Journal: News & Comment

Finding wireless

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Now that I have a laptop, I'm considering setting up a Wi-Fi wireless network in the house, so we could sit in the living room or on the porch or in the back yard (or, at least in theory, in the bathroom) with an Internet connection.

Having a wireless antenna on a laptop has other uses: many other locations are making wireless Internet available to the public (and not just accidentally). Airports and hotels are adding it to the services they provide to guests. Some other wireless hotspots are commercial, via services like FatPort, and some are free, like those mapped by B.C. Wireless here in British Columbia, or Consume.net in Britain. In the U.S., even Starbucks and McDonald's are getting in on the act, which means there must be something to it.

There are now Web sites dedicated to identifying available Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide. A new one set up by major computer industry players is the Wi-Fi Zone.

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