Geekery of the very highest calibre
Everybody, and by that I mean everybody in the entire universe, hates wireless networks. Even if you love them completely and want to marry them, you actually hate them even more than people who say they hate them. What’s happening is that your brain is protecting itself from the increased levels of hatred. The second law of thermodynamics used to state:
Heat cannot of itself pass from a colder to a hotter body.
It now reads:
Everybody hates wireless networking to death.
The original second and third laws have been displaced by this new universal constant.
Wireless networks are just disgraceful. They promise to set you free from having to lay cables all around your house to get the internet wherever you want. And, in fact, they accomplish that. What they don’t tell you is that you have to put the laptop as close to the router as possible, make sure there’s nothing metallic in the way (like a wall, your dog or some air) and always ensure that your laptop is at 90° to the floor at all times.
I hate wireless networking. I wish it was dead. Except for in public places, that’s ok.
Anyway, the other thing you’ve got to watch out for is people stealing your connection. Pretty much all laptops these days come with wireless adaptor cards, which means they automatically detect any wireless network in the area and try to connect to it. You can set the network up so that only computers you want to allow can access it, but if you’re not tech-savvy this can be difficult. This means that it’s reasonably likely that your neighbour will be able to use your internet connection without paying you a single penny!
As I said, you can prevent this, but I just came across this little gem. I actually think it’s hilarious. He set it up so that anyone who uses his wireless connection without permission gets upside-down images when they try to access the web. That’s true genius: the man ought to be knighted. I might write to the Queen and put his name forward. She could outlaw wireless networking while she was at it, actually.
Read it: Upside-Down-Ternet »
Via Joel on Software (Joel Spolsky is also a genius).
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
It’s quite nice in the workplace, admittedly. And I would imagine it’s rather good on trains as well, although I’ve never had t’opportunity to use it.
Although personally I think it’s a bit of a pointless fad. I mean, I’m sat here at the moment with my work laptop using wifi, but only because I forgot to plug the network cable in this morning. Ok it has its uses when you’re travelling around etc, but generally it’s got a long way to go. Until we have wireless buildings/cities, there’s not much point.
I do like being able to cheekily pick up neighbours’ wifi connections and check your e-mail though in a non-wifi enabled house. It’s a victimless crime!
Love and hate. Absolutely. I am actually officially sharing a broadband connection with the neighbours across the road. Every few days I have to reposition my desktop computer in order to get a good signal. And if I don’t get a good signal, the computer wastes all its resources trying to connect to secured networks belonging to people upstairs and either side of me and/or my friends over the road.
Hate and love. But mostly hate.