JAM's Wireless Fund

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onepocketchump

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I hereby nominate Jennie Malloy (JAM) to be AZB's roving reporter. Jennie is the signifigant other of Keith "Earthquake" McCready. She is a constant source of wonderful prose and pix about her and Keith's pool adventures.

Jennie travels the country with her laptop and is constantly hampered by sporadic access to the net.

Let's give her the present of always on wireless access as thanks for the wonderful stories we have received and the ones to come.

Mike Howerton - can you set up or give us an account to donate to?

I would like to see us raise at least enough to get Jennie a cellular internet access card and a year's subscription on one of the major carriers. I think the price of the cards are from $150-$250 and the service is around $50 a month.

I pledge the first $50 and I'll hook up the service if we get the money up. Shane Sinnott of Platinum Billiards has pledged $50 (I think) so we are getting there. Anything will do, just pledge $5 a month or whatever. If we can send someone to the open we can do this.

John Barton
 
A great idea but a little over hyped

onepocketchump said:
I hereby nominate Jennie Malloy (JAM) to be AZB's roving reporter. Jennie is the signifigant other of Keith "Earthquake" McCready. She is a constant source of wonderful prose and pix about her and Keith's pool adventures.

Jennie travels the country with her laptop and is constantly hampered by sporadic access to the net.

Let's give her the present of always on wireless access as thanks for the wonderful stories we have received and the ones to come.

Mike Howerton - can you set up or give us an account to donate to?

I would like to see us raise at least enough to get Jennie a cellular internet access card and a year's subscription on one of the major carriers. I think the price of the cards are from $150-$250 and the service is around $50 a month.

I pledge the first $50 and I'll hook up the service if we get the money up. Shane Sinnott of Platinum Billiards has pledged $50 (I think) so we are getting there. Anything will do, just pledge $5 a month or whatever. If we can send Keisomeone to the open we can do this.

John Barton
Click to expand...

Like Linda said on the other thread at the ipt forum it costs no where near what you are proposiing. I have my laptop set up for wireless with a plug in card to my usb port and I get wireless wherever it is offered at no cost whatsover. I work off other people routers set up for wireless.
My total cost was $50 and no subsciption. Those major hotels might have wireless setups, I don't know but going through what you propose would be a lot of work when it can be done real easy. Also considering the money Keith is going to win you can pick up a built in wireless computer that is pretty good from Fry's for about $500 to $800. FWIW
 
He is talking about a wireless service through a cell provider. This would work in a bus, in the wood, or in a hotel with no internet access at all. Cost at least 50 a month.
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What is being proposed is a little more complicated than just a 802.11x option for wireless, and being able to piggy back off someone's unsecure wireless router.

Verizon, Sprint, and other carrier sell cards that connect via PCI slots in laptops, offering between 400K - 800K speeds anywhere in their coverage maps.

Say for example you're on the highway -- the nearest wireless access point might be thousands of yards away. An 802.11x card wouldn't be strong enough to get a connection. But with the wireless PC cards available through any major cell phone carrier, you can get Broadband speeds when you're not near a wireless network: be it on the beach, on the highway, in a small town, or in a hotel that might require payment for use of their networks.

I'd be up for donating.

I just checked Verizon's website (as a point of reference, their data services typically are the most expensive). For a wireless PC card, it's $50 after rebate with a 2-year subscription/contract. And $100 with a 1-year contract.

For unlimited data access, the service is $80 / month.

Given that a two-year contract might be a bit much to ask people to help out with, let's just say for example that we'd go with a 1-year contract.

This requires $100 upfront + $80 a month for service. 12 months @ $80 = $960. Plus the $100 for the card and $35 for activation, we're looking at $1095 (without adding in insurance, or other options). It'd be nice to get all the money upfront, but this is unrealistic.

Up front we'd only need $100 for the card, $80 for the first month of service and $35 for activation. $215 total. Doable, I'd hope. The trick would be getting people to pitch in every month for the $80 service.

How do-able is this? Thoughts?



nfty9er said:
Like Linda said on the other thread at the ipt forum it costs no where near what you are proposiing. I have my laptop set up for wireless with a plug in card to my usb port and I get wireless wherever it is offered at no cost whatsover. I work off other people routers set up for wireless.
My total cost was $50 and no subsciption. Those major hotels might have wireless setups, I don't know but going through what you propose would be a lot of work when it can be done real easy. Also considering the money Keith is going to win you can pick up a built in wireless computer that is pretty good from Fry's for about $500 to $800. FWIW
Click to expand...
 
I know but what a waste of money if she can get set up for practically free, it it is available.
 
EV-DO/1X Crazy sweet!

"Like Linda said on the other thread at the ipt forum it costs no where near what you are proposiing. I have my laptop set up for wireless with a plug in card to my usb port and I get wireless wherever it is offered at no cost whatsover. I work off other people routers set up for wireless. "


You can't even imagine how nice my Sprint EV-DO phone as a modem setup is. lol I'm thinking of you screwing around trying to find signal - 'cause you "get it free," or whatever - n00b.

I like the whole idea for Jeannie.

Donald
 
nfty9er said:
I know but what a waste of money if she can get set up for practically free, it it is available.
Click to expand...
Exactly, Jam has already expressed her love for Starbucks and they all I think have free wireless. Nice jesture John, but a little overkill if you ask me. Besides maybe Jam appeciates being able take some time away from some of the junk that goes on here. JMO
 
I like the idea of having JAM giving us some play by play, however i agree that it will be hard to get the money from everyone. I had a sprint wireless card and it worked really well. Count me in, i think it would work.

Jackson
 
Now this would be sweet....

Ideally, I'd like to see Mike/AZBilliards purchasing that capability for a few hardcore tournament goers like Jeannie, and creating a "premium forum," which we pay for. These chosen few would provide accurate and timely updates along with podcasts. Everyone benefits that way.

Donald
 
Why not?

Just get Jenny a new laptop with the plug-in's loaded in it, and for her to use the interent service at her stopping points along the path of the tournaments. Dell is currently offering real good deals on laptops, and I can not even tell you the deal I got on my desktop Emachine through my nephew, who works for Telecove (employee deal) because it was so low with a 3.2 Gig and 100 Gig hard drive, and CD/DVD/r/rw.

Why try to 'load up' a dinosaur of a laptop? Besides if she really can key 150 words a minute, then we would have longer more detailed post of her exploits which we all enjoy. (The best I ever saw was 141 words a minute with no errors on an electric typewriter by an English woman - most people do less on a keyboard).
 
nfty9er said:
I know but what a waste of money if she can get set up for practically free, it it is available.
Click to expand...

I guarantee you I hook up more frequently on the road with my Verizon Phone tethered to my laptop than I do finding open wi/fi networks.

I am talking about giving Jennie the freedom to hook up to the net whenever and wherever she is - be that going through the rockies at 70mph or at Amarillo Slim's pool room just off route 66.

John
 
Yah, to do it properly, you'd have to go the EV-DO route (i.e. via the cellular provider route). Depending on freebie wireless is sketchy at best.

The real strength of doing it this way is that whoever has the laptop/EV-DO connection could (barring cellular drop-out spots) connect from almost ANYWHERE - especially in the stands at a tournament. Very timely updates could be posted as they happen. And I'd wager that THAT is what everyone here is really drooling for. :D

I know Mike is planning to revamp the AZB site as far as how tournament brackets are displayed. I proposed a system where someone on-site could be plugging in bits of data via forms and the bracket data could update as new data comes in, and even where folks like you and I could sign up for email updates when results came in on players we signed up for updates on. Dunno how much of the stuff I tossed out will actually happen though. :D And, it'll be a while before he gets around to any of it - it can be a fair bit of work.
 
rackem said:
Exactly, Jam has already expressed her love for Starbucks and they all I think have free wireless. Nice jesture John, but a little overkill if you ask me. Besides maybe Jam appeciates being able take some time away from some of the junk that goes on here. JMO
Click to expand...

Actually Starbucks charges for wireless. Whether Jennie wanted to post or not would be totally up to her.

But how many of you don't think that JAM won't keep us up to date as things are happening? Hell, Timberly borrowed a laptop at last year's Valley Forge tournament to give you all a play-by-play.

I don't see this as overkill in any way. I see it as giving one of our most valued members a gift that corresponds with her desire to bring us the world of professional pool. We all know how much of a pain dial up is and how much of a pain it is to try and find open wifi networks. And those of us that do conventions know that convention centers charge outrageous rates for wifi access.

This way Jennie gets to post what she wants when she wants to without having to be tethered by geography or throttled by dial-up.

John
 
onepocketchump said:
I guarantee you I hook up more frequently on the road with my Verizon Phone tethered to my laptop than I do finding open wi/fi networks.

I am talking about giving Jennie the freedom to hook up to the net whenever and wherever she is - be that going through the rockies at 70mph or at Amarillo Slim's pool room just off route 66.

John
Click to expand...

Hi John. Would you please elaborate on how to tether a phone to a laptop? What kind of speeds might you approach?

Thanks!

- Steve
 
Data transfer speeds over cellular are, in the grand scheme, pretty pathetic - but better than a) they used to be and b) nothing. :D

One route is, of course, to use a cable to bridge the gap between one's laptop and one's phone - but IMHO the better route is to get an EV-DO card that you pop into the laptop, that has the cellular guts inside - no need to hook up to a cell phone.

Here's a link to Verizon Wireless's site showing the various wireless cards:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/...Cards&cm_re=Home Page-_-Personal Box-_-Phones
 
StevenPWaldon said:
What is being proposed is a little more complicated than just a 802.11x option for wireless, and being able to piggy back off someone's unsecure wireless router.

Verizon, Sprint, and other carrier sell cards that connect via PCI slots in laptops, offering between 400K - 800K speeds anywhere in their coverage maps.

Say for example you're on the highway -- the nearest wireless access point might be thousands of yards away. An 802.11x card wouldn't be strong enough to get a connection. But with the wireless PC cards available through any major cell phone carrier, you can get Broadband speeds when you're not near a wireless network: be it on the beach, on the highway, in a small town, or in a hotel that might require payment for use of their networks.

I'd be up for donating.

I just checked Verizon's website (as a point of reference, their data services typically are the most expensive). For a wireless PC card, it's $50 after rebate with a 2-year subscription/contract. And $100 with a 1-year contract.

For unlimited data access, the service is $80 / month.

Given that a two-year contract might be a bit much to ask people to help out with, let's just say for example that we'd go with a 1-year contract.

This requires $100 upfront + $80 a month for service. 12 months @ $80 = $960. Plus the $100 for the card and $35 for activation, we're looking at $1095 (without adding in insurance, or other options). It'd be nice to get all the money upfront, but this is unrealistic.

Up front we'd only need $100 for the card, $80 for the first month of service and $35 for activation. $215 total. Doable, I'd hope. The trick would be getting people to pitch in every month for the $80 service.

How do-able is this? Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I can piggyback the service on my Verizon account. All I need to do is buy is the card and start the service.

I won't need my phone in a few months so I might even be able to switch the contract to the internet service.

John
 
I'll put in $50 one time-someone pm when where.

If we get enough for the new LT and maybe the first couple months wireless, I think JAM, being a lady of some means can work out the rest. There is a fair trade-off there somewhere im sure. At any rate, I don't want to be responsible for sending $5 month somewhere.
 
Steve Lipsky said:
Hi John. Would you please elaborate on how to tether a phone to a laptop? What kind of speeds might you approach?

Thanks!

- Steve
Click to expand...

I use a Samsung SCH-A610 and a Mobile Office data cable/kit with Verizon's connectivity tool off the CD. You can't get this from Verizon anymore you have to get it from Ebay or buy a third party kit from Radio Shack. I have the $5 a month internet access plan from Verizon and my phone hooks up through that. I think that some of the other carriers have a similar way to use a phone as a modem but I am not sure. You can find plenty of information on google. Try "cell phones as modems" or similar searches. I used to do the same thing with my ATT Nokia phone as well until ATT went extinct and I switched.

I get up to 215kps. Pathetic but fast enough to get the job done. I can't tell you how nice it is to be in a strange city and be able to map addresses, check email, find suppliers etc... My connection was INVALUABLE when we were in Houston and setting up the booth. The free WIFI in the hotel was so horrid and spotty that I resorted to my phone in the hotel and had no problems.

Almost none of the new phones from Verizon allow an EVDO tether. That's why I stick to my older phone.

John
 
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