Stories by: Craig J. Mathias

Whenever I plan and configure an enterprise WLAN system, I always advise that an additional 10 to 20 percent of the capital budget be reserved for expansion and filling in holes in coverage or capacity that couldn't be anticipated during the planning process.

You'd have thought that, by now, we would have settled the WLAN architecture wars. You'd think one architecture or another would have been declared the winner and that we'd all be buying basically the same product from a small number of vendors -- just as is the case with Ethernet switches.

Apple's penchant for producing products with batteries that are not swappable by users brings up a really interesting point - should consumers blindly accept such a strategy?

The notebook computer is doomed. OK, that's a little strong. And as one of the people who worked on the first laptop PC, the GRiD Systems Compass Computer Model 1101, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for mobile PCs. But as we move into the era of infocentricity, defined by Web 2.0 network services, the "everyone gets a CPU" model needs to be replaced by "everyone has access to an interface to the Web."

Ultrawideband (UWB) has long been promoted as the future of wireless personal-area networks (WPAN). But are WPANs still needed?

I hate to admit this, but I've been having nothing but problems with my wireless strategy of late. My goal is to be 100 percent location-independent, to be able to do anything anywhere, with whatever tools are available -- ideally, just a handheld with a browser.