(2008-04-24) N810 Warwalking

I've had reason for some Nokia N810 War Walking recently, wanting to query Google Local/Google Maps while out-and-about. Very painful process:

• most networks are locked: c'mon people, open-up and share some Free Wifi!

  • Apr29 - I just wanted to join an IRC meeting from The Boys school, but their WiFi was locked down. I was going to try and go find someone to talk into giving me the info, but it turned out I found some other open source, from a Riverside Cafe I can't even find!

• the N810's network-list includes those, and of course is sorted alphabetically with no other options (e.g. open/closed, by strength), and keeps refreshing, so it's really hard to scroll down the list and find something to try

• some of the open device-hosted networks don't seem to actually work for sharing, or maybe they're locked in some less-obvious way

• networks that seem to have good strength one moment totally disappear the next.

I think it took me 15min the other day to get a connection. And this is mid/downtown NYC, where you expect it to be better.