Stopped in at the Waldo Community branch of the KCMO Public Library this afternoon for the first time in quite a while, and what to my wondering eyes should appear just ahead as I passed the checkout desk but a nice long table with seating for perhaps five or six on either side and-you guessed it-two eight-outlet power strips running down the middle? Bravo, KCPL, bravo! I'm here with a couple of other laptoppers right now, so word has apparently gotten around.
Now if they'd just fix that little issue with port 7000...but perhaps I ask too much.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Drip...drip...drip...
Call it Starbucks Cappucino Torture, I guess.
The latest on their "buy something else and we'll throw a little in" Wi-Fi offer, courtesy of Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News: Spend at least $5 and register your card, then you can get two hours' free access per day in perpetuity.
Why, Starbucks, why? Why this agonizingly slow, kicking-and-screaming drag towards the free world? What's the point of stretching it out like this? What do you hope to gain?
I'd like you to give me one reason-just one-why anyone would drive past a McDonalds and its free and open access to come into one of your locations and jump through all your hoops for just two hours a day.
Because frankly, I can't think of one.
The latest on their "buy something else and we'll throw a little in" Wi-Fi offer, courtesy of Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News: Spend at least $5 and register your card, then you can get two hours' free access per day in perpetuity.
Why, Starbucks, why? Why this agonizingly slow, kicking-and-screaming drag towards the free world? What's the point of stretching it out like this? What do you hope to gain?
I'd like you to give me one reason-just one-why anyone would drive past a McDonalds and its free and open access to come into one of your locations and jump through all your hoops for just two hours a day.
Because frankly, I can't think of one.
Friday, February 26, 2010
"I am the ghost of Christmas past..."
McDonald's
3255 Main, Kansas City
802.11g
SSID: attwifi
As Santa and ath64 promised before the holidays, all you have to do at an unwired McDonald's anymore is click through two pages-the second with a checkbox indicating you agree to Ma Bell's acceptable use policy (and if you think Verizon's AUP is long-winded, ath64, you ought to get a load of this one) and you're off and running. Like just about all the free-and-open Mickey D locations that preceded the Great Emancipation, this one doesn't have any power outlets available, making it a battery-only proposition. Well, they don't call it fast food for nothing.
And after having taken a gander at McDonald's restaurant finder, it seems to me that we might have to rethink how much of an effect their joining the free world will have on narrowing the local digital divide. Even with their new locations, there's still a great dearth of known sites in the areas served by the Bluford and Southeast branch libraries. In fact, unless anyone else knows otherwise, those libraries are still the only hotspots around.
Nonetheless, the more free and open sites there are-regardless of where they are-the more pressure there is on those still clinging to play-for-pay-and that's not a bad thing.
3255 Main, Kansas City
802.11g
SSID: attwifi
As Santa and ath64 promised before the holidays, all you have to do at an unwired McDonald's anymore is click through two pages-the second with a checkbox indicating you agree to Ma Bell's acceptable use policy (and if you think Verizon's AUP is long-winded, ath64, you ought to get a load of this one) and you're off and running. Like just about all the free-and-open Mickey D locations that preceded the Great Emancipation, this one doesn't have any power outlets available, making it a battery-only proposition. Well, they don't call it fast food for nothing.
And after having taken a gander at McDonald's restaurant finder, it seems to me that we might have to rethink how much of an effect their joining the free world will have on narrowing the local digital divide. Even with their new locations, there's still a great dearth of known sites in the areas served by the Bluford and Southeast branch libraries. In fact, unless anyone else knows otherwise, those libraries are still the only hotspots around.
Nonetheless, the more free and open sites there are-regardless of where they are-the more pressure there is on those still clinging to play-for-pay-and that's not a bad thing.
It's free, open and in KCK...for now, at least.
Drink A Latte
3900 Rainbow Boulevard, KCK
802.11g
SSID: Drink A Latte
Get there and enjoy it while you can, because not only does it close early for a coffeehouse (5 p. m.), but it may be closing for good in the next few months, since it lies in the path of the massive development project planned for the KU Medical Center area that's just been approved.
That proximity to the med school, by the way, may have something to do with this location's other big downside-almost no convenient parking. Had one of the two spaces reserved for its patrons in the lot of the tiny strip mall it's a part of not been available, I'd have faced a bit of a problem, to say the least.
That aside, the router is a bit glitchy, as the barista on duty volunteered when my first connection attempt failed, but there are a couple of seats next to power outlets along the walls. I don't think the east-facing windows would be a big problem except very early in the morning, and they're tinted dark enough not to raise an issue after that.
Well, here's hoping they find nice nearby accommodations if they do get shunted aside by progress. Wyandotte County needs all the hotspots like this it can get.
3900 Rainbow Boulevard, KCK
802.11g
SSID: Drink A Latte
Get there and enjoy it while you can, because not only does it close early for a coffeehouse (5 p. m.), but it may be closing for good in the next few months, since it lies in the path of the massive development project planned for the KU Medical Center area that's just been approved.
That proximity to the med school, by the way, may have something to do with this location's other big downside-almost no convenient parking. Had one of the two spaces reserved for its patrons in the lot of the tiny strip mall it's a part of not been available, I'd have faced a bit of a problem, to say the least.
That aside, the router is a bit glitchy, as the barista on duty volunteered when my first connection attempt failed, but there are a couple of seats next to power outlets along the walls. I don't think the east-facing windows would be a big problem except very early in the morning, and they're tinted dark enough not to raise an issue after that.
Well, here's hoping they find nice nearby accommodations if they do get shunted aside by progress. Wyandotte County needs all the hotspots like this it can get.
Talking the talk is only half the battle.
Memo to the owners of the new establishment where The Coffee Girls used to be:
It's nice that the buzz generated by your launch indicates that you supposedly offer free Wi-Fi. What's not so nice is someone stopping by and not being able to verify that. I mean, who can tell which if any of the dozen or more access points visible from your sidewalk is yours?
O, how long and loudly must the gospel of Help The Customer By Naming Your Access Point To Identify It As Yours be preached? How long?
By the way...you might want to take a look at some of those SSIDs yourself. One of them seen there this afternoon would definitely not be something I'd want to be mistaken for anything associated with my business.
It's nice that the buzz generated by your launch indicates that you supposedly offer free Wi-Fi. What's not so nice is someone stopping by and not being able to verify that. I mean, who can tell which if any of the dozen or more access points visible from your sidewalk is yours?
O, how long and loudly must the gospel of Help The Customer By Naming Your Access Point To Identify It As Yours be preached? How long?
By the way...you might want to take a look at some of those SSIDs yourself. One of them seen there this afternoon would definitely not be something I'd want to be mistaken for anything associated with my business.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
As Tony Soprano would say...
Had an errand to run out west yesterday afternoon and on the way I thought I'd drop in at the newest public library location over in Wyandotte County just to check things out. After all, since it's a community library that's only affiliated with the KCK library system as opposed to being a directly administered branch, there was always a chance that its Wi-Fi, as opposed to KCK's, would be truly free and open, right?
Well..fuhgeddaboutit.
Not only is it restricted to cardholders just like KCK's branches, but the login page still isn't properly secured to protect users' authentication credentials. It would be bad enough that KCKPL still falsely advertises this network as open on its website even without putting the identities of its patrons at risk of theft. Then again, I was the only potential user present during my brief visit. Nor do I recall seeing any other laptops out the last few times I popped into the main KCK library to see if there'd been any change. I guess some people just don't know how to take a hint.
Sadly, that's a malady that seems to be infecting the private sector as well. You can also take Tony's advice above with regard to the new coffeehouse with the catchy name and "Wi-Fi" emblazoned on its windows over on the Missouri side in the Armour and Broadway area, unless you want to hassle with obtaining credentials and hooking into a WPA-protected network. There didn't appear to be anyone there who did when I made a brief finder-scan-and-look-in-the-front-window stop on my way home.
Well..fuhgeddaboutit.
Not only is it restricted to cardholders just like KCK's branches, but the login page still isn't properly secured to protect users' authentication credentials. It would be bad enough that KCKPL still falsely advertises this network as open on its website even without putting the identities of its patrons at risk of theft. Then again, I was the only potential user present during my brief visit. Nor do I recall seeing any other laptops out the last few times I popped into the main KCK library to see if there'd been any change. I guess some people just don't know how to take a hint.
Sadly, that's a malady that seems to be infecting the private sector as well. You can also take Tony's advice above with regard to the new coffeehouse with the catchy name and "Wi-Fi" emblazoned on its windows over on the Missouri side in the Armour and Broadway area, unless you want to hassle with obtaining credentials and hooking into a WPA-protected network. There didn't appear to be anyone there who did when I made a brief finder-scan-and-look-in-the-front-window stop on my way home.
Friday, January 15, 2010
And people wonder why lawyer jokes are still so popular.
I guess we all knew it was only a matter of time before the esteemed members of the bar jumped feet-first into the matter of "electrosensitivity"-the purported malady that some people suffer when they're in the vicinity of certain radio waves-which since the days of Maxwell, Edison and Marconi has been pretty much all the time, but let's not go there. (Actually, if you consider cosmic radiation, homo sapiens has been bathed in electromagnetism since before developing the ability to walk upright, but let's not go there, either.) One of them, a certain Arthur Firstenberg of Santa Fe, NM, who seems to have made a career out of being a victim, has now sued a neighbor for injuries allegedly inflicted by her Wi-Fi network, among other things, as reported by James Hart on his excellent "Crime Scene KC" blog hosted on the Kansas City Star's website, and by the Huffington Post via Yahoo.
While we have in the past here laughed at the idea that anyone could really be "allergic" to Wi-Fi, this particular turn of events at least has the potential of becoming dangerous. Just think about it for a moment. What if Firstenberg lucks out and draws a judge who doesn't throw him out of court on his ear, and then incredibly manages to prevail at trial? What business owner would risk continuing to offer free Wi-Fi-or, for that matter, the play-for-pay kind-during the years it could take for that verdict to wind its way through appeals? While I've never been much of a conspiracy theorist, I don't think it's totally implausible that Big Telecom might not be too unhappy at such a result-at least at first. Then again, one of the "other things" Firstenberg is going after his neighbor for is her use of an iPhone. Perhaps Ma Bell and her handmaidens ought to give this a second look.
And I can see the cable-TV ads now, can't you? "If you have lived or worked in the vicinity of a Wi-Fi network and have suffered an illness or injury, you may be entitled to compensation..."
Oops...sorry, I almost forgot. Preface that last with "I am a non-attorney spokesperson."
While we have in the past here laughed at the idea that anyone could really be "allergic" to Wi-Fi, this particular turn of events at least has the potential of becoming dangerous. Just think about it for a moment. What if Firstenberg lucks out and draws a judge who doesn't throw him out of court on his ear, and then incredibly manages to prevail at trial? What business owner would risk continuing to offer free Wi-Fi-or, for that matter, the play-for-pay kind-during the years it could take for that verdict to wind its way through appeals? While I've never been much of a conspiracy theorist, I don't think it's totally implausible that Big Telecom might not be too unhappy at such a result-at least at first. Then again, one of the "other things" Firstenberg is going after his neighbor for is her use of an iPhone. Perhaps Ma Bell and her handmaidens ought to give this a second look.
And I can see the cable-TV ads now, can't you? "If you have lived or worked in the vicinity of a Wi-Fi network and have suffered an illness or injury, you may be entitled to compensation..."
Oops...sorry, I almost forgot. Preface that last with "I am a non-attorney spokesperson."
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