WiIFire Review

Posted by Seth on September 21, 2009 under MAC Musings | Be the First to Comment

The hField Technologies WiFire was my antennae boosting choice in my recent search.

Here is the original post:

> http://sethbraun.com/blog/boosting-wireless-strength/

As promised, I would review the WiFire.

First thought:

It works. I am using the WiFire right now to connect to a signal across the street.

By thew way, I have permission to access this signal. This does bring up the ethical question of poaching wireless. But I am not going to be able to weigh in on that tonight.

Tonight, the WiFire function.

Although it works, it does not deliver the robust kind of performance that I was dreaming about. Maybe that is only going to happen with a Super Cantenna or some such directional unit.

Nevertheless, it delivers on the promise of making household wireless easier and more reliable.

The down side?

I have associated increases freeze situations since using the WiFire. I have had to do a hard power down four times because I could not “force quit” the WiFire application and it would not let me shut down.

That does concern me and I’d like to look into that.

All in all. I am a satisfied customer.

Seth

Boosting Wireless Strength

Posted by Seth on July 19, 2009 under Enlightened Entrepenuer, MAC Musings | Read the First Comment

My old PowerBook G4 is, dollar for dollar, the best business expense I made.

I bought the last model to use the G4 processor, then they switched over to an Intel processor.

The only two issues I’ve had are:

1. Battery life sucks on the Power Book

2. The WiFi strength is atrocious

I’ve looked into a lot of the options for signal strength boostin, including the :

1. Cantenna

2. hField Wi-Fire

3. The Hawking Dish

I like the idea of making an antenna, but it’s not going to happen. I don’t keep toxic silver plating compound around. Bummer. Cool project. Click on the link to see the details.

There are a bunch of products out there, but I like the range of the hField and the Hawking Dish.

The dish is bulky, and can’t come with me on trips.

I am going to go for the hField and I’ll let you know how I like it.

By the way, the coolest way that I found to boost your signal strength is to wrap ethernet cable around your cell phone and plug it into your computer. Check it out here.