Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Downtown Denver Partnership Free WiFi Zone

The Downtown Denver Partnership announced yesterday that it has created a free WiFi (as in wireless 802.11 network) zone that stretches along the 16th Street pedestrian mall from the "top" (Civic Center Station) to LoDo (Union Station), including Skyline Park at 16th and Arapahoe (which happens to be next Green Fine Salad Company, one of my favorite restaurants!). Interestingly enough, I had a very hard time finding any further information on it (including no mention whatsoever on the Partnership's web site) until I stumbled across an article in the Denver Post (from which most of this information came).

The free WiFi is limited to two hours out of each 24, and according to a report in the Denver Post, the coverage and signal strength is excellent--one person reported a very strong signal while using it inside of Starbucks at 16th and Court Place.

The network, which was designed, implemented and will be maintained by Kiva Networks out of Broomfield, CO, is being provided free to the city. Kiva will reportedly earn some ad revenue from a Web page that displays when users first log on (and they are quite obviously getting some serious free PR out of the deal too!).

The network is based out of the Downtown Denver Partnership's HQ at 16th St and Glenarm Place, where Kiva has located a central server and a wireless antenna. Antennas are located atop 16 light poles along the mall, along with a solar powered access point at the Denver Pavilions mall.

This is a great way to make the city much more traveller-friendly, IMHO--instead of paying $10-$20/day for wireless access at places such as Starbucks, people can get access for free (even while still buying Starbucks coffee!). The only losers in the equation are the WISPs (Wireless Internet Access Providers) that stand to lose out on the revenue they would otherwise be getting from those users.

I applaud the move, which follows on the heels of a similar move made by Boulder's Downtown Business Improvement District, which provides free (entirely solar powered--it's Boulder, after all!) WiFi access along the Pearl Street Mall.

For what it's worth, the network name (SSID) of the Boulder network is 'PEARL', and I will post the 16th Street network information when I get it. Curiously, the Kiva Networks Web site has to be one of the most content free that I've run into--seems they're keeping themselves busy putting in free networks or something. :-)

Update (4/19/06): I tried to connect to the free Denver network today from the Starbucks at 16th and Blake; nothing showed up on my network list other than the Starbucks T-Mobile network--and this was sitting by a window right on the mall. Hmm....seems they might need a few more APs, as the coverage is clearly not seamless from one end of the mall to the other.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Dell Latitude D620: my new laptop

After an exhaustive review, we recently made the decision to go with Dell again to replace a number of aging "power user" laptops. The unit of choice is the Latitude D620, which is a brand-new corporate quality laptop designed for road warrior power users.

As spec'ed, the D620s we've ordered have Intel Core Duo 2 GHz processors, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drives, wide screen 14" SXGA+ screens and DVD+/-R drives. Weight should come in around 5.5 pounds with the extra life 9 cell battery, which is reported to provide around 7 hours (!) of battery life.

eWeek recently reviewed the D620 and gave it very good marks, especially for the price, which came in at $2,119, including all of the options mentioned above plus a 3 year next business day service plan, accidental damage protection, shipping and tax.

As far as reliability, ComputerWorld Australia recently stress tested one of the new Latitude models (not sure exactly which one), but they came through with shining colors. Their tests included dropping the unit onto carpeted and hard floors (from desktop height, both open and closed), as well as standing on the unit and actually pouring an entire cup of coffee on the keyboard. The unit survived all tests with flying colors due to the magnesium reinforced case, liquid resistant keyboard and hard drive "shock zones" that protect the drive if the unit is dropped. While this falls short of Lenovo's "air bag" technology, which relies on a motion sensor that automatically parks the hard drive, and liquid drain channels under the keyboard, the price of the unit came in much less than a similarly configured ThinkPad T60.

Dell estimates that we will receive the units in about 2 weeks, and I will post an evaluation of my unit after I've had a chance to use it for a few weeks. Compared with the cranky, heavy (8.5 pound) Dell Inspiron 8500 that I'm currently using, the new D620 promises to be a vast improvement. Hopefully Dell's new US-based support and overall system reliability have improved beyond the current unit!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Aruba Networks: Secure WiFi/VPN Solution in One

I attended Forrester's IT Forum 2006 this week in Las Vegas, and one of the vendors exhibiting there is Aruba Networks (http://www.arubanetworks.com).

Aruba, which calls themselves the "Mobile Edge Company" have a line of VPN/wireless “switch” appliances that are really cool. You buy a "mobiliy controller", which is a switch-like device that can control between 6 and 512 Aruba access points (which are very small, 802.11 a/b/g devices).

The mobility controller is much more than just a switch, however. The idea is that you place the controller in the data center, and it then not only controls the access points, but it also serves as an identity-based security gateway (wired and wireless), plus a VPN server.

After you configure one or more wireless access points with private IPs, you can plug them in virtually anywhere with connectivity to the Internet (like mobile users, branch offices, or even locations in the same building). The APs connect back to the "mother ship" (mobility controller) via an encrypted VPN tunnel, providing a secure connection from virtually anywhere (like hotel rooms, for example). The access points also support WiFi security like WPA, so in effect, you get fully secured end-to-end wireless communications from virtually anywhere....and once it's set up, it's virtually plug-and-play.

This solution solves a multitude of remote access problems, including the classic problem where an employee connects back to the corporate network with a VPN tunnel from home, and yet since they have an unsecure (or improperly secured) access point, they've just created an opening into the corporate network that is virtually impossible for the IT organization to detect.

I especially like the remote office / mobile worker aspects of this solution. An IT department could send the smallest AP (around $200 if memory serves) to these users, and they only need to plug the unit into a network connection to gain instant secure wireless connectivity to the corporate network. Super cool!

The total solution scales very well also--they have controllers that scale up to the largest of deployments, and they also have a very good line of access points that even include outdoor environments. I have recommended that our IT person take a look at their solution--it could solve a multitude of problems for us with not a large amount of work and for just a few thousand dollars' investment.



Not only do the APs provide a secure plug-and-play VPN, they also provide secure wireless access that will work in our various office locations as well as home offices and even hotel rooms. Cool idea!



The price doesn’t look too bad—the appliance starts around $1,700 (US) and the APs are around $200 (if memory serves).