Wireless Bandit

indigo - Bay/Bloor

Physical Landmark: Indigo Bookstore - 55 Bloor St, Manulife Centre
Major Intersection: Bay St just South of Bloor
GPS Lat: 43.66983
GPS Lon: -79.38873

Network Name: BSD1
WEP: No
Contributor: Wireless Bandit
Comments: This is a free public open hotspot. I was pretty amazed to sit down here to do some work only to discover that a free, strong signal connection is available in a perfect working space -- the cafe. There seems to be an automatic timer that shows up that was around 30 hours and counting upwards when I was there, instead of downwards. First time I've seen a timer on a CAP that automatically showed up in my menu bar on an iBook. The staff at the counter knew nothing about this CAP. Wow.

A map to this CAP.

Airspots available from D-LINK

In an interesting turn of events, wireless providers are offering out of the box solutions for hotspots for commercial purposes... Now you don't need some service provider to "make you wireless". Do it yourself...

Good use of WiFi to increase revenue/ROI

A good news story on how WiFi is improving business efficiency and (gasp) revenue.

See the issue is that WiFi is more of an enabling technology than an end user gadget. It's really good for wiring a home, but even better (because of ease of setup and low cost) for optimizing a business that needs to interact with customers quickly and easily...

An interactive CAP map, now available!

Look an interactive mapping application for WB!

Its use is quite simple after you understand what it expects. A few notes:

1. It uses the RSS feed of Confirmed Access Points (CAPs). So when we update a CAP, the RSS feed is updated automatically, so will Ian's mapping app. Sweet.

2. There are 2 methods of entering latitude and longitude. The first one uses the N/S and W/E followed by degrees/minutes.seconds format. This one I rarely (if ever) have used.

The second and more common one uses +/- DDD.DDDDD format that we commonly can find by parsing a URL from any mapping site like maps.msn.com or www.mapquest.com.

Right now to find CAPs around you, just find your lat/long points by looking up an address , finding the lat/long from the URL and then enter them into the tool and select a radius and click "Submit Query". Or of course a handy dandy GPS locator would do as well.

If anyone hits this from a Palmtop/PocketPc let us know if it worked! Enjoy and PROPS to Ian for the contribution!

Another WiFi Detector - WFS-1

Here's another WiFi detector that is supposed to be more sensitive and accurate about WiFi hotspots. The idea is to avoid opening your laptop and just use this puppy to find the available hotspots quickly.

Anyone use anything like this?

Canadian Cell Phone Providers to go WiFi?

Can anyone explain just exactly what our Canadian telcos are thinking about here? I am not sure I completely understand what they are doing in 2004.

Meetup Ranking - We Can be #3!

Ok, we can be #1 if we want, but we need to join. Go to http://wifi.meetup.com/858 and join the Toronto Meetup for WiFi. We are about 8 people below #4 and #5. Once we get to #3 only Montreal and London, UK are ahead of us.

Come on people, show your spirit!

Why do Apple employees gesticulate so much?

A bit off topic, but I just had to share this link with y'all about the new PowerPC G5 Macintosh from Apple.

Apart from the awesome production values, I'd like you to note how much Apple employees move their hands as they talk. It's as if someone tutored them on the importance of hand waving. And it's all of them. The IBM guy barely moves, though. Adobe and Pixar guys sit still. But the Apple guys, no, they gesticulate until there's no tomorrow.

Anyways our first 64-bit desktop computer is here. Yipee!

1792 Danforth - Europe Planet Bar/Grill Danforth nr Coxwell

Physical Landmark: Europe Planet Bar - 1792 Danforth
Major Intersection: bet Woodbine and Coxwell and Danforth
GPS Lat: 43.68441
GPS Lon: -79.31858

Network Name: linksys
WEP: No
Contributor: Wireless Bandit
Comments: This is a free public open hotspot. Perfect patio outside on the danforth, nice Italian folks serve you pizza as you surf... And if you look carefully, on the east side of the patio, at the end of a lantern chain, you can plug in to their power for free. There is no ground though... Also the direction of the CAP is facing south so point your antenna south.

A map to this CAP.

New RSS Feed of All WiFi Hotspots

Here's a new RSS feed for all currently known Confirmed Access Points (CAPs).