Ethernet set-up

Can someone explain how to get a ethernet connection going? What are the do's and don't-s?

We have three PC's at home and I've often been considering to hook them up. Now empeg also supports ethernet, I want to bite the bullet.

Henno
mark2 nr: 006

The easiest way to setup a small ethernet network is to buy one of the kits that have a small hub and several cards and cables. DLink, Hawking, and others can be had for US$80-100 at discount retailers. If you have all Pentium class PC's, you will want spend an extra $10-20 and get 10/100 PCI cards in your kit.

Unless your machines are chock full of cards and don't have any spare IRQ's, it should be a very simple installation for Win9x. WinNT is slightly more difficult and MS-DOS is a PITA. After the cards are installed, run the cables to the hub.

Be sure to enable TCP/IP in your Network Settings. Choose IP addresses in the range of 192.168.0.10 - 192.168.0.99. This will make things much easier if you add an internet sharing router/firewall in the future.

Just make shoure that the hub you are getting is a 10/100
because some of the kits contains (2*PCI 10/100 + 1*100 hub)

please use the ekstra monye on a 10/100 solution, as it is well spend


Mark
wait for mk III with a USB Host/slave
(USB->GPS)(USB->Bluetooth)(USB->You name it)

Hi !
Mark, as you just mentioned it:
Do you know a supplier / manufactorer of a USB-GPS or a PCMCIA GPS ??
I need one for my VAIO C1XD as it has no ser port ...

Nils

In reply to:

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Do you know a supplier / manufactorer of a USB-GPS or a PCMCIA GPS ??

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Sony makes a unit which is pcmcia, and is actually an Etak receiver re-packaged.. you can get it here:
http://www.egghead.com/category/inv/00072375/02977001.htm
...or look at etak/sony's page here: (warning, ugly page:)
http://www.etak.com/skymap/

In reply to:

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need one for my VAIO C1XD as it has no ser port ...

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Ouch; I'm glad I went w/ a thinkpad 240:)




...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Just make shoure that the hub you are getting is a 10/100
because some of the kits contains (2*PCI 10/100 + 1*100 hub)

I've been looking around and it seems all much simpler than I expected. Besides being careful to get 10/100 throughout, there is little to worry about, is there?

because some of the kits contains (2*PCI 10/100 + 1*100 hub)
Even worse: some of the kits i've seen box a couple of 10/100 PCI's together with a 1*10 (!) hub

Henno
mark2 nr: 006

Probably an easier solution would be what I did to have my Palm cradle and serial mouse hooked up at the same time to my one serial port laptop. Xircom bought Entrega and still sells their USB->Serial converter. It works really well, and will give you the benefit of getting a non propritary GPS unit, being able to upgrade your empeg from the laptop, and many other uses. Because if I remember right, the Sony GPS units use a non-standard GPS protocal, excluding you from using that new GPS with any other software or devices. Kim is working on GPS support for the empeg, and with a serial adaptor, the GPS could easially work on a Palm as well.

I recently bought the Rand McNally GPS unit for laptops for $100. It is a 9 pin serial and PS/2 device. (Power is drawn from the PS/2 port) and so far has worked very well. I plan to wire the power into the car once I get the amp and Mark II installed so that it can be used with the empeg.

In reply to:

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Because if I remember right, the Sony GPS units use a non-standard GPS protocal, excluding you from using that

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Actually, with the pcmcia version, you have the option of running it in the propriotery (sp) format, or as a standard gps..
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Hehehe :)

Guess what i use right now:
An ENTREGA USB-SER and a garmin GPS ...

The thing that i would like to have is less cabling & trouble ...
( I did a cut into the USB cable to get +5V for the GPS for example, HORRIBLE )
Dionysus:
Are you owning/using the SONY GPS ??
The link that you provided is $169 for the WHOLE package, Navigation Software & GPS receiver, if i am not misled, could you double that ...
AND do you have a link or hint where to buy ONLY th GPS for less $ ?!

Thank you so much ...

P.S. IF you own the SONY GPS, you could be so friendly to log the serial data ( 4800 Baud, 8N1 ??!! ) for some minutes while having good reception, and giving this file to me, so i could try if my software likes it ...
Which COM port does it emulate ???

( getting excited :-)


Nils

...Sorry, I was evaluating this product, but the time they didn't support Windows 2000, so I went with a different product. (their currently product should have w2k drivers..)

I actually ditched the serial gps unit from sony BECAUSE of it's priopriotary nature... the pcmcia card though wasn't proprietary and could make your program think it was just any old gps...
I haven't seen the unbundled versions anywhere, but I haven't tried to look too hard.. try and do a search on the major search sites, if it's out there, I'm sure you can find it... still, that price was VERY reasnable...

-mark



...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Nope, all the Sony GPS software is still not W2K compliant. It would spawn a process that sat there taking all the CPU time it could and would never display anything. A call to the tech support line gave me nothing useful. They said basicially that they won't patch it because it's too much work and they didn't have access to NT when it was in development. The next software release will support W2K, but it's not a free upgrade. The Sony software is what caught my attention the most for the voice features it had, but the software seemed to have one of the worst interfaces out of the several programs I have tried. It also didn't want to talk to my GPS reciever, because the GPS reciever was talking a standard protocal, and not the propritary one. (I went through the hassle of loading VMWare to even see if it was worth keeping and running.

Overall, I like the Microsoft Streets and Trip program the most for the directions it gives, but the GPS support is a marker on the map updated every 15 seconds, and a readout of the lat/long/elevation. It also won't automaticially advance the directions.

The DeLorme Street Atlas 7 seems decent. It offers directions, and can provide voice alerts on the way. It also will use GPS to track your position realtime, and can show things like what satelites the GPS can see, sun and moon rise/set times, speed and more. And if you get off track, it will recalculate the best way to get to your destination, but it seems to enjoy just saying "Turn around". The address lookup is poor, as it always needs a ZIP. I find myself referring back to the MS program, since it can search on anything, and also return streets that are slightly spelled different then what you type.

The Rand McNally software that came with my GPS is by far the best software to log trips in, but it offers no directions real-time. It has to connect to the internet for every query, and it basicially just marks the map. But $99 for a standard GPS and ok software, I couldn't complain.

The one thing I am interested in is how well the PCMCIA units work. By what I could tell, the antenna was just off the card just like my 3Com Airconnect card. If this is the case, the GPS reciever would be useless because of the location of the PCMCIA slots in my laptop and the way I set the laptop in the passenger seat to see it.

As far as the wiring for mine, I taped the GPS into the front windshield area, and ran the cable down along the edge of the door. The serial/PS2 cable comes right up onto the seat where I need it, and if I have a passenger, the cable easially goes between the seat and the door.

Aehm ...
Dionysus: Does the PCMCIA Card have a connector for an external antenna ??For me, it would work right now, even without an external ant, because GPS goes through the textile roof of my convertible, but still i would like the option if the reception is bad, or if i take it in my girlfriends car, which has a normal ( metal ) roof, so that the passenger's seat would NOT be okay for receiving GPS ...

Nils

P.S. Egghead only delivers in the US, do you know a shop, where i could place an international order ( Germany )

P.S.S. The Software that i want to use it with is The Car Navigator 2001 Software done by Navigon, it is *Excellent*
Good powerful routing, which is very flexible to adjust to your likes & dislikes ( I only want motorways, avoid cities, etc. ) and your typical speed on diffrent road sizes, the fuel usage of your cat etc...
And is has realtime updating & navigating & routing if you lost your course ...

In reply to:

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Dionysus: Does the PCMCIA Card have a connector for an external antenna ??For me, it would work right now, even without an external ant, because GPS goes through the textile roof of my convertible, but still i would like the option if the reception is bad, or if i take it in my girlfriends car, which has a normal ( metal ) roof, so that the passenger's seat would NOT be okay for receiving GPS ...

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I'm honestly not sure... I saw that card when I was shopping for a gps, but didn't actually purchase it..
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Hey Guys, I need more help:

Have found PCI cards etc. and am ready to do an ethernet sync now with Mk2-006 now.
Have also found the 'Networking' tab under the 'Player Configuration' option in Emplode. It gives three fields to complete for the manual configuration:
IP address, Netmask, and Default Gateway.

The IP part is solved, I think. I'll pick a value between 192.168.0.10-99, but that's not enough. When I try to commit this change, Emplode insists on a value for 'Netmask' (whatever that is) and possibly a value for 'Default Gateway' once I'm past the Netmask.

Suggestions?

Henno
mk2 nr 6

If you are setting up a local network the netmask can be 255.255.255.0 and you should not need a gateway. If it does ask for one I would put the IP of the windows machine you will use to sync, which should be another 192 number.

-Wishing my Mark2 hadn't got stuck in customs.

Netmask is an important concept to understand.

Do you understand the concept of a binary AND operation? If so, the netmask will be easy to grasp.

Think of an IP address as a single large binary number, 32 bits long. We look at it as four separate "octets" of eight bits each, but it's really just a single large 32 bit number.

The netmask allows you to define the range of addresses that counts as a "subnet". In other words, when the unit broadcasts messages, what subset of IP addresses is considered local and worthy of receiving those messages?

The netmask simply gets AND'ed to the ip address. Everything that passes the AND operation is considered part of the subnet.

So if your subnet is the 255 addresses grouped within 123.456.789.xxx, then your netmask would be 255.255.255.0. If your subnet was larger, say the 65,000 address under 123.456.xxx.xxx, then your netmask would be 255.255.0.0. See how that works?

As for the default gateway, you should be able to leave that blank if you don't have one. That's another lesson for another time. (Anyone want to chime in with the Default Gateway lesson?)

___________
Tony Fabris