01 Aug 2002 - Anyone Want to Use My Lightsaber?
I See Your Schwartz is Bigger Than Mine: Wow! Just checked in on the site, and things seem
to have grown! I am hereby offering up my antenna to re-join PDX wireless. I'm currently in Los Angeles going to school @ UCLA. But, my 12 dbi gain omni antenna is sitting high atop my mother's house at 23rd & Hoyt (this is not an invitation to try and steal it!). If anyone is interested in re-activating that node, please contact me [mailto:kal@shobaki.org] - there is DSL service to the house, all that's needed is a wireless AP to plug into the lightsaber. -- kal
22 July 2002 - Starbucks Are Unofficially Live
Word From The Street: Portland area Starbucks are now all providing access through [http://www.tmobilebroadband.com/ TMobile]. You can currently only use it on a pay-as-you-go ($2.99 first 15 minutes, then $.25 per minute thereafter). TMobile support says they'll add Local Unlimited Bandwidth Service Plan for $29.99 a month, but its not officially available yet in Oregon (and of course no one will say when). If you live within a block of a Starbucks... you so lucky! -- Brad Stec. edit: It's already here. The training kit (a laptop) is being passed from store to store as I write this. Don't expect the barristas to know much about it -- all they're really told is that customers can sign up with TMobile for access. Don't forget that some locations (Park Ave., for example) are already within range of free public access points. Time to start [http://warchalking.org/ warchalking]! -- Cowboy X
See [http://gay-robot.com/~aml/starbuckssplash.jpg this].
21 July 2002 - The Latest Doonesbury Comic Strip
I highly recommend that anyone interested in WiFi or 802.11x check out Doonesbury's latest [http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.cfm?uc_full_date=20020721&uc_comic=db&uc_daction=X comic strip].
21 July 2002 - Jon Schull's Wif iWiki and the idea of the Wifi Box
AdamShand and JonSchull spoke a while ago about the idea of a WifiBox. Jon has moved a whole bunch of information onto the PersonalTelco wiki from the WifiWiki he developed with WillWare. Take a moment and check it out. He's done a lot of thinking about what's good for the community and can maybe be self-supporting.
19 July 2002 - Why Wi-Fi Will Die
Network Magazine has a [http://networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20020701S0017 writeup] on how "Wi-Fi can be its own worst enemy." On a positive note they do mention that "Wi-Fi cards and access points are now so cheap that they provide a great opportunity to experiment with the freedom of mobile data."
18 July 2002 - Monthly Meeting Wednesday July 31st
Its almost that time of month again. Once again we meet at the LuckyLab brewpub for our MonthlyMeeting. Come join us and find out what we've been up to recently.
18 July 2002 - National Wi-Fi Network - Companies stay 'hush-hush' over massive plan
Network World Fusion has [http://www.nwfusion.com/net.worker/news/2002/0717bband.html an article] that further explores the plans of several companies to create a national wireless network, so far only known as "project Rainbow". "There is no single carrier that will provide this capability. Some group will have to put this together, a virtual wireless LAN. A concept that we are extremely interested in but there is nothing that I can talk about," said one IBM spokesman. The negotiations over such a network have apparently been underway for 8 months.
3 July 2002 - Public Hotspot in NYC
Bryant Park in New York City is now is a free wireless hotspot thanks to NycWireless. NYC Wireless, a volunteer community group of computer wizards, provided the expertise to make Bryant Park the first park in the world to offer free 802.11b wireless computing to its patrons. Go wireless and do work while enjoying the park.
1 July 2002 - Time Warner Sending Out Cease and Desist Letters in NYC
Time Warner sent out a nasty letter to an NycWireless [http://rickt.org/stuff/soho_wireless/twcnyc/ member]. He [http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/28/2011241.shtml posted to] SlashDot later with his personal comments. I doubt this will be an isolated case. [Update: The [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/01/technology/01WIFI.html?pagewanted=print New York Times] has a take on the letter.]
25 June 2002 - Article on Warchalking
It may be slashdotted, but [http://www.blackbeltjones.com/warchalking/ Let's Warchalk!] suggests marking wireless access spots with chalk symbols. Your call as to whether this is useful or just more graffiti.
17 June 2002 - Article on SF Area Wireless Players
Link to an [http://www.sfbg.com/36/37/cover_wireless.html article] in the SF Bay Guardian. Horrible in technical details BUT there is some insight in the cities relationship with ATT/Comcast and some agreements that may or may not work against the wireless community down there.
17 June 2002 - Personal Telco monthly meeting Wednesday June 26th @ Its A Beautiful Pizza
Its almost that time of month again. Check out the MonthlyMeetings Page for details and directions to the meeting.
14 June 2002 - Personal Telco goes mobile with its expansion strategy
Aliza Earnshaw has written a [http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2002/06/17/story4.html great article] about PersonalTelco in this weeks Portland Business Journal article. Check it out.
10 June 2002 - Etherlinx story in NYTimes (free registration required)
Here is the link [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/10/technology/10WIRE.html] to a story about small company trying to use 802.11b to overcome the 'last mile' problem. Just some food for thought.
5 June 2002 - Geographic Based Service
Personal Telco has been experimenting with Jim Binkley and Sumit Chawla from PSU on ways to offer location based services. We've ended up with something called UrlDaemon and it's now running on the Pioneer Square Node. If you're curious and willing to test, please [ftp://ftp.cs.pdx.edu/pub/mobile/urld/ download] it and let us know what you think (there are Windows, Linux and BSD versions).
1 June 2002 - Web Site Outage
Unfortunately the PersonalTelco web site has been down for a day and a bit. It is however back up full strength once again with the hardware on order for an upgrade to hopefully avert future issues.
22 May 2002 - Monthly meeting Wednesday May 29th at 6:00PM
This month we will be meeting at It's A Beautiful Pizza on SE Belmont. Please check out the MonthlyMeeting and MeetingAgenda pages for more details. As always come one come all and bring a friend, its very relaxed and fun.
NewsArchives of past events and important dates are available.