This morning I am busy reworking BGSGlass.com. It’s been a project that has been in the works for awhile, but time and schedules weren’t meshing. Now that I am gung-ho on getting this together, I needed some quick text filler to hold my paragraphs before the content could be installed.

That’s when I found the Lorem Ipsum generator! It’s friggin’ cool (mostly because it saved me time).

Okay… back to work.

(oh, and thank you to Panera Bread in West Bend for letting me siphon off their WiFi, electrical outlet, and coffee spigot. )

My wife and I have made our way to Michigan City, IN for her family’s annual family vacation.  This is a really nice area off of Lake Michigan.  Our room is in the top of a 3 story “beach home”.  All of the rental properties here are painted like a Jimmy Buffett concert got really drunk and threw up all over itself.  Which, for a vacation spot, isn’t that bad.

I will say the traffic coming down I-294/I-80 south of Chicago was terrible.  Even worse, they had the gall to charge tolls while we waited in 1.5hr+ backups.  If you are headed anywhere south/east out of Wisconsin, avoid this area at any cost.  (Or better yet, fly!)

I will see what I can do about getting some photos of the lake from the “south side” for all you Milwaukee-ans.

PS, it is really nice that the renters installed Wi-Fi for people to use.  Very handy for me, who is addicted to the internet.

I went to Applebee’s today (by myself) for lunch. I had to get some schoolwork done, and I remembered that they had placards at the tables announcing that they have free WiFi Internet available to customers. So… instead of driving all the way home to eat lunch and work on the Internet, I decided to save gas, eat, and get my work at Applebee’s.

Yeah. It sucked. I normally have no problems picking up wireless signals, but at Applebee’s, I could only get one bar at most. I gave up… ate my shrimp penne pasta… and went back to school. Ugh!

I enjoyed lunch at Panera Bread in Menomonee Falls yesterday. I was pleased to learn that they have free WiFi there. I’m excited to know that they are coming to West Bend soon… Now I just have to save enough cash to afford spending $8 on lunch when I want to use the Internet. Well, at least the option is available.

I suppose I should develop my WifiWisconsin.com site soon… If anybody wants it, he or she is more than welcome to purchase it from me. (My Life = No Time For Extraneous Websites)

Okay, there has been a fair amount of news lately about people stealing WiFi internet from their neighbors. While I do think it’s creepy for somebody to park outside of your home and use your internet connection for hours and hours at a time, I do believe it is the modem-owner’s responsibility to deny permission to the user.

In essence, if your WiFi router is not password protected, you are giving permission to any schmuck to access your network.

Here’s how:

1.) Your computer discovers the WiFi signal.
2.) Your computer (basically) asks permission from the router to connect.
3.) If the network is not password-protected, the computer connects.
4.) The router, inside whomever’s home, assigns an ip address to the computer.
5.) The router gives access to the user.

The computer asked. The router - YOUR router - said, “sure, why not.”

If you simply password protect the network, then you are denying permission to anybody who tries to access the network. If you do not, you are thereby allowing permission. Pretty simple, right? Even if you assign a really easy password, such as “1234″ or “admin,” you are denying permission to those who aren’t supposed to access your network. If they figure out your password, well, they are more or less “hacking” or “cracking” into your network. If you do not enable a password - well - it’s your own damn fault if they use your connection!

My theory is that it is much like Over the Air (OTA) television vs. DirecTV. Your television can “connect” to OTA television easily, and without a password. If you go and steal a DirecTV card and try to hack into their protected network, you are committing a crime.

So, if you don’t want your neighbors stealing accessing your network - enable a password on the S.O.B.

I run into so many different places that offer open WiFi (wireless internet) networks in their parking lots and driveways, that I am seriously considering creating a database of free WiFi locations. I’m not just talking about establishments that advertise free wireless internet. I’m talking about apartment building parking lots, neighborhoods, and private businesses that are simply too dumb to secure their networks.

My project will not be built with malicious intent. I simply want to point out that people are sloppy when it comes to their security.

If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments section below.

UPDATE: Triticale knows about network stupidity. Actually, he posted about it half a month ago.

UPDATE 2: Today I purchased WisconsinWiFi.com - I decided that I will make this project a go.

I made a quick stop in Brookfield today. While I was on Bluemound I stopped at two places. Both had relatively large parking lots. At each location I pulled out my laptop to write down some notes. At each location my “Wireless network available” alert came up. So I was able to connect to the internet at both locations. Sweet.

Then I clicked on my available networks to see if there were any more. I clicked on one of the 3 available and it asked me for a password. I typed “admin” just to be funny. I mean, who in their right mind would use “admin” as a password.

It worked. And not only did it work, but it was a computer-to-computer network. I immediately switched networks because I did not want anything to do with hacking into somebody’s computer. But c’mon people. Be smarter than that. You might as well have used “1234.”

My wife, daughter, and I took a little trip to Minnesota this weekend to see some friends. First we went to Duluth/Superior, then we headed back down to Minneapolis, and we made our way back home this afternoon.

While we were gone I needed to dedicate some of my time to writing a research paper for school. I unholstered my trusty PowerBook about six times during the trip. I was amazed to find that at three of our stops I was able to access the internet through unsecured wireless networks. Two of the networks were home users running on Linksys routers with the password featured turned off, and one network used a Netgear router - I’m quite sure it was also a residential user.

The hotel we stayed at also featured a free wireless network. In order to access that network, however, I needed a room number and password. This was probably to keep people from stopping by the Fairfield parking lot and using up the hotel’s bandwidth. It was nice to be able to do some work, access maps, and find phone numbers without having to tip the front desk workers, though.

The best network I found on the trip was on our last stop. I was connecting to the internet at over 100 Kbps, which is about three times faster than I can ever sustain at home. (Though there are times that my speeds are up there.) I was so impressed with this person’s network speed that I was tempted to print a “thanks for letting me use your network” page on his/her printer had it been on. Wouldn’t that be freaky to come home, walk into the computer room and see a page sitting there - “Dear Neighbor, thanks for letting me tap in to your network. I’ll never buy cable again… bwahahahahahahahaha…” Of course, there are probably some other people in the neighborhood using his/her network, and I would hate to ruin their free ride.

This makes me wonder if it’s illegal for neighbors to go in on one cable modem and share the network throughout the neighborhood. It definitely gives new meaning to Microsoft’s “Network Neighborhood.” It also sounds like something we would have done in college. (You know, the first or second times I was in college - not this time.) College kids can find anyway to save money. Ask my buddy Brad about his Blatz-returnable box spring. I’m serious.

Well, we made it home safe. I am now going to secure my wireless network. Sorry neighbors.