Spent the day in San Francisco. First wireless encounter - mostly successful. Sat down at the Starbucks at Beale and Market, had a strong 802.11 signal, and signed up for the $3 per 15 minutes of T-Mobile service. A no-brainer - until my laptop battery died, just after I had worked my way through the service signup menus and checked one email account. Natch.
Second wireless encounter - now - less than stellar. No hot spot to be found at SFO's UA gate 72, so offline posting only. Found power, but no microwave.
Now that I've done this a few times, I think there's a market for a cheap handheld device that shows 802.11 signal strength. I could save a lot of time by just selecting an airport gate with a signal, as opposed to firing up the laptop and exercising the WLAN discovery software. How cheap can we make a 2.4 Ghz detector circuit?
Rest of the SF report: what happened to the weather? It was high 80's all day in The City, really hot. Between appointments, my traveling mate and I slogged through downtown in suits, carrying laptop cases and wondering what happened to the air conditioning. In desperation, we ducked into SFMOMA for some culture and some AC - an hour well spent.
7:15:51 PM 
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