Tech journos are clueless

bealtine

Lebow wrote: »

On this point, nothing. I don't write articles for a Slashdot market. I write for a mainstream, mass-market audience.

Then you have a responsibility to be technically accurate.
We are offering to peer-review your articles in the interest
of technical accuracy.
Your job is "words" we won't tell you how to do that part
as that would be very presumptuous of us, we can however
check the technical accuracy of the articles.

Lebow

bealtine wrote: »

Then you have a responsibility to be technically accurate.
We are offering to peer-review your articles in the interest
of technical accuracy.
Your job is "words" we won't tell you how to do that part
as that would be very presumptuous of us, we can however
check the technical accuracy of the articles.

Thanks for that.

At the risk of this becoming a Paxman/Howard theme, why did you refer to me as a "lawyer"?

Lebow

watty wrote: »

Then explain they are only providing a connection
Explain that 20 Mbps to 100Mbps is for more than one person
Explain that true IPTV/VOD isn't ever over the Public Internet (that's only Web TV, different thing) but only from the ISP.
Explain what WiFi is for and the inherent limitations of WiFi.

Talk about and relate the data caps to the Real world usage.

Explain why 20Mbps to 100Mbps makes no difference for web browsing unless a lot more than one person using it.

Your article didn't explain anything. An arts student given 100Mbps for an afternoon could have written it.

BTW I read slashgear and engadget. Mostly that's gadget drool and no journalism, no research, facile and shallow. In fact I used to read gizmodo too. All you needed for your article to fit right in at gizmodo was a NSFW link and a few Apple product references.

Michael, thanks for the advice.

With respect, non-Slashgear readers are far more interested in knowing what speed they will actually get. And whether that matches their expectations of the service's advertising/promises.

watty

Well, you explained nothing about the speed.

I'm no writer but I showed the article to non-technical people and they could not see the point of it.

Lebow

watty wrote: »

Well, you explained nothing about the speed.

I'm no writer but I showed the article to non-technical people and they could not see the point of it.

Right. In future I'll write articles for non-technical people (like your friend) that read thus :

"Anything needing performance is on our 1Gbps switches (peak traffic of maybe 7Gbps if machines peering). It means LAN network gaming (all on ethernet cable) doesn't kill Broadband or Wifi. We have two wifi points to give coverage. One peaks at at about 40Mbps duplex (802.11a,b,g and turboG) and the other at about 20Mbps duplex (802.11b,g). Wifi speed drops rapidly with more users and range. So for 4 or 5 users having 2 x 802.11g (54Mbps) wifi points will work better than one 802.11n (250Mbps) WiFi point.
WiFi is almost always limited by the power, aerial, performance and WiFi version of the netbook, laptop or gadget rather than the Airpoint in the Router. Speed tends drop worse than 1/2 for doubling user numbers. Speed can be slightly less than 1/4 for doubling distance to Airpoint.
The "switch" (four ports usually) in a combo router/WiFi airpoint, or worse Modem/router/WiFi airpoint usually can't cope with much more traffic than the Boardband and WiFi. So we only use one port on the Router and use separate fully spec 1Gbps ethernet switch for all the ethernet cables and cable to second airpoint. Never use WiFi Repeaters, that makes speed drop to less than 1/2 and doubles latency, at best. Always cable airpoint WiFi back to the switch or Router."

Thanks for the advice.

All the best.

lucernarian

Lebow wrote: »

Right. In future I'll write articles for non-technical people (like your friend) that read thus :

"Anything needing performance is on our 1Gbps switches (peak traffic of maybe 7Gbps if machines peering). It means LAN network gaming (all on ethernet cable) doesn't kill Broadband or Wifi. We have two wifi points to give coverage. One peaks at at about 40Mbps duplex (802.11a,b,g and turboG) and the other at about 20Mbps duplex (802.11b,g). Wifi speed drops rapidly with more users and range. So for 4 or 5 users having 2 x 802.11g (54Mbps) wifi points will work better than one 802.11n (250Mbps) WiFi point.
WiFi is almost always limited by the power, aerial, performance and WiFi version of the netbook, laptop or gadget rather than the Airpoint in the Router. Speed tends drop worse than 1/2 for doubling user numbers. Speed can be slightly less than 1/4 for doubling distance to Airpoint.
The "switch" (four ports usually) in a combo router/WiFi airpoint, or worse Modem/router/WiFi airpoint usually can't cope with much more traffic than the Boardband and WiFi. So we only use one port on the Router and use separate fully spec 1Gbps ethernet switch for all the ethernet cables and cable to second airpoint. Never use WiFi Repeaters, that makes speed drop to less than 1/2 and doubles latency, at best. Always cable airpoint WiFi back to the switch or Router."

Thanks for the advice.

All the best.

That is very facetious. This shouldn't warrant major discussion, I think most people in this thread would appreciate that you clarified why you experienced lower speeds on wifi. That it's due to the limitations of wifi and that using ethernet cables provide higher speeds. It doesn't require someone to go into nerd-speak. Can't you accept this?

jmcc

A fascinating thread but at least to give Adrian credit where it is due, he is interacting with his readers. Bandwidth and throughput tend to be fertile ground for advertising people to make claims that the technology just cannot sustain.

The SBP technology supplement's readers are not generally what could be described as techologically clueful and the articles tend to be pitched accordingly. Product pimping is a big part of what passes for "technology" journalism in the mainstream Irish media. It irritates the hell out of people who really know the technology. Microwave RF engineering is known as a Black Art in engineering for a reason and beyond the basics, expecting a non-technical reader, or indeed the average technology journalist (who often does not have any technological expertise to draw upon) to understand it can be a bit much. And it would probably be overkill for the SBP's readers.

Regards...jmcc

watty

A simple

"WiFi from any manufacturer can't be relied on to deliver more than 20Mbps despite claims of 250Mbps to 300Mbps for 802.11n WiFi (Wireless N). Thus to fully utilise 30Mbps to 100Mbps Broadband you need to use cabled ethernet or multiple WiFi Points shared to 4 to 20 people rather than WiFi for one or two people from a single point"

He's the tech writer. It's up to him to make it clear to the non-technical person, or else it useless.

Also nowhere does the article point out clearly(it's alluded to) that 100Mbps for "typical" Internet usage for a Single person is pointless.

There is no clear reference that 100Mbps is either for someplace with 4 or 5 WiFi points and maybe 10 to 20 users, or for specialist applications for which 30Mbps isn't suitable, and that in fact for "ordinary" single user 6Mbps to 10Mbps is the point where everything seems "Zippy" and for a single ordinary user Increasing the 6Mbps to 100Mbps will make little or no difference to Email, Web Browsing, Downloads and Web Video since most of these are limited to 3Mbps to 5Mbps per client.

Only "impressions" are
1) The service does what is claimed on a cable
2) UPC's WiFi is rubbish (without explaining that no WiFi supplied by anyone is reasonabley expected to be better and that WiFi isn't part of Broadband Service)
3) He has no clue what 100Mbps is for.

I agree the article needs to be non-technical. The whole point of a Technical Journalist* Technology Journalist is to have the skill to de-mystify and explain the important issues for non-technical people. The article as it stands could have been written by any random Journalist after one evening use and no research.

There is a reason I don't write for Newspapers. I've written huge quantities of stuff for Engineering and Technical Mangers, Feasibility studies, Tenders that are lamost judged by weight. So I'd not easily write for non-technical people. www.saortv.info is my attempt at it and I'd love it to be re-written by any competent writer. It's still too technical.


[Technical Journalist* someone writing for technical people in Tech Journal
Technology Journalist is someone writing in ordinary media for ordinary non-technical person. If they don't demystify or explain you might as well print press statements framed by random writer with no technical understanding]

jmcc

watty wrote: »

A simple

"WiFi from any manufacturer can't be relied on to deliver more than 20Mbps despite claims of 250Mbps to 300Mbps for 802.11n WiFi (Wireless N). Thus to fully utilise 30Mbps to 100Mbps Broadband you need to use cabled ethernet or multiple WiFi Points shared to 4 to 20 people rather than WiFi for one or two people from a single point"

He's the tech writer. It's up to him to make it clear to the non-technical person, or else it useless.

I agree on this but Adrian is a technology journalist rather than a tech writer.

Only "impressions" are
1) The service does what is claimed on a cable
2) UPC's WiFi is rubbish (without explaining that no WiFi supplied by anyone is reasonabley expected to be better and that WiFi isn't part of Broadband Service)
3) He has no clue what 100Mbps is for.

Most people wouldn't know what to do with 100Mbs. The only thing that matters is that it allows them to download movies faster etc.

I agree the article needs to be non-technical. The whole point of a Technical Journalist is to have the skill to de-mystify and explain the important issues for non-technical people. The article as it stands could have been written by any random Journalist after one evening use and no research.

The difference between a Technical Journalist and a Technology Journalist is the knowledge of technology. The Technical Journalist typically has a background in technology that allows them to explain the technology and concepts simply (where possible). It is the expectation that Technology Journalists would have this depth of knowledge and expertise that causes the problem for those in the industry.

There is a reason I don't write for Newspapers. I've written huge quantities of stuff for Engineering and Technical Mangers, Feasibility studies, Tenders that are lamost judged by weight. So I'd not easily write for non-technical people. www.saortv.info is my attempt at it and I'd love it to be re-written by any competent writer. It's still too technical.

Perhaps yourself and Adrian could cooperate for a few articles in the SBP as Digital TV is going to be a big thing over the next year or so. (Akin to satellite TV in the 1990s and colour TV before that.) It would be good to get a series of articles on the subject that are both technologically accurate and highly readable.

Regards...jmcc

watty

jmcc wrote: »

Most people wouldn't know what to do with 100Mbs. The only thing that matters is that it allows them to download movies faster etc.

In most cases, not any faster than 2Mbps to 15Mbps from a single site, depending on site. It will only let you download "faster" than 10Mbps Broadband if you are downloading 10 things at once from different sites.

Torrents is a more complex issue.


I've edited my earlier comment.

I've collaborated with journalists before. Though none claimed to be Technology Journalists or Technical Journalists. It's a lot of time and effort. In the future I think I'd want to be paid and credited.