Meeting Notes: Networking 09.05
Dave Greenbaum opened the meeting at Signs of Life bookstore and told the attendees that we were experimenting with recording the meeting for possible podcasting and asked attendees what podcasts they were subscribed to.
Matt Kappenman gave the Apple news, where we learned that Apple will no longer make the iPod Mini. It has been replaced by the iPod Nano, which uses flash memory instead of a harddrive, and displays color photos on its viewer screen. We also learned about the iTunes Motorola® ROKR phone which holds over 100 songs, and iTunes 5, which has an updated interface, more in line with Tiger apps. The Harry Potter iPod was mentioned, which has a Hogworks engraving on the back, and comes with all Harry Potter audiobooks.
Joshua Montgomery, one of the founding directors of Lawrence Freenet (http://www.lawrencefreenet.org) was the special guest speaker. He talked about Lawrence Freenet, a 501c non-profit organization formed to create a broadband umbrella over Lawrence with an ultimate goal of expanding that umbrella over the entire state of Kansas. Their system uses new frequency-hopping technology called WiMAX
that promises a 30 mile range with speeds of 75 to 100 mb/sec and is twenty times faster than DSL. The city-wide network operates in a mesh network that has antennas on water towers and beams to individual neighborhoods “like a chain link fence,”Joshua said.
Joshua explained how conventional broadband internet is overpriced. His service charges $180 to install the device that receives the signal. This is only if the resident can afford that. Otherwise it’s free. The users are asked to donate $15/month to help keep the service available for those who can’t afford it. He said that so far 80% of the users have been making monthly donations.
He asked the rhetorical question, why bother? In identifying the need of the project, they did some “war driving” in Lawrence where they drove around and looking for wireless computer networks. They found that the south west area of Lawrence had approximately 400 wireless hubs per square mile. In North Lawrence, only 113 wireless networks could be identified per square mile. He said his findings were not very statistically accurate but that it demonstrates that folks in NorthLawrence have less access to it. He said that problems can arise for people when they apply for jobs and companies like Boeing only take applications from the internet, or to apply for financial aid at a university.
The all-volunteer group that has come together to build the network is working with various agencies, the IRS, and city officials to explain the organization’s goals. But selling that idea hasn’t been easy. “We’re a community networking project… and we are fighting various battles on a legal front to establish ourselves as a legitimate non-profit that performs a valuable service to the community.” Joshua said.
In addition to providing internet to the community, his organization provides a place for at-risk teens to volunteer their time and help keep them “out of trouble,” Joshua said. Joshua said its a great opportunity for people to volunteer to help the local community. In that spirit, to market the service to neighborhoods they have block parties and show movies while educating citizens about their service. As the discussion went on, Joshua passed around antennas and receivers that are used in the system and answered various questions. He said they have had seed money in placed to start up the service, but a donation of $20,000 would have the city covered in a matter of months.
After Joshua’s presentation on the Freenet project, general Mac questions were taken from the group. What can you do about increasing spam? The spam filter built into the OSX Mail program gets smart enough to remember spam. Dave Greenbaum also suggested using Spamfire, a program that works with any email client. The website is http://www.matterform.com. Someone said they were having a lot of kernel panics.Kernel panics are always hardware-related. Ram is a likely cause. Try running the hardware test cd that comes with the computer.
Another person was having trouble using Safari with their online banking service. It was suggested to try to use Firefox. The best way to find the latest version is to go to http://www.verstiontracker.com. A question was asked about trouble getting Yahoo email on a G4. Suggested to try to reset Safari. Then,if that didn’t work, trash preferences for safari. A general troubleshooting strategy for problems like this is to create a new user profile. A group member had an older G3 ibook. Errors keep coming up. Everyone suggested that he reformat the hard drive and start fresh. Another question pertained to a G5, where Safari,Address book and several other applications wouldn’t run. Try cleaning caches,leave computer on. Try a new user profile. A lot of free programs like Yasu and Cocktail let you to run maintenance tasks. The drawing was made for the door-prize and after Matt Kappenman forfeited the prize, Micah Rolfs won a license for Spamfire. The next meeting is on how to repair your Macintosh.