Spreading the aloha of Macintosh, Hawaiian music and island culture from the sunset side of Haleakala volcano on the wonderful island of Maui

Last update:
5/2/05; 6:27:41 AM

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

Sunday, January 9, 2005

Why aren't WiFi Services Used as Advertising? I just had a random synaptic discharge (RSD). Why are Borders and Starbucks and other businesses charging for WiFi service? They should be giving it away as an advertising medium! A friend of mine commented today on how much it cost him to use the internet at a hotel in Honolulu. I told him he should just boot MacStumbler, walk down the street until it beeps then log on to who ever is leaking a signal. But why should he even have to do that? There are hundreds of businesses in Honolulu that spend huge wodges of cash to incite tourists into their locations. Why don't they offer free WiFi service to anyone who buys something - print an access code on their receipt. Even better, pull people into your restaurant by providing free access during meals. When someone logs on, bring up a welcome page in their browser with an ad and an invitation. Its just a thought. 7:36:55 PM    comment [] That reminds me of some really wierd stuff Writing the preceding bit about lightning reminded me of a story I heard about a Mac user from the far left wing of the island who had persistent trouble with a new Mac that just didn't want to work right, no matter what anyone did. On visiting the location, it was found that this fair user had perched a HUGE fark-off quartz crystal on top of his monitor, perhaps to keep his karma warm or ward off rational thought. Once the rock was removed to a safe distance, the computer began working just fine. In the years since various scientifically minded folks have offered their explanations, the most plausible being that the slab o' quartz just happened to resonate in or out of phase with some chip in the computer or the monitor display which effectively turned the whole thing into an expensive sculpture. Stranger stuff has happened but I don't want to think about that right now. 10:05:45 AM    comment [] Thunderbolts and Lightning Tonight I've gotten up to unplug all the computers due to an impending storm (Actually I was having anxious Border Collie dreams because Ulu does not like lightning so she gets into my head until I get up and let her into my studio. Just yer average dog stuff.) Which brings up the issue of protecting your computer I don't mean protecting them from viruses, because so far we Mac users haven't experienced a millionth the hassle that PC victims deal with every day. In addition, on Maui we don't have viruses, we have funguses! More Macs are damaged in Hawaii from rust, dust and critters than from malware let in by Microsoft's half-assed software. What I'm concerned with tonight is protection from electrical surges. The two ways this can happen are through bad electrical power and lightning. We'll handle the issues and illusions of the power mains, surge protectors and all at some other time, but as this storm comes at me from Molokai across the channel, nature's own electricity poses a very real and immediate threat. Back in Colorado a friend once had the misfortune of having his old Compaq schleppable (cue laughter from the older geeks in the audience) fried to a clump by lightning. What made this event memorable was the fact that his computer wasn't even plugged in at the time, it was sitting on his garage floor secure in a plastic case. The damage was done by stray voltage oozing up through the damp concrete and turning the poor thing into silicon ballast. You see, lightning doesn't have many rules, just that one about getting to ground as fast as possible. Unlike the tamed juice we use to power our beloved devices, the effects of lightning can range from a tingly feeling to knocking you out of your shoes on a golf course to vaporizing you and your home into constituant quarks. Simple 'surge protectors' may not help at all because lightning's damaging pulse of electrons can come from anywhere, not just down the power cord. A little thing like a circuit breaker may cause but a brief delay in an energetic bolt's journey to self-realization. The best thing to do when you see lighting or hear the rumble of thunder is to flip off the circuit breaker to your computer and at the very least disconnect all the wires, especially power and network connections. I once had to deal with a Mac where the ethernet chip was turned into a piece of burnt popcorn after lighting crawled up through the cable modem and router. While a hefty battery back-up device stood guard to windward of the power cord, access was gained through an unprotected ethernet cable. Nothing else was touched, the computer booted and ran just fine, but the network circuits were chipped-beef-on-toast. iMacs don't have separate 'network cards,' that function instead being provided by a single chip that is tightly soldered to the logic board, or ‘the big thing in the middle.’ This meant that the most expensive part of the computer had to be replaced at the cost of more than half-a-new-computer. Lighting can also - as it did in the case of my friend's portable - sneak in through the floor or even the very air, which is why it's a good idea to unplug all the wires and if you can, get it off the ground. I move mine away from the walls and put a statue of Buddha on the monitor. What the hell, it might help. Perhaps we need to reconsider the use of Ben Franklin's lightning rods, which have fallen out of favor since the introduction of internal wiring. It doesn't take much juice to ruin a computer. Mere static electricity - the miniaturized ‘personal’ version of lightening - can be deadly to a computer. Even if you don't feel the zap your chips can be turned into folk art by a wool sweater and dry climate. Right now though, Maui doesn't have a dry climate, it's raining straight down and I'm going back to bed. 9:31:05 AM    comment []