So as not to come off as a total Grinch...

...let me begin by offering my best wishes, and those of my colleague ath64 as well, to you and yours for this holiday season.

Now then...I finally made it out to the Johnson County location of the company that ran the "new" coffeehouse a block north of Power and Light on Grand downtown that I mentioned back in October in my open-air hotspots post. Seems now that the downtown location, instead of being in the process of opening, had actually gone belly up after having been in operation for a while. Anyway, out of curiosity as to whether the whole business had gone under, I stopped by the other shop just to see and am happy to report it's still up and running.

Not so happily, however, I have to tell you I didn't stay long enough to try out one of their mochas-or to find out the hard way whether their Wi-Fi was free and open or not. Another memo to the management: In addition to updating your website and removing the downtown location if it's no longer viable, you really ought to tell prospective customers whether your Internet access is play-for-pay or otherwise restricted. One can only assume you'd trumpet its being free if it were, which means that it's probably not. Either way, a little honesty and openness would help here.

And in the "Gee, I wonder how the free Wi-Fi situation is over in Topeka?" department, I spent a day earlier this week doing some more historical research at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, which like the Mid-Continent Public Library system over here is lit up by AT&T. Unlike Mid-Continent, however, Ma Bell doesn't try to raid your wallet over there after you connect. Just click through a page acknowledging you'll abide by the library's acceptable use policy and that's that. And you only have to click through it once, not every so many minutes as you do at some locations.

I don't know if this is a sweetheart deal between TSCPL and Ma Bell, but even if it is, let's hope someone introduces MCPL to that sweetheart.

The RIGHT way to do library Wi-Fi...almost

Well, if ath64's adventures out West last year merited a couple of posts, I guess it's my turn. I'm afraid, however, that my journey's a bit less involved than ath64's hop over the continental divide. No, I'm up at the Des Moines Public Library on a historical research mission (yes, kids, there are still a few things you can't Google up) and thought I'd compliment the nice folks up here for not just a stunning new downtown facility-well, a couple of years old now, but I haven't been up here in nearly a couple of decades-but what I'd readily endorse, save for one quibble, as library wireless done right.

No nonsensical closing of the network to non-cardholders, no essentially worthless filtering (which, in the same manner as gun control only serves to keep guns out of law-abiding hands, only gets in the way of honest people trying to do legitimate work), just boot and scoot-that is, boot up your laptop and scoot off to wherever it is online you need to get to. The reading room I'm currently in is also host to maybe a hundred public-access workstations, and I don't see an idle one in the bunch. This is clearly a library administration made up of 21st-century thinkers who get what Wi-Fi in a library is for.

So why aren't there any power outlets back here by the microfilm machines? Come on, folks, a power strip or two plugged into the floor and conveniently left amidst these readers and printers would be a godsend. It's all you have left to do to turn your 9.9 into a perfect 10.

RUN!!! HIDE!!! OFF-TOPIC RANT ALERT!!!

Stopped in at my friendly neighborhood polling place-which also just happens to be the friendly neighborhood branch of our local public library-to do my civic duty and was struck by how it seems certain aspects of our lives are going in opposite directions, technology-wise. I mean, here I am posting to the World Wide Web from my own computer while connected wirelessly to the Internet in a branch library that also provides public-access computers for those who don't have one at home. The library's adoption of Wi-Fi served two beneficial purposes: First, it provides me with the convenience of Internet access wherever I happen to be in the building, without having to sign up and get in line for a public-access workstation and second, it frees up that workstation for someone else who really needs it. Win-win all around, right? I'd say so.

Contrast that situation, however, with the one that faced me within the past hour as I sat waiting-and waiting-and waiting-to cast my ballot on the ONE touch-screen voting machine available at this location. Sure, I could have opted for a slower and more fraud-susceptible paper ballot, but the real question ought to be why, EIGHT YEARS after the 2000 Florida debacle, there even ARE still such things as paper ballots? There should only be electronic voting machines by now. And there need to be enough of them at every polling place to speed things along.

Sheesh, if the library ran like this, the only thing you'd be able to access online here would still be the card catalog-and you'd still have to do it on a dumb green-screen terminal linked to a mainframe downtown.

Open Air Revisited

onKC Metro Hotspots (Downtown Kansas City):

Barney Allis Plaza
Between 12th and 13th, Wyandotte and Central

802.11g
SSID: onKCmetro WiFi

If there's anything I can think of that would be less necessary than ath64 thinks hotspot printing is, it would have to be an outdoor hotspot-particularly one like this in broad daylight with its dearth of well-shaded places to sit. Nonetheless, it's here and it's working, unlike its original incarnation as reported by ath64 not long after this blog's founding. So...if you're lucky enough to find a cheap parking place within a reasonable walk-or if you're brave enough to come after 6 p. m.-and you don't forget to charge your battery (important, remember, because you'll have to give your eyes time to adapt if you come before dark), and you can come up with a better excuse than not having contributed to your blog in a long time, well...

Oops-one caveat. There are a LOT of open routers visible at this location. Be careful which one you hook up with.

River Market area, approximately 3rd and Walnut

802.11b
SSID: onKCmetro

I'll be honest and tell you that all I did here was pull into the City Market parking lot and do a scan with my finder. There's a signal, but it appears weak. And frankly I didn't see many well-placed locations where one could sit with a laptop in broad daylight and use it easily, so I didn't try. I did happen to notice a SSID from a nearby coffeehouse that might be worth checking out, but the place was closed. Maybe one of us will look into it later on-unless one of you does.

Ilus W. Davis Park, across 9th Street from Federal Courthouse

802.11b
SSID: ONkcMETRO

Same thing here-I parked just to the west on Oak and did a finder scan. I just wasn't comfortable with going across the street and booting up a Mac with all those street people hanging around. If you ask me this one is strictly for weekday use during business hours.

And here's a suggestion to the onKCmetro folks. You need to decide on a consistent spelling, punctuation and capitalization for your SSID, and then use it.

Before leaving downtown, I stopped in at the KC Live covered pavilion in the Power and Light District across Grand from the Sprint Center to check out the purported hotspot there. Unfortunately, it seems the Cordish regime is more concerned with garnering bad publicity for itself by chasing away people it considers undesirable than it is with providing Wi-Fi that works. Too bad, because KC Live actually has laptop-friendly potential. There are places to sit, and adding power outlets wouldn't be difficult. Also the pavilion roof helps with LCD reading in the daytime. Well, if anyone who manages to get past the apparel Nazis should happen to find the network up and running, let us know. (And if anyone knows whether the presence of Time Warner's RoadRunner SSID means P&L has gone play-for-pay, that would be of interest as well.)

As for the status of P&L's coming Latte Land location, it's still coming, according to P&L's website. Curiously, Latte Land makes no mention of it on theirs. Wonder why? The building-on the southeast corner of 12th and Main-appears finished, but it still appears to be empty.

And finally, here's some friendly advice to the proprietor(s) of the new coffeehouse on Grand about a block north of Sprint/Power and Light: If your new location is NOT OPEN YET, it MIGHT be considered a courtesy for you to SAY SO in your advertising.

It's all in the follow-through...

Stopped in at the KCMO Southeast Branch Library for a bit this afternoon, and was gratified to see a big V-shaped table towards the back with cutouts for power. The not-so-gratifying news is that there's neither a power outlet in the floor anywhere near the table nor any wiring to connect to it if there were one.

I know things are rather tough money-wise right now, but you'd think after a couple of years there'd have been a bit more progress toward laptop-friendliness here.

Memo to the library administration: If you can't afford having an outlet installed under the table where it is now, why not move it a few feet towards the front of the building and use the existing outlet I'm plugged into now? You know-the one I had to move the circular table I'm sitting at next to so I wouldn't run the risk of your getting a bit exercised over my running a cord a long distance over the floor.

Just a thought.

What, no cards or presents?

I mean, after all, today does just happen to be the third birthday of this blog.

Oh well, it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

Thanks to however many-or few-of you regularly stop by, and here's hoping we can make it worth your while for another year.

"One Unwired Day" versus five unwired years

Anyone else besides me remember where you were and what you were doing five years ago today?

If the post's title didn't give you a clue, "One Unwired Day" was an Intel-sponsored promotion on this date in 2003 intended to help hawk both Wi-Fi and their then-new Centrino processors, in which they picked up the tab at certain play-for-pay hotspots-or at least were supposed to.

As I recall, I tried hooking up at the Borders bookstore out at 119th and Metcalf, but wasn't able to get enough of a signal to even bring up the login page. Borders was (and as far as I know still is) lit up by T-Mobile, which along with a few other national providers whose names I don't remember and some of which have almost certainly been consigned to the ash heap of history, partnered with Intel for the free day. I think Wayport, which I don't believe was a particpant in the promotion, had a few places around town, but I don't recall if any of the local McDonald's restaurants were among them. AT&T, which would essentially swallow up Wayport in time, wasn't in the Wi-Fi game yet. I believe Sprint was, but not locally. To the best of my memory, most of the play-for-pay hotspots in the area belonged to the now-defunct Flash Network, a local operation.

Having been soured on play-for-pay by my experience, I was elated when I spotted the Kansas City Star story announcing that Union Station would unwire for free about a month later. Although circumstances would prevent me from trying it out until after Christmas, both it and the Crown Center atrium hotspot, which I discovered early the following year, quickly became favorite hangouts. On the other hand, I don't remember the last time I was in a Borders for more than the time it took to pick up what I came there for and hit the road afterwards.

Maybe-just maybe-it would help if they'd offer free access for more than a day, and more often than once in five years.

Herewith the last word...

with regard to the NKC Public Library's Wi-Fi printing:

http://www.northkclibrary.org/news.cfm?newsid=11

Nice going, NKC. A printer available only to Windows users. What'll you think of next?

Can't help wondering, though, what you'll say to the first Macintosh users that aren't running Windows-either because unlike our friend Macenstein they couldn't see spending an extra couple of hundred bucks for it, or because they're using a Power PC-based Mac that can't run Windows-that ask you how they can fatten your coffers by paying you ten cents a page-or whatever you charge-for the dubious privilege of printing away from home. I mean, will it be something like, "Sorry, your tax money isn't as valuable to us as that from Windows users; you'll have to get in line to use one of our workstations and thus make it unavailable for someone else who doesn't own a laptop if you need to print?"

I still think this is one of the least worthwhile services I can imagine, but if you consider it worth offering to your patrons, why not offer it to ALL OF THEM? Mac and Linux users pay taxes too, you know. So do people who may have acquired second-hand laptops running earlier versions of Windows that your handy-dandy .exe file might not be supported by. You know-people who might have scraped together the cash to buy those second-hand laptops just so they wouldn't have to wait in line for one of your workstations anymore.

There are cross-platform solutions available for providing this service. Having considered spending the public's money to buy anything else-let alone actually buying it-strikes me as malfeasance. Good luck trying to convince the public otherwise when you're inevitably called upon to do so. You'll need it.

Has the Cass County Public Library seen the light?

Or did they feel the heat? Either way, it appears from this that they've loosened their death grip on their wireless network.

Although a password-protected network is still a closed one in my book (even though it's suggested they'll give a login to anyone, cardholder or not, this isn't made clear), this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Memo to the library: If you're OK with giving login credentials to anyone, why still bother with requiring a login? Less hassle getting onto your network will result in more usage of the network. Which, of course, will result in less demand for time on your public computers, making them more available for people who really need them. You know, the people the computers are there for in the first place.

Win-win all around, wouldn't you say?

At least it LOOKS inviting...

Latte Land
7900 State Line Road, Prairie Village

802.11g
SSID: LATTELAND

I must be honest and tell you I didn't sit down at this location and boot up like Macenstein did at the other Latte Land locations we've reviewed. I was in the area on other business and was pressed for time, but since we've reported so infrequently from the Golden Ghetto since the blog's early days, I didn't want to pass up this opportunity entirely. So, I pulled out ye olde finder which verified the protocol and SSID on the open access point, and pressed my nose to the window to try and give you an idea of the layout's laptop-friendliness.

While I saw a pair of power outlets in the corner to the right of the entrance, it didn't seem as if there were more along the north wall. However, there are a couple of booths like Macenstein found at the 47th Street Plaza location on the opposite side of the building, with the same hard-to-reach outlets on front beneath the seat cushions. The appealing thing about them, however, is that they're next to a fireplace built into the south wall. I may be tempted to come back around the holidays when they fire that up. Might make it a nice place to take a brief respite from shopping.

And I can only guess, but since the building faces east, with big windows to the front and north side, it might be best to plan your visit sometime other than early morning while the sun is still low if you're bringing a laptop with you.

Well, 'tis it or 'tain't it?

An open letter to the proprietor(s) of the Main Street Laundry at 3324 Main in Kansas City:

Sir(s) and/or Madam(s):

As one would readily expect sooner or later, it has come to our attention that there are signs proclaiming "Wi-Fi" adorning your establishment. I wish I could tell you that we were in the process of doing just the most awesome writeup we've given a newly discovered location in years.

Well, we aren't.

You see, in order for that to happen, there are certain other things that have to happen first. For one thing, we have to verify that you actually are offering wireless Internet access. The question of whether that access is free and open-and therefore eligible to be listed here-is, of course, still to be determined at that point.

That first step, however, can prove to be a bit daunting when it isn't even possible to discern which, if any, of the plethora of access points detectible on your premises is, in fact, yours. You do realize that the mere existence of an open network does not by itself constitute evidence that it is intended for use by others, don't you? Your signs merely say "Wi-Fi." They don't mention whether it's free, play-for-pay, open only to customers who obtain an access code from you, or just what. For all anyone knows, the pair of open APs with default SSIDs that were reported to us could belong to an unsuspecting apartment dweller or businessperson around the corner, and yours could be one of the encrypted ones.

As a first suggestion, why not try what we advised Latte Land to do at one of its Plaza locations, and what they are actually doing at the other-change the SSID on your router to something that will CLEARLY identify it as the one to which you intend your customers to connect? If I may be so bold, how about something like "Main Street Laundry?"

And if your Wi-Fi is free and open, why not tell everyone? Those signs in front could (ahem, ahem) use a little work.

On the other hand, if you do restrict access or if your network is play-for-pay, you really need to make that clear through signage and possibly some printed handouts. If people are coming in and inadvertently connecting to those open APs thinking they're yours, you conceivably could eventually be held accountable for aiding and abetting a crime. Can't have that, can we?

Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me if you'd like to discuss this or have us check out the place again-which we'll be happy to do if it's free and open.

DUH!!!

Well, I thought there wouldn't be much call for the ability to print at wireless hotspots, but if the results of my Googling the subject over the last few days are any indication, maybe I'm wrong.

Seems like a growing number of public and especially academic libraries are implementing schemes to allow this, most of them involving third-party vendors providing web-based printer access. Whether this is what the North Kansas City Public Library is offering I don't know, and we won't find out until they update their webpage with the straight dope since I'm not planning on going there any time soon to check. (And I'd guess neither is Macenstein, who's probably already camped out on the sidewalk outside the Apple Store.)

Anyway, I'm curious as to whether my initial hunch is right. Does the prospect of being able to pay to use someone else's printer away from home particularly appeal to any of you? I still think it makes more sense to just save what you want to print until you get home-or back to your hotel room if you're traveling (with printers selling new for as little as $25, why not just pack one and carry it along if you think you'll absolutely need to print?). I'd especially like to hear from those of you currently going to school. Is hotspot printing worth the hassle of having to first pay and then haul home the hardcopy, or are you more likely to wait until you're back in your dorm room or apartment and make use of the ink and paper you've already paid for?

Comments please, ladies and gentlemen, comments!

And hang tough, Mac. Sounds like a real gullywasher of a storm out there.
'

Get there first, or brush up on your Dale Carnegie.

Latte Land
Country Club Plaza, 4771 Jefferson, Kansas City

802.11g
SSID: Latteland

Well, I'm gratified that here, as opposed to their sister location to the east, they've taken to heart my advice to change the default SSID on their router. That and the shaded windows facing Jefferson to the west are the good news. The could-be-better news is that those shades don't do an awful lot when there's direct sunlight coming through them, as there is right now (just before 5 p. m.), at least until you give your eyes a while to adapt. Also, this place is much cozier (read smaller) than the other one, and there is one-count 'em, one!-pair of power outlets, near the floor to the left of the southernmost window. That's why I suggest having read up on how to win friends and influence people before paying a visit, because one of those pair will be in use by whoever beat you here, and you'll have to turn on the charm to get them to agree to share, since that'll mean running your cord in front of them.

Or you could do like the lady to my right obviously did and charge your battery first, but how much fun would that be?

You're kidding-right, Mac?

Not about your not being able to connect to the NKC Library's printer-I believe that-but that other thing. I mean, actually taking a printer along with you? Who'd do that in this day and age? Really, when you think about it, printers are so twentieth-century. So what if you can't commit something before your very eyes to paper right at that very moment? Just save it to your hard drive or bookmark the webpage it's on, then if you still feel the need to help boost the stock price of the inkjet/laser toner manufacturers once you get home, have at it.

Dollars to doughnuts says that's what virtually all Wi-Fi users are doing now. And I'll lay odds that outside of a few curious geeks like you and me, not enough people will miss being able to use that library printer to justify their fixing the connection if it is broken, or maintaining it for very long if it isn't.

Still, your suggestion does have a rather romantic appeal to it. Sort of takes me back a decade or so to the days of my first laptop, and the outrageously expensive mobile printer I bought myself as a birthday present to complement it. I left home with it a grand total of twice in all that time. But, of course, it's not actually making use of a capability like mobile printing that's important. It's knowing that you can, even if today's desktop printers aren't much bigger or heavier than yesteryear's portables, and...gee, you know, I'll bet that this little desktop inkjet I use nowadays, if I folded the tray up, just might fit into that old tote bag of mine.

We stand corrected...

...or more correctly ath64 does, at least in part, with regard to whether a computer can find and automatically install printers on a network. Windows boxes since at least Windows 2000 can be configured to do this provided that both they and the printers are members of a domain or Active Directory, although since printers were put on this earth to sit and eat money-and remember that the more users a printer has, the more money it eats-it's not universally considered a best practice. It isn't done in my workplace, and I wouldn't think it is where ath64 works, either.

That, however, isn't the situation with the purported availability of a Wi-Fi printer at the North Kansas City Public Library. Nonetheless, I'm not having any luck playing around on the Windows side of my MacBook Pro trying to connect to it. The printer, by the way, is an HP Laser Jet 4250n that shouldn't present any problem to either a Mac or Windows user once they're connected and have the driver installed. It's that first step that's the problem. I know I'm connected to the network properly because I can hit websites. But when I go in and have Windows search for any printers on the network...nada.

The nice folks behind the main desk are of the impression that the Wi-Fi printing capability hasn't been set up yet, but someone else they've asked insists it has been and is readlily being used. (He's also rather adamant that, as the announcement on the library's website implies, no configuration is necessary to use the printer, but we've been over that already.) At any rate, I haven't seen anyone but the desktop workstation users printing anything since I've been here. So, either the printer really isn't on the wireless network yet, or you can't use it running Vista Business virtually on a Mac.

And without further information-in particular, either the IP address or hostname of the printer-that's about as far as I'll get this evening. (Memo to the library: Either publish a handout with this info or put it on a small sign attached to the printer. Anyone running anything other than Windows might need it.)

Of course, this has all just been an intellectual exercise to satisfy everyone's curiosity as to this setup. Any laptop users who really needed to print anything before getting home would bring a printer with them. No, I'm serious. Pick up one of the many sub-$40 inkjets readily available at discount stores these days, along with a cheap tote bag to stuff it into, maybe a ream of the least expensive paper you can find, and-if you don't have one already-an AC power inverter to provide 120-volt house current in your car. One that puts out 100 watts should be plenty powerful enough to run both your laptop and the printer, although to plug both in you'll probably also want to add a multi-outlet power strip unless your inverter has more than one outlet. Now bag up the whole nine yards and toss it into your trunk. When the urge to print strikes, find a nice quiet place to park, unpack and connect everything, plug in and boot up, and go to town.

Not that I've actually done anything like the above, of course. But I could.

Well, you knew it had to happen sooner or later...

Associated Press: Chrysler to make cars into wireless hotspots.

They'll use cellular for backhaul-hooray, another hole in your pocket for money to dribble out of-and be equippped with 30-gigabyte hard drives for onboard storage. Hmmm...only 30? Kinda small these days, don't you think?

As if drivers these days needed any more distractions.

Oh, by the way-I stopped in at the North Kansas City Public Library this afternoon, and there's no mention on their acceptable use policy clickthrough page of the new wireless printing feature ath64 noted on their website. In fact, the clickthrough page still says printing isn't available via Wi-Fi. If it's for real and anyone's using it, there has to be someone or something here able to provide the particulars (IP address, how to load the driver, etc.). I'll ask around and see if anyone has more info. If they do, I'll update this post later with it.

Update: See next post.

Oh-and with regard to that other network on the Plaza...

...sorry, ath64, but it looks like your bet of a year ago that Time Warner would either free up or fold its play-for-pay offering down here is going to wind up a loser.

Just out of curiosity, I took up temporary residence on a sidewalk bench not far from the coffeehouse I'd just left and suffered through trying to read my screen well enough in broad daylight-and people, you haven't suffered unless you've tried that with a Mac-to see whether Time Warner had come to its senses and joined the free world, as they did right from the jump out at the Legends over in KCK. No such luck; they still expect someone to be so hard up for the Internet that they'll jump through the hoops of registering and paying for it, instead of popping into some place offering it for free, as I just did. Not only that, but the signal from their access points penetrates indoors so poorly that the only customers it can hope to attract are those few who can manage to find sufficiently shaded areas outdoors where they can sit and surf, or those even fewer who'd dare to pull out a laptop outdoors on the Plaza after dark.

How's about double or nothing that Time Warner throws in the towel between now and Christmas?

Well, I guess you COULD wear kneepads...

Latte Land
Country Club Plaza, 318 West 47th Street, Kansas City

802.11g
SSID: linksys

If you're battery-challenged, hope that one of the eight booths along the east wall is available. However, you'd better be lithe and limber enough to bend or squat down far enough to plug your charger into one of the outlets under each seat-or be lucky enough to be enjoying the company of someone who is. Not wanting to embarrass myself by kneeling-sorry, but my lithe and limber bending and squatting days are somewhat behind me, I'm afraid-I made do by feeling my way as best I could-something I really don't recommend. I'm probably lucky I didn't shock myself-or worse.

It'd be better if the seat cushions didn't overhang so much in front. Maybe the management here should bear that in mind for the next remodeling. Also, I don't like to grumble about such things-especially in an establishment nice enough to not only offer free Wi-Fi, but power to boot-but it'd be better if all hotspot operators endeavored to change the SSID on their routers to anything other than the default. Customers shouldn't have to wonder whether that default network name is yours or belongs to some clueless party nearby. It's also a chance to get some free advertising. Can't afford to pass that up these days, can you?

Well, on the positive side, the place is dark enough inside in the afternoon to be LCD-friendly, and the signal is nice and steady.

And it's worth noting that Latte Land has a second location on the Plaza, at 4771 Jefferson. I didn't have time to stop there as well so I can't speak as to whether it's unwired. Anyone who can is welcome to do so.

Is it magic, or just dumb?

Breaking news from the North Kansas City Public Library: You can now send print jobs from your laptop to one of their printers via Wi-Fi.

Or can you?

Unless this is being achieved by supernatural means, or unless there's something important they've left out of their announcement blurb, I'd have to say that you can't-at least not yet. You see, there's no mention of your having to install the printer's driver on your machine-always the first step in setting up a printer. No matter how wishfully they may think it, there's no way printing will work "automatically" before the printer has been added to the client computer and the client's operating system told where and what kind of printer it is. And I'd hazard a guess that not many of NKC's patrons have ever had to wrestle with setting up a network printer themselves. Take it from someone who often has-it ain't exactly plug-and-play simple, folks.

And does NKC think every laptop in the world uses the same version of the same operating system? How about the kid with the hand-me-down Windows 98 rig? Or the Linux geek? Or our colleague Macenstein, for that matter? Macs do not like using peripherals such as printers over a network. They can do it, but they just don't like it-and they show their disdain by not making it easy to do. And, of course, they need Mac drivers in any case. Connecting a heterogeneous mix of computers to the same network via established protocols is one thing. Providing that motley crew of clients with the plethora of drivers they will need to use a single peripheral-assuming there even is driver support for them all-is quite something else.

Methinks the library hath bought itself more headaches than anything else with this.

Besides, even if you believe this is something worth paying for-you didn't think they were giving away that ink and paper, did you?-and feel you can manage to get it working, I'd recommend you not do it-at least not for anything you wouldn't want someone else to see. Remember how that print job is getting from your laptop to the printer? Right-it's going over an open, unsecured wireless link in the clear. So, even though you can safely do your online banking at the library provided your bank's website is fully SSL protected (and if it isn't, please put your money in another bank whose site is!), you can't safely print out receipts and statements there without risking interception.

That said, I am curious about this setup. If any of you get a chance to play around with it, come by and let us know what you find.

This. Isn't. Good.

Finally got around earlier today to checking out the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art at 45th and Warwick Boulevard, which has long been listed as a local free hotspot, something I found intriguing, to say the least. An art gallery wouldn't necessarily come to mind-well, at least not to my mind-as a place you'd expect to find free Wi-Fi. Which is why not finding it there when I booted up (Memo to self: Plug that stinking finder in and charge it the night before next time so you don't have to boot up to do the initial signal search, dummy!) wasn't altogether surprising. After all, we've been led astray by the local listings before.

However, the nice young lady in the information booth assured me the place really was lit up-or at least was supposed to be. She was even able to tell me what the SSID should have been. So, on the outside chance that someone playing with the access point had inadvertently turned off broadcasting the network name, I fired up again and played around with every permutation of the identifier I could think of. Still no joy, and no signal. (And no hidden SSID, either, as verified by my finder once it was charged enough to make a check.)

Well, the only place I saw that would have been suitable for sit-down surfing, had things been working, was a small bench outside the entrance to Cafe Sebastienne across from the main entrance. I can only guess, but I got the impression that the bench is really there for cafe patrons arriving early for their reservations, so its availability for other purposes may be limited at times. Power outlets? Get outta here. There might have been some in the cafe, but I didn't look. And the aforementioned nice young lady advised that there may be more seating in the galleries, but she didn't know either if there are outlets nearby or if plugging into them is even allowed-and I didn't venture into any of the galleries to check.

You know, it's bad enough when a place like a laundromat advertises free wireless and can't deliver the goods. When people expected to know what they're doing fall down on the job, it's unconscionable. My suspicion is that this network is an important resource for students at the adjacent Kansas City Art Institute, and probably gets some traffic from Rockhurst, UMKC and the community colleges as well, so here's hoping it gets the TLC it needs-fast.

As it turns out, there's a very good reason...

...that Macenstein didn't find that Latte Land down in the Power and Light District last week. Namely that, as yours truly observed when I drove past the site this afternoon, the building it's going into isn't finished yet.

Don't feel badly for Mac, though. After all, the 3G iPhone should be out any day now.

Either reason and rationality have prevailed...

...or the blocking of Port 119 on the KCMO Public Library's network was just a temporary glitch.

I'm at the main library downtown and all my Usenet groups are coming in just fine.

My guess is that since we never heard back from our original informant, the library hasn't responded as to why this happened. There hasn't been any mention of it on the website.

Just one of those things, I guess.

By the way, I cruised through the Power & Light District on the way down, and wasn't there supposed to be a Latte Land location opening there somewhere? Didn't see any evidence of one. I've heard their other locations are lit up. Anyone know for sure?

Be thankful as you rush to finish your tax return tonight...

...that we won the Cold War.

Otherwise, what's now happening over in supposedly post-Soviet Russia, as reported to Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News, could well be happening over here.

Looks like some of the party apparatchiks that were rendered superfluous by communism's collapse still haven't managed to find meaningful work.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. Putin. Line them all up, hand them shovels, and then re-enact the ditch-digging scene from "Cool Hand Luke."

'Tain't no Usenet bein' used roun' here.

Stopped in at a Kansas City Public Library branch to vote this afternoon and stuck around a bit afterward to check out a report that KCPL has taken to blocking port 119 (Usenet) on its wireless. Sad to say it appears to be true.

The informant has a question in to the library's administration via the comment feature on its website. We'll fill you in on their explanation when and if they respond. So let's hold off on any further discussion for the time being.

No April Fool's joke, this.

Benetti's Coffee Experience
6109 Blue Ridge Boulevard, Raytown

802.11g
SSID: Benettis_WiFi

If your battery's low, your only options are two or three tables towards the back next to power outlets. That's just as well if you come late in the day, given the big unshaded windows at the front of the west-facing building. The ones facing east and north in the rear are unshaded as well, which probably wouldn't help during an early morning visit.

And since those rear windows and the outdoor deck beyond them are within sight of the stadium lights at Raytown High School, you've got to expect this place to attract a predominately young clientele. My tests, however, didn't clearly detect the presence of filtering, which means either that it isn't there or if it is, you shouldn't need to worry about overblocks.

One slight quibble, however, is signal strength. I'm seeing about 60 per cent right now, and it's causing a bit of a drag on performance. (Memo to the management: Try moving to another channel; it looks like you're taking a hit from a nearby closed AP that's also broadcasting on 6.)

Oh, by the way-I'd love to tell you the SSID of the closed 802.11N network owned by a nearby business that my finder detected out in the parking lot, but if I did, you'd think I was making an April Fool's joke. You'll have to come and see for yourself.

Oh, I feel so wicked and unclean...

Had to stop at a Mid-Continent Public Library branch to get directions somewhere, and-hide the screen from your kids, everyone-I succumbed to the siren call of Ma Bell, who-in case you haven't heard-now lets practically everyone that buys their DSL from her onto her Wi-Fi hotspots for no extra charge.

Why the guilt, you ask? Simple-even though it isn't costing me anything extra, this really isn't what a public library is supposed to be all about. There are taxpayers supporting MCPL who, perhaps, buy their broadband from their cable TV provider-or may still be limping along on dialup for that matter. Doesn't their money spend just as well as mine? Why should they have to fork over $8 to use an amenity offered in a publicly owned and operated facility when I don't have to, just because I happen to patronize the private company whose advertising sticker now adorns the front door of said facility?

Just one more reason MCPL really ought to end this dance with the devil and either unwire on its own or not.

Oh, that's right-we're supposed to review hotspots here, aren't we?

Mildred's Coffeehouse
1821 Wyandotte (northeast corner of 19th and Wyandotte), Kansas City

802.11g
SSID: mildreds

Good news: Free, open and fast connection.

Not so good news: No power outlets, big unshaded windows (but there's lounge seating in a somewhat shaded area that may be better).

Incredulous news: The place closes at 4 p. m. Drink fast and surf faster if you're stopping by after work.

The dumbest thing you'll read today

Having mentioned Denver International Airport a couple of times in the past year, I thought it worth mentioning, as did both the Denver Post and Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News, that their free Wi-Fi is free only in terms of price.

Memo to the mullahs running DIA: Notwithstanding what you may think for whatever reason, the vast majority of people using airport Wi-Fi are not casual surfers. They are business travelers, who can be expected to have little patience with such foolishness. Make your airport a less attractive layover point like this, and fewer travelers will continue to route themselves through it. Sort of defeats the purpose of offering free Wi-Fi, doesn't it?

And since you obviously slept in on the days they went over them back in junior high, it might be advisable for you to review the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution-before, not after, a judge does it for you. It's likely you'll find that to be a very expensive lesson.

Finally, heaven forfend that we should see such nonsense here. More bad publicity is all KC needs right now.

Crown Center update

The magic hour of 6 p. m. came and went, and although I think there may have been a bit of a hiccup with a momentary loss of connectivity, things have been humming along nicely since then. So while I can't definitively declare the problem fixed once and for all, it's not a problem right now.

And I guess that ought to count for something.

So, why haven't we weighed in on the changes at Starbucks yet?

Because frankly, it looks like not a whole lot has changed from where I sit.

(By the way, at this very moment I'm sitting in the Crown Center atrium, eagerly awaiting the stroke of six to see if the Friday Night Follies of late will recur. I'll update you later.)

Getting back to Starbucks, if you ask me all they've done is exchange one play-for-pay provider for another. Despite everyone trumpeting their new "free" access, a cursory look at what they're offering clearly shows it to be nothing of the sort. You have to buy something, people. Not only that, but you have to jump through so many hoops I wouldn't be surprised to soon see Starbucks' baristas employing whips and chairs to keep things running smoothly.

Will Starbucks ever come to its senses and truly join the free world? Well, they just announced six hundred layoffs today, so hope springs eternal.

In the interest of fairness...

...and to show my gratitude that someone from JiWire actually took the time to respond to my post yesterday, I spent a bit more time there this afternoon, playing around with their new hotspot finder.

I should point out that my initial impressions were based on my having hit the site yesterday from work, where sits a stone tablet brought down from some mountain somewhere inscribed: "Windows shalt be thy operating system and Internet Explorer thy browser, and neither shalt thou have nor hold any above them." Or something like that. Well, what the heck-it's their computer. Anyway, I was so used to being able to pull up that list of every country and state and its number of free hotspots, then click the state and see the cities listed with their numbers, that when I saw I apparently couldn't do that anymore...well, let's just say things went downhill emotionally for me from there. And between running into the browser compatibility issues the responder acknowledged as well as the connectivity issues I described below using my own laptop-upon which IE is strictly persona non grata-at Crown Center after work, I really didn't get much time to take a closer look at the site.

After having done so today, however, I can tell you that once you do manage to pull up a list of free hotspots within a state or city, it does appear that it is indeed just that-exclusively free hotspots with no paid ones mixed in. I believe it was in trying to pull up the number for the whole country (which also used to be broken out in a list) where I saw paid locations. By the way, when I tried this for the USA it pegged at "9999" even though I know there were 18,858 as of January 27.

But that's neither here nor there. As the responder pointed out, the new finder is a work in progress, and once it works properly with Firefox I'll still consider it an asset, even though the previous design was easier to use the way I did.

If I could make a suggestion, it'd be great if you could replicate the functionality of the old "Free Hotspots" button somehow. I thought that choosing the "Free" radio button on the advanced search page would do that, but it doesn't exactly. And if the map that likes to pop up over the page for some reason could be made to go away and stay away, that would be a godsend.

Once more, thanks for the quick response, and I hope I've set the record straight.

Shooting Craps at Crown Center, or the 6 O'Clock Surprise

I'm currently in the Crown Center atrium, and I'm having another of those deja-vu-all-over-again moments. As longtime fans here recall, this was one of the first locations I profiled on this blog, and it's been one of my favorites ever since Wi-Fi made it to KC.

However...

Those of you who recall that long-ago post, or who take the trouble to pull it up, will remember or note that I mentioned this hotspot's irritating habit of losing connectivity, which by the time of the advent of this blog had become a thing of the past-or so I had hoped. I've stopped in on Fridays a few times lately, and ye olde problem has resurrected itself, the connection to the outside world dropping right about 6 p. m. each time, which leads me to believe it has something to do with an inadvertent timer setting or something like that.

There is a way around it, for those of you knowledgeable about how to set up TCP/IP on a client manually-but I'd better stop there, since such knowledge can in some cases serve mischief as well as good. Because the hotspot here is open and publicly available-and advertised as such-I don't have any ethical qualms about doing this. Nonetheless, I'd prefer Crown Center to get its DHCP working again like it should.

I've mentioned the problem to the nice gentleman in the information booth, who advises that what I'm seeing is not the result of a policy change; the network is supposed to stay up 24/7, according to him. He dutifully left a phone message with the IT department, but also advises that there's no answer from either a human or a machine at the number on the little cardboard triangle thingies on the tables. Well, I'll stick around a bit to see what happens and let you know if anything does.

Update: Nothing did. I may try contacting Crown Center's management directly. I'll keep you posted as to the results.

Hey, JiWire, what's the deal?

I really hate to have to rant about another site, but after visiting JiWire today to check for any new free hotspots around town, I feel I've got to vent somewhere. What on earth-if anything-are they thinking? Their hotspot finder used to be one of the most useful on the web for keeping track of new hotspots in a given area-especially free ones. There was a button you could click that would only show you those. You could keep track of the total number listed on the site as well as the total number of free hotspots in any given country or state, and by so doing know when it was time to dig deeper and look for any new ones added. That's where the leads to many of the sites we've reviewed here over the past couple of years came from.

But now...it's all Flash and Java Script, maps and extraneous information. With patience, you can still get it to tell you there are currently 205 free hotspots in Kansas, for example, but dare to try and browse through them and you'll have to hack through a jungle of play-for-pay sites to sift them out.

Nice going, folks. I can understand that you're probably making more from fee than you are from free, but if I owned a site that was the latter, give me one good reason why I'd list it on JiWire now.

I'm waiting.

P. S.: Have you tried using your new finder with Firefox? You should.

A solution in search of a problem?

Up until now, we have scrupulously avoided delving into politics here, even when such a discussion could arguably be relevant to what this blog is all about. I'm afraid, however, that certain doings out in Utah, which we've become aware of thanks once more to Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News, demand at least some response.

It seems a certain group of activists are convinced that Utah parents are totally incompetent when it comes to protecting their offspring from the ravages of pornography-or, more correctly, what they see as too-easy access to it by children. And, of course, since this is an election year, they have had no trouble getting a state legislator to clamber onto the bandwagon with a bill that, in its initial form, would have essentially shut down all free open hotspots in the state. The Salt Lake Tribune-which in case you didn't know is the daily paper in Salt Lake City that's not owned by the Mormon church-has more details.

Before we go any further, let's make one thing clear. Nothing that follows should in any respect be considered a defense of pornography by any means. Pornography is for the most part everything its detractors say it is. It is demeaning to its subjects, it is dehumanizing both to them and to those who consume it, it trivializes what should be the most valued aspect of our most cherished relationships with one another, and humanity would be better off without it.

Nor can it be argued that young people have any business looking at it. Where I break ranks with the Utah campaigners is over the extreme response they propose. And this is where I'm reluctantly going to have to go political. Does anyone else besides me remember when it was the conservatives who advocated withdrawing the heavy hand of government out from between children and their parents? Didn't Ronald Reagan famously declare that government, instead of being the solution to many of our problems, in fact often was itself the problem? Where, in the debate over issues of what is and isn't appropriate for chlidren, did things get turned around?

There was a time when those decisions were left up to two people; their names were "Mom" and "Dad." And what I believe the Utah group, and like-minded people elsewhere, don't want to admit is that they still can be. Parents are fully capable of setting up controls on laptops or other wireless Internet-capable devices they provide for their children-or having it done for them if they're not technologically savvy enough to do it themselves (another "problem" I really don't think is one any more, at least not to the extent that everyone makes it out to be).

So, if you really think that setting Dick and Jane adrift on The Great Cyber Sea and letting them surf unfettered will turn them into Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos, respectively, the solution is simple, albeit one that won't make great election campaign fodder: Empower their parents to deal with the problem, then get out of their way and let them do it.

Be Air or be square

Interesting, to say the least, all the buzz about the new MacBook Air just unveiled at Macworld. And this fanperson thinks it'll be at least as interesting to see just how many of them start showing up at hotspots around town, and how soon.

I've got to say that the fast fingers of yours truly won't be flying over one of those keyboards. After popping for an almost fully tricked-out MacBook Pro last summer, I don't plan to be in the market for another computer for quite a while. In fact, I haven't even gotten around to upgrading to Leopard.

Besides, I really don't see just how the Air would fit into my lifestyle at the moment. For those of you wondering, it gets its name from the fact that it has Wi-Fi connectivity exclusively-no Ethernet port, no modem, nothing besides Wi-Fi. I mean, I like hotspots (why else would I be writing here?), but I'm not exactly keen on the idea of being totally dependent upon being within range of an access point. Sort of negates the advantage of all that vaunted thinness and light weight, doesn't it?

Speaking of which, guess how they got it so thin and light? By not including an optical drive of any sort, that's how! They expect you to use a shared drive on another computer via a convenient nearby wireless network when you need to access something on a CD or DVD. Hovever, if this is simply out of the question, don't fret-Apple willl be happy to throw in an external drive for a crisp C-note. Oh, and did I mention that the battery, a la the iPod, is built in? So much for the Air being of any use to real road warriors. And with only an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a single USB port, it's hard to see it being of much practical use to anyone else-especially for $1800.

But, of course, we all know that no one buys Macs because they're practical, right?