I had the opportunity to travel with the Saint Mary’s Basketball team as part of the pep band last week. We went to Houston Texas for the third round of March Madness. On the flight down there, they had inflight internet. The only downer was that it was 8 bucks or I should say $7.95. A small price to pay to keep up on my facebook status stalking and my “texts from last night” browsing. I also probed the network to see how many of my fellow passengers (it was a chartered flight) were partaking in the mile high internet club. I also wanted to see the little network that Delta airline had constructed. All the photo’s are from my iPod Touch and from 35,000+ feet.

The photo below is from the web browser after you enter the code. “You’re on the inter-webs”. It was definitely a good sight. A few minutes later they rolled out the ice cream snack and I knew this flight was probably the best flight I have ever taken.

Below are the links to the wifi setup they had. The app “WiFiFoFum” used to be on the appstore, but Apple (in their infinite wisdom) axed it. It is pretty sick to use and describes all the wifi systems around you.

After I connected to the ‘Net, I did a quick scan of the network using iNet Pro by BananaGlue. This app is a beast. I was scanning the network at the hotel and it had no problem pulling down information on the 192 devices on the network. Below is the network scan of the the wifi on the plane. I redacted the IP address and the names of the devices. Most of the computer names were pretty revealing as it turned out; password on a post-it note stuck to the monitor revealing, lol. Three of the Apple lines are Macbooks and the other Apple lines are iPod Touch’s. A total of eight people were perusing the internet.

The speed was also pretty decent as well. In terms of wifi at 35,000+ feet and moving at 605 mph, it was quick and snappy. Download speeds were a bit slower than expected but the upload speed was definitely a surprise. Below is the “holy crap, i’m online in an airplane” shot. It was initially slow, but then the speed leveled out as we hit cruising speed/altitude. It also could be that the speed test app chose the wrong ping server, wasn’t really concerned right off the bat (ice cream was RIGHT in front of me). The app I used was Speed Test which was released by Ookla. I would have posted a link to their site, but I couldn’t find one.

The app chose a closer server this time and these are the results.

After a few hours, it was still about the same.

I was very impressed with how the payment system was setup. I think the price was a bit high for a three hour and fifteen minute flight, but it was worth it for the nerd/geek experience. I should also point out that the price was for a 24 hour block of access. All in all, I didn’t use it as much as I thought I would, but it was still good to have enabled in case I wanted to gloat about getting ice cream on an airplane. I was asking other people on the flight, and they would have got on if the price was a tad lower.

Well, word has trickled through the grapevine that my scanning accomplice in crime will be leaving the dealership. I thought this might be coming because of scheduling with her other jobs and her insane school work load, but I was hoping that things would work out (sounds like a bad breakup or something of the sort) and she would stay. I hope the best for her, and will wish her luck when I see her next.

As soon as I found out she was leaving, the scene from Star Wars, Return of the Jedi where Yoda turns into the force, immediately flashed before me. I am the last scanning tech. There have been several times where I have been the sole source for the dealerships’ filing mayhem, but this time seems different; the statement ‘we will not be hiring anyone to replace her’ resonated the loudest with me. I will probably be the only filing clerk/scanning technician/pain in Reynolds & Reynolds’ ass for some time.

Alas, there is light in all situations. I don’t quantify this as job security because frankly, anyone can get canned. I love what I do and enjoy it and being alone will allow me to try out some new scanning techniques and file management ‘gimmicks’ that I have been pondering. Be your own backup has been a constant mantra and this situation just enforces that logical mindset. A lot of people tend to look past the strengths that they have and choose to dwell on the negative aspects.

Thanks Bruce Lee and Yoda for the neat sayings.