Art & Photography
In anxious anticipation of college basketball season in Chapel Hill, North Carolina we put up a new net. Our communities court is pretty messed up from neglect but its wonderful to even have one. We’re shooting some hoops for fun and to get a little exercise. Maybe other people will use the net now. You should have seen the one that was up before!
UNC Men’s basketball coach Roy Williams has joined the Basketball Hall of Fame. Cool. Man I can’t wait for bball season. Men’s and Women’s!
The Town email newsletter “Chapel Hill eNews’ just announced WiFi pilot will be at the following locations.
(1.) U.S. Post Office, 179 E. Franklin St.
(2.) Old Town Hall (IFC Shelter), 100 W. Rosemary St.
(3.) Town Parking Lot 5, 108 Church St.
(4.) Hargraves Center, 216 N. Roberson St.
(5.) Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau, 501 W. Franklin St.
(6.) 411 West Restaurant, 411 W. Franklin St.
Here is the whole announcement:
4. Chapel Hill Launches Wi-Fi Pilot Project
The Town of Chapel Hill this Friday will activate six Wi-Fi hotspots in the downtown area, giving the public free access to the internet along much of Franklin Street.
The provision of wireless internet service to citizens has ranked as a top priority goal for the Town Council. The launching of wireless hotspots in downtown is considered a pilot project and a step forward toward this goal. The hotspots, which show up on wireless devices as “TOWNofCH-WiFi,†are located at the following (see map at www.townofchapelhill.org/DocumentView.asp?DID=1904):
(1.) U.S. Post Office, 179 E. Franklin St.
(2.) Old Town Hall (IFC Shelter), 100 W. Rosemary St.
(3.) Town Parking Lot 5, 108 Church St.
(4.) Hargraves Center, 216 N. Roberson St.
(5.) Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau, 501 W. Franklin St.
(6.) 411 West Restaurant, 411 W. Franklin St.Bob Avery, information technology director, said users within 300 feet of a hotspot should be able to connect, although the ability to connect will depend on the capability of the user’s device and the amount of obstructions between the user and the antenna. For a street level user, trees, buses, trucks and buildings will all reduce the quality of the connection signal.
The Town will soon provide information to the public by website, media and signage to help promote the hotspots and explain how they may be used. More information will be provided at the homepage of http://www.townofchapelhill.org.
The hotspots have been installed using Clearwire modems. These are attached to standard Wi-Fi access points with high gain antenna to provide the signal for public use.
The Town will not provide direct user support but does hope to be able to respond to and resolve outages or other service problems as they occur. To report comments and problems, please contact the Town at wifi@townofchapelhill.org.
I just used the new Town of Chapel Hill WiFi for the first time. I was having lunch on Franklin street and got my laptop out. This is what I found in front of the Post Office.
SSID: TOWNofCH-WiFi
Channel: 6
Open
Now we need more public seating in front of the Post Office. 🙂 More fun to come!
THANK YOU Town of Chapel Hill. An especially big thanks to Bob Avery and his IT staff.
A short opinion piece I wrote appears on the front page of todays Chapel Hill News. Its called Wi-Fi for the People. Its about my recent efforts to bring public WiFi to Chapel Hill, the new WiFi pilot project slated to start September 1, and the Chapel Hill Wireless Tailgate Parties.
In the article I reference two Orange Politics posts I wrote. Chapel Hill WiFi Pilot needs different Hotspots and Where is the Wifi?. A big thank you to the Chapel Hill News and Mark Schultz for agreeing to publish My View. Its wonderful when our local paper helps citizens learn about important new resources in town. Even better when they help encourage us to help our town improve them.
Stay tuned for more info about the Chapel Hill Wireless Tailgate Parties…
Carol Ellison over at MuniWireless.com has written a post called Turning infrastructures into true community networks. Its about our work in Chapel Hill to bring attention to new public wifi hotspots. Hopefully on September 1 we will have five new public WiFi hotspots sponsored by the Town of Chapel Hill.
The post also mentions me and Orange Politics. Pretty cool. 🙂 Plus the Chapel Hill Wireless Tailgate parties. These are events at each hotspot I plan on holding. More info to come.
Thanks Carol and MuniWireless.com!
April/May of last year (2006) I created the WordPress blog and Google Maps mash up Chapel Hill Wireless. The goal was to help people find wireless hotspots in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina. Since then Anton created Durham Wireless and Zach created Asheville Wireless. Plus lots of other things have happened. Now we are on the cusp of the first Town of Chapel Hill public WiFi pilot project. I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg. Public WiFi is just the beginning.
But today I added all the locations I had on ChapelHillWireless.org in a new Google Map. You can go to this Google map page, click on share this link, and copy the code to embed it on your site. Hopefully this will be a good way to spread this valuable info.
Now that editing this map is super easy I plan on adding lots more info to the little pop up box. Maybe even photos and video. 🙂
If you misplace this post you can always find it on a page linked at the top of the site.
http://www.yesh.com/b2/chapel-hill-wifi/
Note: WiFi hotspots on the UNC campus are not included on this map. Those hotspots are not open to the general public. (People not directly affiliated with UNC) When I find a map of WiFi on campus I’ll blog about it.
I became a Tar Heel fan rather fast. I’ve only lived in Chapel Hill for a few years and I’m already jonesn’ for college basketball season to start. I love summer weather much more than winter. But the lack of basketball is KILLING ME.
This is not a unique gripe in North Carolina. But its rather odd for me.
One, I am NOT athletic.
Two, I am NOT very competitive by nature.
Three, I think most organized sports are violent and too commercial.
Despite all my differences with the IDEA of organized sports I am still a fan. Each year I become more interested. Each year I yearn for watching a basketball game live and on TV. In a decade or so I could be a complete bball looney! 🙂
Why is this?
So far I believe its Ruby’s fault. 🙂 By that I mean she is such a cool Tar Heel fan. She isn’t the only one either. For some reason Tar Heel fans in Chapel Hill and Carrboro also happen to be the coolest people. They have interesting lives, are very creative, love peace, love each other, etc., etc. Also working at UNC didn’t hurt my love of this great sports tradition.
So I’m seriously thinking about doing a college bball vlog. Would you watch?
Over on Orange Politics Ruby has posted a entry with links to some amazing Google Maps.
Last week I created a Google map of all of the candidates in Orange County in this year’s municipal and school board races. Now excellent electoral map maker Damon Seils has added two very helpful resources: a map of every polling site in the county, and another map of the voting precincts. All of these maps will be permanently available on the election info page: orangepolitics.org/elections-2007
This is going to be so useful to so many people. I’ve wanted to know exactly where the local precincts are. Google Maps rock! Overlaying several different kinds of data with Geo info can tell so much. I want to thank Damon Seils and B. Hammill for all their work on this! Also thank you Ruby for putting this out there for people to use. She has lots of other good ideas for maps too.
Now what I would like to see is to see is candidates overlayed with a map showing the average density and average income of each precinct.
Clap, Clap, Clap!
(Map Legend: Flags = poling places, Orange Boxes w/White lines = precincts, purple pins = Carrboro Candidates homes, yellow pins = School Board Candidates homes, blue pins = Chapel Hill Candidates homes)
At a recent council meeting the Chapel Hill IT Director presented information about a WiFi pilot project. One council member asked How will citizens know where it is? How will we know when its up? The Mayor asked the IT Director to work with the Town Information Officer. A good first step. I subscribe to the Chapel Hill eNews. (A email list.) I wonder what percentage of Chapel Hillians do?
For this pilot project to work not only do the WiFi hot spots need to be where people will be but the Town needs to tell people where they are. A press release will help but it won’t be enough to encourage full participation.
Here are a few ideas for getting the word out. I hope that if the Town is really interested in the success of this pilot that they’ll consider these options. What ideas do you have? Please leave them in the comments.
First, mark the locations clearly where open public WiFi is present. The Town of Carrboro uses a internationally known symbol for an open wifi node. 
There is a symbol like this on the door of the Century Center as you head towards the Cybrary. Still this bit of iconography is a bit geeky so some may be confused by it. I think english AND spanish signs that say; Public Wireless Internet Access Available Here, would be good.
Second, plot the WiFi hot spots on a map. Google maps are incredibly powerful tools that are free to use. Last year I created a map for local WiFi called Chapel Hill Wireless. It has pins on a map that you can click on and learn more about the spot. I’ve included WiFi from both Towns and from local businesses. (Sadly UNC’s wifi is NOT on this map. That network is closed to most citizens.) Since this map’s creation we’ve also gotten maps for other towns such as Durham Wireless and Asheville Wireless.
Third, hold events at the WiFi locations. Work with local tech groups like BlogTogether and University user groups to have lawn chair parties within range of the WiFi. I suggest people need to bring their own chairs because it looks like the majority of the pilot project will be conducted in parking lots. Sorta hard to sip coffee and talk to friends and family on asphalt. But I plan on doing just that.
I am sure there are even more creative ways to let people know about these new public resources. As I said in my comments before the council success of public WiFi relies on two way communication with people more than technology. WiFi for people before parking meters!
Cross posted from Orange Politics.
Brian C. Russell 