Embarrassment Of Riches

My extremely sharp learning curve vis-a-vis 802.11b continues. There are so many people and so many sites available if you want to learn anything about anything these days, it made me think of how limited we were when we were doing time in that house of correction called school. It was so thin on information and links -- we were doing 12 years hard labor -- the teachers were a veritable chain gang pounding stuff into our rock hard heads with sledgehammers.

And now we have an embarrassment of riches. Just the fact you can link and move so quickly and deeply into a subject. It was a quick leap from one river rock to another this morning ... that is, I linked from Scripting News to one of Dave's links 802.11b to find Glenn Fleishman's terrific, simple "about" page and all the other rich stuff.

What is IEEE 802.11b?

The IEEE 802.11b specification allows for the wireless transmission of
approximately 11 Mbps of raw data at indoor distances from several
dozen to several hundred feet and outdoor distances of several to
tens of miles as an unlicensed use of the 2.4 GHz band. The distance
depends on impediments, materials, and line of sight.

This specification started to appear in commercial form in mid-1999,
with Apple Computer's introduction of its AirPort components,
manufactured in conjunction with Lucent's WaveLAN division. (The
division changed its named to Orinoco and was spun off to the newly
formed Agere corporation with a variety of other Lucent assets in early
2001; these assets were resold to Proxim Corporation in June 2002,
although Agere continues to make the chips.)