Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners » wifi

In-flight Wifi

Rick — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:27:43 +0000

I’m in route to Chicago to play golf with some buddies and brought along my trusty ASUS Eee PC 901 netbook (currently running Crunchbang Linux). We were supposed to fly out last night, but weather had us delayed until this morning. As we boarded the flight, I was surprised and curious to see a WiFi [...]

Rick Answers his Email Videocast – 053

Rick — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:50:27 +0000

The summer has kept me busy and I let a few too many question stack up (remember that you can make a small donation when asking your question to get priority). I answered all the questions you asked the last 2 weeks in these two videos. The first video contains questions from Doris, Henry, Andrew, Jean, [...]

Free & Pay WiFi Hot Spots in Grand Junction, CO

Rick — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:09:09 +0000

I thought it might be a good idea to make a complete list of open WiFi hotspots in Grand Junction, CO.

A WiFi Hotspot is a place your anyone can access wireless Internet for free and without setting up an account or through the use of a pay account. We certainly don't know all the spots in town, so please help us make this list more complete with your additions by leaving a comment below.

FREE WiFi Hotspots in Grand Junction, CO

Trader's Coffee and Tea (Redlands and Patterson Road)
Main Street Bagel
Coffee Muggers (downtown)
Mesa Mall
Bear Rock Cafe
Aspen Street Coffee in Fruita, CO
Beans about Beans Coffee on Horizon Drive
Java Junction on North Avenue
Enstrom's candy and coffee shop
Gas Station by Safeway on the Redlands
Colorado Java House (5th & Colorado)
Cold Stone Creamery (2474 Hwy 6 & 50)
Wash N Clean World (1916 N. 12th)
Quality Inn/Days Inn(733 Horizon Dr)
Best Western/Sandman Inn (708 Horizon Dr)
Fuoco Motors (741 N. 1st)
Z & Z Automotive (743 Horizon Dr)
Grand Junction Athletic Club Day Spa and Salon (2515 Foresight Circle)
St. Mary's Hospital
Mesa County Public Library

PAY WiFi Hotspots

McDonalds (all of them)
Borders Books
Barnes & Noble
Starbucks

Set up a home network – Part I

Rick — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:08:17 +0000

Home computer networks used to be just for geeks, there was no practical reason to setup a network at home because most people only had one system and the Internet was only accessible through a dial-up connection that couldn?t be shared.

Today that has all changed. Computer networks are not only practical but they are also easy to setup and in many cases they are absolutely necessary. Over the next few weeks, we will breakdown the process of building a computer network into simple steps that will guide you through the entire process of setting up either a wired or wireless home computer network.

Before we get into the logistics of a network setup, we should cover some quick terminology. Here are a few terms you absolutely need to understand to build a computer network.

What I learned in the first 4 days of my iPhone 3G

Rick — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:59:26 +0000

I picked up my new iPhone late on Thursday night, worked with it on Friday, then left with it for a quick trip to see my brother and my first and only nephew. Prior to this phone, I have used some sort of smartphone since 2000...all Palm software based. Prior to that I used Palm handheld computers since about 1997.

I decided to move to the iPhone because I felt that the Palm innovation had stagnated...about 5 years ago. Plus, with all the innovation and development happening around the iPhone, I knew it was a great opportunity to take my smartphone usage even further than the Palm based systems had. A real quick word about any smartphone; they aren't met for every cell phone user. Smartphones are designed for people who want to check email, lookup information on the web, get maps, send text messages, add specialty programs like conversion programs, time trackers and much more to their phone.

Enough blabber, here are some of my thoughts about the iPhone after only four days of use:

The screen is absolutely stunning...clear, bright, and responsive.
I really miss being able to select text

WiFi is truly becoming ubiquitous

Rick — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:46:29 +0000

I've mentioned before that I think that laptops make a lot of sense for computer users who travel. With a great deal of our communication and information gathering tied up in the computer world, not having this tool when traveling is a definite minus. My family and I just returned from a short trip where having our laptop with us saved us a lot of time and aggravation.

While traveling, we used the computer and a wi-fi connection (which was easy to find) to :

Email relatives
Access maps
Compare shopping centers we were thinking of visiting
Keep an eye on the weather
Check road reports
Find our favorite eateries
Find independent coffee shops (we like them better than Starbucks)
Download and look at pictures we took
Stay current with news without having to wait for a newspaper or the evening news

I'm curious what other travelers use their laptops for on the road. Leave a comment and tell me your traveling laptop story or tip!

Portability, price and function – why the digital book will die

Rick — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:00:15 +0000

Amazon announced a new product today that they feel will revolutionize reading.

The Kindle is a digital book.

Perhaps it is worth $399 plus the price of books to not have to turn pages. Regular books are so difficult and out dated. They don't take batteries, they don't break down after extended use, they can be heavy and lets not forget the difficulty of turning pages.

Possible Ubuntu Alternative – Freespire

Rick — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:46:13 +0000

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but the following is an excerpt from an email that my brother-in-law sent me. As Windows Vista proves to be a bigger lemon than anyone ever expected, Linux geeks are taking control. The future of non-Windows systems is very promising. "You may want to check into this, though, if you haven't already: http://www.freespire.org/ Freespire is the free version of Linspire (which used to be Lindows before Microsoft sued them). They started releasing a free version a while back to try to get some more community development going. I recommend it because they start their codebase with Ubuntu version 7.04 (so underneath the hood, it's completely Ubuntu), but they add in a bunch of really useful stuff.

Canon leaps ahead again in DSLR wars

Rick — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:26:01 +0000

I have made no secret of the fact that when it comes to digital SLRs I prefer Canon over all other brands. I have also backed up my argument with a long list of reasons.

Everytime any other company gets close to Canon, Canon announces a new camera that out paces the competition both in features and price.

Canon did it again this week. They have announced two new digital SLRs, both will make any serious photographer drool unless they are blinded by their loyalty to another brand of camera.

Easy WiFi with Ubuntu Linux – Video Tip

Rick — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:29:30 +0000

This week's tip addresses a rough area with Ubuntu Linux...using wi-fi (wireless) Internet. I have had some of the same problems utilizing wireless Internet as other people, so I set out to learn more about it and find as straight forward a solution as I could. What I found was called WiFi Radar. I wrote about it in Day 3 of my 14 day Ubuntu only series. In today's tip, I submit to you the video version of that tip.