Sunday night I had the horrible realization that I had gotten the dates wrong, and a big deadline I thought was Tuesday was really Monday. I blame those damned European calendars! Stayed up almost all night working on it, but at least it got done and the client is happy. Monday was a busy day, then last night I crashed after dinner and slept all evening and all night. Woke up feeling great. I guess catching up on sleep worked after all.
My next door neighbors just got wireless. They have a massively strong signal. In my living room I get a better connection on their network than on mine. My network is actually kind of bad in the living room, sometimes I have to move the laptop around on the table to get a connection at all. I feel a little guilty about using their network, but it's not like I'm doing anything bandwidth intensive. Besides, I didn't do it intentionally. My laptop is set up to go for the best available, so it jumped onto their network automatically. When I'm working in my study, which does use more bandwidth, it goes back to our network.
One (or maybe both) of the dogs has decided that the bales of straw we're using for mulch are fun to play with. Every time I go outside, there's more straw strewn about. I'm not going to scold them though. Time they spend pulling apart the straw is time they aren't digging up my hydrangeas. Hmm, maybe I should keep an extra bale of straw around to distract them from the flower beds.
I did a little more yardwork today, planting those last daffodils. Daffodils are no fun because they have to go so deep in the ground. Also because I hear they tend not to do well in the hot, damp South, and all that digging may be for nothing if they rot in the clay soil next summer. I splurged and got myself some waterproof gardening clogs, in a cute bright green, and a foam kneeler thing. My knees still got gross from dirt getting on the foam thing, but it was a lot more comfortable.
6 Comments
Hey, I would probably let my neighbors know I was using their network just out of courtesy, because they could decide to check one day and see you on their network without permission and get ticked off. Unless they're the type of people who wouldn't care--you know them better than I do!
actually, it's everyone's responsibility to secure their network. securing a wireless network isn't difficult; one must simply do a little reading of documentation. RTFM as we geeks say.
if you don't secure your network, you get what you deserve. if bandwidth theft is the worst thing that happens to you then you're probably doing pretty good.
now if sarah wanted to be a really, really nice person she could advise her neighbors to secure their network to reduce the risk of being hacked.
These are the neighbors we're on really bad terms with, so going over there to give them a friendly warning would be awkward. But by the same token, I probably shouldn't antagonize them by stealing their bandwidth.
Now that we have neighbors with wireless I tried to lock down our network, restricting it to just our computers, but all it would let me do was *block* specific MAC addresses, not allow only specific MAC addresses as I wanted. Maybe I need to upgrade the firmware in the router.
Interesting...
A few thoughts:
1. Way I figure, folks who don't secure their network are probably not savvy enough to notice you're using it.
2. I share my WiFi with a neighbor whose computer is at the back of his house which is ~200 ft. across the parking lot from my antenna-in-my-window. At some point I am hoping to make a wireless network for the computers in my house, but I need some help to make sure that I'm excluding Bob's computer. I reckon I'll find some eighth-grader to show me how.
3. Loved this blog!
sarah, is your network password-protected? that's the main place to start when securing it.
yes it is -- I was trying to make it extra secure by restricting it to our MAC addresses.