Tag: Wi-Fi

Nerdy Stuff Nerds Do

I was getting ready to leave work when a thought came to me. Why not WarDrive tonight. Within sixty seconds I was good to go.

My coat was on. I had gathered my stuff. I was getting ready to leave work when a thought came to me. Why not WarDrive tonight. Within sixty seconds I was good to go.

I went to the Android Market and downloaded Wigle. All I know is it says it’s for WarDriving.

The trigger for all of this was bringing my new tablet to work. It has no cell service, but there’s WiFi everywhere! It was worth sacrificing the battery to unleash my inner geek.

In case you don’t know WarDriving is a remnant of the dawn of WiFi. Innocently most networks were unprotected. When you war drive you just log all the networks you encounter. It’s all done in software using the tablet’s GPS. Hands free!

There are over 500 WiFi hotspots in my path from Hartford to Hamden. That’s not bad considering my survey was taken from the middle of the road.

You have given your hotspots some interesting names. There are:

WiFi Orgy
can you see this
USS Enterprise
FastFlamingo
House Of Rock
Manfish
BigRedApple
Private
Pickles the Clown
The203

Nearly all are now protected with some form of encryption. The ones that aren’t probably have ‘inside security’ the way a hotel might.

I’ve got the data. I’ve looked at it. Now it gets thrown out. Some pursuits are for nerdy sake alone.

It’s A Good Day To Be A Geek

The hackers cleverly bypassed battery monitor which means an overcharged Nook could very well explode! Good hack guys.

If you haven’t been watching closely you’ve missed a few geekily exciting days with new technology announcements. Some of these are pretty substantial and could be the proverbial game changers. It’s all happening… changing so rapidly.

Doesn’t anything happen at human speed anymore?

Google was the main player. First, they redefined their new unreleased operating system Chrome.

Chrome will be aimed at netbooks which should be less expensive and bothersome than current laptops. The whole paradigm of what you install, change or keep on your laptop will be shuffled.

Instant web: Chrome notebooks boot in about 10 seconds and resume from sleep instantly. Your favorite websites load quickly and run smoothly, with full support for the latest web standards and Adobe Flash.

Same experience everywhere: All your apps, documents, and settings are stored safely in the cloud. So even if you lose your computer, you can just log into another Chrome notebook and get right back to work.

Always connected: Integrated Wi-Fi for home and work, and 3G for all the places in between. 100MB of free 3G data every month* on the Verizon Wireless network. Affordable data plans with no commitment required.

Meanwhile while talking up Chrome Google also showed a new tablet computer built by Motorola and based on its Android operating system. There are tablet computers other than the iPod right now, but you’d be hard pressed to name any. I expect an explosion in tablets over the next six months and both Apple and Google will be responsible for most of it.

Speaking of explosions, someone published instructions to hack a Barnes and Noble Color Nook so it could operate as an Andriod tablet! One problem, the hack disturbed part of the battery monitoring circuitry. Every time the Nook would fire up this circuitry would shut it down.

The hackers cleverly bypassed battery monitor which means an overcharged Nook could very well explode! Good hack guys.

I’d REALLY like a tablet computer. What I want doesn’t yet exist. It’s got to be ‘friendly’ with my camera. I’ll wait. No choice.

More news from Google who pushed out a new version of their Chromium web browser. Sweet. This one comes with its own apps store. More importantly the javascript engine has been turbocharged again!

Don’t worry if you don’t know what javascript is. Take my word javascript is the thing that slows your web browser the most! Run Chrome/Chromium as your browser and you’ll immediately feel like you bought a faster computer.

If you are not using Chrome/Chromium as your browser you really should give it a try. It’s free and fast.

Finally yesterday Microsoft announced their soon-to-be released Internet Explorer 9 would have new privacy controls.

Tracking Protection in IE9 puts people in control of what data is being shared as they move around the Web. It does this by enabling consumers to indicate what websites they’d prefer to not exchange information with. Consumers do this by adding Tracking Protection Lists to Internet Explorer. Anyone, and any organization, on the Web can author and publish Tracking Protection Lists. Consumers can install more than one. By default, there are no lists included in IE9, which is consistent with our previous IE releases with respect to privacy.

This is a big deal. Everyone who knows anything about Internet security is demanding more privacy controls. Microsoft is the last player I’d expect to be stepping up for me versus advertisers and marketers.

See what you missed yesterday.

Pardon Me While I Wardrive

The bad news is these APs give off enough data that a company scouring the roads, like Google, will be able to associate your anonymous Internet surfing with your physical location and this happens even if the signal is encrypted!

It’s such a beautifully geeky term: wardriving. I was wardriving last night. I wardrove from dinner to the station and then wardrove home. Actually with Ann at the wheel after dinner I was wardriven.

But I digress.

Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle, using a portable computer or PDA.

To quote the commercials, “There’s an app for that.” I loaded WiFiFoFum on my iPhone and fired it up.

Just driving across New Haven brought 274 access points. My drive home produced another 473 with the only signal free spot corresponding to the desolate exit ramp/overpass/interchage connecting I-91 with CT-40.

The good news is nowadays most APs are encrypted. In most cases you couldn’t sit in a car watching in-the-clear web traffic fly by or park outside most houses to ‘borrow’ WiFi (something I’ve done more than once in years past).

The bad news is these APs still give off enough data that a company scouring the roads, like Google, will be able to associate your anonymous Internet surfing with your physical location and this happens even if the signal is encrypted!

The map below is clickable so you can get a feel for the clusters of these tiny transceivers and what kind of data they’re revealing. Some of the markers represent multiple APs in close proximity. It’s all very interesting and at least a tiny bit scary.


View Larger Map

Dragon’s Free Dictation App From My iPhone–Wow!

No one who uses an iPhone who I’ve shown it to has hesitated before downloading it!

This entry was dictated into my iPhone. Judge for yourself how good or bad Dragon Dictation is. It is a free app.

dragon-dictation-iphone.jpgLast week. My friend Peter Sacks send me a link to a new app for my iPhone call dragon dictation. I’ve been waiting the past few days to try and use it to dictate my blog. So here goes. Paragraph. Basically you just speak into the iPhone. There is no training necessary I’m not sure how to accomplish what I want to do because there are no instructions that come with the program! It would be more usable if it was more integrated into the iPhone. Now you have to cut and paste messages into a text message and you can’t say an address for an e-mail. Still, this is free is free is very good!

  • Sacks should be Sachs.
  • Dragon should be capitalized.
  • The word “paragraph” was meant to tell the program to begin a new paragraph. That might not be the right command.
  • The last sentence should be “Still this is free and free is good.”

When you speak your voice is sent to Dragon’s computers. All the heavy lifting is done there. On a wi-fi connection it is nearly an instantaneous transcript.

If there was better integration into the mail and text programs (I believe Apple’s policies prevent this) this app would be a killer. As it is now it’s very impressive. No one who uses an iPhone who I’ve shown it to has hesitated before downloading it!

Berry Confused

A friend with a Blackberry 8320 smashed its pretty face against something. Cracked lens! By the time I told him he could fix it, he’d replaced it! Now it’s mine. Fixing the lens was easy–and I’m a major klutz.

It was originally on T-Mobile. It’s been unlocked, so it can go on AT&T and the phone and texting works fine.

It mostly works OK for Twitter and Facebook and some other apps, but when I go to use the browser I’m told: “This is a Wi-Fi service. Please ensure your device has an active Wi-Fi connection and try again.”

I have a plan from AT&T which includes data, though I haven’t moved this to their Blackberry plan yet (for my daughter, there was no cost differential). I see “edge” not “EDGE” which I believe enters into this.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Midway Is Part Way To Vegas

It’s so nice not to have to find a powered wall to sit near (usually on-the-floor).

midway-power-plug.jpgWe are on-the-ground at Chicago’s Midway Airport. As we taxied to our gate it was easy to see how shoehorned in this airport is. There were row homes just feet beyond the airport’s fence. The runways here are about half as long as nearby O’Hare.

Our gate has more of those big chairs from Bradley. These, however, do have power plugs. It’s so nice not to have to find a powered wall to sit near (usually on-the-floor).

No free Wi-Fi at this airport. I’m using my cellphone as a modem. It’s perfect for short stretches like this. No Bluetooth in this laptop either (who knew) so I’m wired up through a USB port.

I just checked on Stef’s flight. She’s crossing the border into Ohio, doing 407 knots at 36,000 feet. My folks are 32,000 feet above Tallahassee cruising at 380 knots. They should get to Vegas on-time or close.

The incoming leg of our next flight is behind schedule from Norfolk. We’ll be a little late to McCarren.