It’s easy to get sucked into the habit of heading for the nearest McDonald’s or Starbucks when you need to find a Wi-Fi hotspot but at $5 to $10 per connection, this quickly becomes expensive. Why pay latte prices for Wi-Fi when you can get it for nothing?

Free public hotspots are proliferating in city parks, libraries, independent coffee shops, universities, and airports (including those in Las Vegas, Orlando, and Sacramento). The problem is finding free hotspots when you’re offline. The solution: Download hotspot directories before you travel.

Free hotspot locators are available from AnchorFree and JiWire. AnchorFree has a version for iPods, and both companies let you access their online directories from cell phones using a WAP browser.

Alternatively, you can use Wi-Fi Finder.

Who needs GPS when you have Wi-Fi?

The Loki service has mapped out the Wi-Fi networks in most major U.S. cities, letting you use your Wi-Fi equipped PDA, smart phone, or notebook to pinpoint your location. Loki installs as a toolbar in Internet Explorer or Firefox, which allows you to look up nearby movies, stores, restaurants, weather, traffic, and other information. My two favorite Loki services are driving directions and the location of Wi-Fi hotspots. Other channels provide Amtrak train schedules, a radio-station finder, apartment rentals, and real-estate values.

A nice touch: At the press of a button, you can send an e-mail or SMS with your location to a friend, who then clicks a link to look at a map and get directions to join you. Another way-cool feature lets you create “geotags” to attach to blog entries, Flickr uploads, and other Web-based content, showing the location at which it was created. Best of all, Loki is free!

[tags]Wi-Fi Location[/tags]

You’re probably mastered the art of setting up a Wi-Fi wireless network in your home. But what if you want your network to extend for 5, 10, 20 miles or more? That may sound fanciful, but it’s not so tough to achieve long-distance wireless connectivity. You just need to add a few tools to the mix and get to work on your mash-up.

To help you, we tracked down a chapter from Mike Outmesguine’s ExtremeTech book, Wi-Fi Toys: 15 Cool Wireless Projects for Home, Office, and Entertainment, from Wiley Publishing You can find it online at PCMag. It details how to select your access point sites, choose your antennas, and more. Creating a long-distance link simply means marrying many of the essentials of wireless with a dose of physics to overcome the obstacles of a far-reaching connection.

Or perhaps you’re interested in the subtle art of wardriving using a car equipped with a computer, a wireless card, and software to identify the presence of a Wi-Fi signal, even if you’re out on a deserted highway. What an excellent idea! It’s surprising how ubiquitous Wi-Fi signals have become. You’ll find everything you need to get started as a budding wardriver at PC Mag.

Finally, several blogs contain complete instructions for upgrading the capabilities of Linksys routers. Take a look at www.lifehacker.com for some interesting examples. You don’t have to settle for bush league Wi-Fi.

[tags]Wireless Hacking, Wireless Project[/tags]

Google Wireless provides mobile access to the full power of Google right from the PDA in your palm, the BlackBerry on your belt, or the cellphone in your pocket. Settle that “in like Flynn” versus “in like Flint” dinner-table argument without leaving your seat. Find quickie reviews and commentary on that Dustmeister 2000 vacuum before making the purchase. Figure out where you’ve seen that bit-part actor before without waiting for the credits at the end of the movie.

And beyond searching, you can actually browse the Web with a little help from Google. By squishing down those complex pages into something your cellphone can understand, Google brings any Web page you can get to from your desktop PC to your cellphone on the fly. This feature is hugely useful, as most Web pages are encoded in ways that make them otherwise inaccessible from the older wireless phones that don’t have built-in browsers.

To get online out in the world you need two things: a phone or PDA capable of browsing the Web, and a data plan that lets you surf.

[tags]Google, Wireless[/tags]