Technology

Just saw a link to Newbury Open Net, a community wireless project in Boston. Newbury Open Net describes itself:

NewburyOpen.net is a network which provides high-speed Internet services, in the form of free wireless and for-pay workstations, to Boston’s residents, workers, and travelers. … We believe that high-speed Internet must become like a public utility: cheap, simple to access, easy to find, and available to everyone, no matter their location or social status. That makes the greatest benefit of the Net – the distribution of information – easy for all.

Yes, more than just technology, wireless access is also about social justice. Created and largely funded by Mac specialist Tech Superpowers, that social activist philosophy seems to support the old stereotype of Mac users as counterculturists. For their part, the Newbury Open Net folks seem proud of it.

But what about the technology? They have that covered too. Start with their wireless security primer, then read about how they’re building wireless applications for a world with ubiquitous wireless coverage. I’m especially interested SmartWorlds and the integration of physical and online bookstores. Finally, read about how to create an open, wireless community network yourself.

I’ve run into a situation things would work better with a static host mapping, but my first thought/fear was that MacOS X’s NetInfo would get in my way. Google turned up some old info on reconfiguring NetInfo, as well as a slightly more current NetInfo tip. But as it turns out, Panther is all setup to read your /etc/hosts entries and use those before going to DNS or NetInfo. So there you go.

The folks at Ars also pointed out an interesting story by the MIT Tech Review. It’s all about things that were expected to have been passed by, but weren’t. It sort of puts us in our place.

Microsoft Corp, the software company responsible for producing some of the most notoriously (and dangerously) insecure software ever has issued a collection of posters aimed at, start your irony engine, computer security education. “Educate your students, faculty, and staff on the simple steps they can take to protect their PCs,” says the Microsoft website offering the posters.

First, look at some numbers:

“‘Last year under 20 percent of the laptops have Wi-Fi built in, this year it’s 40 percent.’ Says Brain Grimm, communications director for the Wi-Fi Alliance”

Now consider that the quote appeared in a story in AAAWorld (yes, the American Auto Association). Their demographic is generally older and non-technical, so either their demographic is changing or “non-technical” is being redefined. I’m going to bet that the water is rising and, just as the world now accepts email, it now seems to expect some understanding of networking.

Hmmm.

[UPDATE] And now the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank is reporting on growing WiFi use in the Mid-West! Oh my.

The following weblogs have been pinged for this story:

http://tingilinde.typepad.com/starstuff/2003/10/what_people_do_.html

http://www.wifinetnews.com/

http://db.isbn.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi?\__mode=view&entry_id=2919

http://db.isbn.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi?\__mode=view&entry_id=2912

Last Saturday was the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh. Apple announced the Macintosh to about 90 million households in a 60 second ad during the superbowl. The ad, which has been lauded as one of the best ads ever and created “event marketing,” rocks. It was this theory of event marketing that lead advertisers to create ever larger, ever more expensive ad spots. And that’s when the ads during the Superbowl became the the main event for some viewers.

If you’re even mildly interested, follow the first link above to read the story, then be sure to watch the making-of video linked at the bottom of that page.

Apple hasn’t done much to celebrate the Mac’s birthday, but Apple will play a role in Pepsi’s superbowl ads which will promote Pepsi’s music give-away promotion in conjunction with Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

In case anybody was wondering, the only real point of this post is to highlight and link to http://www.isd.net/cmcalone/cine/1984.html where I was happy to read about the famous ad.

The question here is between 802.1x authentication and web-based, captive portal authentication. The former has high client requirements, the later seems too simple. Rob Flickenger’s Wireless Hacks has fired me up for captive portals. An excerpt, Dispelling the Myth of Wireless Security, makes clear the need for application layer security, an argument I’d say applies to wired and wireless network alike.

Point: wireless is exposing holes that have existed in our network security all along, but patching those holes will secure everything, including wireless without spending loads of money on expensive APs and proprietary clients.

The book, however, is about a lot more than that. Along the way, it shows us how to build community networks, custom APs, super long-range antennae, and much more. Want to build a wireless link from your friend’s house (which has DSL or cable modem) to yours (where cable won’t reach)? Wireless Hacks will show you.

It’s probably due to my color blindness, but I have the darndest time seeing streetlights (the red/yellow/green things at controlled intersections) at night. I’ve had to explain it a million times, but nobody seems to understand. Finally I’ve discovered a sympathetic friend, sort of. Michael Darnell writes about his complaints with street lights and other things that don’t work well or aren’t designed well.

So I’d like to get this old USB video capture device working in OS X, but the vendor has quit the business and no OS X drivers are around for it. A little searching on the web netted the following how-to on making one vendor’s USB device drivers work with another vendor’s products. The details relate to USB WiFi adapters, but we can generalize.

With the tips in that story in mind, we can face down the next question: are there any drivers that might be made to work with my USB device? Its a Global Village VideoFX, and it appears to be based on Nogatech’s USBVision (VideoFX USB details here). I think XLR8’s InterView was based on the same hardware, and drivers are available from EchoFX.

[UPDATE]: EchoFX has released a new version of their application/driver package that supports a number of USB capture devices. I’ll have to download the demo version and try ’em out.

OS X Server is great, but it doesn’t respond well when you change its IP number. The resulting fiasco will make you think working a fast food job is worth it. Here are some links that won’t make it easier but will at least give you a bootable machine:

A little how-to

Support discussion

More discussion

Even more discussion

Update August 15, 2003: Apple has finally done something, just a little something, to address this problem. They’ve released a script to change the IP address on OS X server: “The IPAddressChange script, which you may download from this document, allows you to change the IP address of a computer using Mac OS X Server versions 10.2 to 10.2 “

I don’t watch much TV and I don’t own a TiVo, but I love the idea. So I’m glad to read about open source folks building their own DVRs.

Google has been raved about since it first appeared on the search engine scene four years ago. Now that it’s trounced all the other, however, people are getting concerned about the effects of the monopoly. Google-Watch is leading the charge. Their claim? They say that Google’s PageRank means only that the rich get richer, and they’re concerned about close ties between Google and government snoops.

Hmmm.

While reading up on the SLiMP3 network MP3 player I came across some mention of Dallas Semiconductor and their line of wonderfully hackable TINI ICs. These little things have ethernet interfaces, Java runtime engines, and webservers built-in, and are ideal for making non-networked devices internet ready. As if we don’t now have enough internet connected light switches and soda machines.

A nice overview of TINI is available.

Wired has a story about the effect of wireless on agriculture, theme parks, health care, and conferences.

So speaketh O’Reilly’s Rael Dornfest about a recent conference with ubiquitous WiFi access:

“people weren’t disappearing back to their rooms to check email between sessions. They’d just sit down in one of the common areas and log on. Because everyone was gathering in the same place, there was a lot more spontaneous discussion. Also, the sessions themselves became more interactive.”

It’s all part of Wired’s special feature about wireless which covers everything from getting connected to where it’s going. Also really interesting is a story about the ‘supposed’ death of 3G and convergence of WiFi with telecomm.

Font Diner offers some darn cool fonts. Go visit their site for freebies too.

Plumb Design’s Visual Thesaurus may be the coolest thing ever.

I have Mary Ellen Bates to thank for pointing this site out to me during the 2003 Computers in Libraries Conference.