Re: Back to the "Wireless" question please...

> Here's the story, and she's stickin' to it. (This is a very nice
> lady and I don't doubt she's telling it just like she sees it, but one of
> us is very confused.)

You're not confused. Some people are either very gullible, or don't understand the way the world really works.

> She took her notebook "with wireless" to XXX Computer Services
> in town (it's a shop that repairs computers).

And sells fairy dust, too, it seems.

> He "has a little box on a telephone pole or something."

There was a wireless Internet access company (for a while, before they folded due to a shortage of customers) called Ricochet that used boxes mounted on phone poles as long-range repeaters. Longer range than WiFi, and similar speed, but at $50/month, a bit pricy. And only available in a few markets. I was a customer for 4 months before they died, wasting $100 on their custom modem box as well that will not work with anything else.

> He installed "a little program."

Because it was cheaper than the big program? :-)

> Now she can get on the internet from ANYWHERE -- in her house, out in
> town, on the road when she travels, you name it.

Her wireless card might work in a lot of places for free, but in many others, somebody has to be paying a hourly, daily, or monthly fee. There is a service called IPass (there are others) who act as a consolidator of such paid-for services from different providers, and you pay only one fee to IPass and then they configure your WiFi laptop hardware to connect. But it isn't free, and it doesn't work all over. Just within a few hundred feet of the nearest "hotspot."

> It DOESN'T COST HER ANYTHING and she "doesn't have to pay a
> service."

Maybe she paid $10,000 for the laptop and got rooked another way? :-)

There's no such thing as free Internet, in general.

> She "doesn't have security" so she "can get in to anybody
> else's computer who has wireless on this service" (trust me, she has
> no interest in doing that, but she can).

She doesn't need to have security, but should not be depending on the idiocy of strangers to also configure themselves with wide-open kimonos.

> You "can get security."

Sure she can.

> Kiddies, am I losing my mind or what??

Nope. You have us to bounce ideas off of. She has a very dim grasp of technology, and needs better friends. :-)

> It's a "you-said/she-said" battle with my mother now, and I
> really want to get a handle on it.