[nycwireless] Hotspots that Move
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/business/technology/ 10040849.htm?1c Mobile 'hotspots' push the limits When precision-drumming band Savage Aural Hotbed practices on Wednesdays, its fans can drop by via cyberspace. Band member Stuart DeVaan has put a Web camera in the Minneapolis rehearsal space so jam sessions can be streamed live over the Internet. But DeVaan didn't want to stop there. He wanted to Web-stream any performance, anywhere, even one outdoors. This created a technical challenge: Where would he find a high-speed Net access? It's not as if the jacks are common outdoors. Enter the other Stuart DeVaan, the geek who runs technology firm Implex.net by day. The firm provides a kind of high-speed wireless Internet access that is accessible almost anywhere in the metro area — all users need to get online is the right kind of equipment. So DeVaan rounded up the necessary gear and installed it in, of all things, an old television truck — the kind of minivan with a pneumatic mast that telescopes upward so a TV news crew can transmit its on-the-scene video footage back to home base. DeVaan's modified van performs a similar trick. Its mast communicates with any of the wireless-Internet transceivers Implex.net has put atop Twin Cities skyscrapers, including Wells Fargo Place in downtown St. Paul and several in downtown Minneapolis. Presto! The van is Net-connected. All DeVaan has to do is plug in his Webcam and point it. That's just what he did during a recent outdoor festival featuring Savage Aural Hotbed (www.sav ageauralhotbed.com) and its percussion melodies created with clothes-dryer drums, beer kegs and power tools. DeVann intends the van, a 1987 Chevrolet G20, to be more than his band's electronic eyepiece. As a wireless-Internet "hot spot" that can move around — unlike most wireless networks that are fixed in one place — it is already proving useful in other public venues. When Minneapolis artist Brant Kingman staged a John Kerry fund-raiser in his studio last month, DeVaan and his van were there. The result: The party and its wild-attired guests became a sort of streaming-media performance piece. EVENTS AS ART DeVaan's van gave Kingman "the ability to extend an event beyond its physical and temporal boundaries," the artist said. "An ephemeral activity can have a permanent impact. With good cameras and good lighting, you can turn any event into an artwork that people will want to see again and again." It was unclear whether Kingman's party will ever be viewed again, though, due to a technical snafu. The minivan (www.implex. net/minitruck) was to be redeployed this weekend for the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting's hall-of-fame dinner in Golden Valley. Net streaming was deemed vital for the Saturday event, organizer Mark Durenberger said, so elderly friends and family of hall-of-fame inductees could watch the ceremony without having to travel. But the rented hall for the event isn't set up for such a service. DeVaan's van came along at just the right time, Durenberger said. "The concept of having broadband anywhere at the drop of a phone call is beyond belief." In addition to serving as a roving eye, the van can provide high-speed wireless Internet access within a 1,500- to 2,000-foot radius. Any wireless-equipped computer within range can piggyback on the Wireless Fidelity signal in order to get online. Such an amenity can prove essential, DeVaan said, at large-scale outdoor events such as festivals and marathons, not to mention the scenes of natural disasters where relief workers need to have information at their fingertips. (Note to our geekier readers: The wireless transmissions from Implex.net skyscraper transmitters to its van uses an emerging technology called WiMax, which is converted to the more common Wireless Fidelity for use in the van's immediate area.) Wi-Fi hot spots on wheels have cropped up around the country and the world in recent months. New York City artist and inventor Yury Gitman has created experimental Magic bikes that work as mobile Wi-Fi "repeaters," retransmitting wireless signals from the city's cellular networks or nearby Wi-Fi hot spots. He recently equipped such a bike with a Webcam as experimental art so Net visitors could see what he saw as the bike rolled down the street. And he believes he is the first to offer a functional Wi-Fi signal deep inside the Big Apple's subway system using a pair of Magicbikes, one above ground and one below, to create an ad-hoc wireless network. "I am like the ice cream man, but with no music, and I deliver free wireless access and not ice cream," Gitman is fond of saying. MOBILE HOT SPOT In a more practical vein, Montreal-based wireless-Net provider WanderPort Wireless has created what it calls a WanderPod. The mobile hot spot gets its Internet bandwidth via satellite and retransmits it for local u
[nycwireless] [article] Wireless access point triggers bomb scare
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/29/wireless_ap_bomb_scare/
"Student Bobby T, 20, set up a Dlink 2100AP wireless access point
outside his home in the suburbs of Sydney to act as a node in a
community wireless network. But the kit ("a Dlink 2100AP wireless AP,
removed of its casing and with the PCB siliconed onto a black
weatherproof electronics box") was only up and running for 10 hours
before he was visited by two NSW state police and two local police
acting on a tip-off from worried neighbours this Monday"
L
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[nycwireless] Site survey volunteer opportunity next Thursday morning in the Bronx
I need a few people to assist with the site survey of a new Community Access building in the Bronx. We are scheduled for Thursday Nov 4th starting at 9am. If you can spare the time it will be a good learning experience. - Dustin - -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
[nycwireless] Mobility SIG
Wherever its location and name, please count me in! With Mobile Applications, Wireless, and GIS, I think New York City is one of the best testbeds out there.This city has the data, the people, the devices, and the connectivity. Perfect. R __ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] Mobility SIG
Hi Jon, I've attached my thoughts to your comments. Jose On Oct 29, 2004, at 9:32 AM, Jon Baer wrote: Id be interested in this and helping out (if possible) .. I think this is a great idea because it's obvious that more and more devices are becoming WiFi/EDGE/3G enabled and it would be cool to show off what some phones can and can't do in a SIG. I definitely think we can use your help as well as anyone else that may be interested in this topic. These devices, specially the smartphones, are very close in functionality to computers. And we already know that there's a huge number of things that can be accomplished on a computer (bookkeeping, video and image editing, internet browsing, gaming, communication, etc.). Most of these activities can be accomplished in one way or another with a smartphone. For example, editing word or excel files may not necessarily be the type of thing you'll want to do all the time on a phone, but it is actually possible to do that today. Some people today carry their PowerPoint presentations as a backup on a phone, just in case the computer crashes. They just hook it up directly to a monitor or projector and they are all set. (Although I sometimes hate those meetings that turn into the constant sales pitch which tend to happen a lot, ehh then again if anyone needs a VPN salesman look me up! :-)) Im also personally interested in the J2ME movement (items like using SMS for backchannel stuff), also security stuff like Bluesnarfing from AI Digital needs to be demoed for sure. Java on phones should not even be called Java. There are more differences between the J2SE/J2EE (Java for computers) and J2ME (Java for phones and handhelds) than just the devices they run on. The security architecture of J2SE/J2EE is not the same on J2ME. On top of that, you never know what functionality the manufacturer of the phone will allow you to access from the J2ME libraries. Security is also another issue. Bluesnarfing is a hot topic in mobile security right now. I would love to see a demo of that. Can we start an nycwireless-mobile list? (seems like a lot of people from the meeting are trying all different vendor services that would be cool to hear about) - Jon In a way, I agree with you on this, but at the same time I wouldn't want to isolate the topic from the "regular" NYCWireless audience that subscribes to it. This topic is complementary to the main theme and mission of the organization. At the same time, we have to cure ourselves from this data centric, large-screen mentality that we Americans have. We need to start thinking of these devices as "computers" (since we can relate to what a "computer" is) that have 12 keys for a keypad (not a keyboard) and a really small screen for an interface. I can go even further and dare to say that the "digital divide" may not actually exist or be as serious as people make it to be, if you think of these devices as a computer. All you need to think about is all the countries that have leapfrogged the landline infrastructure and use mobiles. In most of these countries voice and data come standard with their plans. Almost like going to BestBuy or CompUSA and picking up an HP or Mac that comes with a subscription to a DSL or cable modem connection. These people using these phones are mobile and always connected. Our concept of a digital experience (computing) is obsolete and focused on the wrong device. I may be wrong, but I think this topic should be included in the regular mailing list. Jose -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jose Marinez Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 8:13 PM To: Ben N.Serebin Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [nycwireless] Mobility SIG Hi Ben, NYCWireless members: I would like to know what the procedure will be to make the Mobility SIG I spoke about yesterday in the meeting "official" within the NYCWireless organization and website? The purpose of the SIG will be to introduce the members to the current advances in mobility (specifically smartphones) and how these technologies are complementary to WLAN technologies in place today. I would like to be able to present on some of topics and to be able to bring to the meetings individuals from the main smartphone manufacturers that I have relationships with (Nokia, Samsung, PalmOne) as well as some developers, like the guys from Dodgeball.com. Like I said yesterday, I believe this SIG will create a lot of content (conversations, comments, questions, etc.) and I'm not sure if you want to host it at NYCWireless.net. I may be able to get a TypePad account from the guys at Six Apart specifically for the SIG and maybe have a link to it from NYCWireless.net similar to what you have on the Social Impact group. To those interested to know what some people do with these smartphones take a look at http://www.bodamer.com/albert/ and to get an idea of the socia
Re: [nycwireless] Mobility SIG
Dustin, At the beginning I couldn't come up with a name. I was thinking more along the lines of mobility, usability and interaction. Mobility to me is more of a goal. I thought it was an appropriate name, specially if you consider that we (Americans) are actually behind in this technological phenomenon and most of the people in the world refer to their cells as "mobiles." On the other hand, I'm open to suggestions. Jose On Oct 29, 2004, at 9:26 AM, Dustin Goodwin wrote: Sure we can host it. I think mobility is bad name though. It doesn't really describe anything in particular. - Dustin - Jose Marinez wrote: Hi Ben, NYCWireless members: I would like to know what the procedure will be to make the Mobility SIG I spoke about yesterday in the meeting "official" within the NYCWireless organization and website? The purpose of the SIG will be to introduce the members to the current advances in mobility (specifically smartphones) and how these technologies are complementary to WLAN technologies in place today. I would like to be able to present on some of topics and to be able to bring to the meetings individuals from the main smartphone manufacturers that I have relationships with (Nokia, Samsung, PalmOne) as well as some developers, like the guys from Dodgeball.com. Like I said yesterday, I believe this SIG will create a lot of content (conversations, comments, questions, etc.) and I'm not sure if you want to host it at NYCWireless.net. I may be able to get a TypePad account from the guys at Six Apart specifically for the SIG and maybe have a link to it from NYCWireless.net similar to what you have on the Social Impact group. To those interested to know what some people do with these smartphones take a look at http://www.bodamer.com/albert/ and to get an idea of the social effect that some of these devices are having go to http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/rosen.htm Regards, Jose Marinez www.jmarinez.blogspot.com -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] help with short perl/shell packet counter script
here's the final version. dumps the # of packets received over 10
second intervals to /var/tmp/packetcount
#!/usr/local/perl
#
# A perl script to count packets on Ethernet and 802.11b networks for
network activity visualization projects
# Anthony Townsend, Kurt Starsinic
# Distributed under GPL license
while ()
{
$n = 10;
$packets = 0;
$end = time() + $n;
# change to en0 for Ethernet en1 for wireless on Mac
open(TCPDUMP,"/usr/sbin/tcpdump -q -i en1|") or die "Can't open
tcpdump: $!";
while () {
$packets++;
last if time() > $end;
}
close TCPDUMP;
open (OUTFILE, ">/var/tmp/packetcount") or die "Can't open file for
writing";
print OUTFILE $packets;
print "Total packets received in last 10 seconds (# written to
/var/tmp/packetcount): $packets\n";
}
On Oct 28, 2004, at 11:45 AM, Anthony Townsend wrote:
hi all - another help request
i have a student who needs a short script that will use tcpdump to
count the total # of packets heard on a wireless network every N
seconds
was able to find this Perl snippet as a start, but need to figure out
a way to make it end after N seconds and then output the total # of
packets (i.e. the total number of lines), and dump the IP filters and
just count all the packets.
open(TCPDUMP,"/usr/sbin/tcpdump -q -i wlan0|") or die "Can't open
tcpdump: $!";
for () {
++$hogcount[0] if /192.168.1.15$/;# hog #1
++$hogcount[1] if /192.168.1.45$/;# hog #2
}
END { close TCPDUMP; print "Hog 1 had $hogcount[0] packets and Hog 2
had
$hogcount[1]\n"; }
thanks in advance for anyone willing to help
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RE: [nycwireless] Mobility SIG
Id be interested in this and helping out (if possible) .. I think this is a great idea because it's obvious that more and more devices are becoming WiFi/EDGE/3G enabled and it would be cool to show off what some phones can and can't do in a SIG. (Although I sometimes hate those meetings that turn into the constant sales pitch which tend to happen a lot, ehh then again if anyone needs a VPN salesman look me up! :-)) Im also personally interested in the J2ME movement (items like using SMS for backchannel stuff), also security stuff like Bluesnarfing from AI Digital needs to be demoed for sure. Can we start an nycwireless-mobile list? (seems like a lot of people from the meeting are trying all different vendor services that would be cool to hear about) - Jon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jose Marinez Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 8:13 PM To: Ben N.Serebin Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [nycwireless] Mobility SIG Hi Ben, NYCWireless members: I would like to know what the procedure will be to make the Mobility SIG I spoke about yesterday in the meeting "official" within the NYCWireless organization and website? The purpose of the SIG will be to introduce the members to the current advances in mobility (specifically smartphones) and how these technologies are complementary to WLAN technologies in place today. I would like to be able to present on some of topics and to be able to bring to the meetings individuals from the main smartphone manufacturers that I have relationships with (Nokia, Samsung, PalmOne) as well as some developers, like the guys from Dodgeball.com. Like I said yesterday, I believe this SIG will create a lot of content (conversations, comments, questions, etc.) and I'm not sure if you want to host it at NYCWireless.net. I may be able to get a TypePad account from the guys at Six Apart specifically for the SIG and maybe have a link to it from NYCWireless.net similar to what you have on the Social Impact group. To those interested to know what some people do with these smartphones take a look at http://www.bodamer.com/albert/ and to get an idea of the social effect that some of these devices are having go to http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/6/rosen.htm Regards, Jose Marinez www.jmarinez.blogspot.com -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
