Tomizone

So, you want to make money from selling your wifi? Not to worry, now you can. Before, setting up a hotspot where users would pay was very difficult and something that only those who had the time and money would do. Today, it isn’t so had to do at all. In fact, there are a few ways that you can.

Firstly, if you are still a little bit more tech savvy, you could set up a linux server and a capture web portal so that you can bring your clients to a splash page for them to pay you. Most probably and the easiest way would be to get them to buy vouchers from you or alternatively by using paypal. This is the hardest of all the solutions

Secondly, you could tone it down and buy a linux based router, some of the linksys ones come to mind, and install DD-wrt or openWRT and then chillispot. Basically, this solution is no different from the last apart from the fact that you don’t have to have a full computer running all the time.

The third method would be to use something like FON or Tomizone. Tomizone allows paid users while FON doesn’t. Tomizone is also available preinstalled on some routers in NZ and Orcon has some sort of partnership with them too. The D-link 300 router is probably the most popular router that comes with Tomizone. Tomizone is also based on Chillispot and the associated customized firmware; however, you don’t have to worry about the billing, marketing or the pricing. It is all done for you. You get put on a map of all the hotspots Tomizone has and mind you they also do the hotspots in all the Esquires and Starbucks coffee shops in NZ. The price is set to $3 an hour or 60mb, $6.5o a day or 160mb or $30 a week for 1.2GB. It’s either data or time whichever comes first. The hotspot provider gets 50% of that amount and tomizone keeps 50% for itself, but at least they save you all the trouble of setting up and managing your own and not to mention handling the billing. You are allowed to give guest access to people you know. The D-Link 300 also has dual SSID, so you can use one of them while the other is for the hotspot.

I have an unlimited data plan, so I have no data cap. My traffic is shaped and prioritized, so VOIP then HTTP and the like then other things and then P2P. So any thing I sell won’t affect won’t really affect me. Plus, you can set a maximum bandwidth for the hotspot side. So far in the last 1.5 weeks I have made $45. This is not bad considering that the connection only costs me $50 a month. I think the reason for my success is that an AUT building is right behind my apartment and someone buys a pass every now and then.

Overall, very good. At least I got some income going. I wish I thought of this earlier. The money from the first two weeks will practically pay for the router.

The Spray Can

2Talk Max

Well, there are a few things that nobody can live without. One of them is obviously the internet. Ever wondered what you would do with out it, or what you do when there is an outage.

Anyway, I have chosen 2Talk max to be my ISP and VOIP provider. Beamed wirelessly from the sky tower not too far from my apartment, it gives a similar experience to that of Kidanet in Fiji. The fact that it is Wimax by Alvarion is understood but the Consumer premises equipment is more like that of Unwired- self install, indoor variety. I personally have the $65 a month plan which gives me unlimited traffic on the internet; something that nobody else will rival. They also give a phone line with two local numbers and 500 minutes of calling to landlines in most popular destinations, though this does not include Fiji. Other providers give a 5GB capped connection and landline with local calling only for $80 a month.

The service is excellent for the most part with close to 6 mbit downstream and around 3 mbit upstream speed. Something hard to find in most DSL services. On the other hand, I have had a few outages in the past few days for which I’m not all too pleased about. On the whole though, the service is quite good and cost effective.

The Spray Can

Temporary Email Service

It’s been a while since I posted anything.

You know something; there are times when you go to some random site and they tell you to sign up for something. You give your email address to them oh so relunctantly and regret it later for they send you nothing but spam.

Your mail box fills with this stuff and you know what you got to get rid of the account. Get a new one and start life as you knew it all over again. Not good!

So what is the answer to the problem you ask. The answer is to use a temporary email address from one of the many providers out there. They all have their own system of dealing with mail.

Example is pookmail.com which lets you have an address for a day. Well not really. Anyone can see the mail, not just you but just pick a real random name and you should be fine, I suppose anyway.

some of the providers give you around five minutes to receive mail and then poof, its all gone, no worries, no spam, no restarting life. Great isn’t it.

The Spray Can

So many internet cafes are not up to scratch

If you walk past web cafes in most third world and developing countries it is hard to miss the fact that they would usually lack management software. They would normally manage the time manually, filtering sites is a long way away and their would be no VIP treatment for anyone let alone blocking access to other programs and services on the PCs themselves. To most, a few computers hooked up to a basic router is the equivalent of a good cafe.

Most of them can’t stop users from accessing unwanted material or manage their security in terms of virus infections an hacking. Sometimes users are getting more than what they paid for or just not the real deal at all. Many leave the PC in an extremely dilapidated state, riddled with adult content and viruses galore.

It would be nice to go into a cafe that is well managed. Using some management software I suppose you can really improve profits as well, less wastage, better customer experience, easy maintenance and less headaches.

It so hard to find good net cafes these days, people opt to use wifi hotspots a lot more. I suppose that is a lot better in all respects. Maybe the humble net cafe will slowly phase out as more and more people attain notebooks and mobile devices.

What is Broadband Internet?

hmmm. Difficult question it is really. what really is broadband, an always on unlimited type connection. Maybe its anything 256k and above and up to 56k is narrowband. So where does that leave 128k, 144k etc. Is it mid-band?

If we take the first definition, always on, does that mean 128k Adsl or wireless is broadband and dual ISDN is not because you need to dial.FCC states somewhere that a connection over 1Mbps is broadband, less than that and above 56k is midband.

OK, another situation, we mostly consider downstream speeds, what about upstream speeds, is say 256/256 broadband or is 1024/128 broadband. Most Adsl providers give less than 256 upload speed so does that count as broadband?

My situation, 128/128k always on Wimax connection with unlimited downloads and no shaping or throttling. Is that broadband or mid-band? Although download limits don’t count but what about symmetrical speeds?

Wikepedia talks about multiple streams or pieces of info travelling at the same time. Ok, say the line is full duplex (Adsl) but say 64k or 32k speeds is that broadband?

Conclusion: I think some people need to get together and sought out this definition dilemma. So many things specify a need for broadband connections to the internet but they fail to standardise the meaning of the word, in essence people are twisting it to suit themselves which is not right. ISP might say that it is broadband but you can’t play a game on it which requires broadband: disappointed non-geeks are not a good sign of progress.

The Spray Can

OpenDNS

I recently tried the free domain name service OpenDNS after my ISP’s DNS servers suffered some problems. Although the ISP DNS servers were O.K at first, they began to show problems like blank pages and occasional service shut-downs. Although at the time I had not read any reviews of the service at the time. Most of the time people don’t have issues with their DNS service but chose to use OpenDNS because of the features that they offer like spell correction, faster load times and anti-phishing filters. In my case I was really looking for a solution to a problem, however, my experience was rather short lived. Since I do not reside in the US which is where most of their servers are located, I ended up getting certain sites in the US edition rather than the localised editions of the sites. Having also read of some reviews and a few comments about the service, I have since then decided to use the openDNS server only as my secondary DNS. The primary remains to be my ISP’s DNS server.

Has anyone else had the same problem? What are your views, post your comments.

later