When you’re tapping a new blog article with a little bit oily fingers, it’s bargaining concurrency versus need to clean up later. I’m doing it right now, though I finished my meal.

Computer people are often (really?) neurotically tidy, what comes to the equipment (you can exclude hair from that, at least in my case 😉

But the hardware, the computer’s outer shield (casing), keyboard hats, rims, are like those of a good sports car: they need to look clean and cool. You remember from childhood, that some friends loaned you media, while others where strict about it. The former are called hackers or techies, the latter are called business jerks – or worse, lawyers!

Concurrent work is my business. I used to the habit ever since I started being an administrator. When you do it for big companies, there’s a kind of killer wave of requests hitting you each day. It may be anything between zero and fifty requests. (By the way, I experienced something like 1 request every 60 days per staff, in prefessional environments; and that is superbly low!)

You seldom actually prioritize them (formally), but instead work towards the goals in opportunistic ways; you remember tasks during the interfacing points with colleagues. The 34 first tickets are mentally in your head, looking like a porridge under control. It is still shallow, pre-lunch smalltalk and everything is going well. But like a surfer who just plays with the small waves, the bigger one is coming. When the other guys and gals hit sushi, you get a major off-site emergency call! Darn!

I don’t currently have a mobile broadband access, so I use one of the three main points of presence in the small town: the library, McDonald’s, or a local academia. The library limits the usage to one hour. McDonald’s supposedly also does that. The school provides free access for as long as it’s open daily (8-17 generally).

Each of the sites have their pros and cons. Library is a vast resource of information and a comfortable environment for quiet work; philosophizing, free spring of thoughts, and there’s a neat cafe downstairs. McDonald’s is the best in providing prompt service, and you can have a meal there.

Just today I discovered a snatchy little utility, called wavemon. Try it!

Wavemon just reads diagnostics information from your WLAN card. It
has those nice ASCII art bars of network signal and strength going horizontally. Wavemon measures the parameters and displays you how your wireless connection is doing.

As I am also part of the group working towards a advanced network for Saab 9-1 model, it’s really useful to get as wide as possible hands-on experience into different wireless technologies. Linux seems to be a perfect operating system for prototyping, experimenting, and developing on – since it’s open, documented, and free from licensing issues.

What do you think about the amount of WLAN access points?

I’m really interested in feedback from your own neighbourhoods. Do you need Wi-fi access, or do you have already some personal network?