Free WiFi

A few weeks ago my wife and I drove up to northern California to visit my daughter at Berkeley. Since # 2 daughter likes to think she is descended from royalty (must be several generations back), she insisted that the next morning we go to a little French restaurant called Le Bateau Ivre for breakfast. Although the service was pretty slow, the food was excellent and reasonable so they got two out of three right. But what impressed me most (note: this will reveal a lot about my priorities) was the fact that they had a sign up that announced free WiFi access.

When we were finished eating and I knew we probably had about 10 minutes to kill before our waiter returned with the credit card, I decided to walk over and talk to the owner about the WiFi. What I learned is that the free access had not been up for too long, but they were already quite pleased with the business it brought in. They have two transmitters which serve about 50 tables inside and outside and the owner claims that they don’t get many people who abuse the free service.

No doubt the reason this caught my attention was the fact that I had just, a few weeks before, mentally added up all the money I pay each month for stuff like internet, satellite, cellphones, land lines, etc. Yes, I know that there are a growing number of large hotel chains who cater to businessmen that now offer free internet hookup in the rooms, but here was a small restaurant that was offering the same thing. It was a ray of hope - a sign of good things to come. I’m sure we will always pay for high speed access at home because it will carry an increasingly larger and larger amount of data, but public access for undemanding tasks? - that should be free.

Patience....

Master of you own Domain

Our family has had Earthlink DSL service for several years now and for the most part it works fine. However, occasionally it seems to get really flaky and goes down for several hours, or even the better part of a day. Furthermore, I’m still paying the same $50/month that I paid a couple years ago which I think is too much. So the other day I asked myself, “what would happen if I finally got fed up with Earthlink and decided to go with another online service instead?”

The answer to my question is something I'd rather avoid, which my internet service is counting on. My whole family and I would have to get new e-mail addresses and notify hundreds and hundreds of people and accounts of the change. Big problem, and getting worse as each day goes by!! Naturally I started to wonder if there is any way to fix this problem now before it gets even more painful?

Here is what I came up with, and recommend to others:

I hunted around and found a good hosting service, picked an inexpensive hosting package and registered my own domain name. Sounds complicated but it took me all of about 30 minutes to make the decision and get set up. I tried several different domain names until I found one that I liked and thought I would be able to live with for a long time. The package I chose (through www.1and1.com) includes three domain names, but they have a slightly cheaper package that includes one name for only $7/month. It also includes 200 e-mail addresses, lots of free software to help you design and publish a simple web site, and a whole bunch of other things like free virus checking, Webmail, etc. My feeling here is that before you know it, everyone will have their own personal website, so why not reserve a good name now?

If you are not interested or ready to set up your own website, then go with just the domain name registration and your own personal e-mail account. At my same hosting service the domain registration only costs $6/year and you can get your own personal e-mail account for $1/month. At this point you may be asking why would I want to do all this if I already get a free account from Yahoo?

Here is why: For the cost of one cup of regular Starbucks coffee per month ($1.50), you can have your own domain name, like decembersunshine.com and 5 e-mail addresses with more space then you will ever need. With that comes free virus and spam filtering and free Webmail when you’re traveling. You can use Outlook at home or their Webmail connection at home or while traveling.

Now you can switch internet services whenever you choose without having to change your e-mail address. Cool! What’s more, you have total control over the prefix part of the e-mail address (the part that comes before the @), since you now own the domain name (the part following the @). Call yourself bubba@decembersunshine.com or whatever you want and change it if you need to. You can even set it up so that mail addressed to any prefix before the @ goes to a special mailbox.

The point here is that your e-mail address is going to take on an increasingly important role in your life as each year passes, so why not take control over it now before all the interesting domain names are gone?

I have to admit that I have an ulterior motive in trying to get people to separate themselves from their ISP e-mail service. Who knows, maybe if this happens to a significant degree, then people may be more inclined to shop around for a cheaper internet service (as I am getting ready to do) and put the pressure on them all to lower their prices.

Craft your own personalized e-mail address and become the master of your own domain for just a few bucks a month !!!

Virtual Hunting

This one comes under the heading, “Ain’t technology great!” Since video and computer games have for a long time now, offered people the opportunity to engage in the fantasy of playing Rambo or James Bond with a full arsenal of weapons at their disposal, it comes as no surprise that someone is taking the whole shooting experience to a new level.

I just discovered that you can subscribe to a website that has a real rifle set up on a Texas shooting range that you control while sitting at the computer in your family room. In an attempt to make this experience a little more realistic, there are four cameras along with the aiming of the gun and the trigger release. One camera is on the target, one mounted on the rifle scope, and two others that pan the area. Oh, and there is an attendant sitting behind the gun (hopefully the aiming mechanism has limit stops), who is probably secretly laughing at you for paying $15/month plus $6 for every ten shots.

Ok, so this all sounds like the kind of thing that would appeal to 11 year-old boys who live in the big city and have never had the opportunity to shoot a gun, right? And it also sounds like something that would get old after you do it twice, right?
But we’re both not thinking far enough ahead.

According to the L.A. Times , these folks are planning to up the ante and introduce real live moving targets for the virtual hunter to shoot. I’m not kidding. They are considering giving the armchair hunter the option of shooting several different kinds of live animals, such as antelope, sheep and wild hogs. Now, even though I’m fine with people hunting for food when that is part of their normal lifestyle, I've never had much regard for the killing of animals for sport. This situation is made worse because the animals in question normally hang out on one side of an open field, and then when they get hungry, head over for dinner which they know will be on the opposite side of the field. The open field is of course where you are sitting, at least virtually, with your rifle. It’s more like a shooting gallery than a hunting experience.

What’s next you ask? I hesitate to speculate, but I can’t help it. Lets say that the whole idea of real-life virtual experiences (is that an oxymoron?) catches on. How much would people pay to be looking through a helmet-mounted video camera on a fireman entering a burning building? or how about an Iraqi soldier on patrol? or maybe a real African Safari?

For me this whole thing is a little too much like a bad science fiction movie. It’s all just a little too detached and surreal. But unfortunately even if the hunting thing never takes off, I sadly predict that other virtual adventure ideas will quickly become big business. We can only hope that someone is working on a real working Holo Deck (re: Star Trek) before too many animals or people get killed trying to satisfy armchair adventurers.