All the mom-and-pop coffee shops offer free Wi-Fi. In fact, most everyone does except Starbucks. The Seattle-based coffee house gets its hotspot piped in by T-Mobile. It’s been reported for years that store managers at Starbucks has been complaining to upper management for a while about losing business because customers don’t want to pay for their Internet after forking out $4 on a foo-foo drink. Whelp, looks like someone somewhere got through, because now T-Mobile is offering free weekend use of its Wi-Fi…kind of.

With T-Mobile, there always seems to be a catch and the catch for the free hotspot at Starbucks and other T-Mobile locations, such as Borders, is that you have to be a T-Mobile cellular customer.

To get started on your free Internet surfing this weekend, just visit T-Mobile’s Free Weekends site and fill out the form and then within a minute or two, your phone will receive an SMS message (which you get charged for) with a code to crack open that free surfing while at Starbucks.

Be prepared, my friend, to fend off many questions from others on just how you’re getting free access on your device. It may just be easier to say you hacked your way in.

Looking to see what’s causing interference to your Wi-Fi connection?  Need to see if it’s that pesky microwave of yours or bleeding signals from your neighbors?  How about problems coming from cordless phones?  Baby monitors can be an issue with the 2.4GHz range, too. 

So how does one fix this problem? Buy a multi-thousand dollar spectrum analyzer?  Nah, just get Wi-Spy for $99.  Plug it into your laptop or desktop and it’ll sniff the airwaves for you giving details on all those signals out there.  With instant view of amplitude, frequency, and time, you’ll have a great overview of what’s going on in no time.  You can analyze signal strength as well as channels of any Wi-Fi signal that is in your “view”. 

All this in a simple to use software package that allows you to save everything for later use. With support for Windows, Linux, and OS X, this may just be the right tool for IT pros to geeks.

Everyone’s seen the fake e-mail about Congress debating a bill to tax e-mail but now comes news of a real tax proposal that could effect ever laptop and home user with 802.11.  President Bush’s 2007 Budget has a measure in it to tax “un-auctioned” radio signals.  Auctioned signals are those sold off by the Federal government to businesses such as wireless carriers for cellular phones and radio stations.  Since Wi-Fi is not auctioned by the government for its use, the Bush Administration seems to think this would be a great revenue maker for the United States.

As to who would be levied the tax, this is unclear. It could be the manufacturer, like Linksys for example, or it could be the end user. Like walkie talkies that use frequencies that require payment for its use, individuals would have to pay similarly to use Wi-Fi on their computer.

Dude, looking to extend your wireless a bit further then a few hundred feet?  Really want to impress the entire block and dish out a free and insecure wireless signal for all to use?  What?  Forget the block, you want the neighborhood?!  Well my friend, head on over to QuickerTek cause they got a transceiver that will caress the air with broadband jumping signals for up to a mile.  Yes, ONE MILE.  Sweet, huh?  Calm down!  I haven’t even told you that it totally works for both the PC and the Mac.  They’ve even got a sweet hook up for the iMac and it’s so ready for the Tiger.  Would you stop jumping up and down?!  It’s also like $200.  Ya, two bills and you will be set, baby!

I wonder if Leo Laporte knows about this.  This is the perfect set up for his farm out there in Petaluma.

Who said Chi-town is the place to be in Illinois? Just a bit away from the windy city, Illinois third largest city, Rockford, will be going with a muni wireless network. Bringing two private companies, Airpath Wireless and ROC-net Services, in to make it all happen, Rockford will first spread the 8o2.11 signals to local local healthcare organizations, colleges and universities. Once the doctors and the students are surfing the web to get their latest news and information from SvenOnTech the appropriate sources, Rockford will work on moving outward from the eight square mile radius it starts out with.

The muni wireless service will be both free and a paid service. No details or pricing has been given, but once the service is lit, information will surely become available.

I’m sure Bob is happy.

[Via GigaOm]