...but so be it.
As you've no doubt noticed, it's been quite a while since either Mac or I have reviewed a new location. Well, I guess that's to be expected, given that Wi-Fi has matured now and the big-boom days of circa 2002-05, when everyone rushed to unwire every place anyone might conceivably sit with a booted laptop for more than a minute or two are long past. New sites just don't pop up as often as they did when I started all this.
But that doesn't, in my view, mean that new and growing businesses that might benefit from offering wireless Internet to their customers should hesitate from taking the plunge. And given also that Wi-Fi's newness has worn off, meaning that new locations don't get the media attention they once did, there's always a chance that some establishment here or there has unwired and we just didn't hear about it.
So, on the outside chance of coming across such a location and to satisfy my personal curiosity, I decided to cruise through the jazz district-also referred to as the 18th and Vine historic district in some circles-this afternoon, looking for likely candidates for hotspots, which I'd then survey on foot, trusty finder in hand.
I really shouldn't have bothered. There was what appeared to be one open access point provided for customer use by a restaurant at the vaunted intersection above, but walking past and peering into the windows didn't really tell me anything. And now here's where I'm likely going to start trouble.
Dear Mr./Mrs./Mr. & Mrs./Ms. Restarurateur(s): Did it ever occur to you that someone walking past your establishment during the hours it's closed just might be a bit curious as to your cuisine? Ever take a walk past your competitors' establishments on the Plaza, in Westport, or down at Power and Light? If so, did you by any chance notice that practically all of them post their menus on their windows just so that someone walking by like me can satisfy his or her curiosity, and maybe-just maybe-make a mental note to return a bit later with a healthy appetite and with credit card in hand?
And if that Wi-Fi router is indeed intentionally left open for your patrons, it might be a courtesy to say so. (And if it's not, drop what you're doing, go dig the router's instructions out and learn how to change and stop broadcasting that SSID and set up WPA, then go and do it-RIGHT NOW!!!)
Now for the trouble part. No, I will not give anyone a pass out of consideration of where this is located. Good business practices on one side of town are good business practices everywhere else. Inexperience? An explanation, but not an excuse. Besides, feedback like this is how experience is gained.
And a bit more experience and expertise is what this development sorely needs, and soon. The rather imaginative facades of long-gone businesses just don't have the decorative impact they were intended to when they have to compete with the high vacancy rate in the renovated structures. And I know that given the emphasis on jazz and nightlife, one would expect bars to predominate. However, here's a memo to the developers: You have enough liquor licenses down there already. How about some family and youth oriented establishments such as a non-alchohol serving restaurant or two, a bookstore or perhaps a coffeehouse or ice cream parlor? You know, the kind of place that would attract someone other than nightcrawlers, and encourage them to stay awhile? Free Wi-Fi could help with that, too.
Or you could keep rolling the sidewalks up at 3 a. m. instead of leaving them for the day shift.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
I feel your pain
On a day set aside to honor the memory of one who sought to remove barriers by calling upon all of his countrymen to truly live up to their ideals, and on the day before another who walked the path he helped make takes the oath of office as president...well, leave it up to me to come here and write about a subject apparently having nothing whatever to do with any of the above.
Anyway, I've just had to replace my router for the first time since unwiring my humble abode more than six years ago, and the experience has given me some insight into what some of the hotspot operators we've taken to task here over the years may have encountered. The radio conking out on my venerable old 802.11b access point led me to go out and pick up a name-brand "draft-N" model (just as an aside, the 802.11n standard-already five years late-is supposedly to be finalized by the end of this year, leading one to ask where we've heard that before) on sale for $40, or about one-third what I paid for its predecessor back in '02. Given more than half a decade, you'd think there'd have been some progress by the manufacturers to make configuration of one of these things easier for an end user, wouldn't you?
Well, think again.
After maybe a half-dozen attempts to simply change the router's default IP address (which I had to do because it was the same as my DSL modem, which, suffice it to say, wasn't going to work), change the SSID and enable WPA, I gave up and went to bed. The next morning, after fortifying myself with a good breakfast, I trudged once more unto the breach, and decided just for the sake of it to try what the quick-setup sheet suggested as a prerequisite for using the built-in setup "wizards"-power everything off, hook it all up and then power back on in sequence. Wonder of wonders, it worked. It's been up for a couple of days now without a hiccup, so I guess I can uncross my fingers. It just would have been nice for the manufacturer to specify that powering off and connecting everything was necessary for manual setup as well, that's all.
Which brings me to those other hotspots. I can only imagine what some businessperson-especially these days-must think when he or she runs into problems like these. It's got to make them wonder if offering Wi-Fi is still worth it. And bear in mind that what I've related above involves consumer-grade equipment. I shudder to think what anyone running a big location with an enterprise-class router might be faced with. No doubt some of the no-longer-hot spots we've run into were the result of experiences like this.
Get a clue, manufacturers. The easier you make your gear to set up and use, the more people will be inclined to set up and use it. And it might serve to remember that in order to do that, they'll have to buy it first. Money and resources invested in making your documentation clear and concise-and meaningful to people who make their living in fields other than IT-should be seen as an investment in both your future and ours.
In keeping with the theme of today and tomorrow, it's all about removing barriers and encouraging others to walk the path.
Anyway, I've just had to replace my router for the first time since unwiring my humble abode more than six years ago, and the experience has given me some insight into what some of the hotspot operators we've taken to task here over the years may have encountered. The radio conking out on my venerable old 802.11b access point led me to go out and pick up a name-brand "draft-N" model (just as an aside, the 802.11n standard-already five years late-is supposedly to be finalized by the end of this year, leading one to ask where we've heard that before) on sale for $40, or about one-third what I paid for its predecessor back in '02. Given more than half a decade, you'd think there'd have been some progress by the manufacturers to make configuration of one of these things easier for an end user, wouldn't you?
Well, think again.
After maybe a half-dozen attempts to simply change the router's default IP address (which I had to do because it was the same as my DSL modem, which, suffice it to say, wasn't going to work), change the SSID and enable WPA, I gave up and went to bed. The next morning, after fortifying myself with a good breakfast, I trudged once more unto the breach, and decided just for the sake of it to try what the quick-setup sheet suggested as a prerequisite for using the built-in setup "wizards"-power everything off, hook it all up and then power back on in sequence. Wonder of wonders, it worked. It's been up for a couple of days now without a hiccup, so I guess I can uncross my fingers. It just would have been nice for the manufacturer to specify that powering off and connecting everything was necessary for manual setup as well, that's all.
Which brings me to those other hotspots. I can only imagine what some businessperson-especially these days-must think when he or she runs into problems like these. It's got to make them wonder if offering Wi-Fi is still worth it. And bear in mind that what I've related above involves consumer-grade equipment. I shudder to think what anyone running a big location with an enterprise-class router might be faced with. No doubt some of the no-longer-hot spots we've run into were the result of experiences like this.
Get a clue, manufacturers. The easier you make your gear to set up and use, the more people will be inclined to set up and use it. And it might serve to remember that in order to do that, they'll have to buy it first. Money and resources invested in making your documentation clear and concise-and meaningful to people who make their living in fields other than IT-should be seen as an investment in both your future and ours.
In keeping with the theme of today and tomorrow, it's all about removing barriers and encouraging others to walk the path.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Friday Night Fumblings
Got my new copy of the Yellow Pages the other day, so naturally I spent a bit of time flipping through it to get leads on potential new locations (okay, I'll save you the trouble and say it myself-I need to get a life). Anyway, it just so happened that I came across the name of the company that ran the defunct downtown coffeehouse I've mentioned a couple of times here and guess what? The reason that location is defunct is that it moved a couple of blocks north on Grand. So, I cruised by this afternoon to find them up and running just like their Johnson County sister shop. And also, just as in JoCo, their signs out front don't specify whether their Wi-Fi is free and open, code-restricted or play-for-pay either. A website updated with the correct address and a little more upfront information would be appreciated, folks.
So much for the bad news. Now for the worse news. Looks like we can forget about free Wi-Fi in P&L proper, at least for the foreseeable future. There's a Starbucks going in diagonally across Main from the still-empty building where Latte Land was scheduled to open. The way things are these days I can't imagine they'd risk going ahead, free Internet or not.
And since my later travels took me out west today, I thought I'd satisfy my curiosity and see if Bonner Springs was among the outlying communities with a public library unwired courtesy of Sunflower Broadband, or that perhaps had taken the initiative to do so on its own. Well, no. That may be due, however, to the fact that the library is currently in a rather cramped temporary location, on the lower level of the town's community center. Someone there mentioned that the city's new library should open around April or May and that it will be lit up, although whether through its own efforts or Sunflower's isn't clear. If and when we find out more, you'll find out along with us.
So much for the bad news. Now for the worse news. Looks like we can forget about free Wi-Fi in P&L proper, at least for the foreseeable future. There's a Starbucks going in diagonally across Main from the still-empty building where Latte Land was scheduled to open. The way things are these days I can't imagine they'd risk going ahead, free Internet or not.
And since my later travels took me out west today, I thought I'd satisfy my curiosity and see if Bonner Springs was among the outlying communities with a public library unwired courtesy of Sunflower Broadband, or that perhaps had taken the initiative to do so on its own. Well, no. That may be due, however, to the fact that the library is currently in a rather cramped temporary location, on the lower level of the town's community center. Someone there mentioned that the city's new library should open around April or May and that it will be lit up, although whether through its own efforts or Sunflower's isn't clear. If and when we find out more, you'll find out along with us.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Australia: The Great Leap Backward?
A disturbing story from the Associated Press regarding governmental efforts Down Under to implement what would appear to be the most extensive Internet content controls outside of the world's few remaining Communist countries.
Just how such a proposal ever gained so much traction in a First World democracy is beyond me, particularly now that we are well into the second decade of the Internet Age. Have its proponents stopped to consider that right now just might not be the best time to make their country less attractive to business and investment by doing this? Laptop-toting executives won't think much of a country whose hotspots aren't more useful than those in China.
And don't give me that garbage about this being "for the children." One would think Australia would be the last place on earth where the government would propose-and the public would tolerate-such an attempt to usurp the responsibility of parents like this by substituting its judgment for theirs.
What a sad thing to contemplate on New Year's Day, a holiday that is supposed to be all about looking forward-and a holiday that Sydney is always the first big city to celebrate.
Just how such a proposal ever gained so much traction in a First World democracy is beyond me, particularly now that we are well into the second decade of the Internet Age. Have its proponents stopped to consider that right now just might not be the best time to make their country less attractive to business and investment by doing this? Laptop-toting executives won't think much of a country whose hotspots aren't more useful than those in China.
And don't give me that garbage about this being "for the children." One would think Australia would be the last place on earth where the government would propose-and the public would tolerate-such an attempt to usurp the responsibility of parents like this by substituting its judgment for theirs.
What a sad thing to contemplate on New Year's Day, a holiday that is supposed to be all about looking forward-and a holiday that Sydney is always the first big city to celebrate.
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