A Man and his Penguin

Last night I did some “wardriving”, observing the wireless networks in the area. I’m spinning out about how many networks there are these days! Every time I found an unsecured one, I stopped and tried to connect. With instant disconnection. I assumed that these networks had MAC filtering.

I went to Kingsway, because I had seen earlier online that there was a “Free public use” AP there at the caravan park. I couldn’t connect until I wound down the window (but it turns out you need to contact the office for a ticket number to actually do anything useful).

Today I had the idea that I’d need to not have a pane of glass in between me and those precious wifi signals, so after work I grabbed my netbook and drove in a different direction this time. I went up a road, stopped outside an empty block, and lo and behold there was an unencrypted network. With the router’s default name! I wound down the window and was able to connect.

The empty block had a couple of trees at the back, so I walked behind there and was able to surf to my heart’s content. It was fast. Very fast.

The only problem I’m having with my netbook is that I can’t install software. Nobody else seems to be having any trouble with it, but I always get dependency problems with anything I try to install. It’s the most infuriating thing. I think the machine had been turned on and updated before I recieved it - it never asked me to specify a username or password.

I can’t figure out the software problem and I can’t find any information about it online, so I’m just putting Ubuntu on it. Note: The “Create a USB startup disk” option in Ubuntu doesn’t work; it won’t boot the One. Instead I used Netbootin, and now Ubuntu is installing as I speak.

Now I know where there’s a fast unencrypted network in a place I’m not likely to be seen, I’ll be able to download lots of interesting things :-)  But I’ll try and use my own connection as much as I can, because it’s not fair for me to use someone else’s without their permission.

Oh, and I’m getting exactly 3 hours out of the battery on my Acer Aspire One, when running Linpus. No idea how much when running Ubuntu, but let’s hope it’s not much more. I want to try and get a 6 cell battery if possible, and a carry bag (the second guy at Officeworks told me confidently that it came with a bag, but it DID NOT - I don’t think I’ll buy from Officeworks again because that’s the second time they stuffed me around! Now I have to head out tomorrow morning before work to get a bag.).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 4:58 am and is filed under Backstory, Open-source application software, Ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.