Legends Shopping Center, KCK
802.11g
SSID: RoadRunnerSpeedzone
Well, it's here, it's free and open and it works. Unfortunately, that's about all the new outdoor hotzone has going for it at the moment. I'm at a table just outside Pride of Kansas City at Suite 107, and after nearly twenty minutes my eyes still haven't adjusted enough to see my screen well enough for me to type any faster than at a crawl. I think I'd just as soon slip into the nearby Scooter's Coffeehouse and catch up on my e-mail there. Either that or rig up a sunshield from cardboard or something-you know, like the hoods that NFL replay officials stick their heads under to study television monitors to make their calls. That might help. So, perhaps, would waiting a few years for these sapling trees to grow into real shade-throwers.
And with that, I'm going to have to stop. The sun just popped out from behind a cloud, and the situation has gone from bad to hopeless. Nonetheless, kudos to the Legends' management and Time Warner for taking a swing at this. It may not get much use-at least during daylight hours-but it's free, open, and in Wyandotte County. The more such locations, the better. And let's hope Time Warner pays very close attention to how well this location does as compared to the Country Club Plaza.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Since I was headed out west today anyway...
...I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a brief look at the latest outlying location to light itself up-the Basehor Community Library at 14500-R Parallel in Leavenworth County, a few miles past the speedway and the new open-air hotzone at the Legends Shopping Center which I'll be checking out later this evening. Like the library in Tonganoxie, which I mentioned back during this blog's early days, they're unwired courtesy of Sunflower Broadband of Lawrence. This is a temporary location without a lot of space, so seating and power outlets are at a premium. I managed to luck out and find both in a room at the back. Don't go downstairs, however, in search of them unless you're either a kid or an adult accompanying one. That's the children's library, and they're serious about that out here.
Basehor has a new library building under construction, so it'll be interesting to see if Sunflower Broadband's largesse follows them there-or if they unwire the new location themselves if not.
Anyway, while Sunflower's still in a giving mood, it would sure be nice if a certain big-city public library system across the county line to the east could be prodded to try and take advantage. I've asked here before, and I'll ask again: What's the problem, KCK?
Oh, I almost forgot-the access point's 802.11g and the SSID is "sbhsd Basehor Library."
And now, it's on to the Legends.
Basehor has a new library building under construction, so it'll be interesting to see if Sunflower Broadband's largesse follows them there-or if they unwire the new location themselves if not.
Anyway, while Sunflower's still in a giving mood, it would sure be nice if a certain big-city public library system across the county line to the east could be prodded to try and take advantage. I've asked here before, and I'll ask again: What's the problem, KCK?
Oh, I almost forgot-the access point's 802.11g and the SSID is "sbhsd Basehor Library."
And now, it's on to the Legends.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Well, speak of the devil!
Not exactly enclosed-mall-Fi, but the Kansas City Star reports today that both the Country Club Plaza and the Legends shopping center across from the Kansas Speedway in western Wyandotte County are now hotzones.
That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that only the latter offering is free and-let us hope-open. What on earth are Highwoods and Time Warner thinking? It's bad enough that whatever you buy on the Plaza carries an extra one-percent sales tax lug (which is why the new MacBook Pro that a certain contributor to this blog recently acquired was ordered online rather than picked up at the local Apple Store). Do they really think that enough Plaza shoppers are going to plunk down an outrageous $9 for the dubious privilege of using an outdoor hotspot for a day-or an equally outrageous $35 for a month's access-to make this worth doing? Why wouldn't they just stroll over to the Plaza Library-or perhaps take up an impromptu seat near that aforementioned Apple Store-and use all the free Wi-Fi they want?
Dollars to doughnuts says Time Warner makes like Sprint did up at the airport and bails out of this location within a year.
Or...maybe they and Highwoods will come to their senses and start looking forward like their West Wyandotte counterparts. The Legends' owners understand that in an era of cell phones, you can't attract shoppers to a venue by building more pay-phone booths, and you can't entice them to tote their laptops along and stick around once they get there by announcing up front that you'll pick their pockets while they do.
It'll be a while, but unless one of you would care to head out there now and check it out for us, look for a full review of the Legends network as soon as one of us can get away for a visit.
That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that only the latter offering is free and-let us hope-open. What on earth are Highwoods and Time Warner thinking? It's bad enough that whatever you buy on the Plaza carries an extra one-percent sales tax lug (which is why the new MacBook Pro that a certain contributor to this blog recently acquired was ordered online rather than picked up at the local Apple Store). Do they really think that enough Plaza shoppers are going to plunk down an outrageous $9 for the dubious privilege of using an outdoor hotspot for a day-or an equally outrageous $35 for a month's access-to make this worth doing? Why wouldn't they just stroll over to the Plaza Library-or perhaps take up an impromptu seat near that aforementioned Apple Store-and use all the free Wi-Fi they want?
Dollars to doughnuts says Time Warner makes like Sprint did up at the airport and bails out of this location within a year.
Or...maybe they and Highwoods will come to their senses and start looking forward like their West Wyandotte counterparts. The Legends' owners understand that in an era of cell phones, you can't attract shoppers to a venue by building more pay-phone booths, and you can't entice them to tote their laptops along and stick around once they get there by announcing up front that you'll pick their pockets while they do.
It'll be a while, but unless one of you would care to head out there now and check it out for us, look for a full review of the Legends network as soon as one of us can get away for a visit.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
What, no Mall-Fi in KC?
After bidding farewell to the Johnson County Library and its shortcomings, I stopped in briefly at the Oak Park Mall just out of curiosity. There is a Panera Bread restaurant there that's lit up like all the rest of their area locations, but I didn't see any evidence of other open access points that were clearly provided by either the mall management or another tenant for customer use.
I wonder why. Of the KC metro's remaining enclosed malls, Oak Park is probably the most viable. Is the absence of mallwide Wi-Fi-or at the very least an unwired food court, which would seem to be a natural, at least to me-because it hasn't occured to local mall managers, or an indication that the era of big enclosed shopping malls is really passing, as some have opined recently?
(Incidentally, I'm deliberately excluding Crown Center here, despite the fact that its atrium-one of the first hotspots this blog reviewed-is lit up. As those of you my age or older remember, Crown Center was built as a combination hotel/shopping center/entertainment venue to redevelop urban blight (anyone else remember Signboard Hill?) and was designed in a manner to distinguish it from the bigger outlying standalone malls that were then in their heyday. As I recall, it's a rough contemporary of the Indian Springs and Independence centers, and predated Metro North and Oak Park by maybe a couple of years.)
What's your take? And if I'm wrong and there is a local mall that's unwired, wholly or partially, where is it and what are the particulars?
I wonder why. Of the KC metro's remaining enclosed malls, Oak Park is probably the most viable. Is the absence of mallwide Wi-Fi-or at the very least an unwired food court, which would seem to be a natural, at least to me-because it hasn't occured to local mall managers, or an indication that the era of big enclosed shopping malls is really passing, as some have opined recently?
(Incidentally, I'm deliberately excluding Crown Center here, despite the fact that its atrium-one of the first hotspots this blog reviewed-is lit up. As those of you my age or older remember, Crown Center was built as a combination hotel/shopping center/entertainment venue to redevelop urban blight (anyone else remember Signboard Hill?) and was designed in a manner to distinguish it from the bigger outlying standalone malls that were then in their heyday. As I recall, it's a rough contemporary of the Indian Springs and Independence centers, and predated Metro North and Oak Park by maybe a couple of years.)
What's your take? And if I'm wrong and there is a local mall that's unwired, wholly or partially, where is it and what are the particulars?
Friday, July 06, 2007
I've changed my mind...
...about reviewing the new Johnson County Library locations.
I'm posting this from the Oak Park Library just east of Oak Park Mall on 95th Street in Overland Park, and frankly I just don't see any point in continuing to hope that things will get any better with this network. Apparently I'm not alone in that assessment because mine is the only laptop I see. I also don't recall seeing any at the Central Resource Library earlier this evening.
I can see having newly-connected users click through your acceptable use policy-but what's the point of then redirecting them to the library's homepage? What makes you think that was where they wanted to go in the first place? Gee, I don't know-maybe we're just too dumb to find if if we need to.
And did it occur to anyone that forcing a user to do this MORE THAN ONCE IN A SESSION just MIGHT prove a tad inconvenient? For instance, try this: Go to Google or a specialized search site like the Internet Movie Database. Now, let your computer sit for a bit (like you might do while scrolling through a roll of microfilm or leafing through a reference volume or the like-you know, the kind of work that people bring laptops into libraries to help them with these days). Okay, now you're ready to enter another query. Type it in and throw it. Oops-why am I being asked to click through the AUP again? Well, all right-HEY, WHAT THE (BLANK) AM I DOING BACK AT THE LIBRARY'S HOMEPAGE? AND WHY DO I HAVE TO GO BACK AND ENTER THE (BLANK) QUERY AGAIN?
Mark my words-do that to someone more than once and you'd better hope he or she isn't a registered voter when the next library tax increase goes on the ballot.
Oh, and with regard to the incoming ports you're still blocking: Can anyone give me ONE GOOD REASON you feel that you CAN'T unblock port 995? Don't bother looking it up-it's the SSL port for incoming POP e-mail, which more and more ISPs are REQUIRING customers to use to help prevent interception of login credentials and other information on open wireless networks-like YOURS, for instance. If you want to continue keeping the corresponding outgoing SMTP port blocked to deter spammers, I really can't argue, but going BACK to preventing people form RECEIVING their mail smacks of cluelessness.
I'm not even going to revisit the filtering issue-there's really no need to since we all know this isn't really an "issue" anymore for knowledgeable users-but given that fact, why are you still discriminating-yes, that's the word, discriminating-against persons who use their laptops in the course of their employment or business? Is their tax money worth less for some reason? You know, they usually don't have a choice as to whether to connect their laptops to the Internet via a VPN. Bear in mind that in most cases the data on the laptop-and in many cases, the laptop itself-doesn't belong to them. It's their employer's property and as employees, they share the company's responsibility to protect it-a responsibility that in the case of a publicly-traded corporation or government agency could possibly be mandated by federal laws such as FISMA or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Also, you really aren't helping to make Johnson County a business-friendly locale by doing this. People performing research for their employers aren't as productive as they would otherwise be while having to shuffle back and forth between the location of the resource they're using and a library workstation-or having to wait in line to use one, since they can't use their laptops. And once again, neither they nor their employers-who pay plenty in taxes, don't you think?-are likely to become particularly enamored of the library because of this, or supportive of future tax increases.
I know I've ranted here, but this network has been such a source of frustration for such a long time-and I really hoped that with the expansion and the appointment of a new library director not long ago, things would start looking up. Sadly, that doesn't appear to be the case, so unless I hear things have changed I don't think I'll be back. And I'm guessing that I'm one of many former users who've given up hoping that someone here would see that you simply cannot deliver 21st century services while you are still hobbled by 20th century thinking.
I'm posting this from the Oak Park Library just east of Oak Park Mall on 95th Street in Overland Park, and frankly I just don't see any point in continuing to hope that things will get any better with this network. Apparently I'm not alone in that assessment because mine is the only laptop I see. I also don't recall seeing any at the Central Resource Library earlier this evening.
I can see having newly-connected users click through your acceptable use policy-but what's the point of then redirecting them to the library's homepage? What makes you think that was where they wanted to go in the first place? Gee, I don't know-maybe we're just too dumb to find if if we need to.
And did it occur to anyone that forcing a user to do this MORE THAN ONCE IN A SESSION just MIGHT prove a tad inconvenient? For instance, try this: Go to Google or a specialized search site like the Internet Movie Database. Now, let your computer sit for a bit (like you might do while scrolling through a roll of microfilm or leafing through a reference volume or the like-you know, the kind of work that people bring laptops into libraries to help them with these days). Okay, now you're ready to enter another query. Type it in and throw it. Oops-why am I being asked to click through the AUP again? Well, all right-HEY, WHAT THE (BLANK) AM I DOING BACK AT THE LIBRARY'S HOMEPAGE? AND WHY DO I HAVE TO GO BACK AND ENTER THE (BLANK) QUERY AGAIN?
Mark my words-do that to someone more than once and you'd better hope he or she isn't a registered voter when the next library tax increase goes on the ballot.
Oh, and with regard to the incoming ports you're still blocking: Can anyone give me ONE GOOD REASON you feel that you CAN'T unblock port 995? Don't bother looking it up-it's the SSL port for incoming POP e-mail, which more and more ISPs are REQUIRING customers to use to help prevent interception of login credentials and other information on open wireless networks-like YOURS, for instance. If you want to continue keeping the corresponding outgoing SMTP port blocked to deter spammers, I really can't argue, but going BACK to preventing people form RECEIVING their mail smacks of cluelessness.
I'm not even going to revisit the filtering issue-there's really no need to since we all know this isn't really an "issue" anymore for knowledgeable users-but given that fact, why are you still discriminating-yes, that's the word, discriminating-against persons who use their laptops in the course of their employment or business? Is their tax money worth less for some reason? You know, they usually don't have a choice as to whether to connect their laptops to the Internet via a VPN. Bear in mind that in most cases the data on the laptop-and in many cases, the laptop itself-doesn't belong to them. It's their employer's property and as employees, they share the company's responsibility to protect it-a responsibility that in the case of a publicly-traded corporation or government agency could possibly be mandated by federal laws such as FISMA or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Also, you really aren't helping to make Johnson County a business-friendly locale by doing this. People performing research for their employers aren't as productive as they would otherwise be while having to shuffle back and forth between the location of the resource they're using and a library workstation-or having to wait in line to use one, since they can't use their laptops. And once again, neither they nor their employers-who pay plenty in taxes, don't you think?-are likely to become particularly enamored of the library because of this, or supportive of future tax increases.
I know I've ranted here, but this network has been such a source of frustration for such a long time-and I really hoped that with the expansion and the appointment of a new library director not long ago, things would start looking up. Sadly, that doesn't appear to be the case, so unless I hear things have changed I don't think I'll be back. And I'm guessing that I'm one of many former users who've given up hoping that someone here would see that you simply cannot deliver 21st century services while you are still hobbled by 20th century thinking.
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