But then what does wireless fidelity mean?

What does the "Fi" in Wi-Fi stand for?

I was thinking perhaps field, but Wolfram has the right of it.

Short for wireless fidelity. This is another name for IEEE 802.11b. It is a trade term promulgated by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA). "Wi-Fi" is used in place of 802.11b in the same way that "Ethernet" is used in place of IEEE 802.3. Products certified as Wi-Fi by WECA are interoperable with each other even if they are from different manufacturers. A user with a Wi-Fi product can use any brand of Access Point with any other brand of client hardware that is built to the Wi-Fi standard. >[link]

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But then what does wireless fidelity mean?

Turns out it's a marketing term, so we're lucky it means anything at all.

Huh.

I was looking at an ad for something that said "Wi Fi. Hi Fi. Sci Fi." Having "fidelity" in there twice is like rhyming a word with itself.

Which makes no sense, but there you go.

I also have no idea what the ad was for -- despite driving past the billboard a dozen times. I guess it's an in-crowd thing.

I also have no idea what the ad was for

PSP.

I know this because I saw the same ad at a train station, so I had time to study it.

We're becoming a society of acronyms and shorthand. (Or acros and SH.) It doesn't please me.

I recieved a shiny new flatscreen monitor at work today, and it's got a much higher resolution than my old one. I want to set my Outlook preview pane to a slightly bigger font, and I can't figure out how to do it across all mailboxes. (Doing it one mailbox at a time is certainly possible, but would take all morning, since I do a lot of filtering.) Anyone know where this setting is?

Ha. While I have hitherto thought of it as fidelity, I will now happily think of it as wireless fiction.

Also, the iPod photo does not currently allow me to transfer photos directly off a memory card or by USB or firewire from a camera, right? Because if it did, and allowed me to use it as a small, portable, extended storage capacity device while taking pictures in the field, it would be tremendously useful, and I would have to buy one Right Now.

Also, the iPod photo does not currently allow me to transfer photos directly off a memory card or by USB or firewire from a camera, right?

They have an optional iThingie that allows you to do that.

eta: somewhere towards the top of this page: [link]

eta²: there are two different things - one that can transfer from a camera to an iPod, and another (by Belkin) that can read various memory cards into an iPod.

Ooh!

Thanks, tommyrot.