CEDX

Times Square Wi-Fi

I attended Speedwire's holiday party last night, at O'Lunney's off Times Square, and on my way to Penn Station passed through Times Square.  I decided to give the free Yahoo sponsored network a quick whirl and found it to be a good experience.  Easy to connect to through a sea of SSIDs, the only nit I had with it was the non-mobile friendly initial T&C page.  I've got three screen shots for you below, T&C, welcome, and redirect.  Kudos to Marshall Brown's Wiredtowns for getting the deployment business and executing well.

   

Another essential component to marketing outdoor networks is making their presence known to non-geeks and occasional visitors.  Outdoor advertising such as these lightpole banners shot by Scott Beale drive awareness and usage.

 

Super Design and Poor Design

I saw Oren Michel's tweet about this brilliant designer in the UK, revolutionizing something as mundane as a power plug, 
and then looked out my window and saw the results of poor design . 

I love Christmas lights all year round, and when LED models came out, my guilt over their energy consumption evaporated.  I loaded up on these GE branded lights from Costco and enjoyed them all summer in the backyard.  With the first hard freeze of the season, approximately 2/3'rds of the plastic diffusers from the lights popped off last night, having filled with water over time.  Boo, hiss, bad GE, bad Costco.  tsk, tsk, tsk.  Now I have to go pro and check out these guys.  You get what you pay for in this world.