As I mentioned earlier, my pictures were uploading to flickr very slowly last night, and when I woke up, I was not surprised to see that the upload had failed. I started it up again, and it failed on the second picture. After a couple more iterations, I decided to take another tack, and connect to a different SSID, as there were many available and provided by the hotel. That seemed to fix it — the remaining few photos uploaded in minutes rather than hours, and the rest of the web sites I was using worked much more smoothly.
The problem felt like the LAN connection to that particular WAP must have been dropping packets (and lots!), either due to a bad cable or a bad interface. So if you’re ever at the Comfort Inn on Elm Hill Pike in Nashville, avoid BBHWIRELESS_18.
Overall, our experience with hotel wifi has been good. Performance hasn’t always been the best, but the availability has been ubiquitous, and as opposed to a few years ago, always free. The only exception was the non-national-chain sportsman-oriented motel we stayed in outside of DeSmett, South Dakota.
#1 by Bobbi Stewart on 26 July 2009 - 5:32 pm
Hi y’all! I shed on Friday night or early Saturday. Dave posted photos on my page. The whole shed was in my cave with me, all crumpled up.
BTW, I love President Barack Obama and think he’s doing a great job. In my dream I was a giant snake and President Obama enjoyed cuddling with me. There was no strangling involved, just affectionate hugging. I was the biggest python he’d ever seen. He was very nice and I was thrilled to spend some time with him.
#2 by tastewar on 26 July 2009 - 11:33 pm
Hi Bobbi- I’m glad you had a successful shed, plus that leaves a nice souvenir for your camp hosts! And I’m relieved to hear about your feelings towards Obama.
Thanks for the new pics, too! Please make sure that David and Janet know they can moisten the shed and straighten it out again, if they want to.
#3 by Doug P. on 26 July 2009 - 10:59 pm
When we were in Phoenix last year, one motel’s wi-fi service presented a screen that required room information for billing, etc. — but only when using IE. Firefox was an easy workaround for wifi Web access.
#4 by tastewar on 26 July 2009 - 11:27 pm
Interestingly, at a few places, the first page it would show you appeared to be a click-thru, but on at least a couple of hotels, all you had to do was open another tab or change the URL back to what you wanted to see, and it would work. It only wanted to show you the agreement, but clicking on the Agree button didn’t do anything. And at another hotel, it said “place usage agreement text here” or words to that effect. It seemed that even in chains, each location was responsible for contracting its own wifi. At one place, they gave out unique access codes at the front desk, but they gave out multiples without any problem.
#5 by Doug P. on 29 July 2009 - 3:11 pm
I should have tried that first! Simply ignore the message and try another tab.
#6 by tastewar on 29 July 2009 - 8:17 pm
It’s only been true in a couple of places, though I wasn’t so savvy about trying that at first.