Why not more nodes

Thu Dec 28 13:22:22 PST 2006

Patrick:

I fully agree with your assessment of the Seattle wireless web
site.  Thank you for stating it so clearly.

I fall in the category of people that would gladly set up a node if
there were clear instructions that I could follow.

Thank you,

Steve Herber	herber at thing.com		work: 206-221-7262
Security Engineer, UW Medicine, IT Services	home: 425-454-2399

On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Patrick Walters wrote:

> I've restarted thus mail a couple of times, and I think I've finally
> figured out what I'm trying to say. The project sounds awesome, but the
> way information is being shared and explained just isn't approachable to
> enough people. I'm not a developer or an electrical engineer, but I've
> worked 10+ years in the computer industry and when I read the site it is
> confusing, overly technical and I'd even say 7e33t. You've excluded a
> lot of people by making it hard to understand. I know the core group
> keeping this going is extremely intelligent and technical, but don't
> limit yourselves to just other technical people. Your goals sound
> broader than that and I would start to tune your message and your site
> to a broader audience.
>
> As an example, by plain English I mean step by step "do this. Do that."
> type instructions leave out all the explanations about what things mean,
> have that separate. If it possible to setup a WRT54G someone should
> write down how to do that. I mean someone spent a lot of time writing
> down that hacking the WRT54G page, but that doesn't seem very useful to
> the goals of getting more nodes on the net. As for the hardware
> recommendations you should have a standard setup which you will think
> will benefit the network the most, you should say "buy this list of
> stuff from here, and email this person and they will help you set it
> up."
>
> Some other things I found confusing or missing:
>
> * Linking to a Node - The instructions say find someone on the node map
> and link to them. That is very vague. Ultimately I will have to do that,
> but explain the steps to me so I know what I'm getting into before I
> contact a complete stranger.
>
> * Number of Nodes - It looks like there are 9 Active nodes and about 45
> 'potential' nodes. What does it mean to be a potential node? How long
> can a node stay in that state before it is removed from the map?
>
> * Node Map - Besides the potential nodes thing, I love the node map.
> This shows me that basically I can use this network downtown in a small
> radius around 6th and Virginia, along a lot of Capitol hill, and in
> Madrona. I'll go try that sometime.
>
> * The site overall - I think the wiki should be moved to the background
> and something more approachable and visual should be created (with
> pictures) that explains the goals and the vision of the project.
>
> I mean this as constructive feedback, not as nitpicking. I'd be willing
> to help edit site content, unfortunately I don't have the knowledge to
> help with the other things much, but I can put on a cheerleader costume
> if it would help. ;-)
>
> -p
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net
> [mailto:talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net] On Behalf Of Eric Butler
> Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 11:33
> To: SeattleWireless Talk List
> Subject: Re: Why not more nodes
>
> A dedicated router is almost always required, but this certainly could
> be an off the shelf device such as a Linksys. The biggest issue with
> using one of these devices is there is currently no 'plain english' way
> to set everything up on one, you'll have to ssh the box and edit some
> configuration files by hand. There has been talk about creating a
> "SeattleWireless" firmware for these devices that would basically have a
> "Make me a node" button, but as of yet, nobody has volunteered to
> develop this. If anyone is interested , I encourage you to come to the
> next HackNight. With a few people, I don't think it would be a very
> difficult thing to develop.
>
> Another other issue of course is that most off the shelf hardware (the
> WRT54G is no exception) is not all that great, and if you started
> pushing a lot of traffic, you'd probably want to swap it out with
> something like a soekris board anyway.
>
> Most people in this area pay over $40 per month for broadband. If you
> set up an internet sharing agreement with someone else over the
> SeattleWireless network, it would quickly pay you back the cost of a
> decent soekris box.
>
>    - Eric
>
> Patrick Walters wrote:
>> I'll chime in on this one. When I originally joined the list and
> started
>> poking around I figured all I would need to do is buy a $100 antenna,
>> find a place outside for it, wire it to my existing access point with
>> some quality COAX and I'd be up. I figured it would be easy and cheap.
>>
>> It may be easy and cheap, but the instructions on the site call for
>> spending a couple of hundred dollars to get everything up and running.
>>
>> It is possible to do more with less? By that I mean if there were more
>> nodes albeit with cheaper more commodity hardware could the same goals
>> be achieved or is the higher end custom access point hardware
> required?
>>
>> If the higher end hardware isn't a must-have, I'd love to see step by
>> step instructions in plain English on how to use commodity hardware
> like
>> a Linksys access point to get up and going.
>>
>> Anyway, maybe all this is there but I'm not readily able get the
>> information from the site.
>>
>> Also, the Node Map seems to show a lot of nodes, but when I turn off
> the
>> 'potential nodes' most nodes disappear.  Are potential nodes
> in-progress
>> or just purely theoretical nodes? It would be good to have 'Needed
>> Nodes' to show where adding a node could greatly enhance the network.
>>
>> -patrick
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net
>> [mailto:talk-bounces at seattlewireless.net] On Behalf Of Jason Feeser
>> Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 00:49
>> To: dennis at galron.com; 'SeattleWireless Talk List'
>> Subject: RE: Politics
>>
>> So, why haven't more people put up seattlewireless nodes???
>>
>> Large scale public mesh is what we want... right???
>>
>> Are we waiting for 'N' to land???  Will 'N' solve current
> limitations???
>>
>> Can we have a self-configuring household mesh appliance that people
>> would be
>> happy to pay $100-$200 for in order to get "free" internet???
>>
>> Or are most people here (industry professionals aside) just pointing
>> antennas down the street in order to save $50.00/month???
>>
>> I would love a free network from West Seattle to the UW to get at my
>> free
>> internet.  But for now, Comcast it is.
>>
>> Jason
>>
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