Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Friday, March 19, 2004
made it to the front porch, though. Perfect day.
I realized, that at home, my wireless already works - and so, I'm teaching Brianna how to prioritize using openoffice... she has a list of 22 things she likes, and has put 1-10 in each...
and so, I am doing tech support this afternoon in a perfect workplace.
Me: "click on A and B... with the shift key..."
B: "Click on what? Data? Sort?- OK?"
Me: "OK, um, well, you want to ... "
B: "Do I have to click on this one?" - hovering the mouse over the secondary column sort bar-
Me: "don't worry about that one, you only have one column"
B: "OK!"
B: "it's not in alphabetical order! "
"Abcdefgh
Not it's
I don't want it
you mean in reverse alphabetical order
"Sort
click on descendig
B: "YAAAA!"
Twins
Puppies
Myself
Mom
Kittens
Dad
Cindy
Candy
Disneyland
Surfing
Swimming
Tennis
Basketball
softball
friends
bugieboarding
karaoke
music
bike
parks
She asked me how to spell karaoke - and I spelt it wrong -
B: "That doesn't look right"
Me: "No, it doesn't."
B: "Mooooom - how do you spell karioke??"
Me: Just wait a minute, I'll look it up on www.dictionary.com
B: "Mooom - how do you spell karioke?"
Mom: "KARAOKE"
me, typing fiendishly, click to finish hitting karioke and get the proper spelling a few seconds later. Sometimes... mom is faster.
¶ 1:38 PM 0 comments
I realized, that at home, my wireless already works - and so, I'm teaching Brianna how to prioritize using openoffice... she has a list of 22 things she likes, and has put 1-10 in each...
and so, I am doing tech support this afternoon in a perfect workplace.
Me: "click on A and B... with the shift key..."
B: "Click on what? Data? Sort?- OK?"
Me: "OK, um, well, you want to ... "
B: "Do I have to click on this one?" - hovering the mouse over the secondary column sort bar-
Me: "don't worry about that one, you only have one column"
B: "OK!"
B: "it's not in alphabetical order! "
"Abcdefgh
Not it's
I don't want it
you mean in reverse alphabetical order
"Sort
click on descendig
B: "YAAAA!"
Twins
Puppies
Myself
Mom
Kittens
Dad
Cindy
Candy
Disneyland
Surfing
Swimming
Tennis
Basketball
softball
friends
bugieboarding
karaoke
music
bike
parks
She asked me how to spell karaoke - and I spelt it wrong -
B: "That doesn't look right"
Me: "No, it doesn't."
B: "Mooooom - how do you spell karioke??"
Me: Just wait a minute, I'll look it up on www.dictionary.com
B: "Mooom - how do you spell karioke?"
Mom: "KARAOKE"
me, typing fiendishly, click to finish hitting karioke and get the proper spelling a few seconds later. Sometimes... mom is faster.
¶ 1:38 PM 0 comments
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Cubik dog and I used to joke, that someday "you will send a fax from the beach". We implied that that was a bad thing, that working on the beach would mean that the last barrier between work and play had been broken, badly.
Well... since I have been working my tailbone off and haven't been able to get to the beach at all during this beautiful taste of summer weather, friday I am going to do my damnest to not only send a fax, but email, blog, work, and even make telephone calls via the sip protocol - from "cowells beach" in Santa Cruz. The best of all worlds.
It promises to be a beautiful day - and it's easy to work outside the office if you have the right gear. You already have most of it. Pick up that 802.11b access point you have keeping you locked to your desk, and a laptop, and an 12v dc to AC inverter for your car... and plug it all in midway between somebody elses's open access point and the beach... and bang-zoom - yer on the net!
Easy - Or so I thought. Actually, as in preparation I have been doing some wardriving around santa cruz, it is a little more complex than that - I will get to the problems after a brief digression into a rant ( Wardriving, for those of you that don't already know, is the process of driving around looking for open 802.11b wireless access points, and taking advantage of them. I hate the term "wardriving". It doesn't imply anything that you are actually doing when you are looking for a connection to the internet. Speaking of that - after hanging at the contact conference last weekend and reading Bruce Damer's book on avatars - I hate the term "internet" with revived passion - "Cyberspace" makes so much more memetic sense)
Anyway, back to bringing wireless to Cowells beach. There's about 12 wireless access points that I have found within a few 100 feet of the beach, but with the cheezy antenna on my laptop, I can't actually BE on the beach and be on the internet with the APs I have found...
Enter the Warcar (photo coming)... equipped with a pair of wireless access points, a high gain omni and a directional antenna, and an 10db amplifier, I can broadcast about 5 miles from a hilltop location, if I need to - I don't, I am just trying to get past the volleyball courts on Cowells, and so long as I get there early enough to have a good parking spot, I should be styling.
If I can't get LOS (line of sight), there's my Warbike - my ebike, lightly modified to have an access point on it too...
and, lastly, the War-beach umbrella.
It occurred to me, posting this blog, that if everyone picked up their wireless gear and went to the beach, that working together we could get every single beach in the geek world connected up to the internet in a matter of minutes.
Wouldn't that be grand? Beats working at the office - or at home - by a mile.
See ya there. ¶ 11:28 PM 0 comments
Well... since I have been working my tailbone off and haven't been able to get to the beach at all during this beautiful taste of summer weather, friday I am going to do my damnest to not only send a fax, but email, blog, work, and even make telephone calls via the sip protocol - from "cowells beach" in Santa Cruz. The best of all worlds.
It promises to be a beautiful day - and it's easy to work outside the office if you have the right gear. You already have most of it. Pick up that 802.11b access point you have keeping you locked to your desk, and a laptop, and an 12v dc to AC inverter for your car... and plug it all in midway between somebody elses's open access point and the beach... and bang-zoom - yer on the net!
Easy - Or so I thought. Actually, as in preparation I have been doing some wardriving around santa cruz, it is a little more complex than that - I will get to the problems after a brief digression into a rant ( Wardriving, for those of you that don't already know, is the process of driving around looking for open 802.11b wireless access points, and taking advantage of them. I hate the term "wardriving". It doesn't imply anything that you are actually doing when you are looking for a connection to the internet. Speaking of that - after hanging at the contact conference last weekend and reading Bruce Damer's book on avatars - I hate the term "internet" with revived passion - "Cyberspace" makes so much more memetic sense)
Anyway, back to bringing wireless to Cowells beach. There's about 12 wireless access points that I have found within a few 100 feet of the beach, but with the cheezy antenna on my laptop, I can't actually BE on the beach and be on the internet with the APs I have found...
Enter the Warcar (photo coming)... equipped with a pair of wireless access points, a high gain omni and a directional antenna, and an 10db amplifier, I can broadcast about 5 miles from a hilltop location, if I need to - I don't, I am just trying to get past the volleyball courts on Cowells, and so long as I get there early enough to have a good parking spot, I should be styling.
If I can't get LOS (line of sight), there's my Warbike - my ebike, lightly modified to have an access point on it too...
and, lastly, the War-beach umbrella.
It occurred to me, posting this blog, that if everyone picked up their wireless gear and went to the beach, that working together we could get every single beach in the geek world connected up to the internet in a matter of minutes.
Wouldn't that be grand? Beats working at the office - or at home - by a mile.
See ya there. ¶ 11:28 PM 0 comments
