This week I finally got and installed an Apple Airport card. My Powerbook now sports 802.11b connectivity. Only I haven’t found any open access points. For that matter I haven’t found any access points at all.
My client site is part of the state government, and only in the past few years did they complete CAT-5 wiring in this agency. I wasn’t too surprised to find no base stations from my desk.
My neighbor has a wireless LAN in his home, but we live a good 100 feet apart and between walls, tress and other barriers I am not able to “see” his network.
At work one of the other consultants also has a laptop with built-in 802.11b and we are able to connect via a “computer to computer” network wirelessly. That’s pretty cool.
But on the whole it is something of a letdown to have this new functionality and not be able to readily use it. Both my brother and father have WAPs in their homes so when we visit them I’ll be able to connect, but the small city we live in has no published hot spots. The nearest ones listed are both inside Borders bookstores roughly 80 miles away.
I like having the functionality because I know that eventually I’ll be adding a wireless access point to our home, but right now it’s sort of like getting a really cool toy for Christmas and not having the right sized batteries on hand.