Taking Your Laptop for a Walk Michael Knowles
Look around next time your are out shopping or just hanging out.
Doesn\’t it seem like wireless is being offered everywhere. If
you know where to find so-called \’hotspots\’ (areas where there
is wireless Internet access), you can take your laptop for a
little walk.
Public Hotspots
When you take your laptop and go searching for hotspots, the
first place to look is big public institutions. More and more
libraries now offer wireless access and, if you\’re a student,
the chances are that your university campus is wireless-enabled,
or will be soon.
Private Hotspots
The real growth area in wireless hotspots, though, is in the
private sector. Businesses are falling over themselves to
provide free Internet access to their business customers. Cafes,
hotels and airports are all starting to offer wireless access to
anyone who happens to be around. All you need to bring is a
laptop with Centrino technology or a wireless PCMCIA card.
How does it benefit cafes to offer wireless Internet access for
free? Think about it. instead of paying money to sit in some
dingy Internet cafe, you can use the Internet for free in an
otherwise normal cafe. While there you will probably buy food
and drinks. Cafes are willing to pay the minimal cost of
providing wireless Internet access in exchange for the new
customers it gets them, especially in areas where Internet
access is hard to come by any other way. The same goes for
hotels and airports: customers see wireless access as a big
value-add, and will vote with their feet for places that provide
it.
Finding Them
For some reason, even though there are thousands of hotspots,
they don\’t get a lot of marketing. Doing a search for hotspots
in your town could really surprise you. You might think there
aren\’t any, but if you live in a decently-sized place then it
may be surprising at this point if there weren\’t.
There are plenty of websites you can go to and find hotspots
(try a search for \’wireless hotspots\’). One of the most
comprehensive is JiWire.com. You can see information from JiWire
at their website, or by typing your zip code into Yahoo Maps and
choosing \’WiFi Hotspots\’ from the menu over on the right of the
screen.
If you can\’t be bothered with that, one tip is to just look out
for a Starbucks. The things are everywhere, and almost all of
them offer wireless Internet access in at least part of the
shop. Borders and Kinko\’s are also good places to try. Failing
that, just keep an eye out for a cafe — it can\’t hurt to ask,
after all.
Your Wireless ISP
You might find, though, that some of the larger hotspot networks
with more convenient locations require you to pay a small fee to
a wireless ISP to use them. You can usually do this by buying a
prepaid card at the place where the access is offered, though,
so it isn\’t too much to worry about. If you want to stay free,
just stick to the small independent places.
Hotspot Software
Of course, it\’s a little useless to have to look for hotspots on
the Internet, or go hunting for them on foot. It takes time and
energy to go walking around searching, and if you had Internet
access, well, why would you be looking for a hotspot? The
solution, then, is download and install hotspot locater software
on your computer.
Once this is installed, you have a database of known hotspots on
your computer that you can search at any time, whether you\’re
online or offline. Just type in a zip code or the name of the
town where you are and the software will come back with the
nearest hotspots, sorted by distance from you. Each time you do
manage to get an Internet connection, the software connects to
its server and downloads the latest hotspot list, to make sure
that your database doesn\’t get out of date.
Where can you get hotspot locater software? Well, it\’s offered
for free from the hotspot providers\’ sites, for a start.
T-Mobile Hotspot is currently the largest provider, and offers
software for free download at http://www.tmobile.com/hotspot.
Michael Knowles www.freedomisyoursonline.com Copyright 2005
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