Free Wifi.. West Side Magazine 6-07
WI-FI ON THE WESTSIDE:
Connecting While On The Go At Your ‘Hotspot’ Office
By Jan Marlyn Reesman
A laptop, PDA and or a cell phone (along with a cappuccino, perhaps) are all you need to have to take advantage of what one might call “the Twenty-First Century Office.”
Making use of a cafÈ or coffee house as a place to run a personal business is nothing particularly new. Lloyd's of London was actually started in a coffee house. According to the Lloyd's of London Web site, "Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house in 1688, encouraging a clientele of ships' captains, merchants and ship owners -- earning him a reputation for trustworthy shipping news. This ensured that Lloyd's coffee house became recognized as the place for obtaining marine insurance."
More than 300 municipalities nationwide already have launched plans for similar networks based on the Wi-Fi technology that has become popular at coffee shops, bookstores, and public parks and countless other so-called hot spots.
"With L.A. Wi-Fi, we are dedicating ourselves to the idea that universal access to technology makes our entire economy stronger," Villaraigosa told the LA Times. Such networks are operating in parts of such cities as Anaheim, San Jose, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore. San Francisco will soon be blanketed with free WiFi courtesy of Google / Earthlink.
For $29.99 a month you are able to on online at any Starbucks. If that is breaking the office budget, Los Angeles has an abundance of free Wi-FI (aka Hotspots) that range from many public libraries to eateries such as all Earth Wind and Flour, Malibu Beach Grill and the Elysee Bakery.
Of course, you can always drop into the Apple Store on Santa Monica’s Third Street promenade and hook into their wireless network.
The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills has Wi-Fi in their lounge. It’s also available at their poolside cafÈ’ for $10 a day. The coffee is about $5 plus tax and tip, but the refills are endless. The environment may inspire you to order a “poolside favorite” -- Grilled Kobe Beef Burger, Applewood Smoked Bacon and Choice of Cheese. Or better yet “their “$50 Margarita”. But, there goes the budget.
To get a little technical for a minute, according to Wikipedia: “Wi-Fi at ‘Hotspots’ are Free Wi-Fi at venues like ‘Whole Foods”, “Panera Bread CafÈ”, ”It's a Grind Coffee House”, and over 100,000 locations in the USA has been growing in popularity. According to a door-to-door survey in San Jose, CA the number of venues and users is growing fast. Paid Wi-Fi is at venues like Starbucks, McDonalds, and at hotels. A person with a Wi-Fi enabled device such as a pc, cell phone or PDA can connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. Hotspots can range from a single room to many square miles of overlapping hotspots. Wi-Fi can also be used to create a mesh network. Both architectures are used in community networks.”
*In his 21st Century virtual office, with his laptop, thumb drive, ipod and a ‘smart phone’, recent UCLA Music Grad, Aaron Wexler, mixes his music at Santa Monica’s “Velocity CafÈ” at 2127 Lincoln Blvd. He takes his caffeine in a cola, the price of which allows him to tap into the coffeehouse/cafÈ’s wireless Internet.
If you find yourself without a laptop, the pleasant 60’s funky style establishment will let you surf the web on one of their computers.
To make life a little more simple, use a ‘Wi-Fi Finder’ and hang the handy gadget from your key chain next to a ‘thumb drive’ to hold or exchange data.
Use a Free Wi-Fi Hotspot Detector. A free download of ‘istumbler’ at istumbler.com, can be downloaded to your laptop and set to automatically connect to the strongest ‘open’ connection.
According to ‘jwire.com’, other free wireless locations with ‘open access’ are ‘The Christian Science Reading Room’ at Wilshire and Bundy in Santa Monica and the ‘Hotel California’ on Ocean Avenue (where the line from the Eagles’ song n “we are all prisoners of our own device” n seems prophetic). To cool down in the ‘hotspot’ of Hotel California, have ‘Pink Champagne On Ice’.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To find more open or closed Internet access visit: www.jiwire.com/
Connecting While On The Go At Your ‘Hotspot’ Office
By Jan Marlyn Reesman
A laptop, PDA and or a cell phone (along with a cappuccino, perhaps) are all you need to have to take advantage of what one might call “the Twenty-First Century Office.”
Making use of a cafÈ or coffee house as a place to run a personal business is nothing particularly new. Lloyd's of London was actually started in a coffee house. According to the Lloyd's of London Web site, "Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house in 1688, encouraging a clientele of ships' captains, merchants and ship owners -- earning him a reputation for trustworthy shipping news. This ensured that Lloyd's coffee house became recognized as the place for obtaining marine insurance."
Writers have long made use of the cafÈ as a place to put their pens to work churning out novels that they hoped would earn them royalties. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of their best work in Parisian cafes. And in San Francisco, writers and poets of the Beat Generation, such as Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, wrote in the cafes of North Beach.
Paying for office space and Internet access by buying coffee and muffins … not bad! Better yet, free WiFi makes the whole idea even sweeter.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had proposed a Wi-Fi plan that would provide free or low-cost Internet services over 498 square miles by some time in 2009. He has outlined plans to blanket Los Angeles with wireless Internet access. The L.A. Wi-Fi initiative would give Los Angeles residents, schools, businesses and visitors uninterrupted high-speed Internet connections … for work, research, and Web browsing or even phone calls.More than 300 municipalities nationwide already have launched plans for similar networks based on the Wi-Fi technology that has become popular at coffee shops, bookstores, and public parks and countless other so-called hot spots.
"With L.A. Wi-Fi, we are dedicating ourselves to the idea that universal access to technology makes our entire economy stronger," Villaraigosa told the LA Times. Such networks are operating in parts of such cities as Anaheim, San Jose, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore. San Francisco will soon be blanketed with free WiFi courtesy of Google / Earthlink.
For $29.99 a month you are able to on online at any Starbucks. If that is breaking the office budget, Los Angeles has an abundance of free Wi-FI (aka Hotspots) that range from many public libraries to eateries such as all Earth Wind and Flour, Malibu Beach Grill and the Elysee Bakery.
Of course, you can always drop into the Apple Store on Santa Monica’s Third Street promenade and hook into their wireless network.
The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills has Wi-Fi in their lounge. It’s also available at their poolside cafÈ’ for $10 a day. The coffee is about $5 plus tax and tip, but the refills are endless. The environment may inspire you to order a “poolside favorite” -- Grilled Kobe Beef Burger, Applewood Smoked Bacon and Choice of Cheese. Or better yet “their “$50 Margarita”. But, there goes the budget.
To get a little technical for a minute, according to Wikipedia: “Wi-Fi at ‘Hotspots’ are Free Wi-Fi at venues like ‘Whole Foods”, “Panera Bread CafÈ”, ”It's a Grind Coffee House”, and over 100,000 locations in the USA has been growing in popularity. According to a door-to-door survey in San Jose, CA the number of venues and users is growing fast. Paid Wi-Fi is at venues like Starbucks, McDonalds, and at hotels. A person with a Wi-Fi enabled device such as a pc, cell phone or PDA can connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. Hotspots can range from a single room to many square miles of overlapping hotspots. Wi-Fi can also be used to create a mesh network. Both architectures are used in community networks.”
*In his 21st Century virtual office, with his laptop, thumb drive, ipod and a ‘smart phone’, recent UCLA Music Grad, Aaron Wexler, mixes his music at Santa Monica’s “Velocity CafÈ” at 2127 Lincoln Blvd. He takes his caffeine in a cola, the price of which allows him to tap into the coffeehouse/cafÈ’s wireless Internet.
If you find yourself without a laptop, the pleasant 60’s funky style establishment will let you surf the web on one of their computers.
To make life a little more simple, use a ‘Wi-Fi Finder’ and hang the handy gadget from your key chain next to a ‘thumb drive’ to hold or exchange data.
Use a Free Wi-Fi Hotspot Detector. A free download of ‘istumbler’ at istumbler.com, can be downloaded to your laptop and set to automatically connect to the strongest ‘open’ connection.
According to ‘jwire.com’, other free wireless locations with ‘open access’ are ‘The Christian Science Reading Room’ at Wilshire and Bundy in Santa Monica and the ‘Hotel California’ on Ocean Avenue (where the line from the Eagles’ song n “we are all prisoners of our own device” n seems prophetic). To cool down in the ‘hotspot’ of Hotel California, have ‘Pink Champagne On Ice’.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To find more open or closed Internet access visit: www.jiwire.com/
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