Happy trails, Glenn.

Sad news from someone who served as a major inspiration for the creation of this blog and had been a big help to it ever since:  Glenn Fleishman is shutting down Wi-Fi Networking News.

It was likely only a matter of time.  Wi-Fi has matured to the point where writing about it in the manner Fleishman has for the past decade-discussing the technological and often social and financial implications of new developments in depth-doesn't provide enough material to produce regular posts anymore.  Too bad, because no one did it better.

Anyway, the existing posts will stay up "forever," to quote their author.  And if you missed the birth and formative years of the 802.11 era and want to get a feel for what they were like,  I can't think of a better resource.  Might even be enough left there to spawn a thesis or two, if not a dissertation.

So long, Glenn.  Good luck with your other projects.  And-oh,yes-thanks. 

It's simple, Simon. (Really, it is.)

Dear Simon Malls:

Stopped in last night out at Independence Center for the first time in never mind how long.  I'm really not much of a mall person, but the convergence of Missouri's tax-free weekend and some new tenants you've recently acquired proved irresistible.  Anyway, after having helped one of those tenants meet its obligations to you-and after my finder having detected an open 802.11g network with an inviting SSID-I sauntered down to the food court, hoping to maybe catch up on the headlines, go through a few e-mails and knock off a blog post or two while maybe chomping down on a slice of pizza or finding out if Orange Julius was still as good as I remembered from my childhood.

Well, I didn't.  Guess why.

One would think I really wouldn't have to remind a company still so heavily involved in brick-and-mortar retailing that the customer experience is everything.  Once you get me in the door, it's incumbent upon you to make me want to come back.  Did you or anyone whose paycheck you're signing truly believe I'd ever be inclined to do so after having to battle interminably with your boneheaded clickthrough page and the programming error that kept it from delivering me to where I needed to go?

What's that?  You weren't aware of any issues with that?  Gee, that must mean you never bother with actually shopping in your properties to see for yourself what it's like for your customers.  Kind of reminiscent of the top executives of a Detroit automaker I don't need to name, who infamously intended to fly to Washington in their corporate jets to make their pitch to Congress for being bailed out by taxpayers-until someone pointed out that if they'd rather fly than drive there in their own products...well, you get the idea. 

Here's a hint:  Take a laptop down to Crown Center, find a comfy seat in the atrium, then boot up and hook into their Wi-Fi.  Try using it for a while.  Afterward, go back out to Independence Center and attempt the same thing.  Now you tell me:  Which would you rather do on a regular basis?

Well, they don't call it fast food for nothing.

Burger King
14001 East 42nd Street (42nd and Noland Road), Independence

802.11g
SSID:  BK Hot Spot

Finally got around to verifying the long-ago lead from a reader that this one was lit up.  Bring a charged battery (the only apparent pair of power outlets is under a seat by the north wall and is too inconvenient to use) and get here in time to finish eating and surfing by 10 p. m., when the dining room closes-which is why I'm wrapping this review now.

Just for the record...

...I made it out to both the remaining Borders locations in the last couple of days, and both apparently are still lit up. There's an open 802.11g network at each broadcasting a SSID of BORDERS. Whether the routers are still connected to anything, I can't say since I didn't bother bringing in my Mac-and since the cafes at both locations have been shut down, there's no place to sit with a laptop anyway.

Maybe one of you with a handheld device can drop by and fill us in, but you'd better do it fast. Those shelves are starting to look rather bare.

Borders buys the farm

There'll be two fewer free and open hotspots in the metro soon-in fact, they may already be gone.  The remaining Borders bookstore locations around town-the one Macenstein reviewed last November in Lee's Summit and the Olathe location-along with a Borders Express location over on Quivira Road in Johnson County that wasn't lit up are currently conducting their going-out-of-business sales.  And according to Borders' website, the unwired 91st and Metcalf store closed in May (or was scheduled to).  Whether the routers in the remaining stores have been turned off, I won't know until one of us (or one of you) drops by and finds out.  Given that Borders was outsourcing its Wi-Fi to Verizon, it's likely they have gone cold for good.

Too bad.  Maybe they should have abandoned play-for-pay and joined the free world sooner than they did, as I intimated in this post commemorating the fifth anniversary of "One Unwired Day" nearly three years back.  It might have helped.

Arch-cybercriminality-or what passes for it-in Washington state

Had to laugh when I ran across this little tidbit from Freeland, Washington. You've got to wonder why anyone would go to all that trouble to "steal" what would amount to only several cents' worth of electricity. The gasoline this miscreant burned getting to the library's parking lot would have cost her much more. She's obviously never contemplated why counterfeiters don't make dollar bills.

And kudos to the library manager for getting right on the case. A suggestion, if I might: If the few dollars a month you stand the potential of losing via this outdoor outlet are worth it to you, call an electrician and have an internally-mounted switch installed on the circuit so you can turn it off before you leave each night. That might not be a bad policy to follow with respect to your wi-fi router(s) as well if users congregating on your property after hours is a concern.

Yes, technically this is stealing...but it's still hilarious when you think about it.

Why the rush-or lack thereof?

This just in, courtesy of Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News:  Taco Bell unwires-slowly but surely.

Seriously, if the tone of the press release Fleishman quotes is any indication, even Taco Bell's management doesn't seem too enthusiastic about the prospects for this combination Wi-Fi/television package, which won't even be in all 5,600 of their locations until 2015.  That's right-four years to roll out less than 6,000 hotspots.  By then not only will direct competitor McDonald's have roughly a decade-long head start as a Wi-Fi venue, as Fleishman points out, but both they and indirect competitor Starbucks will have been free and open for half  that time. 

And maybe it's just because I'm not the fan of Mexican food that others are, but Taco Bell has always struck me as being more of a grab-and-go place than a sit-and-surf one.  I'm sure that changing that perception is one of their motiviations for this, but once again, four years is a long time period over which to try and effect that change.  It's also still somewhat of an open question whether a scheme that sounds suspiciously like an attempt to replicate the shop-at-home craze that accompanied the rise of cable TV in the 1980s is the best way to do it.

Look for reviews once the rollout reaches the metro...if it ever does.