Slashdot says that the IMDB says that The London Daily Mirror says they have the first review.

I hope posting this makes up for all the bad things I will soon be saying about The Matrix.

In between grading final exams today, I did a little searching to follow up on my previous post. Found two helpful-looking sites:

• KCWireless, a WiKi for the Kansas City area. Their eventual goal is to blanket KC with wireless access nodes.
• Wifinder, a directory for the whole world, basically. However, it looks like its focus is on commercial access providers, which is fine, but it wouldn’t hurt to find some free access points, either, now would it? I was able to find an entry for a café called The Internet Exchange in Manchester using this directory.

I believe this is the Wired stuff (on wireless) that Chuck was referring to in the comments.

Yes, I know wifi is not really that big a deal, but it still carries enough of a gee-whiz factor for me to get excited about it.

And no, I still haven’t actually used my laptop’s wifi capability, although UMKC does have some wireless zones.

Matt is giving a talk about blogs today at MITH, so look smart, everybody, and be on your best behavior!

Assistant Professor of English Matthew Kirschenbaum will discuss his involvement in the blogging community, delivering an overview of blogging for beginners by first going behind the scenes in his own blogs and then discussing the potential of blogs for teaching, their unprecedented role in covering the war in Iraq, and suggesting why blogs just might give us a glimpse into the future of digital discourse.

Update, 1:00 pm: Matt is apparently blogging live as he presents his talk (isn’t TrackBack a wonderful thing?), so go leave a comment by 2:00 pm EST. And if you UMD folks come to my site while the talk is happening, feel free to leave a comment here.

Update, 5:00 pm: Ah, well. Apparently no one noticed my comment on Matt’s blog or the trackback while his talk was going on.

Well, I bought my ticket to Manchester last week and found a great fare. So this time three weeks from now I will be ensconced in the Methodist Archives Research Centre, reading diaries and letters of eighteenth-century Methodists.

I happened to come across this discussion at Slashdot of an article in the International Herald Tribune on a wi-fi network being established in Paris.

A dozen Wi-Fi antennas have been set up outside subway stations along a major north-south bus route, providing Internet access to anyone near them who has a laptop computer or personal desk assistant equipped to receive the signals. The access is free until June 30 but will require paid subscriptions afterward.

Now, I’m not going to Paris any time soon, but this article started me thinking. It just so happens that although my laptop is wi-fi enabled, I have yet to use this feature. I could use some advice from more experienced wireless users.

My first question has to do with compatibility. Jeff, whose office is next to mine, has an Apple AirPort, but last semester we could not get it to work with my Dell. How do you get your PC to work with an Apple access point? Apple insists that it’s possible:

Q: Can Macintosh computers and PCs coexist on an AirPort wireless LAN?

A: Absolutely. Because AirPort was designed to work in education and business installations as well as the home, AirPort is compatible with Mac systems and PCs alike. AirPort is designed to meet the IEEE 802.11b standard for wireless LAN (WLAN) products. So, whether you want to join a PC-based WLAN or host PCs on your Macintosh-based WLAN, AirPort brings everything together.

My second question has to do with finding access elsewhere. I would love to be able to access the internet via wi-fi while I travel. I’ll be spending time in several airports: Kansas City, Baltimore, Atlanta, Manchester, Cincinnatti, Los Angeles. Is there an online resource with information regarding what kind of wi-fi services airports offer? Alternately, is there a good online resource listing publicly accessible (i.e. free) wi-fi access points in cities around the world?

I realize that some determined Googling might allow me to find the answers that I’m looking for, but I thought I’d first solicit the advice of more seasoned wi-fi users.

Yes, we had some very bad weather yesterday. Drove to the airport and back after the worst of it under some clouds that were straight out of The Wizard of Oz. Saw the aftermath in one area: houses destroyed, trees snapped halfway up the trunk, debris strewn across the highway and hanging from trees. The KC area wasn’t the only one hit in the Midwest, either.

• Kansas City Star, Tornados Kill 21 Across Kansas, Missouri
• Weather.com, 54 Tornados Hit Midwest
• CNN.com, At least 34 feared dead in tornados
• Washington Post, Midwest Tornadoes Kill at Least 19, Death Toll May Rise as High as 28

Update: FYI, I am not a tornado virgin.