tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-100066132010-03-09T20:52:30.554-05:00A collection of my thoughts relating to technology.Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1158753608200678222006-09-20T07:41:00.000-04:002006-09-20T08:10:02.820-04:00

September 25-29, I am attending the ACM SIGMOBILE Mobicomm 2006 conference in Los Angeles. I am excited about this. It will be my first time attending an ACM conference. The Mobicomm conference is one of the leading conferences in the world on wireless networks. Some of the topics that will be presented there are: ad hoc networks, cellular networks, sensor networks, wireless LANs, and mesh

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1158318671509706402006-09-15T07:08:00.000-04:002006-09-15T07:13:16.496-04:00

If anyone is undecided on who they want to vote for in this Fall's election for Governor of the State of Michigan, I would recommend voting for Greg Creswell.

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1157245799456048722006-09-02T21:05:00.000-04:002006-09-02T21:10:44.256-04:00

I submitted a chapter to be published in the "Handbook on Mobile Ad Hoc and Pervasive Communications". I was glad to learn that the chapter I submitted on vehicular ad hoc networks was accepted for publication. That was the first time a attempted to submit a book chapter, so I was happy to learn that it was accepted.

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1155076314741695202006-08-08T17:52:00.000-04:002006-08-08T18:49:56.723-04:00

I finished reading the book "Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government - Saving Privacy in the Digital Age", by Steven Levy. This was a great book and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I think people would even find it interesting if they aren't interested in cryptography.The book gives an account of the invention of public key cryptography and the people who were responsible for it.

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1155070964329801972006-08-08T15:57:00.001-04:002006-08-08T17:27:44.676-04:00

AOL recently published the search results of random users over a three month period. The AOL search results contain approximately 2 gigs of data. Here is the READ ME and one of the search result files released from AOL. In total there are 10 files of search results. The file I posted contains 3,558,412 lines of text, so it gives a good indication of the typical online searches. I found it very

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1153578943293025182006-07-22T09:59:00.000-04:002006-07-22T10:35:43.293-04:00

Over the last few months, I have been working on a Master's project on broadcast reliability for vehicular ad hoc networks. In early June, I submitted my initial work to the VANET 2006 Conference, sponsored by ACM SIGMOBILE. I was happy to hear that my paper was accepted to the conference as a poster paper. This was the first time that I attempted to submit a paper to a conference so I was

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1153032655956839512006-07-16T02:19:00.002-04:002006-07-16T03:01:02.723-04:00

When source code is inconsistently spaced it becomes very hard to read. I was using a module for the ns-2 network simulator that implemented 802.11e. The problem with the code was the author either indented 2 space, 4 spaces, or a tab. It would have taken me hours to format the code by hand, so I decided to look for a program that would do the formatting for me. I happen to try the GNU

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1151565891773724612006-06-29T03:04:00.000-04:002006-07-11T05:01:07.536-04:00

Today, I purchased the O'Reilly book "Statistics Hacks", by Bruce Frey. It seems like a decent book, although I have only read the first few chapters so far. In one of the sections the author talks about using statistics to determine if a group of people is below average intellegence or not. I had no idea what an IQ test is like. I had never taken one before. I was kind of interested to see

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1151392095374843262006-06-27T02:38:00.000-04:002006-06-27T04:09:54.773-04:00

A few weeks I ago I read Paul Graham's essay "How to Be Silicon Valley" that describes what it would take to recreate Silicon Valley in another part of the United States. Graham basically concludes that you need a lot of nerds, people with money to invest, a top University and the right type of city (e.g., good weather) to create an area where technological innovation will thrive. One thing I

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1150952791908224082006-06-22T00:40:00.000-04:002006-06-22T01:13:00.273-04:00

This is a computer networks video, I found a while back that I wanted to post. It is kind of interesting to see what the people's thoughts were of networks in those days. Today, networks are so common place, but at the time that this film was made it was an entirely different story. The concepts they talk about in the film are still the same as they are today. If had to guess, I would say

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1150876769078448772006-06-21T03:26:00.000-04:002006-06-21T06:41:47.903-04:00

I was looking around online and I happen to come across a web page explaining the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is used to determine a person's personality. I think I remember reading about this personality test in a psychology class I took in college. It seemed interesting to have a matrix, containing 16 unique personalities, to classify a person.After seeing page, I was interested in

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1150579335353028832006-06-17T17:13:00.002-04:002006-06-17T17:39:37.376-04:00

This is a short cartoon The Corruptibles created by the EFF to explain the dangers of DRM. I wanted to post this to help spread the EFF's message.

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1150429137853043922006-06-15T22:53:00.000-04:002006-06-16T00:00:29.066-04:00

Most of the computers I have owned in the past are from parts I have thrown together. Today, it is more expensive for one to build their own computer, but I always prefer to build my own system because I can to choose the components. When it comes to a laptop on the other hand, the consumer doesn't really have the same option of building their own system.About three years ago, I purchased a

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1150270970661291312006-06-14T03:35:00.000-04:002006-06-14T03:43:13.426-04:00

Since Mid-January I have been working on a master's project on VANETs. This is my initial paper on the project. There are still a few things that I would like to test before my final presentation on the project. I am hoping within the next few weeks I will wrap it up.

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1150266302579598272006-06-14T02:06:00.000-04:002006-06-14T03:12:34.963-04:00

The last few weeks, I have been working on a chapter on the topic of vehicular ad hoc networks to submit for a book on mobile ad hoc network, with my advisor for my master's project. The authors of the book wanted the chapter submitted using LaTex. At first, I was kind of reluctant to try LaTex. I have never used LaTex before, so I thought it would take a long time to get familiar with. All

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1149735867573292612006-06-07T22:54:00.000-04:002006-06-08T04:09:24.353-04:00

These are a few comics that I found funny.These came from userfriendly.org and phdcomics.com, check out these sites if you like these, they also have some other good comics.

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1149657938931750062006-06-07T01:06:00.000-04:002006-06-07T01:28:35.103-04:00

I updated from Ubuntu 5.10 to 6.06 today. Usually when I do an upgrade I download the ISO image, burn the image to a cd, and then do the install. I decided to try apt-get this time for the install. The upgrade went very smooth for the most part. All I had to do edit /etc/apt/sources.lst by searching for all occurrence s of "breezy" and then replace them with "dapper". Then run "sudo apt-get

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1138683755070222882006-01-30T23:29:00.000-05:002006-01-31T01:09:34.386-05:00

Initial Survey of VANET papersNathan BalonA review of papers on vehicular ad hoc networks, identifying the emphasis of each paper:What problem is addressed?What solution is proposed?How do the solutions differ from previous solutions?What are the main contributions and conclusions?The Broadcast Storm Problem in Mobile Ad Hoc Network, by S-Y. Ni, Y-C Tseng, Y-S. Chen, and J-P SheuThe problem

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1138615254530758862006-01-30T04:31:00.001-05:002006-01-30T05:34:28.420-05:00

I read a posting on Digg the other day that discussed the relevance of the languages used in computer science curriculmums. The author concludes that most schools are dumbing down their computer science programs, by using Java. Since Java does not have pointers the students aren't learning the material as well. To implement almost any data structure pointers need to be used. Although Java

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1138226869867833632006-01-25T16:59:00.000-05:002006-01-25T21:52:25.906-05:00

Intro The recent adoption of the various 802.11 wireless standards has caused a dramatic increase in the number of wireless data networks. Today, wireless LANs are highly deployed and the cost for wireless equipment is continuing to drop in price. Currently, an 802.11 adapter or access point (AP) can be purchased for next to nothing. As a result of the high acceptance of the 802.11 standards

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1138219830568267042006-01-25T15:01:00.001-05:002006-01-25T15:15:29.326-05:00

When I started doing my research project, I was having a problem with narrowing the scope of my project. My research advisor sent me a link research-start.html, which explains how to start a research project. This page should be helpful to anyone else who is looking to start a research project in a network related field,

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1137745152500520312006-01-20T02:47:00.001-05:002006-01-25T15:16:08.100-05:00

Richard Stallman is the founder of the Free Software Foundation and has paved the way for open source software. If it wasn't for Stallman there is a high probability that Linux would not exist in its present form. The majority of the programs that are built around the Linux kernel are a result of the work done by Stallman's GNU project. One thing that can be said about Stallman is he is

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1137646966380342142006-01-19T00:02:00.000-05:002006-01-25T15:16:42.543-05:00

I completed reading the book "Java Application Development on Linux" by Carl Albing and Michael Schwarz. The book is very worth while to read. There are a number of quality Java books available that explain the Java language such as "The Java Programming Language" and "Core Java" to name a few. What differentiates this book is it focuses on the open source tools that assist in the

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1137626255743505992006-01-18T17:42:00.000-05:002006-01-25T15:20:43.823-05:00

I recently listened to the January 6, 2006 of the Gilmore Gang. On this episode, the gang has a thought provoking discussion on digital rights management (DRM). One prediction that the gang makes for the upcoming year is “it will not be the year of the Linux desktop, but the year of DRM”.The problem that I see with using DRM technology is that various companies are taking different approaches to

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10006613.post-1137487308728163012006-01-17T03:01:00.001-05:002006-01-25T15:21:23.793-05:00

On last weeks episode of Off the Hook (January 12, 2005), Emmanuel and the other hosts of the show mentioned that it is now possible to purchase cell phone records. I decided to look around the web and see if I could find any sites that were offering this service. I typed in "cell phone records" in a search engine and it turned up a number of such sites. Locatecell.com is one such site, they

Nathan Balonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05347344299834379086noreply@blogger.com0