War-Driving in Dublin with an iPod Touch

Actually, it wasn’t quite that. You see I bought an iPod Touch – the new second generation version – just before going to Ireland. I wanted to play around with it, and figured that I could find good Wi-Fi hotspots to use it. (more about that later))

But I was sitting on a bus traveling back to the airport from city centre in Dublin, and I got out my touch, turned on the Wi-Fi and just watched it to see what sort of Wi-Fi networks it would recognize. In the more populated areas of Dublin it seems like everyone must have a DSL connection with wireless provided by Eircomm (the Irish version of the phone company). That would explain all of the secure WIFI ssids that I saw that had Eircomm in the name. I also caught a glimpse of one or two unsecured networks – one with the name “Internet” but of course on a moving bus I by the time I saw the network it was too late to actually send packets over it.

But I’ve been seriously impressed with the iPod Touch (and the iPhone interface). If I had it to do over again I would have waited for the second gen iPhone, and not gotten the crackberry.

 

Oh, well ! Now I have another year on the crackberry contract, so I won’t be switching any time soon. But I’m going to want to (maybe) unless the touch, and availability of public hotspots lets me get out my obsession without actually buying an iPhone