Over the last year I have slowly built on a wifi mapping project that was originally designed to fulfill some class requirements. The idea was never official spawned, but instead it translated from one project to another. I slowly collected the best known locations of wireless access points within a predefined area of Reston, VA. The data was collected using a Sprint Mogul Phone and some war driving software. The data was converted to an XML file which was eventually imported into a Geodatabase. Over time, I added to the database, defined some methods to assign values, and preformed some spatial analysis. Read more and see the results after the break.

On the surface, the data is relatively useless. As simple points, they only give you a general idea of groupings. The point map is lacking the true value a GIS can offer.

Over the course of 2 months during my spare time, I added additional data, developed algorithms, and started to evolve the map into a potential decision making tool. My objective was to appropriately value the market and offer suggested sites for free public wireless access points. These suggested sites should not only offer decision makers with the ‘best site’ but more importantly with the dollar value associated with each location.

Evaluating the market as appropriately as possible was very important to me. I noticed rather quickly that the data points themselves were not enough to judge the entire market. While my data was complete, there was room for error, and more importantly it valued each access point, not the potential clients. Using the raw data would either force you to assume each access point had only one client, or respectively they all had the same number of clients. Logically, both assumptions are false.

There would be very few ways to over come this hurdle accurately. I saw two possible solutions:
-The first involved re driving the access points, using more powerful hardware and software, listening for signals from both the clients and access points.
-The second would be to locate census data down to the block level that would allow an average to be calculated based on population and number of residential units.

I decided the second was more appropriate for a few reasons.  One, listening for both clients and access points is again making the assumption that an individual client equates to one customer. We can reason that in fact that is false and that many home computers are used by multiple members of a family. Two, the number of clients found would vary greatly based on the time each location was surveyed. During the day, you would expect to find a large number of portable devices to be with their owners at work, school, or elsewhere. In the evenings, those devices would probably in the off position when they’re not in use. Third, the 802.11 signal is no longer used strictly for internet use. Many consumer electronics are now including the technology as a way to connect devices together. A survey of both access points and clients would probably map not only computers, but also accessories such as wireless network storage devices, multimedia players, and even some TVs.

Another portion of the data that has to be equated for is the users willingness to use a free and potential unsecured network. People have many different reasons why they can’t or will not use an unsecured internet connection.

The easiest assumption to make would be that those who currently have a secure access point, would not use a free public access point. I eventually did not take this route for two reasons. The first being that many home users had a friend, family member, or even a professional technician install their network, and by default they secured their network.  The owner of an encrypted access point may not even care if their connection is secure or not. Secondly, the cost benefit to the user may out weight any concerns they have.

What I eventually decided to do was survey individuals I knew from all aspects of life. I emailed them a simple questioner asking them about their internet connection, the type of housing they live in,and their willingness to use free public wifi. I selected people to take the survey by trying to proportionately segment the computer user market. The result of the survey was what I have called an averaged willingness. This eventually plays an important role in valuing potential customers.

These are just a few examples of how I tried to appropriately value each potential customer. Other factors that were equated for were the expected monthly internet use based on age, the expected lead turn over rate based on age, and the potential value of location based advertising. There was also some geographic elements that were considered and corrected for. These included tree density and elevation changes.
Outside of valuing customers, a lot of research was done into the hardware available for outdoor access points. This was important so that a range could be determined and eventually, a cost to potential revenue analysis could be preformed.

The final map is featured below. At first glance, most expect the map is merely representing the density of access points, but as we’ve discussed above, it is a lot more complex. The darker the shading, the more valuable ($) the residence are. As a note, apartment buildings and condominiums, not only had the highest natural density of access points, but their occupants also carried a higher value. This lead to an analysis that shows the most profitable areas being around such complexes.

NOTE: Throughout the first half of the project, I made two different presentations. I have included the second power point presentation for anyone that’s interested in looking at it. The large majority of the analysis that was completed is not reflected in these slides, but it does give a lot more basic info. Some of the data and assumptions have been re-evaluated and corrected since this presentation. At some point I plan to update the project slides, and when I do, I’ll post them.

I stumbled upon this nice little email icon generator. Input your username, select the domain from a drop down menu, and hit generate. Now you’ve got a quick replacement for that contact info. They supply you with a url to the hosted image, or allow you to download the image so you can host it yourself. They don’t offer an option to add domains, most of the generics are listed: Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Verizon, ATT, Comcast, just to name a few.

Heres my new icon:

In celebration I have compiled a list of software I find essential for each new Mac that joins our family. The list after the break:
1. Firefox -Many love Safari, but using Firefox and foxsync makes it easy for me to work on different platforms with easy transition.
2. QuickSilver – A simple and efficient way to launch applications.
3. VLC – Your all in one solution for a media player.
4. Hand Brake – DVD ripping made easy and free.
5. Cyberduck - If you ever use an FTP client, give Cyberduck a try. I’ve really grown to love it.
6. Picasa – A simple image editing and viewing software put out by Google.
7. Transmission -  P2p made easy. Very clean and simple – the way it should be.

• The rise of ‘alternative’ operating systems has already helped to grab the attention of many potential customers. For years, the Mac and PC users have been heavily divided. Everyone that owned a PC hated macs for compatibility reason, and Mac owners had a predefined, automated response to simply disgrace PCs. This instinct of hatred made it uncomfortable for users to even question what the ‘dark side’ may be like. Unfortunately most PC and Mac owners shared one small flaw, the misconception that OS X and XP were the only offerings for the masses. Within the last 18 months the Internet communities have started to recognize some Linux distribution as a legitimate option – with good reasoning. Ubuntu, and other ‘newbie friendly’ distros have made it possible for a wider range of PC users to at least try Linux, especially with their risk free live CD options. All of this has created a strange curiosity amongst computer users and with it, the brand loyalty has slowly started to fade. Now a respectable PC user can consider purchasing a Mac without feeling like he’s dishonoring his ancestors.
• Macs are no longer few and far between. I spend a few days a week on the grounds of a very large private university. Two years ago I was one of a handful of Mac laptop users. Just like many large purchases, people tend to notice others that have taken the same plunge. On a daily basis I probably noticed one or twoibooks, tops. As I write this article I am sitting at that same university’s library in a large open room full of tables and gobs of wifi bandwidth. I decided to stretch my legs and take a count of the laptops in the room. There were 91 laptops in the room and 21 of them were Macs. 23% is a rather high number and more then double the national average, but it just goes to show you how quickly they are catching on in the young adult culture. More macs equals more word of mouth and social advertising. With the increased word of mouth advertising, more people will already be familiar with OS X when the advertising crusades begin in a few months.
• Users recognize and can relate to Mac hardware specs. Finally there is an easy way to compare macs to other personal computers. One of the first and only things people look at when they purchase computers is the spec sheet. Previously PC owners had to carry a English to Mac dictionary just to understand what they were looking at. Now spec sheets include terms like “Intel”, “Nvidia”, and “DDR2″. People are always nervous of things they’re not familiar with. Now anyone that can read a Dell spec sheet, can also feel just as comfortable in an Apple store.
• If I were Windows, the scariest attribute of OS X would Boot Camp thanks to the standardize hardware. You no longer have to be a staunch Windows or OS X user. You can now decide which OS you feel like on a daily basis. With the option to dual boot to the two most popular operating, it leaves very few reasons for many NOT to switch.

Why OS X will not grab the majority share of users, at least any time soon:

• The obvious answer is price. The MSRP of the LOWEST priced Macbook is $1099 and desktop is a Mac mini at $599 (no display). Macs are simply still out of the price range for many buyers. If you were to visit your local electronics store and ask them to identify their best selling laptop, it would be under $700 and sometimes under $600. Computers are no longer the middle class+ luxury. In fact its almost the opposite. They’re a necessity for adolescents, teenagers, young adults, and anyone in the business world. The market which finds them necessary can’t afford the opportunity to even try OS X. Note: For those that can afford the option, please be aware that you don’t have to payMSRP for all the Mac items. There are plenty of educational discounts and even wholesalers that lower the price $50-$100 on some of the lower models.
• The average computer user is scared of change. Talking most users into upgrading from something as bad as Windows ME to XP was hard just because people didn’t want to lose what they already were comfortable with. At least with Vista they can upgrade. Changing to OS X means starting over for most. Very fewwouldn’t even know where to start backing things up.
• .Edu still equals Windows. In the year 2017 we’ll still have a population of young adults who were raised on Microsoft. There are many users out there that don’t care if its a mac or a PC. Those are the same users that can tell a difference. The problem with not caring is that someone else makes the decision for you because you’re going by what someone else bought. There are two main environments in which children are swayed on their computer choices – school and home. Parents can directly influence what they use in the home, but very few schools across the nation have macs or plan to implement them. Many of those students will grow up with no intention of changing, and they wont until they are forced to. Until schools start offering both Macs and PCs there will be a large population that will never consider purchasing a Mac.

Here are the facts:

Based on Steve Jobs comments, 1/2 of the new macs purchased are customers switching from PCs to Macs. That’s roughly 9000 people a day joining the dark side. Net Applications has documented the number of Mac users increasing by just over 2% over 6 months based on Internet browser stats. The truth is more and more people are buying Macs. Maybe the question isn’t if Leopard is the Vista killer, but if its finally time for Macs to get the recognition they deserve. For me, its not if I’ll buy a newMacbook, but instead when. I think many buyers share that same idea.

How To:
Creating labels-
First you must realize that the drop down menu above the mail is your best friend. You can do almost anything from this menu, including creating a new label or adding an email to an existing label. To create your first label, check the box next to the email you’d like to label. From the drop down menu select “New Label…”. Type the label name in the pop-up and press OK. You’ll now notice a green box on the left below your contacts which contains your labels. To view the emails within that label, simple click the link.

Adding labels to emails-
Again the drop down menu is your friend. Simply check the email you wish to label, and select the label from the drop down menu. What you may notice is that by checking multiple emails, you can add them all to the same label in one click. You can also add labels to emails as you’re viewing them. Again from the drop down menu select the label you wish to apply.

Removing labels from emails-
Removing labels are done through the same process you add them. You can remove labels by checking them from your inbox and removing it from the drop down menu or the same process while viewing the email. There is also a third option. When viewing the contents of a label, there is is a new button to the left of the drop down menu which removes the label from a selected email.

Tips:
Create many labels-
It wasn’t until recently that I noticed how beneficial a large selection of labels can be. For almost 3 years I had a handful of labels, all of them very vague. Now my label list consists of 30+ and each has a very specific title. Each person I communicate with on a regular basis has their own label. Specific topics of conversation have their own label. I have a label for my family, three for work, a few for different types of bills, one for each website I manage, one for ‘to do’, and a label for anything else you can think of. The biggest key to labels is USE THEM! If you create a label, make sure you attach the corresponding emails or else its pointless.

Obviously each individuals inbox is slightly different and calls for a different set up of labels. During my quest to find the perfect set up of labels I’ve had as little as 7 labels, and as many as 45. Just like there is too few labels, there is also too many. I noticed as I went above 30 it was hard to label the emails accurately. Each person will have to experiment with their emailing needs. Some basic labels are a good place to start, but don’t be scared to create label if you see a developing trend.

Add multiple labels to one email-
In many instances you’ll have an email that fits into multiple labels. Instead of fighting the flow of traffic, Google has made it easy on you by allowing emails to contain multiple labels. For example; A client sent me an email last week. He wanted me to send him some information and he was also inviting me to play golf in a few weeks. I labeled his email with his personal label, the label for his company, one for golf, and the last label was my ‘to do’. The email has a reason to be in each of those labels, and if I feel it doesn’t meet those needs in the future, its easy to remove it – Once I have sent him the information, I’ll remove the email from ‘to do’.

Make it a habit to use the labels-
There is no point in creating labels if you don’t use them. If you only add half of your bosses emails to his/her label, it will be inefficient to look for a specific email under that label. Half of the time it wont be there and you’ll have to use the search feature anyways. When you add filtering to your arsenal, labeling is even that much easier. As you’ll find in future articles, filters allow you to pre label emails as they enter your inbox. If you give labels an honest effort, they will greatly improve you efficiency within Gmail.

Labels alone are a powerful tool but as my future articles will show you, you can acquire the help of filters, forwarding, archiving, and etc to make your inbox an efficiency monster!

For those of you looking for a SkyFire Beta Code, this may be your lucky day. I was looking through the skyfire forum and the admin posted a beta code because of Michael Phelps and his 8 Golds. Enjoy!
1- Visit:
http://www.skyfire.com/sign-up

2- Pick the OS you need’
3- During signup it will ask for a beta code use:
Michael8

For those of you that haven’t heard of this new service, Unwiredbuyer.com is a new way for you to mobily bid on ebay auctions. You never have to miss the end of an auction again. Unwired is an Ebay compatible application which works side by side with your ebay account and cell phone. Anytime you watch an item on ebay, unwired watches it for you as well. Then during the last few mins of auction, unwired can either send you a text message reminding you its ending, call your phone and allow you to bid over the phone, or both.

Unwiredbuyer.com has been receiving amazing reviews. Ebay even awarded it the Honors for Most Innovative Apps in its Developers Challenge of 2006.

Now Unwiredbuyer.com has made the deal a little sweeter. They normally encourage new customers by offering a $10 reward for your first completed bid. Now they’ve doubled it to $20! At first I was a little skeptical. ‘Do I have to fill out a bunch of forms?’ – ‘Do I have to complete promotional requirements like with the free xbox stuff?’ – ‘Do they release the $20 a few cents at a time over a period of use?’…. I was suprised to find it very simple. Its a normal registration process. You then have to put an item on your ‘watch list’ on ebay. Then just answer the phone when they call a few minutes before you auction ends and follow the automated bidding process.
I couldn’t find any golf related auctions I was dying for, but really wanted to test out the service, and of course get my $20, so I picked a ebook that had no bids at 0.01. I figured even if I won the auction, it would only cost me a few cents and I wouldn’t get hit with shipping… When I got the phone call, there was 3 minutes remaining. I bid the minimum of 5 cents and hung up the phone. A few minute later I checked my gmail account to find the bid/win confirmation from ebay along with an email from unwired stating the $20 was on its way. Twelve hours later I received another email, this time from paypal, stating I received funds from Unwiredbuyer.com!

I don’t think it could of been easier. For those that want to give it a try, I’ve included a quick how to below.

1.Signup for Unwiredbuyer.com – use the email address your paypal account is assocaited with.
2. In the 2nd step of set up, give them your cell number and uncheck ‘Receive calls by default’ and ‘Receive notifactions via SMS’ if you don’t want to get calls everytime you watch an item. You can go in and have them call you for specefic auctions that are on your watch list later.
3. During the 3rd step, you’ll associate your Ebay account with Unwired. Make sure your account has 10+ feedback or you’ve been a member for more then 12 months (part of their rules – see below) – complete registration.
4. Search ebay for a cheap ebook – or just click here for the search results
5. Add the ebook to your watch list
6. Visit your watched list at unwiredbuyer and ‘update auctions’ if you don’t see the ebook. Check the ‘call me’ box on the right side.
7. Sit back and wait for the phone call before the auction ends (usually within the last 2 or 3 minutes). Follow the instructions and use the dial pad to make a bid.
8. Win or lose, you should have $20 in your paypal account by the next day!

RULES (from their site):

• To qualify for the $20 signup bonus, the user must register for UnWired Buyer and use the service to bid on an auction using their phone within 30 days. The $20 signup bonus is for new users only.
• New users MUST USE UNWIRED BUYER TO BID ON AN AUCTION WITHIN 30 DAYS from date of signup. This promotional offer cannot be transferred or forwarded.
• TO QUALIFY, USERS MUST HAVE AN EBAY FEEDBACK SCORE OF 10 OR MORE (or the user must have been a registered eBay user for over 12 months).
• The $20 Signup Bonus is limited to one (1) per valid eBay account.
• The $20 Signup Bonus is valid only to legal residents of the US and Canada.
• UnWired Buyer employees and their families are not eligible.
• UnWired Buyer reserves the right to request additional information regarding the claim and the right to confirm conformance to eBay user regulations. Any misrepresentation or fraudulent information disqualifies the bonus.
• UnWired Buyer, Inc. reserves the right to change or modify this offer at any time.