I was reading a bunch on wireless tech the other day, and I got to thinking about what it was all in aid of. One of the main perks seems to be moving your laptop all over the place: is this really an awesome thing, or just another step in people cocooning themselves as far as possible while still leaving the house? Is it really that great that you can send MP3s to your stereo on the other side of your apartment? Is it really a wonderful world that we can check our emails wherever we go? Am I stupid to not see the benefit of freeing myself from the tether of the PC?

And what's the difference between wi-fi and the cellphone technology that lets you surf the web - is there any?

Dylan wrote:I was reading a bunch on wireless tech the other day, and I got to thinking about what it was all in aid of. One of the main perks seems to be moving your laptop all over the place: is this really an awesome thing, or just another step in people cocooning themselves as far as possible while still leaving the house?

The simple answer, IMHO, is YES it's an awesome thing. Very much like TiiVo: Once you have it, you can't figure out why everyone doesn't have it. It seems like such a no-brainer.

Dylan wrote: Is it really that great that you can send MP3s to your stereo on the other side of your apartment?

I had a friend who bought one of those things, and it didn't work very well at all. In fact, it sucked. He returned it.

Dylan wrote: Is it really a wonderful world that we can check our emails wherever we go? Am I stupid to not see the benefit of freeing myself from the tether of the PC?

Yes to question #1 and No to #2. Obviously email is great otherwise it wouldn't be so popular. Being able to get your email anywhere is another no-brainer, but a no-brainer that plenty of people seem to deny.

Dylan wrote:And what's the difference between wi-fi and the cellphone technology that lets you surf the web - is there any?

From what I understand, computer wi-fi, is typically referring to the 802.11 standards. You can connect practically any two devices together if they are both 802.11 enabled. Cell phone wireless just uses your cell phone to connect to the servers at your cell company and use their computers to connect you to the internet. It's a different protocol.

My first use of wi-fi came when we needed a more reliable connection to the internet here at the studio. I worked out a plan with a local ISP not far from us to try and set up an outdoors wireless (wi-fi) link between our building and theirs. Luckily, they had an antenna tower, and we're on top of a hill with easy view of their tower. Two antennas, two access points, a router, some other hardware and bada-bing-bada-boom (I'm so lame), fast and reliable internet connection. It's been up and running ever since with only very small, temporary periods of downtime.

Then I did what a lot of people are doing and set up the wireless in my apartment. A wireless card in my laptop, and an Access Point to connect to the network, and we were in business. Although the laptop needs to be plugged into the wall quite a bit for power reasons, there's no need to for the ethernet cable to hold you down. If you need to continue to use your laptop in another room, just unplug the power cord and away you go.

The next great feature (am I gushing?) is that so many people have wireless set up now, especially in big cities, that you can find open access points practically everywhere you go with your laptop. This means FREE INTERNET ACCESS. Although, I should point out that it is technically illegal if the person providing the access doesn't give you permission. But c'mon, let's face it. People typically don't give two shits if you are using their internet connection for five minutes to read your email or see if someone responded to you on the forum.

Uh, I'm gonna stop now, cuz I'm wearing myself out. But, hopefully you can see that wireless internet is the bee's knees.

I think Russ pretty much covered it, but I'd like to cite my setup last summer. Picture a table, outside, next to a hammock strung between two trees in a beautiful back yard. Imagine having the internet at your fingertips from this primo location. Wireless keyboards and mice only add to the enjoyment.

russ wrote:The next great feature (am I gushing?) is that so many people have wireless set up now, especially in big cities, that you can find open access points practically everywhere you go with your laptop. This means FREE INTERNET ACCESS. Although, I should point out that it is technically illegal if the person providing the access doesn't give you permission. But c'mon, let's face it. People typically don't give two shits if you are using their internet connection for five minutes to read your email or see if someone responded to you on the forum.

Huzzah! This is as much a feature as a cautionary fact for those setting up wirless networks at home. Unless you are living on a large chunk of land, your next door neighbor(s) will likely have connectivity with your little wireless setup. If you cheese out and don't bother to set up some decent encryption and MAC address filtering, you risk exposing your boxes (and your bandwidth) to everyone within listening range (somewhere between 100-150 feet depending on building construction, equipment orientation, position of Io in sky, etc.). Other than that one caveat, wireless (especially when combined with a cable modem) is the shit.

Dan

danmohr wrote:Huzzah! This is as much a feature as a cautionary fact for those setting up wirless networks at home. Unless you are living on a large chunk of land, your next door neighbor(s) will likely have connectivity with your little wireless setup. If you cheese out and don't bother to set up some decent encryption and MAC address filtering, you risk exposing your boxes (and your bandwidth) to everyone within listening range (somewhere between 100-150 feet depending on building construction, equipment orientation, position of Io in sky, etc.). Other than that one caveat, wireless (especially when combined with a cable modem) is the shit.

I can't remember if I mentioned this once already, but since my TiVo can't handle my wireless connection (since it uses WEP security), I use my neighbour's wireless connection for that. I get like 20% signal on it, but it's enough for TiVo to get its program info on it daily.

If it hadn't been for their lack of technical acumen, I would have had to drop the security from my wireless. Since Comcast is now giving me almost 3 Mbits speed across the USA, I'm getting greedy! Nobody on my street is getting any of that for free!

stewie wrote:I can't remember if I mentioned this once already, but since my TiVo can't handle my wireless connection (since it uses WEP security), I use my neighbour's wireless connection for that. I get like 20% signal on it, but it's enough for TiVo to get its program info on it daily.

If it hadn't been for their lack of technical acumen, I would have had to drop the security from my wireless. Since Comcast is now giving me almost 3 Mbits speed across the USA, I'm getting greedy! Nobody on my street is getting any of that for free!

I don't understand any of what you wrote. What's WEP? 20% of the TV signal? You are piggybacking off the neighbours wi-fi to run your TiVo and your internet access? I feel like my grandpa did when he couldn't bother setting the vcr clock.

Dylan wrote:I don't understand any of what you wrote. What's WEP? 20% of the TV signal? You are piggybacking off the neighbours wi-fi to run your TiVo and your internet access? I feel like my grandpa did when he couldn't bother setting the vcr clock.

Hehe, don't worry, I feel the same way in a lot of the threads on this forum too - the Poker thread is the latest one to make me feel like I no longer understand written English.

WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy - it's basically a system for making sure that no cheapo douchebag can use your wireless internet connection without the correct security priviliges. Without it, anyone could drive up to my house with their laptop, connect to my wireless router and access the internet through my cable connection, which I pay for.

The silly thing is that most wireless devices default to NO SECURITY out of the box - in other words when you turn it on, everything connects great! It makes for a great set-up experience, but it means that people everywhere are sharing their internet connections without even knowing it. Also, it makes hacking into their computers very, very easy.

The 20% I was referring to was the signal strength of my next-door neighbour's (insecure!) wireless connection from my own living room. It's not a great signal strength, but it's enough to get basic internet connectivity.

So how does TiVo come into play? When you buy TiVo, it requires a phone line to be plugged into it so that it can make a call once a day to download program listings and other stuff. This is a royal pain in the ass, because contrary to their claims of "these calls won't disturb you one bit!", my device started scheduling calls in the afternoon, right when my fiance was working from home and taking a lot of calls for her job.

Luckily, new TiVos have the ability to use Wi-Fi to get the program listings instead of your phone line. So I jumped at the opportunity to get this working. I bought a little Wi-Fi device from Best Buy, plugged it into my TiVo and lo-and-behold, it sees my wireless connection! However, it refused to connect, even after triple-checking that I'd entered my WEP passwords correctly.

Feeling dismayed that I'd have to turn off my Wi-Fi security to get my TiVo online, I then noticed a second wireless connection being recognised by my TiVo. It was a very weak signal - only 6% at the time - but I knew it had to be my neighbour's. I moved the wireless device around a bit in the room, and I got the signal strength up to 20%, which was enough for TiVo to work with.

If my neighbour decides to turn WEP on, then I'll have to figure something new out. Until then, my TiVo uses their insecure internet connection once a day and we use my secure connection the rest of the time.

Hope that clears it all up!

russ wrote:

Dylan wrote: Is it really a wonderful world that we can check our emails wherever we go? Am I stupid to not see the benefit of freeing myself from the tether of the PC?

Yes to question #1 and No to #2. Obviously email is great otherwise it wouldn't be so popular. Being able to get your email anywhere is another no-brainer, but a no-brainer that plenty of people seem to deny.

Forgive the belabouring, but could you give an example? So you drag your laptop to the coffeehouse to work on the article that's due and while you're there, you can check and see if the person you interviewed wrote back - why is all this necessary? Why don't you (we) just go get the coffee, come back home, and check it then? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just looking for that crucial event that would really make sense to me.

russ also wrote:My first use of wi-fi came when we needed a more reliable connection to the internet here at the studio. I worked out a plan with a local ISP not far from us to try and set up an outdoors wireless (wi-fi) link between our building and theirs. Luckily, they had an antenna tower, and we're on top of a hill with easy view of their tower. Two antennas, two access points, a router, some other hardware and bada-bing-bada-boom (I'm so lame), fast and reliable internet connection. It's been up and running ever since with only very small, temporary periods of downtime.

Is this better than DSL or satellite? If so, is it because it's local (price of a phone call?)

russ effusively wrote:The next great feature (am I gushing?) is that so many people have wireless set up now, especially in big cities, that you can find open access points practically everywhere you go with your laptop. This means FREE INTERNET ACCESS. Although, I should point out that it is technically illegal if the person providing the access doesn't give you permission.

Supposedly in Europe, where I'm told wi-fi is more the standard, activists will spray-paint or otherwise mark in some way "hot spots" where the access points are strong and free.

I can see the TiVo benefit, though. My wife and I decided to watch The Apprentice all the way through and at the end, I had seen enough commercials to last me a lifetime. I forgot why I stopped watching TV before that. I would have liked to TiVo that experience. Actually, I think we would like to have not gone through it at all, but oh well.

Dylan wrote:

russ wrote:

Dylan wrote: Is it really a wonderful world that we can check our emails wherever we go? Am I stupid to not see the benefit of freeing myself from the tether of the PC?

Yes to question #1 and No to #2. Obviously email is great otherwise it wouldn't be so popular. Being able to get your email anywhere is another no-brainer, but a no-brainer that plenty of people seem to deny.

Forgive the belabouring, but could you give an example? So you drag your laptop to the coffeehouse to work on the article that's due and while you're there, you can check and see if the person you interviewed wrote back - why is all this necessary? Why don't you (we) just go get the coffee, come back home, and check it then? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just looking for that crucial event that would really make sense to me.

Personally, I've never done this. But, it's pretty simple to see why wi-fi is so cool. It's the same reason that cell phones or radios are nice to have. It's in the name really. It's because it's wireless. The only thing cooler, would be wireless power. But while we wait for that, we have wireless phones, wireless internet, etc.

Dylan wrote:

russ also wrote:My first use of wi-fi came when we needed a more reliable connection to the internet here at the studio. I worked out a plan with a local ISP not far from us to try and set up an outdoors wireless (wi-fi) link between our building and theirs. Luckily, they had an antenna tower, and we're on top of a hill with easy view of their tower. Two antennas, two access points, a router, some other hardware and bada-bing-bada-boom (I'm so lame), fast and reliable internet connection. It's been up and running ever since with only very small, temporary periods of downtime.

Is this better than DSL or satellite? If so, is it because it's local (price of a phone call?)

No. You're not understanding. Our computer network at the studio is connected directly to the network at our ISP via an wireless connection. They have two T1 lines which run roughly $1500 each per month, and we are connected directly to that. Nothing to turn on or off and nothing to dial. It's always on, and that's the reason that we are able to run our own servers, etc. We pay the ISP directly, no middle man which you would have with a DSL or satallite service. It's a rare and dream-like situation for us. Most people don't have the luxury. But you can get similar luxury in your own home with your laptop and a wireless card. You can roam around your house w/ your laptop and you won't need any wires to connect to the internet. If you don't have a laptop, then I'd say that you probably don't need wireless yet. The two kind of go hand in hand. The portability of the laptop and the convinence of wireless.

Dylan wrote:

russ effusively wrote:The next great feature (am I gushing?) is that so many people have wireless set up now, especially in big cities, that you can find open access points practically everywhere you go with your laptop. This means FREE INTERNET ACCESS. Although, I should point out that it is technically illegal if the person providing the access doesn't give you permission.

Supposedly in Europe, where I'm told wi-fi is more the standard, activists will spray-paint or otherwise mark in some way "hot spots" where the access points are strong and free.

This stems from war-driving. Which doesn't have much to do w/ real wars. In fact the war part comes from war-dialing (dialing a block of numbers in order to find a modem connection) from the movie War Games. And instead of spray-paint, hopefully, they should be using chalk. A program like NetStumbler is great in order to find what is available and in your area.

If you have a laptop and a broadband internet connection, then I would highly recommend getting the wireless equipment (PCMCIA wireless card for the laptop and Access Point to connect to) and trying it out for yourself.