This past Saturday, the wifi network that is a lovechild between the brutish broadband over powerline adapters and the delicate, flighty open mesh routers was deployed. And like any unholy demonspawn, the birth was painful. It seemed to be working for an hour, but it promptly went out right as we were leaving.

Right now, my major projects include...

Comment from Mira Allen on October 27, 2009 - 12:54pm

Keep us posted on the BPL thing- I'm interested to see how that pans out.

Comment from Dan Stangl on November 9, 2009 - 5:38pm

It sounds like your projects are moving along really quickly, which is great. The wiki looks like a great resource for residents, so big props on putting that together along with the work you're doing to get the new networks set up!

Since my last report, a bunch of projects have progressed and a bunch more have begun. The wiki has been moving along. Almost all of the content is up, it's been reskinned, and I've added a translator and some access restriction extensions so we can store some somewhat "classified" information to it.

Comment from Mira Allen on October 7, 2009 - 4:28pm

Sounds like a great project! Keep us posted.

Comment from Mark Woodward on October 12, 2009 - 12:32pm

I'm very interested in the internet over power lines technology...any updates?

It's like being in Hawaii with the extended family. Being called "hapa" brings back the memories.

One of my more recent projects has been re-working the network map for the local community wireless network. My efforts thus far can be found at http://map2.cuwireless.net. Credit for the CSS and the text accompanying the map goes to Ross. This is just the first part. The next stage is to add an admin/management interface.

The map is powered by PHP and the Google Maps API (which uses javascript). The Google Maps API is incredibly easy to use and has lots of features.

Here's a pdf of my presentation from the Pre-Service Orientation last week on my work at the CTC and wifi project.

Madison Park Development Corporation provides 986 affordable rental housing units overall, with 546 units in the Village, consisting of over 1000 residents. (See the old project description).

Well, it's been several months, which is wrong in so many ways that I cannot even begin to count them. I've probably been labeled the "Worst VISTA Ever" by the Corporation, but since I don't have very ambivalent feelings about them, I don't really care. The fact is that I have been busy over the last 4+ months and if that means that I don't have time to blog for CTC, well, then that is what it means.

So, I have completely let this blog go by the wayside. For shame. But I'm back, baby, although I still refuse to like blogs.

So, whats been happening with your friendly neighborhood wireless guy? Well, its been so ridiculously busy lately, that I was able to completely ignore something like an online web log without a second thought. Woohoo!

Yes, we have a working wireless mesh network now. For the past month and a half we've been frantically trying to setup all of the residents who signed up initially, back in January of this year. So you can understand why they might be in a hurry to get their internet access. In the past couple months we've installed routers in about 70 or so homes, which is only half of our expected number of users, but believe me, the other 70 people have been banging down our door asking for internet. Except that when we try to call them and setup an appointment, they don't pick up the phone. They do show up at the tech center, upset that we haven't called them, though. Ah well. At least we've made a good amount of progress in a short time, and I can no longer claim that my job description is a liar. This is what I signed up for. Oh, by the way, its the best job ever.