When I was compiling notes for my post on the best airports for wired travelers, I realized that the recent bloom of free WiFi is shrinking. Fast.

Fee-based WiFi access has become standard in most urban airports. In fact, even when companies offer to build free WiFi for cities, they are sometimes turned away as local governments prefer the tax revenue over the convenience for the travelers.

Police are cracking down on ‘free WiFi’ usage at restaurants by non-customers. (Remember the poor guy who got charged with a felony for not buying a donut?)

And even places we think of as WiFi refuges - like hotels - are quietly moving to a fee-based system. Where before you could just turn on and surf away, now you need a code associated to your room number. A bill that says the WiFi fee is ‘$0.00′ or ‘waived’  is a quiet clue that maybe it won’t always be.

One of the biggest investors in free WiFi - Earthlink - has had to stop investing as they reorganize in response to their corporate financial health. Among the cities they had planned to build free WiFi infrastructures for was the beleaguered New Orleans.

By 2006, they had completed access for a “wireless system in 20 square miles of New Orleans along the repopulated banks of the Mississippi River“. But there they must stop and future plans for other cities have been scrapped, as well.

Like most wired travelers, I had assumed that someday I would be able to flip my laptop open most anywhere, anytime - like my cell phone - and find signal.

And while that may still happen, now its clear that there will be a tug on my credit card each time I hit ‘Enter’… and that, I should of seen coming.

But didn’t.

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Last May, I wrote about the growing trend in other parts of the world to use your cell phone as a kind of mobile payment device (like the unlamented ‘Speedpass’).

Well, ‘Other Parts of the World’? Just became your house, if you’re a Verizon customer.

ComputerWorld is reporting that Verizon and boPay are partnering to let customers use their cell phone as a credit card. According to the article;  “Users access their mobile money with an Obopay prepaid MasterCard, which can be used at any ATM or retail outlet that accepts credit cards. Users also can check their account balances, collect money owed from other mobile users and view transaction histories.”

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says;  “We used to say you needed three things when you leave your house: your cell phone, car keys and wallet. Soon, you’ll only need your cell phone.”

According to ComputerWorld, Seidenberg did not detail any upcoming automobile-ignition capability for Verizon cell phones.

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Q. Seriously, is it really a risk to use the free WiFi at the coffee shop? Is anyone REALLY spying?

A. Seriously? Yes.

I was in Raleigh-Durham working on a WiFi-enabled client site a couple of years ago when the security director leaned against my desk and asked me who ‘TigerBear83′ was.

My blood ran cold - it was my GMail password.

His employees regularly run sniffer software to make sure that employees are following security protocols and clearly, I’d failed the test.

Sniffer software is easily found (freeware versions are all over the web) and there are legions of hackers who spend hours nursing lattes and data trolling at WiFi hotspots.

Bottom line, public WiFi has no built-in protection. The security of your data is a a do-it-yourself proposition. A fact too many users are blithely unaware.

Will this change? Yes. But at this moment in WiFi’s evolution, the technology is just not there yet.

The safest option you can take to send/receive sensitive information is to get thee a patch cable and plug in. A secure, hard-wired network connection is your best port in the storm.

But before you give up coffee altogether, let me say that there are some security measure you can take to minimize risk on a public WiFi. The effectiveness of these measures is equivalent to whispering your private information versus shouting it across the movie theater.

The best up-to-date instructions I found on protecting yourself were at About.com, written by Mary Landesman. I recommend her post here.

The soundest advice I can give youon the subject - assume that anything you send & receive on an open WiFi can be seen. So never type anything on an open WiFi connection that you wouldn’t tell a stranger on a bus.

Q. I took your seminar years ago and you said if I spilled something on my keyboard and disabled it, I could run it through the dishwasher. I thought you were nuts. But now the situation’s come up and I was wondering…

A. Am I nuts? Yes. But that’s besides the point.

Over 10 years ago, I spilled Diet Coke on my keyboard and killed it dead. No knowing any better (which is usually the preface to every great discovery) I borrowed my neighbor’s dishwasher and ran it through - figuring I had nothing to lose and a keyboard to gain.

It worked. And it’s worked several times since then.

A new keyboard is cheap and easy to get these days but if you want to attempt a last life-saving procedure then run it through the dishwasher on a cool, unheated, short cycle. Make sure the keys are facing DOWN and don’t use any soap or detergent.

Afterwards, let it dry on a towel or a rack for at least 48 hours - until it is truly bone dry through and through.

Unconvinced? Well, Nell Boyce at NPR did it recently heard about this and tried it out. Read about her experiment here.

Just promise me you won’t try this on your optical mouse.

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On Fridays, MoGo Mobility’s Elizabeth will seek to answer your MoGo (and non-MoGo) technical questions.

Elizabeth is a professional writer & geek with most of the last decade spent in senior management at a leading global IT provider. Thousands have attended her seminars in the US & Canada on subjects ranging from basic TCP/IP networking to high-end data storage solutions.

Got a question? Ask Elizabeth.

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Obvious Statement #147: Your web-based apps stop working when your drop your Internet connection.

But… what if it didn’t have to be that way?

Last week as the worldwide Google Developer Day 2007 kicked off, Google officially announced what had been its worst-kept secret - Google Gears is here.

Google Gears is an extension that allows developers to enhance their web-based applications (like Google Reader, see beta here) so they work even without web access.

Simplistically? It’s open-source multi-platform JavaScript Application Programming Interface (API) that lets Web applications work offline by creating a local cache on your hard drive .

Yes, before you say it, the desktop traditionally is Microsoft territory.

But Google Gears is more than another David-wannabe with a slingshot and a sharp rock. Already, Gears has a lot of support behind it: Adobe Software, Mozilla Corp., and Opera Software all made statements of support.

No one is arguing that traditional desktop applications have their place. The code does not yet exist to make a product like Adobe’s Creative Suite, especially the industry-standard Photoshop, effective as a web-based app.

But for the standard corporate user, managing desktop applications can be a hassle. Even if you are using a product - like Lotus Notes - that lets you work offline or online, you still have to synch and organize as you move between laptop and desktop, or during hardware upgrades. “I think the growth of the Internet has really reflected the difficulties people have running desktop software,” Chris DiBona, open source programs manager at Google told InformationWeek.

What does Google Gears mean right now? Not much beyond a way to make it easier to bring today’s industry news with you onto the airplane.

But looking at the horizon, expect an evolution. Google has word processing and spreadsheet applications that will soon be available to you for both online collaboration and as an offline tool.

Now that developers have their hands on the code, we’ll stay on top of the products and innovations as they are released.

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When you’re on the road, it’s easy to take for granted most of the open WiFi connections - in the airport, the hotel , the coffeeeshop in the lobby of the building.

However, it is becoming more and more important that you know where your WiFi is coming from, and if you are rightfully allowed to use it.

This sage warning comes on the heels of another felony arrest for hi-jacking (or ‘piggybacking’) an open WiFi meant for customers.

ars technica is reporting that Sam Peterson has been arrested and charged with a felony for unlawfully using the WiFi connectivity of the Re-Union Street Cafe of Sparta, Michigan. Peterson used to drive up each morning and check his email from his car - never actually entering the cafe or buying anything there.

Because he wasn’t a customer, he didn’t the right to use their WiFi. In 1979, Michigan made computer hacking illegal (way ahead of their time). In 2000, they updated the law to make it a crime to access a computer system without authorization.

The management of the cafe didn’t know it was wrong for Peterson, and in fact Peterson himself didn’t know.

It was a police officer who observed Peterson’s daily habit that thought that it wasn’t quite right what he was doing. A little research ended up in a warrant.

And the moral of this story?

On my recent road trip, I opened my laptop one day to write a post for this blog. Frustrated by the slow response time of the WiFi, I hunted up a land connection to the network. In my search, I was unnerved to discover that the WiFi I had been using belonged to a private citizen in another building.

It’s too easy. And? Illegal.

Know where the WiFi comes from. And, for God’s sake -just to be on the safe side, buy a muffin.

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For Blackberry users, the world is about to get a lot simpler.

Research In Motion (RIM) rolled out the “BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (BlackBerry MVS)” this week.

It is an integrated enterprise solution tthat allows corporations to covert their BlackBerry smartphone users to securely authenticated members of the the company’s PBX telephone system.

The new BlackBerry Mobile Voice System comes in 3 components:

• BlackBerry MVS Client (a component of BlackBerry Device Software)
• BlackBerry MVS Connectors (a component of BlackBerry Enterprise Server)
• Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite (a software suite that interfaces with heterogeneous PBXs)

Once all three are installed, BlackBerry smartphones will become, essentially, recognized extensions. They will be able to send, receive and manage enterprise calls from their handset. Users will have a single “Reach Me Anywhere” phone number that simultaneously rings their desk phone and BlackBerry smartphone.

For those mobile warriors who live on the road or in their home office, the application of this new suite has some nice benefits. A Blackberry synched to the company’s PBX will allow them to access desk phone functions such as transfer, park, and extension dialing on the BlackBerry. Plus, outgoing calls will displayed with the corporate identity on Caller ID.

The system comes completes with the sndard security features, IT policies and system management functionality provided within the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution, including the ability to automatically authenticate mobile users to the PBX to help ensure that only authorized users and devices are accessing the corporate telephony system.

“RIM’s ability to deliver a robust, feature-rich platform that securely integrates with enterprise data systems has always been a major contributing factor to the success of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The ability to now deliver the same value proposition for both voice and data systems provides another unique dimension to the BlackBerry platform and presents another major opportunity for customers to maximize their return on wireless investments.”

BlackBerry MVS will be previewed at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2007 in Orlando, Florida and is expected to be available from RIM and Ascendent Systems later this month.

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As recently as a few years ago, I had my name on cubbies in two different countries.

My position with a ranking IT firm had me assigned to several of our global customers. If it was Monday, I was in Richardson, Texas. If it was Thursday, I was in Ottawa, Ontario.

My ‘office’ was in a Chicago suburb, until a funny thing happened.    The same funny thing that is happening to thousands, and soon to be millions, of workers worldwide: I stopped going into the office.

When not on the road, I worked from home.   Cut off from the corporate high-speed network aand all it represented; gone were the ‘pushed’ security patch updates , endless data storage,   and easy access to the corporate intranet  and peripherals.

My technology needs evolved.  Like other members of this growing generation of ‘mobile workers’ .

From my hardware, I needed flexibility and durability.  My laptop, for example, became my sole processor. No longer was there a docking station connected to a beefy PC to do the heavy lifting back at the office.

My software needs evolved, too. I needed mobile real-time conferencing that included video, audio, o apresentation and whiteboarding -  all available from anywhere by anyone. Also part of the my Mobile Worker’s must-have software kit? Easily updated security software, globally available instant messaging, pack-aand-go presentation applications,  and email/intranet with web  availability.

On this  blog, I’ll be taking time out each week to talk about the technology for the Mobile Warrior - not just what works great on the road, but what also works for the home-based mobile worker. You can find these posts uner the new “Mobile Warrior” category.

And I’m inviting you to share with me - what do you want to know? What works or doesn’t work for you? What needs to get better? What wish-to-haves are we waiting for?  Drop a line,  I’m interested in what interests you…

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You know when you’re walking around downtown, or on a subway, or in the grocery store and the person next to you starts talking to you, but when you respond you find out they really weren’t talking to you at all, but to someone on their headset? Yeah, I’ve always wanted to be one of those people, only cooler than those people. That day, my friends, is here.

Makers of the MoGo Mouse just released the world’s thinnest, ultra-light Bluetooth headset, and man oh man is it cool. My favorite part about the whole thing, in true MoGo Mouse fashion, you can charge it by clipping it to a cell phone, or, yes, sliding it into your laptop. Get this, you can now talk, gossip, jabber, yak and spill all those beans for up to 6 hours of talk time on a single charge. People of the world, prepare to look like you’re talking to yourself all over the city!

The ability to stay mobile is paramount in the world today and in that quest to be mobile, what good is it if all the “mobile” products you’re carrying are heavy, require tons of cables and power strips and adapters to work, and actually make you dread being that Road Warrior you know you want to be? No good friends, no good at all. This new product is so cool, it even won an award.  Veteran industry observer Andrew Seybold, presented Newton Peripherals with his “Most Imaginative Product” award last night and even went on to say, “The Headset is unique in both design and concept.  It will store conveniently on the back of a cell phone, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. Newton Peripherals’ approach to simplifying the use and storage of phone headsets is novel, and deserving of recognition.”  Here is the official press release of this sweet new product…live it, love it: Read the rest of this entry »

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