Wireless LAN world record – 382km across Venezuela

Ermanno Pietrosemoli from Venezuela had broken the previous W-LAN world record with a phenomenal distance of 382 km of two computers connected via wireless connection. The previous record was a wireless connection between a ballon and a PC on the ground with a distance of 222km.

To overcome the route between El Aguila to Platillon Mountain, Pietrosemoli and his team used mainly the standard hardware such as router from Linksys. With that, they succeeded building a video and audio connection.

Besides the motivation to break the world record, the team also wants to show that rural regions can be connected to the Internet per W-LAN.

This is for me a great achievement to break the digital barrier between the cities and rural areas.

via:CHIP Online

Cool: USB Mini Fridge

In usb.brando.com.hk, you will find this cool USB gadget with 5V power consumption. You can put your 0.33 liter can and the fridge will cool it down to 8.5°C in only 5 minutes. According to the manufacturer, this fridge is only 362 g and 19.4 x 9 x 9 cm in dimension. Therefore, it is very portable and can be put even in your handbag.

This is not only a great gadget for summer, but very suitable for LAN-Party. This will cost you $33.00 excluding shipping fee.

Problem to set Firefox as standard web browser in Windows Vista

Somehow I could not set up Firefox as fully standard browser. At first start up of Firefox, I was reminded that Firefox was not a standard browser and asked to make Firefox as standard web browser. I did tick the selection and Firefox icon appeared on the very above of the start menu.

But, when I clicked links from Yahoo! Messenger or Acrobat Reader, the links were opened with Internet Explorer. I do not hate Internet Explorer, but I just want to use one browser and the links should be opened in one window, so that the taskbar is not too crowded.

I thought it was a method from Microsoft so that people will tend to use Internet Explorer, but I was mistaken. The setting of the standard programs can be change. To make your Firefox as fully standard browser for your Windows Vista, just follow these simple steps:

Start button > Control Panel > Programs > Default Programs > Set program access and computer defaults

and this window will appear:

Untick the option “Enable access to this program” and then click OK. After that, the links you click from other program such as Yahoo Instant Messenger or Adobe Reader will be opened via Firefox. But, the links from Windows Live Messenger are still opened in IE7.