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.

Early Adopters Beware

Although this blog is not about previewing the latest new gadgets - there are plenty of other blogs that do this quite well - I couldn’t resist commenting on several items that caught my eye in the December issue of Wired Magazine.

• Trimtac Security Tag: Amazingly, this is almost exactly the device we were just talking about in relation to the proposal to track your car for road tax purposes. It records your GPS position every few minutes and sends the data to an internet database using GSM technology, like a cellphone. It is positioned as a portable LoJack-type device which you can place in any vehicle or even your luggage or golf bag (it runs for 3 months on 4 AA batteries) and then subscribe to the service. The technology is clearly available, but the big hurdle will be the logistics of getting them in vehicles and the political task of mandating it. Given some of the more insane propositions that the electorate has been passing in California, maybe that part will happen sooner than I predicted.
  
  
• MIB USB Drive: Clever little device that you upload MP3 songs into and plug into your cigarette lighter jack. You then can transmit your songs into your stereo via an unused FM frequency. Seems like $115 is a lot to spend for this feature. How hard would it be for cars to have a little jack in the dash so we can upload a bunch of songs or pictures or movies into the car’s entertainment system? Some new cars havea Bluetooth wireless feature, but not many devices support this yet.
  
  
• Arkon Laptop Holder: This clever device clips onto your steering wheel and gives you a platform to support your laptop. Now you can talk on the phone, write e-mails, and finish applying your makeup simultaneously while sitting in stop and go traffic enroute to work. What a time saver! Maybe it's just me but I think that piloting a potentially lethal object, like a car or truck, should demand your complete attention.
  
  
• Nokia Image Album: When you start using your new megapixel camera phone, you will soon realize that you need a place to store all the great candid shots you now take while standing in line at Starbucks. Nokia offers a small portable unit with a 20GB hard disk that you can download everything into and then show the pictures to your friends on your TV. Cost: $400.
  
  Sounds good but here is the problem: I just checked online with Dell and you can buy an entire PC with a 40GB hard disk, 256Mb memory, 17” monitor, and a free printer for $348! Jeez! I doubt if many people comprehend the far-reaching influence Dell has on the pricing of new technology. If I can buy a whole PC for $350, then why should I have to shell out $500 on a PDA, or $600 on a photo iPod? One has to admire Dell for proving that you can succeed in the computer business if you optimize your supply-chain and provide a quality product with a lot of value for the buck.
  
  
• Oakley MP3 Sunglasses: Oakley is known for expensive sunglasses and this one is no exception at $495. It looks like Borg hardware with an MP3 player, 256Mb of memory and ear buds so you can have all your tunes with you and look totally cool while you’re out and about. If you’re worried about running out of battery power, you can probably rig it up to your $425 Scott Solar Recharging Jacket and never have to be without tunes again. You'll be ok if you're walking in New York city or Hollywood in this getup, but I suggest you carry several forms of ID if you plan to be in one of the more rural areas of the country, just in case you need proof that you were born on the third planet from the Sun.
  
  
• Flybar Pogo Stick: If you have $300 to spend on a new high-performance pogo stick, here’s the ticket. This baby claims to be able to get you up to 5 feet of air! I predict a whole new sport emerging from this - I can see it now: 10,000 armored, helmeted athletes bouncing through Boston city streets as they crush and trample each other for the Pogo Marathon Championship!
  

Truth is, I love this time of year with all the cool geek shopping lists coming out; but it’s also time to renew my pledge to think twice before I rush out and feed my habit. Restraint is a virtue here unless one has unlimited funds. Heck, even if you do have unlimited funds, save most of it for something more worthwhile, like maybe a trip to some exotic place like Istanbul or Marrakech. Of course you would want to take along your digital camera and laptop so you can e-mail pictures to your friends at each stop along the way.

GPS and Cuff Links

Unbeknownst to the general population, GPS technology is steadily and quietly growing all around us. Once strictly limited to military and marine use, it is rapidly finding its way onto every small plane and boat, luxury car, even handheld units for hikers and bikers. Large trucking companies have them on their entire fleet, tracking them wherever they are on the continent, and farmers use them to pinpoint exactly where to navigate their heavy equipment. Soon, virtually every vehicle of any size and significance will have a GPS unit built into the instruments.

The biggest potential use is of course automobiles. The current discussions in California about mandating GPS in private automobiles (see “Taxing by the Mile”) has naturally refueled the privacy issue again. In many ways it seems silly and naive for people to complain about a GPS device recording where they travel in their car. After all, they’re out in public, traveling on city streets or public highways, and they’re not exactly invisible. Anyone could legally follow them and keep notes on their whereabouts. They are already being tracked to some extent if they use a credit card to buy gas, or a radio transponder to auto-pay at toll gates.

In spite of these recurring protests by privacy advocates, the fact is that we as a nation are slowly getting used to the idea that information about us is being stored somewhere, whether it’s the phone company, the IRS, Social Security, Dept. of Motor Vehicles, U.S. Customs, the FBI, Credit Agencies, wherever. Pretty much everything we do is already recorded somewhere, including where we buy gas, what restaurants we frequent, and what we buy at Radio Shack and Macy’s and the grocery store. As the use of debit cards grows in leaps and bounds, so does the mass of data on what is bought with them and by whom.

Many of you have no doubt seen the commercial for Onstar that demonstrates how their system knows exactly where your car is and can send a tow truck or even unlock your doors because it can connect to your car’s computer via satellite. The idea of your car being tracked is already here folks. It is not a hypothetical futuristic new thing. It’s here today and I for one, am convinced that it will continue to spread and grow and eventually become a must-have feature on every car. It may take a couple of car generations for the majority of cars to have them built-in, but it will happen.

The benefits of never getting lost again, or being able to get directions to a new store or someone's house will drive acceptance of the technology. As long as it's not abused, people will get used to the technology and will learn to rely on it if their car ever breaks down or gets stolen. Whether we like it or not, as technology permeates every aspect of our lives, there will be few things that go unnoticed by one electronic system or another.

Twenty years ago, Nicholas Negroponte, then director of the MIT Media Lab, liked to comment in his speeches that before long, “You’ll find that your left cuff link will be communicating with your right cuff link via satellite.”

We are closer than you might think to that reality.
I say, bring it on.