Networked
I've been tweaking how the internet is delivered at my house. Recently I switched internet service providers, and went back into ADSL through TekSavvy. The company name not only describes the competency of their staff, but the required level of sophistication for their clients. The connection is bare bones, and the technical support people don't waste time, but you'd better know what your signal to noise ratio is, and what speed you are getting to the DSLAM before you call. All-and-all I'm very happy with the change, and the Thomson 585 is nothing short of a mighty powerhouse of a network appliance.
Mike also tipped me of to the nifty little FON routers. An amazing idea, you buy one of their network appliances and plug it into your home network. The little guy takes up a channel in the 802.11g spectrum, and if people want to use it to access the network, you and FON split the revenue. Not that I'm against a little extra revenue, but that is not the reason I picked up the router, because if you put one of these gadgets on your home network, you can access any other FON router in the whole wide world for free. I was checking out their service coverage map, and shrugged off the 20 or so points around Calgary. When it really became intriguing is having a look south of the border, or better yet, overseas. Any trip to a major center in Europe, and connectivity stop being a problem. Figure out where you are going, get a waypoint file from the FON website, and use your GPS to stay connected. I've ordered my new gizmos, so I'll let you know how the service works out when I've tried it.
