Shaine Mata Blog

Tonight, I finally got around to sporting a dual monitor. Some of my friends have done so in order to improve productivity. In my case, one monitor is distracting enough in terms of productivity. Except for this one case, computer repair. It's a pain having to plug and unplug computers into a single monitor that is shared between my home computer and the computer I am servicing. I do have a KVM switch; but, all that does is save me the manual work. I still need to switch back and forth. In one of those strange turns of events, I wound up with an Iogear USB External Video Adapter. The device is about $60. You plug it into your USB port, and it acts like a video card. The alternative was to buy a video card that supports dual monitors. Ultimately, having dual monitors does not help me as would be expected. In my situation, one monitor uses the KVM to help me watch the computer I'm servicing. The other monitor stays on task as my desktop, where I can keep working. I haven&

Over the weekend and into this evening, I experimented with leaving three Internet hotspots I control without a splash page (802.1x). The purpose was to see if usage of the hotspots would increase. Previously, the number users with DHCP leases (I'm guessing) far outnumbered the users who were actively downloading data. The item in question was whether the splash page was an obstacle to use. After leaving the hotspots open without splash pages over the weekend and into late Tuesday evening, it can be said that authentication does pose a slight obstacle to active use of the hotspots. However, the increase in usage  without the splash page was far from dramatic. I can't draw any hard conclusions; but, I can at least expect that the splash pages do not hinder use of free WiFi too greatly. The splash pages, consisting of randomly rotating websites, are re-enabled now. I have ordered three more Open-Mesh routers, doubling my current inventory. Yes, my data set is very meager. But

Tonight, I switched from my Boost Mobile iDEN phone to a CDMA phone. Sprint has been providing lousier service on the iDEN bands to the point that I drive through several dead spots a day. I don't use the Walkie Talkie feature often; but, it was nice to have it available when needed. Switching from iDEN to CDMA means that I no longer can use the Walkie-Talkie service; I've also lost my radio number. It's not all doom and gloom. One of the drawbacks of iDEN is that it is rather slow and unreliable with respect to SMS (text messaging). The Internet service is also unreliable. CDMA, on the other hand, offers more reliable text messaging and Internet service. Still, I can't help thinking that I lost something. I've been with Boost Mobile for some time. I am very close to cashing in on their Shrinkage plan, which takes $5 off your monthly unlimited subscription for every 6 months of on-time payments. That means that I'll be going down to $45/month  after one

Nope. Can't embed. The only option you get is the Post to Blogger/Twitter, as in above. And, there is the embed image code below: From January 19, 2012 Or a direct link to the Picasa page.

I moved the mesh radio I had at home out to a retail store to see what impact it would have on network use. If you look at the image above between January 10 and January 12, there are three routers with one in a residential setting. After January 13, you'll notice that the usage becomes sparse and light. This could be attributed to several factors. For instance, when people are out of the home, they are not looking at retail locations to provide free WiFi. The main users of the all-commercial hotspots are people with mobile phones, though this is probably skewed given that two routers are located in mobile phone stores; but, it holds just as true for the third router, which is in a restaurant. That is to say, mainly mobile users. There is another possibility; the splash page is an unfamiliar step for most mobile users. They are connecting; I can see the connections. Somehow, they are not drawing data. I believe that some users are not aware that the connection requires them

My experiments thus far have had somewhat expected results, residential free WiFi use is heavier than commercial free WiFi use. Just for background, I have four commercial locations providing free WiFi and my own residence filling in for residential WiFi. In the commercial locations, I have a retail store, a public space, a doctor's office, and a restaurant. What I have observed is that in the commercial hotspots; people mostly connect with their mobile devices, and they only connect for short periods. This is good news for businesses considering setting up hotspots for their clients. It means that their customers are not going to linger too long and bog down their network with huge downloads. On the residential side, I get a good share of mobile devices; but, the really heavy downloads are the result of laptops and possibly desktops with wireless access. These connections are more bandwidth intensive and persistent. What This Means for Community Network Planning Resident

I went out again tonight, to play with microwaves; you might call them WiFi. OK, so it wasn't midnight; I really needed a catchy title. Anyway, I drove up to a high point in town, which isn't all that high; and, I pointed the Ubiquiti Nanostation LOCO down Conway Avenue in Mission, Texas just to see what networks I could hit. As an aside, you can set Ubiquiti radios to "any" SSID, which, as the name implies, connects your radio to any open SSID it finds. Of course, there is more to it than that; the radios do not come with setup destructions, so there are plenty of things to figure out the hard way. Chimney Park Going back to my signal checking, I was able to see Chimney Park North and Chimney Park South, which are about 5 km away. I did not have a very clear line of sight other than what a road without traffic can provide. The elevation drops about 20 feet between where I was and Chimney Park. There is another RV park that is about 1 or 2 km closer, Oleander

I've been working on a project to get WiFi hotspots throughout the city. The ultimate goal is to have access to the Internet from anywhere in town. The challenge is coming up with some kind of incentive to get businesses to participate by donating their bandwidth. After all, they pay good money for it.  I'm thinking of approaching this from two different angles. For businesses, there is a marketing/advertising angle. For the consumer, we'll need to go along a Wireless ISP approach, with distribution points back to the consumer.  I'm still figuring out the best approach to ensure that we have enough bandwidth for everybody. In the meantime, little islands of WiFi throughout town, in an advertising pool is the best idea I could dream up.  This means knocking on doors and offering to set up hotspots with 1 Mb connections for visitors; it's best not to abuse the business participant.  Advertising Co-op? By hosting a hotspot, the business can have the

In watching the traffic on some of the wireless networks I admin, which provide free WiFi to visitors, I have noticed that a good portion consists of mobile devices rather than laptops, as the typical WiFi moocher of the past was likely to use. This makes sense now that mobile devices have taken over basic communication functions, such as email and looking up quick information. In the list of devices, the device name typically contains "Android" or "iPad, iPhone, or iTouch". If those aren't dead giveaways, the manufacturer is often listed as Apple, HTC, Android, or something similar. Scientific? No. Rough idea? Definitely. What I find more striking is that these devices are not simply downloading a few KB here and there as they are polling email servers. Rather, they are pulling down tens and hundreds of MB of data. This finding is significant because it means that mobile users are taking advantage of WiFi to supplement their data plans. As mobile compan

I've decided to give Ubiquiti products a try. I've placed an order for my first product, the Nanostation M2 LOCO, primarily for the range that the product specs claim. I've experimented with Open-Mesh routers. They are pretty good; I'll continue to use them. However, even Open-Mesh suggests that their products are best used indoors. I have a high-powered one on a pole on my roof. It's impressive how far the signal gets considering how small the unit is and that there are trees in the way. Still, the little routers use dipole antennas, which I suppose I could replace with something more directional or higher gain. I'm happy with what they can do; but, I need more coverage. Before changing the stock product, I want to see if I can access the signal from a further distance using the Nanostation. In my mind, I'm thinking that having radios that mesh is helpful; but, I don't necessarily want to build the city network entirely on mesh due to the networ