Wireless Bandit

Washington Inauguration of W Takes Advantage of WiFI

Good for them... Washington DC gets hotspot during the inauguration... Good place to watch JibJab

Comments back ON - Support for "nofollow" enabled

Wow a bit of collaboration on the part of the search engines. Is this the sign of a new age of "working together"? I hope so...

I have enabled comments again on the blog entries and hope to start adding some new hotspots soon I have been remiss. The reason? I think bloggers and search engines have come up with a simple, technically feasible solution to discouraging comments spammers.

Also I have installed support for the "nofollow" attribute in the <a href> tag. The purpose is to end comment spam, or at least curtail it. The major search engines and bloggers have agreed that any link with rel="nofollow" in it will not be spidered. I have installed the official plugin from SixApart, makers of MovableType, so that all links that are inserted into the comments and trackback fields have the rel="nofollow" automatically added. Spammers who add comments with links do not have anything to gain as the search engines will not follow their links any longer. Hurrah! I hope this actually works...

The caveat of course is that people who post real comments with links will not increase the ranking of the target site either... It is a double edged sword. Just be happy that links exist and are available in comments ;)

Vonage announces WiFi Handset

Vonage .::. The BROADBAND Phone Company

Interesting announcement. The idea is that you can use the Vonage service on any 802.11b network and carry your phone around with you... THis is pretty much a cell phone-type product for wifi hotspots with a portable phone number between home and away... I hope they make it available in Canada...

I need an AC plug in a tree!

Tents, s'mores, and a laptop: parks go online | csmonitor.com

All they need now is AC in your local friendly tree... Wow, this is progress, eh?

Firefox does indeed gain ground

Recently I checked my browser logs to see what impact Firefox has made on browser share. I was shocked to find at more than 15% share. Now I know that wirelessbandit visitors are sort of the early adopter type... In any case, it will be interesting to see where this share is a year from now. My opinion -- it is simply a "browser fad". Once new technology like Microsoft's MSN Search Beta Toolbar takes hold and requires IE, people will come back to IE... We'll see.

Total share on wirelessbandit.com as of Dec 27 2004...

JiWire has a new offline hotspot locator

JiWire has released an offline locator program for Windows and Mac... Check it out and let me know what you think....

One gotcha... You must register with JiWire and verify an email address before you can get a code to enter into the installer... There ain't no such thing as free lunch...

HUGE NEWS! TTC GETS WIFI

Globetechnology: TTC to go wireless with ads on subway

It's about time... Anyone have leads into this project?

VONAGE® SPONSORS CES 2005 PRESS ROOM PHONES

Over the wire.... If you are going to CES...

VONAGE® SPONSORS CES 2005 PRESS ROOM PHONES AND WILL DEMONSTRATE NEW BROADBAND TELEPHONY DEVICES CONFIGURED WITH VONAGE'S SERVICE

Jeffrey A. Citron, Chairman and CEO to Participate in the "Next Generation of Voice Communication" Panel Discussion

Edison, NJ, December 6, 2004 - Vonage Holdings Corp., North America's leading broadband telephony provider today announced it will be sponsoring the CES 2005 pressroom phone service with VTech and Linksys® devices. Vonage will be exhibiting its service in both its own booth - # 36163, South Hall, Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) - as well as the booths of some of its partners: VTech, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and Linksys®. Vonage will also be demonstrating new devices configured with its service, offering consumers more choice and flexibility.

Collective Puts Montreal Sans Fils

Globetechnology: ISF 'collective' helps Montreal go wireless

Good job ISF! Come to Toronto!

You must be joking?!?

RNKVoIP- IP Telephony - Phone for Life

For $999 US RNK, a 12 yr old telecom in Northeast US, will offer you unlimited phone service for life. Not just to US or Canada but to 22 other countries. With features that rival Vonage.

So, the question is -- how long can they possibly keep this scheme up? After about 4 yrs, as long as Vonage and others keep up the $25/month average price, RNK will be a better deal. After about 40 years of use (not including the interest RNK gained on your grand), at about 500 minutes per month average, each minute will end up costing up 0.4c. The longer and *more* you use it obviously the cheaper the service will get... Inverted logic, but attractive.

Would you spend a grand to buy into such a product? Please don't use the comment system, just email me and I will post comments.