WiFi week

July 3, 2002

Wired News: Wi-Fi Users: Chalk This Way

Warchalking, it seems, is so cool it doesn't even matter if anyone is really doing it or not

"It's got Wi-Fi. It's got the tie-in to hobo language, which is really cool from a linguistics point of view. And it ties into the spirit of democracy, which was the original intention of the Web"

Unfortunately, I don't think warchalking actually makes finding an access point any easier. With a 150' (or so) radius around a WiFi access point, it's pretty easy to miss a symbol in a football field sized area, or from one block over. Of course, walking around with your laptop open continually checking the Airport menu for a signal isn't much of an option, either.

When I was at jury duty last week, I wandered around at lunch looking for a public access point. (There were a number of networks reaching into City Hall Park, but none of them open.) Much more useful would be a wifi city guide in an easy to carry around format. It would be a great feature to add to Vindigo. Or, better yet, a paper version, with a map and a list of access points and their cross streets, sort of like the NYCWireless network map database, but not requiring an internet connection to use, that can be folded up and put in a pocket. It'd be nice to print out this sort of map from a frequently updated PDF file.