Yawwwwwwn

[altivo]

Can't stay awake any longer.

Nanowrimo word count: 45472 words (1823 today)
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Story draft available here.

Not even halfway through the story I need to tell, and already approaching 50K. It doesn't have half the funnies and jokes I intended, either. I can see this is a long term project.

OK, a question for the computer folks. I know next to nothing about wireless networking, never having had occasion to use it at all. I picked up a little device very cheaply that can function as a tiny netbook, complete with wireless connection, stripped down Linux operating system, and up to 2GB of solid state "disk" storage on a SD chip. I haven't had the best of luck getting connections with it, however. We have no wifi in our house, obviously. Neither does the library where I work. Yesterday, though, we went to lunch in Woodstock where there is free, open wifi advertised on the square and inside the restaurant. It could see the network, identified it as "Open" using the same SSID that is listed on all the signs in the area, but failed to connect even after repeated attempts. Then we stopped at the Woodstock Public Library because Gary want to get some audiobooks, and the gadget did connect easily and immediately to the wifi there. Why can it connect to one open link yet not to another? Repeated this test again today as we passed through Woodstock with the same results. Successful connection at the library, failure on the square.

Comments

[farthing]

Yeah, I guess that it then... found this with that SSID:
"WavTeK HotSpots will work with any computer with 802.11b that supports DHCP and has a web browser that allows cookies."

Curious little device though, that would be a fun machine to tinker with. Been wondering about those tablet machines, mostly for reading PDFs, but they're still hovering on the 300 euro mark. Price is certainly nice for that Z2.

[altivo]

Ah. It never occurred to me that WAVTEK_HOTSPOT might be a generic name. So it's built on the false but unsurprising assumption that one always uses an internet connection in order to browse the web. Dumb, but I guess that's typical these days. Probably I can make it work once I get a Mini-SD loaded up with the right additional software pieces.

Yes, the price is right. I got this one for $10 plus postage off EBay. Various sellers have been offering them for that price if you hunt around a bit. I've seen them listed at valexonline.com for the same price. If you look for one, probably you shouldn't pay more than about 25-30 euro for it. There's a lot of information on the web about hacking the things, how to add connections for the serial port, where to get the connector and how to wire it for USB, how to jailbreak them, etc. The cross-development environment is available for download, too, but it's huge. About 10 GB so I haven't gone that far. Probably I'm not going to develop code for it at that level.

Using it as a cheap (very cheap) netbook is almost practical. I'll not be writing the next novel on that keyboard though. I guess you can add bluetooth and use a real keyboard and even a real monitor if you insist, but that sort of defeats the pocket sized portable aspect.

[farthing]

Wavtek seems to be pretty local to McHenry county, rare to find something with a unique name these days anyways. The website doesn't mention anything further about the web page thing, but it's pretty skimpy on information anyway.

I guess those captive portals tend to be a bit troublesome for other devices as well, don't really see the reason why to use them at all. Might be easy for entering the password, but wouldn't help with security at all, especially with the latest Facebook account hijackings. Leaky tech for leaky websites. :-)

[altivo]

Yup, you've got it figured out. Wavtek is actually a computer service group based in upstairs offices facing the square. It looks like they originally had some idea of offering wifi for a subscription fee, but they gave that up and switched their test location over to free usage.

My bet is that they didn't remove the "captive" feature from the thing, so you still have to agree to terms of service through a browser. I'll find out eventually, as I intend to add the enhanced software to this Z2 by booting from SD memory. Trouble is, it requires a "Mini SD" and those are hard to find. I've mail ordered a couple, but they won't come for a few days yet.