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William Matheson's Journal
Jan. 5th, 2010
12:51 pm - Amateur ITSS: Wireless Connectivity for Ubuntu
A brochure Saint Mary’s ITSS should have: Wireless Connectivity for Ubuntu Linux!
They said it couldn’t be done! Well, not exactly, but they were hesitant to even give me the brochure, not at all confident that I'd make anything out of it. But I did! Yes, I’m on my open-source netbook, surfing the Saint Mary’s wireless interwebs.
Yes, I realize wireless internet is freely and readily available in every mom-and-pop coffee shop from here to Timbuktu. Why the university chooses to be difficult, I don’t really know. My guess is that they handle private and sensitive information here frequently and need to inhibit would-be wireless infiltrators and eavesdroppers.
But enough with the dropping eaves. Here’s what you do:
Go to your network icon, right-click, and select "Edit Connections..."
Go to the "Wireless" tab, select "Add".
Under connection name you can write whatever you want - "Saint Mary's" is pleasing and appropriate to me, but you could call it "STUPID SKOOL DAT TAKES ALL MA BORDENS" and that will be fine too as long as you remember that it's for this particular wireless network. Now under SSID - the actual identity of the network, what the network calls itself - you must write "SMU_PUBLIC". That's an underscore _ between the SMU and PUBLIC parts. Now you're finished with this tab...
Under "Security", select "WPA & WPA2 Enterprise".
Under "Authentication", select "Protected EAP (PEAP)".
Finally, put your s-number and password (exactly the same as what you log in to the workstations and SMUport with) in the lower boxes. Then click OK, wait a few tense moments, and you should be good to go!
Well, you're not quite home free. The first webpage you'll come up on is about the Acceptable Use Policy. You put in your s-number and password again, then the webpage advises you to turn off your computer for a minute and restart it. Do so. Once you're back on, you may see the webpage come up again, but if you re-register it just tells you you're already registered, so if you find you can surf the web at large you can just ignore it this time. Have fun!
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accomplishedAug. 3rd, 2006
12:05 pm - directions for the NS-PEI 500
Things are humming along nicely here. I’m going into Charlottetown by myself tomorrow to pick up Arthur and Jim at the airport, which should be fun. My first cousin once removed Marion will be coming up with her two grown children (she’s already made it as far as Stratford, where they’re staying with my Aunt and Uncle there - you remember them Catherine, with the really tall house?), and she hasn’t been to P.E.I. in more than thirty years. (I first met her in Toronto in 2002.) Also, my cousin Mary is coming up with the entourage of well-to-do relatives from New York, and they’re landing in Halifax and going to rent a car to come up here, which necessitated some hastily-written directions from yours truly:
( See my madd direction-writing skillz... )
... anyway, I hope we’ve passed the punchline of this story and that they don’t have any problems getting here. There’s a lot that could go wrong, and it’s a good thing I proofread my directions because at one point I originally wrote “right, then left” when it needed to be “left, then right.” I know from experience that when one is following directions, you tend to treat them as gospel and turn your brain off, so they can be as much of a hazard as a help.
The Hellers and Collishaws went down to my Grand Aunt Elsie’s yesterday for tea, which I wouldn’t necessarily blog about except that they raved about her biscuits, which she was making specifically for her son Earl, and we were also (later on) talking about many hours it takes to get from Halifax International Airport to the Inn at Bay Fortune by car, and we’re thinking “five, four if you take the ferry and time it right” but some of the New York relatives heard “three,” which was a big contributor to last night’s confusion. Upon hearing “three,” Uncle Shane remarked, “Well, Earl could do it.”
Further updates as events warrant. Oh, here's one: my car is now fixed! Only $325 to procure and install (and pinstripe) a door from a donor junkyard Chevrolet. The colour was a perfect match. What luck to be out of it so cheaply (and not suffering the ignominy of driving a two-tone car).
chipper