remember how I worked around all of them. I do remember this -- Windows seems fine, once you get over all these hurdles, but until you do, your soul cries out Why oh why can't I just use a Mac! (Curse you Steve Jobs, give a Mac netbook please!!)

The latest one is that even though it's got a good wifi connection, it still keeps trying to connect through the 3G modem which is sitting in my travel bag while I'm working at home. I remember this problem well from the early Eee days, but it doesn't do it anymore. Somehow I must have figured out how to get it to stop doing this, or it stopped on its own. Arrgh.

Mac networking help sought 

Update: The problem appears to have been solved.

I've been trying to track down a problem on my Mac-only network since Friday afternoon, and now have it narrowed down pretty well to one computer, my main desktop, that's got some kind of bug that makes it very slow at copying file to one other system, and vice versa.

Here's a schematic of a piece of the LAN.

Even so, copying files to any other computer on the network is just as fast as always. So you'd think it was the fault of the other computer, but evidence indicates otherwise. It can copy files to other computers quite quickly.

When I say slow, how slow is that? Well, it's very very slow. About 2MB per minute.

This computer just isn't working very well. I drew up the schematic and scanned it, but it took about 100 times as long as it usually does.

If this were a Windows machine I'd think it was infected.

Knight News Challenge 

The Knight News Challenge is a program to fund tech innovation in relationship to journalism. Every year they request proposals for a share of $5 million in grant money, every time around I try to think of something that fits their guidelines, but the third requirement always stumps me. Here's the list:

1. Use or create digital, open-source technology as the code base.

2. Serve the public interest.

3. Benefit one or more specific geographic communities.

1 and 2 are no problem, I have lots of ideas that fit those criteria, but I almost never have a project that applies to one or more specific geographic communities. The stuff I've worked on, blogging, RSS, podcasting, have all been broadly applied technologies that work in every geographic community. Nothing geographically specific about the stuff I like.

Update: As often happens, writing helped clarify my thinking. Yes, there have been projects I've done that were geographically specific. Starting the Berkman Thursday group was a way of bootstrapping a blogging community in Cambridge MA, as were the first two BloggerCons. If we ever do Hypercamp it will also be geographically specific.

Anyway, I offer my help -- if anyone reading this blog is submitting a proposal, maybe there's some way we can team up. I'm going to need some new projects after the election, which is coming up soon!

BTW, the one project that I have on my long-term plate that I think would be a good fit, were it not for #3, is Future-safe Archives. It's a project best done in cooperation with a university, and with a bit of funding, the idea could likely be sold to one. I regularly get emails from people at various universities who are interested in creating work on the web that has a chance of lasting beyond their lifetime.

Also, I'm curious how the previous Knight projects have been doing. Have any of them gained traction?