Re: Southbay Tech Night...?

	That's a fantastic idea - we need to add that to our list of likely  
user-types, for preparation of a whitepaper on the topic.

	Home users
	Home users who want to share
	Businesses who want to set up
	Home users who want to work on larger network / tech issues
	


On Oct 28, 2004, at 11:48, <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> This sounds really interesting. I might even become active in the
> organization :). I would love to see the BAWG become a real resource
> (advisory, online information/training) for small local businesses who
> want to setup and provide free wireless for their customers.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Angel S. Viloria III
> Training Services Project Manager
>   Knowledge is Security:
> http://www.sonicwall.com/img/TrnFlash/sw_sonicU.html
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John D. Saunders [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 11:02 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [BAWUG] Southbay Tech Night...?
>
>
> I think the idea of some small, local meetings with some how-to and
> general discussion sounds great.  There's a great place in downtown
> Campbell, Orchard Valley Coffee that I am sure would love to have a
> group in there- they have been providing free wireless for a while now.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On  
> Behalf
> Of [email protected]
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 10:22 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: wireless Digest, Vol 8, Issue 26
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. tech help meetings - Handout on creating free hotspots
>       (Joshua Marker)
>    2. Community meetings (Joshua Marker)
>    3. Re: Best hardware for cheap/fast bridging? (Jim Thompson)
>    4. Re: tech help meetings - Handout on creating free hotspots
>       (Eric Walstad)
>    5. Re: Good SFLAN node (Eric Walstad)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:28:19 -0700
> From: Joshua Marker <[email protected]>
> Subject: [BAWUG] tech help meetings - Handout on creating free
> 	hotspots
> To: Bay Area Wireless Users Group <[email protected]>
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> 	I'm thinking the best way to start this stuff off is to start
> locally,
> with small meetings. If I had an evening in Noe Valley, for example,
> where everyone was welcome to come chat about what they were doing, who
> would come? There is a new place on Dolores that has free wireless that
> would love the business - I think that would be my first choice.
>
> 	We should be able to provide, on our website and in print,
> simple
> documents explaining to Joe Public how to make his NAP free to the
> neighborhood, and include all sorts of guerilla good-network-neighbor
> stuff -- how to pick a channel, how to name your network so people can
> contact you (without endangering yourself), etc.
>
> 	So this is two questions: How many people would show up to a
> basic
> wireless techfest and meet 'n greet in Noe/Mission next week, say
> Tuesday? If I could get a couple people to show up and answer
> questions, I'll go talk to the cafe and put up a sign.
>
>   	Second, what tips would you give Joe Q Public about opening up
> his
> wireless? What questions should we answer? I'll collect them, and
> prepare a doc. Does BAWUG have a decent logo, or do I have to generate
> some travesty of something based on the golden gate bridge and wireless
> radio waves? Don't make me do it; I will.
>
>
> --  
> Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
>      -- Sam Brown, Washington Post
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:31:18 -0700
> From: Joshua Marker <[email protected]>
> Subject: [BAWUG] Community meetings
> To: Bay Area Wireless Users Group <[email protected]>
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> 	It seems to me that BAWUG/SFLAN have some enormously technically
>
> talented people involved. But that their development has both stalled,
> probably because only the terribly technical people originally involved
> have reached their carrying capacity in terms of attention.
>
> 	I think, however, that wireless in the bay area has a ways to
> go.
> Those guys in Portland are seriously showing us up.
>
> 	To this end, I suggest we take a look at what they're doing that
> we're
> not. I'm looking for input on getting more _user_ involvement to take
> the burden off these guys and get the local network going, both in
> terms of increasing the number of Joe Publics making free hotspots and
> increasing links to SFLAN. A glance through Portland's site shows what
> they're doing:
>
> 1) Meetings, both user-level and developer-level
> 2) Organization. I'm not sure how much org there is. I think quite a
> lot in SFLAN, but it seems to be tightly held. I can't, for example,
> find any info about what IP layout they use, etc, etc.
>
> 	It seems to me the goal of a wireless group should be to
> encourage any
> kind of adoption, from getting people to put up SFLAN nodes (clearly a
> big win) to simply sharing their DSL. To this end, we need to make it
> _easy_ for people to walk up the wireless path.
>
> 	First, we need simple hand-holding explanations of what Joe User
> can
>
> do to put up a WAP and share his connection with his neighbor. This
> entails getting an ISP that doesn't mind, buying the tools, choosing
> the best channel, and securing their own machines. I think there will
> be a hand-out document* in the future here on this topic, but the best
> way to do research is to start helping people.
>
> 	Second, I know I'd like to see more of a plan, more info on what
> SFLAN
> is about and what their future direction is. It's hard to know it right
> now. To this end, Friday, I'll go down to archive.org and bother the
> fine gents at SFLAN, if I can find them, and see if I can fill the gaps
> in my knowledge. I'd like to see some network infrastructure plans, get
> a sense of how this all goes down. Ideally, this should be
> semi-documented, but I'm not sure how best to go about it or what they
> have done already.
>
> 	Third (I lied, there are three, I just thought of this):
> Recognition.
> Nobody knows to whom they should turn if they want to set up a wireless
> link. Many of the local cafes are already starbucked, which is a shame,
> because they both advertise and encourage if you get them in. A logo?
> Something to add to warchalking (does anyone warchalk anymore?) How can
> we let people know about what they could do for/with community
> wireless? I think if we get a little bit of organization, we could
> arrange an interview by eg the Guardian, and drive up membership or
> interest. We'll need an active group before that's smart, though.
>
> 	In the mean time, I think we need to light a fire. Mr.
> Pretorious has
> offered a meeting spot for a bigger, full-scale meeting, in Freemont.
> Does anyone have one in San Francisco? I think we'd get more people.
>
> -- 
> Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross
> a chasm in two small jumps.  -- David Lloyd George
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:58:24 -1000
> From: Jim Thompson <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [BAWUG] Best hardware for cheap/fast bridging?
> To: Eric Pretorious <[email protected]>
> Cc: [email protected]
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Eric Pretorious wrote:
>> On Tuesday 26 October 2004 03:40 pm, Chris Weiss wrote:
>>
>>> We're looking to connect our office LANs on two adjacent floors using
>>> a wireless connection (the current cat-5 snaking out the window is  
>>> not
>
>>> going to cut it when the weather _really_ gets sour).
>>
>>
>> Omnidirectional antennas are *generally* optimized to focus their
>> beams in
> the
>> horizontal plane. i.e., The beam radiation pattern looks like a
>> squashed
>> donut. Therefore, two devices directly above/below each other will not
> be
>> able to communicate efficiently because they will be in each others'
>> donut-hole.
>
> This is typically an effect of increased gain, not any "optimization".
>
> Further, the path loss between two devices (antennas) placed directly
> above each other will be quite low, so even with the loss in
> directivity, communication will probably still take place.
>
>>
>>> Amazon's got the Linksys WRT-54G for ~$60/ea...
>>
>> IMHO: An excellent piece of equipment for residential use but I don't
>> know
>
>> about commerical applications. WPA (TKIP or AES), DHCP, detachable
>> dual
>> antennas.
> It has all this.  (Not that I think its much of an AP...)
>
>>
>>> We'd also like to keep our existing wifi access, which leads to
>>> another Q - I've heard that just the presence of 802.11b devices in  
>>> an
>
>>> 802.11g environment will drop everyone to b speeds, is that right?
>
> For sure if an 11b device associates to an 11g AP, then the AP and its
> associated 11g STAs must start sending protection frames before any  
> data
>
> frame(s).
>
> While this doesn't drop everyone to 11b speeds, it does slow throughput
> down quite a bit.
>
> The alternative is massive interference for everyone.
>
>>
>> Set the different networks on different channels:
>>
>>   http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1152281,00.asp
>
> What you don't know can hurt you.  Most 11g devices don't have enough
> ACR at the higher modulation rates to allow simultaneous operation on
> ch11 and ch1.  (Anything closer is a bigger mess.)
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:56:59 -0700
> From: Eric Walstad <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [BAWUG] tech help meetings - Handout on creating free
> 	hotspots
> To: [email protected]
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> On Wednesday 27 October 2004 05:28 pm, Joshua Marker wrote:
>>  I'm thinking the best way to start this stuff off is to start
>> locally, with small meetings. If I had an evening in Noe Valley, for
>> example, where everyone was welcome to come chat about what they were
>> doing, who would come? There is a new place on Dolores that has free
>> wireless that would love the business - I think that would be my first
>
>> choice.
> Count me in.  I'm in Bernal Heights, so Noe would be a nice bike ride
> for me.
>
>
>>  We should be able to provide, on our website and in print, simple
>> documents explaining to Joe Public how to make his NAP free to the
>> neighborhood, and include all sorts of guerilla good-network-neighbor
>> stuff -- how to pick a channel, how to name your network so people can
>
>> contact you (without endangering yourself), etc.
> Consider me Joe Public.  I'm happy to be the test case.  I've done
> some of this stuff, but I've done so in a vacuum and would like to
> see how others are doing it.
>
>
>>  So this is two questions: How many people would show up to a basic
>> wireless techfest and meet 'n greet in Noe/Mission next week, say
>> Tuesday? If I could get a couple people to show up and answer
>> questions, I'll go talk to the cafe and put up a sign.
> I'll show up, but I'll likely take the role of student rather than
> teacher.  I'm happy to talk about my current setup but it would be a
> short talk (using SFLAN to provide a network connection at home).
>
>
>>    Second, what tips would you give Joe Q Public about opening up his
>> wireless?
> I've not done this, although I have emailed SFLAN requesting info on
> how to use my Soekris 4521 to create a new SFLAN node.  No response
> yet.
>
>
>> What questions should we answer?
> - What's needed to setup an SFLAN node
>   - Are two different radios needed (b & g)?
>   - What's the difference between a node and a repeater?
>   - Must I have a good connection to certain SFLAN nodes
>     to create a new node?
>
> Eric.
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:01:52 -0700
> From: Eric Walstad <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [BAWUG] Good SFLAN node
> To: [email protected]
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> On Wednesday 27 October 2004 05:19 pm, Joshua Marker wrote:
>> Can anyone recommend a good SFLAN node accessible from street level
>> from which to examine the network? My local (47) never seems to show
>> up; I fear it may be high above.
> FWIW, I've been able to connect to 47 (I think) every time I've tried.
> But, I do have a little altitude.  Presumably you've seen the node
> map:
> <http://woody.archive.org/nagios/cgi-bin/statusmap.cgi>
> which may help.  It looks like 6, 37, 44 and 11 are all up right now,
> according to the status map.
>
> Eric.
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