Monthly Archive for March, 2008

I’ve been running a couple of FON Wi-Fi Hotspots for a few months now with mixed success.

The idea behind FON is that you share your home or work Broadband connection wirelessly so that passers by who are members of the FON network (either paying for a subscription, or sharing their own broadband and thus getting access for free as a reward) have thousands of hotspots worldwide they can casually use. The connection is securely kept apart from your own LAN and you can determine how much bandwidth the end users can receive.

Since installation, the hotspot here at Tubb Towers in Birmingham has received a sum total of… 1 visitor. This is unsurprising, as Weoley Castle is not exactly known as a high tech hub and I don’t live on a Main Road where many casual web-browsers may drive by.

The hotspot at my house in Lowton near Warrington is a different matter though. I fitted it with a high-gain antennae pointing at the busy crossroads at a main road, with a nearby pub and a local hotel that doesn’t have it’s own Wireless signal in it’s sights – so the signal is strong and the chances of casual users noticing the signal is higher. Since installation last year I’ve received between 5 and 10 users a month connecting to it – hardly massive traffic, but hopefully the signal has been useful to more than a few people who are travelling.

FON have taken two steps to try and encourage more users to it’s service. The first is allowing non-FON members up to 15 minutes free usage of any hotspot. More than ample to quickly grab your e-mails and do a quick search and I’ve seen a few of these types of users connecting to my hotspots each month.

The other more recently announced initiative is allowing any users to browse Google services (such as GMail and Google Maps) free at any FON hotspot. That’s not a bad way to encourage people to try the service out and comes as a direct result of Google’s investment in FON.

If you’re interested in becoming a FON user, you can read more here or check out my last blog talking about Community Wi-Fi here.

Being a Technology geek and trying to live an environmentally friendly and ethically responsible life often seem mutually exclusive. For instance, I recycle heavily, I have two compost bins, two water butts, I buy environmentally friendly products, I run low energy light-bulbs in every room at home, I use Solar Powered chargers to give new life to rechargeable batteries, I get my electricity from a Green provider, I run an Electrisave to monitor my electricity usage, and annoyingly to seemingly everyone I meet – I wander around turning off room lights, monitors and printers I see left switched on un-necessarily. But on the other hand, I run a bunch of servers rammed with power-hungry Hard Disk Drives 24/7, and a whole heap of gadgets, media equipment and mobile devices that gobble up electricity like it’s going out of fashion.

So researching into how to save energy whilst still being a heavy user of technology is something of a passion of mine (and a really good subject for impressing ladies during conversation, trust me…)

I use rechargeable batteries in just about every gadget I own as this is an effective way of powering them without continuously buying new batteries and discarding to landfill your used batteries, and so found this blog article by Jeff Atwood on how to use rechargeable batteries effectively fascinating. It explains the differences between the different types of rechargeable batteries out there, how they really work, and how you can get the most life from them.

And before you say, yes, I’m fully appreciative of how geeky everything I’ve just written reads – but I’m completely and absolutely unashamed of that fact.

I feel as though I’ve barely had time to slow down this week, as every day has been very very long in nature but good fun in it’s own way.

Monday was spent bringing a new client on board – always an exciting but challenging time as you document the infrastructure you have inherited, start getting a feel for what needs to be done to improve things and begin building new relationships with the employees at your new client. Immediately having to deal with BT cutting through some cables and taking down all your new clients Telephone and Broadband Internet connections always makes life more challenging too!

Tuesday night was spent in Birmingham’s Brindley Place debating the Backup Exec line of products their approach to the UK Small Business market with a couple of former Veritas (who Symantec bought out a while back) employees who now work at Symantec and who were in town for the next days big Microsoft bash. This meet-up naturally involved impressive volumes of alcohol, lots of typical vendor bashing from the SBSC corner and repeated use of the familiar phrase "Don’t blog this" from the Symantechies when talking to us about certain sensitive subjects we drew them on. Thanks to the guys involved for an enjoyable evening. There were definitely some fuzzy heads all around the next day.

Wednesday was the day of Microsoft’s UK 2008 Launch party entitled "Heroes happen here" at Birmingham’s International Convention Centre. This was a huge event, much bigger than I anticipated, and I’d guess there were easily a couple of thousand people in attendance including many friends from the Small Business Specialist Community, Vendors and even one or two clients of mine. Microsoft laid on five different and very large conference rooms each offering a number of hour-long seminars covering various IT Pro and Developer topics – including some really interest talks on Security and Virtualisation from Microsofties such as Steve Lamb and Matt McSpirit. The day was interspersed with some games, question and answer sessions, swag giveaways and a ton of complimentary food and beer. I was then soundly thrashed 9-0 by Andy Parkes at FIFA 2008 on the XBox 360. Andy is a really nice guy, so I let him win, obviously… 

If you weren’t in attendance on the day itself, then Vijay has blogged about how you can view the "Virtual Launch" site over at his blog.

Once we’d all been kicked out of the ICC, we joined organiser Zi and the good people from Geek Dinners who had put together a sit down meal at a nearby restaurant. It was good fun to meet so many IT professionals from around the country over a pizza and a drink, and members of the AMITPRO, NXTGen and VBUG user groups were all in attendance. Many new friends and contacts were made. There are some regular Geek Dinners across the UK, but sadly none in the Midlands – anybody interested in making it a regular event?

The hardcore amongst the group then carried the party on within Birmingham’s Broad Street’s pubs and clubs and that’s when things started to get a little hazy for me. A select (and foolish) few didn’t finish until around 5am. Guess how we were all feeling the next day?

Finally, Thursday saw a big goodbye to UKSMBgirl, Susanne Dansey, who is moving on to pastures new in exciting far flung destinations. In the short time I’ve been a part of the UK SBS Community, Susanne has been one of the most knowledgeable and helpful community leaders I’ve met – I know she’ll be sorely missed by everyone who knows her but welcomed with open arms by her new colleagues the other side of the world! Good luck Susanne!

So, a busy but eventful week. The partying and subsequent hangovers will mean I’m doing some catching up on work over this Bank Holiday weekend, but I think it was worth it (even if my liver and sleep-deprived body says otherwise).