(For those new to the column, Forward Migration is our term for companies moving from Wintel machines to Macs — or at least adding or increasing the number of Macs they use. A Forward Migration Kit is an overview of Mac OS products for a particular occupation, such as photography, optometry, etc.)
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has completed installing an Airport compatible wireless network for the entire campus and even a neighboring park, according to Frank Lee of the university’s Department of Psychology.
“The neat thing about it is that an Airport card costs $93 (academic pricing), while the PC users (as far as I could tell) must pay two or three times that for a Lucent card,” he told MacCentral. “And, the added bonus is that the Airport card is neatly hidden away inside my PowerBook.”
According to info on the Carnegie Mellon Web site, the “Wireless Andrew” service is available to faculty, staff and students, and offers data connection speeds of up to 11mbps. The network is available in all academic and administrative buildings and key outdoor areas across campus. Last August, the service was upgraded, which more than tripled the throughput of the network and brought the client software up to the currently supported Lucent version. The network now meets the 2.4GHz, IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum wireless Ethernet standard.
The AirPort uses the same frequency range as Wireless Andrew. Similar to how the AirPort Base Station is connected to the physical network and creates a sphere of wireless access (of approximately 150 feet), the campus wireless network is constructed by placing similar devices (called access points) in various locations in supported buildings, according to info on the university Web site. The frequency band is divided into channels, and no two access points can be in range of each other and use the same channel. Using channels allows access points to overlap without interfering with each other so there can be continuous wireless coverage over a larger area.
You can’t use an AirPort Base Station on campus because, according to the university, the use of the airspace may cause problems with the Wireless Andrew network. However, it is possible to setup a wireless network off campus and connect to the campus network using DSL.
Carnegie’s wireless network was built under the university’s partnership with Lucent Technologies and uses Lucent’s WaveLAN /IEEE product line. Carnegie Mellon is a national research university of about 7,500 students and 3,000 faculty, research and administrative staff. Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie founded the institution in 1900 in Pittsburgh. It was renamed Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912. In 1967, Carnegie Tech merged with the Mellon Institute to form Carnegie Mellon University. The university today consists of seven colleges and schools.
Requests for help
It’s time for our weekly requests for help from folks who need your advice and/or assistance in forward migrating — or at least being able to keep the Mac platform alive and thriving in their businesses. Contact the requesters directly at their e-mail addresses.
Gary Greenberg ( gredke@earthlink.net ): “I accidentally erased my only copy of Chang Labs’ Rags to Riches accounting software. I know that it’s been a long time since the software was put out, but I need receivables, payables and general ledger as soon as possible. I would appreciate it if anyone can help me out.”
Freddy T. Rosario ( pimentel@mac.com ): “We are looking for a solution that will let us connect our sprint PCS phones to the laptop so that we can fax product orders remotely. This is offered for the PC but not for the Mac. Can anyone help?”
Kathy Sochor ( ksochor@illustrationbydesign.com ): “I’m using QuickBooks in a fairly small business, but I’m not happy with the accounting program. Is there an accounting program that will work seamlessly with Athorize.net? I work off Macs and I’m a designer, not an accountant, so the program would have to be intuitive.”
Gary Gosch ( ggg@home.com ): “I am looking for some Mac software that will help me managed running road races — keeping track of entries, numbers, age groups and times places, places in age groups. Also, I need to know what other software requirements might be needed to make it compatible, such as system software, types of Macs, other software. If there is more than one brand, what is the one you would recommend?”
Sarah Gross ( Sarah_Goss@bluecurve.co.uk ): “I am using Dreamweaver on my site of over 60 HTML pages, each having its own servlet tag within the editable region of the template. However, each time I update the template, the HTML pages lose their <servlet> tags, and I end up re-entering ALL of the tags. Does anyone have a solution?”
Mike Stickel ( mike@computerandco.com ): “I’m looking for a couple of software packages. The first is an inexpensive program, or possibly a FileMaker database, that can be used by a golf course to book tee times and appointments. The other program I’m looking for is an inexpensive inter-office e-mail program. If anyone has any ideas of programs that fit into either of these categories please let me know.”