Wireless at LaSt....

My first day off and what do I do? I have FUN, that is what I do. I spend time with my sweet wife Katy and we go do all sorts of stuff. Well, not really, but we are having a nice day off doing what we like the most, spending time with one another. The children are at school and mom and dad are running the streets of Charleston.

I recently purchased a SanDisk Wireless 802.11b wireless CF card with a PC Card adapter for the sole purpose of wireless Internet connectivity with my laptop and/or Pocket PC. Last night I surfed one of the WiFi websites and searched for businesses with WAP (Wireless Access Points) or Hotspots in Goose Creek. Guess how many businesses have this? A big fat ZIPOLA!!! Not a one. Oh well, Charleston has about 15 hot spots so we chose to drive down 526 to Sam Rittenburg to visit our new found friends at Drogo Coffee at 2048 Sam Rittenburg. The ladies gave me my coffee, my access code for 30 min Internet connectivity and off I went to my new digital adventure. I am noting on my watch that I have 11 minutes of online access before I have to PAY for more. Gulp.... Nothing is free folks. Not even wirelss Internet access. Well, if you pay for the goods they do give you some free Internet time to access your favorite Internet web site or check your email.

I will say that while the Pocket PC did gain access to the WAP at Drogo's much faster than the laptop that the TINY Internet Explorer screen was VERY frustrating. After spending 10 minutes of moving the scroll bar horizontally and vertically several dozen times to navigate a simple web form I was all but DONE with that experience. So, with that said, if I need to get on the WEB to do anything it is not going to happen via the Pocket PC. As for downloading my email perhaps that would be a quicker method than firing up the laptop. One thing that I am noticing is that this is no different than being logged on to any other LAN in that you can receive e-mail via Outlook but you can not SEND e-mail via Outlook. You are forced to use a web based email client to SEND email. That is because the Systems Administrators that run the Email gateways have gotten smart and no longer allow their email servers to be email relays which is an open gateway for spammers. In other words you have to be logged on to the ISP's network in order to send mail from their email server. I also noticed that I can not use my w.bloggar application to post to my blog. Never fear , the web browser interface at www.blogger.com works just fine. :)

Well anyway, so much for this techno drivel. I will expound upon the technical problems I experienced later this afternoon or evening after we get back from the movies. I will be warping out of here to the land of www.fandango.com to see the movie listings now. See ya later aligator!!!



James Moffitt
http://www.jesus-connect.net/jcmoffitt
moffittj@bellsouth.net