As the weather gets nicer in the coming weeks, I’ve been thinking that it could be rather nice to work outside some days, just sitting under a shady tree enjoying the spring breeze. I already have the PowerBook but it would be even better if I had WiFi outside…
So, on Friday afternoon, I decided to go warwalking. You may have already heard of wardriving — driving around with a laptop looking for WiFi access points — but I needed more granularity than that. So, I made sure my battery was charged and I loaded MacStumbler onto my laptop (MacStumbler is an app which continuously scans for access points).
I had to carry my PowerBook open as it would just go to sleep if I closed it, but I found a comfortable position where I could support it with my left forearm as I rested it against my chest. From there, I just started walking around my apartment complex.
I didn’t really want much road noise as part of my hypothetical spring afternoon, so that actually made my search a bit easier. Heading away from the major roads, I walked towards the trees & paths near the Village clubhouse. I had a good feeling about this area since it was wooded enough to be quiet and peaceful yet there were apartment buildings not far away (hopefully with WiFi emanating from them).
Sure enough, I found a few good spots there. As I don’t yet have a GPS receiver for my PowerBook (still looking for recommendations, if you have any), I just had to record each hotspot’s info the old-fashioned way — with TextEdit. I made notes to myself primarily on how to find each spot (in some ways, like a squirrel trying to remember where he buried his nuts).
I also ensured that each spot had a shady tree nearby :). Then, just to be sure tree was still in range of the signal, I sat down under each tree and tested the signal there (usually by browsing a couple pages from Slashdot). Of course, as long as I had signal-bars, the test-pages would usually load fine. Occasionally, however, I couldn’t connect through some of them :-/.
I also didn’t want to have to walk that far to my WiFi Tree(tm), so I limited my search to about a 15-minute radius from my apartment. I ended up with about half a dozen prospective hotspots and I narrowed it down to two likely candidates. One in particular is a hotspot that’s reachable from one of the benches overlooking the small lake in that area. I figure that a bench would be comfortable and I could also bring along a flat object (like a book) for use as a mousepad next to me.
So, the next time a sunny day comes along, I’m ready. I'm guessing that my one-page list of findings wouldn’t be useful to many people but if you live in The Village, I’d be happy to pass them along.
Did you get the pool area at The Gate? My apartment’s wi-fi should be especially strong there. Look for toads.
I think if I were looking something to do as I sat under a tree on a Spring day – I’d rather just ditch the computer at home and try to find one of those single Village chicks with a “hot spot” – if you know what I mean.