Use your powerlines with Devolo MicroLink dLAN

There’s another alternative to wired network: Devolo’s MicroLink dLAN products are capable of turning your home’s main power circuit into a ready-made networking infrastructure. Using electrical cabling for transporting data isn’t new concept, and wiring in the average home can support a variety of frequencies. As electricity uses 50/60Hz signals, extra data can be transported along the same wiring at higher frequency, without causing any interference. It’s been dubbed Powerline networking.
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The Belkin TuneStage for iPod lets you stream music wirelessly from your iPod to your stereo from up to 33 feet away, via Bluetooth 1.2. The compact base station plugs into your home stereo’s RCA inputs or 3.5mm minijack, and the small transmitter plugs into iPods that have a fourpin remote connector next to the headphone jack (that, unfortunately, excludes the iPod nano and shuffle).


Setup takes less than a minute, and the sound quality is as good as we expected, considering the Bluetooth compression. The transmitter limits the iPod’s battery life to around 10.5 hours.

Smart ID’s newly revamped Wi-Fi Trekker is only slightly larger than PCTEL’s Wi-Fi Seeker but comes with a neck strap rather than a key ring. Holding the device’s single button down continually scans the area. This device features a unique Auto Scan Mode, which continually searches for a wireless network when you click the button twice.
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There is some confusion among various vendors with regard to referring to encryption strength. You will see vendors variously referring to 40-, 64-, 104-, and 128-bit encryption. In reality, vendors refer to 40- and 64-bit and 104- and 128-bit encryption interchangeably. The length of the secret keys will be 40 or 104 bits (depending on the strength of encryption), but each will use a 24-bit vector initialization vector (e.g., 40 plus 24 = 64 and 104 plus 24 = 128).

The Wi-Fi HotSpots Finder DS2400 features five green LEDs dedicated to displaying the wireless network’s signal strength. A sixth green LED indicates the unit’s power and scanning status.

Pressing the Detect button once scans the area for a signal, while holding the button down continually scans while you move.
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The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has partnered with the wireless industry to offer AMBER Alerts for text-enabled wireless devices. Subscribers whose wireless provider participates in the program can opt in to receive the alerts by registering at www.wirelessamberalerts.org. During the subscription process, the service verifies your provider’s participation, and you can specify as many as five ZIP codes from which to receive text message alerts about missing children. Instructions for reporting any information related to the alert is included in the text message.
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Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter has by far the most potentially useful sniffer of the lot. The Digital Hotspotter is equipped with an LCD screen that informs you of a hotspot’s SSID (Service Set Identifier), channel data, signal strength, encryption status, and whether the network is open or closed. Pressing and releasing the single button initiates a scan.
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