Day: October 20, 2004

As you learned in Wifi Adventure #1 we have entered the wireless age, and what an age it is!

Since we achived wirelessness, we had to test it. But wait, we have to go back in time first. How can we get to where we are now without going to where we were then? Hmmm?

Weeks earlier, I asked the local wifi expert a few questions, and got a few answers. He suggested I use WEP to secure my wireless network. I know, some people maintain open nodes, and we all say a big “thanks” to those people, good work all! I was not overly concerned about securing the access point, but figure I’d look into it. I’m not sure of the range of the WAP11, but behind me is a park, and I’m 99% sure 3 closest neighbors have neither wifi or even computers, I know the people across the street have no wifi gear, I assume I am teh most 13373 h4x0r around these parts, but still, there might be a nerd or geek lurking somewhere right? Oh yeah…

So when I set up the access point I still had no way to connect to it. I ran a port scan and found an unfamiliar IP address. What!? Is someone already using my access point? No, turns out it was Virtual PC running on my Mac… Whew…

As we all know those fine folks at Linksys give a default name to their gear, hence you might see a wireless network named ‘linksys’ while out and about. Well, I’m no dummy, I changed the default name on my access point. (See where this is going?)

So I’m testing the new Belkin 802.11b Wireless USB Network Adapter, and I finally figure out the software that controls it, and I see my access point, with the name I gave it. Then another wireless network appears, one named ‘linksys’ and at first I think it’s some odd error, or my access point is screwy, and then I realize, it ain’t me!

Yes, that’s right, I’ve found another wireless access point while in my own house. I know, this is not news, this is a non-story, except for the fact that if you have been to my house, and met my neighbors, you too would be as surprised as I was.

Well, I’ve always been the curious hacker-type, so I try to jump on this ‘linksys’ network, and it works! I’m on… Ok, a bit more… Ah, looks like they are using a Linksys Wireless Router, as I was able to log into it at 192.168.1.1 with – yes, you guessed it – the default password ‘admin’ – I kid you not…

Ah, I feel just like one of those 414er’s – except they changed our area code from 414 to 262 many years ago. :(

After drilling a hole in the wall, my electrician informs me he does not think we’ll get that cat-5 all the way down to the basement. That’s not what I wanted to hear…

Perhaps it’s time… Yes, time for us to enter the early 2000’s and actually look into wifi. The first thing we realized was that prices have dropped. Quite a bit. I mean, that Linksys WAP11 that cost well over $100 three years ago can be found on ebay now for around $30. So I actually got one, plugged it into the old router, and had a wireless network. (Well, after screwing around with Virtual PC, which sucks, but such is going the cheap route.) Of course it did me no good…

See, none of the dozen or so computers strewn throughout the house had wifi adapters. Since I was going the auction route, my plan was to get another Linksys WAP11 and connect them ala wireless bridging. Because I wanted to match the hardware rev for compatibility reasons, and not pay a lot of money (I’m cheap, remember?) I bid on a few, but did not win any… then along comes Other World Computing, and Belkin.

Other World Computing had this Belkin 802.11b Wireless USB Network Adapter on sales for $19.00. Did I mention I’m cheap? Well, I am, but this was a bargain! Cheaper than the Linksys WET11‘s I found on ebay, and it says it works on Mac OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and even Mac OS 9.2 and something called Windows! This wireless thing just might catch on.

So now we’ve got a wireless access point, and an actual wifi adapter so that we can connect to that access point… It’s all so very exciting, isn’t it! Oh, just wait until Wifi Adventure #2 for more crazy 802.11b madness!

Oh sure, Google is the Search King right? And their new Google Desktop Search is awesome. If you use Windows. And Outlook. And Internet Explorer. And Word, and Excel, and PowerPoint. Who uses these things?

Ok, plenty of people use these things, but really, I thought Google was full of smart people. Their engineers are supposed to all be super-geniuses. Do they really use Outlook and PowerPoint on a daily basis? I know, they built this thing for the “average computer user” right? I suppose… but think about this, the hacker way says that you hack on things you care about, and you will be good at it, and put more into it, and scratch your own itch, and all of that. So while this Google Desktop Search thing was made by smart people for people who want to find things, I’m not sure I get it. Maybe I’m just a hacker snob of some sort…

I don’t really use Windows, or Outlook, or Internet Explorer, or Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc… I do use Mozilla stuff, like Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, etc. So how awesome would it be to have something that could easily search my browser history, email messages, and calendar info? It would be nice… Mozilla Search anyone?

We could add in formats that have been opened (either by their owners or others) like PDF, Word files (plenty of apps read them), HTML, RSS, RDF, Atom, text, EXIF data in images, and on and on…

I think you could hack together your own Desktop Search using ht://Dig, or mnoGoSearch, or SWISH-E, or some crazy combination of all of those, but it’s not something I want to do, I’ve already got desktop search, via find, locate, egrep and a host of other tools strung together…