[Wirelessdriver-support] hardware and scanning

[Amanda W. <am...@al...>]

On Sep 11, 2004, at 4:41 AM, jav...@ho... wrote:
> So, then, what are the preferred long-range cards these days for 
> Macintosh
> and what software should be used with them? There were several 
> 200-300mw
> PRISM based cards that provided excellent range.

Right now, the high power PRISM cards are still the best deal for power 
(though this is not always a guarantee of long range, especially in 
indoor environments), and several of them are great for connecting 
external antennas to.  These are the PRISM cards it's still possible to 
find on store shelves (such as the SMC 250mW card, which seems to be 
everywhere I look :-)).  PRISM cards are still around, they've just 
become the exception rather than the rule, and the writing seems to be 
on the wall for the future.

In the longer term, there are several good Broadcom-based cards 
(including Buffalo's, which uses the same antenna connector as the 
Orinoco cards, so you can re-use pigtails and antennas).  The Apple 
Airport Extreme driver has some glitches when used with a Cardbus card, 
but it's mostly usable.  Atheros cards have the reputation of having 
the best radios, but Mac support for them is pretty poor.  OWC does 
have a driver, though it's quite minimal.

IOXperts is working on support for a number of newer cards, but for the 
moment we're concentrating on fixing our support problems *before* 
rolling out new products.  Just seemed like a good idea, given the 
bumpiness we experienced this summer.

>  And what are the preferred
> modern software tools for scanning for networks, with KisMac also 
> having
> ceased development.

Hmm, last I knew, Michael was still working on it: he isssued 0.12a in 
June, and hasn't made any announcement that I've seen about stopping 
development; it's just been going slowly.  iStumbler's also still 
around, and now does Bluetooth scanning as well as 802.11, which is 
kind of cool.  It's not as featureful as kismac, but it's fine for 
doing general scanning and wardriving.  iStumbler also has a plugin 
interface, so a plugin could be written to hook iStumbler up to 
non-Apple drivers...


Amanda Walker
IOXperts, Inc.