Since it is Friday, I thought I would share a humorous video on the topic:

Thanks to my colleague, Henry Chou, for bringing this video to my attention.

Enough said.  Happy Friday!

Personally, I have a rather hard time finding blogs about Enterprise Wi-Fi networking & security. That being said, there’s a real need for this type of information.

As Nigel Fenwick points out in the video interview below, there is a much bigger value to this online content than one might think due to the high number of people that are engaged as critics, conversationalists, or spectators.

One such person is Andrew VonNagy, who participated in one of my contests offering a “Free Copy of Wireless Hacking Exposed” in exchange for the best wireless pen testing tip.

The funny thing is, by entering the contest, I stumbled onto Andrew’s blog — Revolution Wi-Fi — and realized that Andrew is a wonderful content creator.   For example, over the last several days, Andrew published a great series of posts about Wireless Quality of Service.

This “discovery” motivated me to start another contest. Tell me about a new wireless blog (or news source).  Some of my favorites are already listed along the bottom, left-hand side of WiFiJedi.com Whoever submits the most compelling content will win a free copy of the Certified Wireless Technology Specialist Official Study Guide.

I’ll choose the winner on the next #WirelessWednesday (Aug. 11th)

I recently added a new widget to my blog site that allows you to subscribe by e-mail, which means that new posts would automatically show up in your inbox.  How cool is that?

Simply type your email addy into the box along the left hand side of the page.  As an example, I highlighted the applicable section with a red box in the graphic associated with this post.

Alternatively, if you like to follow lots of blogs, you can subscribe to WiFiJedi.com through RSS.    RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which places a “feed” of updates from a particular website into your RSS reader.

However, this week I would like to ask the poll question in a slightly different manner. This time, I would like to ask an open ended question and for you to answer within the comments section.

Without further fanfare, this week’s question is “What do you think is the Top Wireless Story of 2009?”

I am going to compile and publish a list of such stories and I would like YOUR help to ensure I didn’t miss any of the best stories. 

I have one addition to the list:

• BlueAnt Supertooth Light – I can’t believe I excluded this one from the list because I actually *received* one of these as a Christmas gift this year.  It’s a Bluetooth speakerphone/microphone that hangs on a car sun visor.    And as Sheldon from the TV show, Big Bang Theory says, “Everything is better with Bluetooth”.   I actually had a similar device from a different manufacturer and didn’t like it –mostly because it wasn’t loud enough.  The call quality on both ends is excellent with the BlueAnt device.

I also wanted to expand on two of the original suggestions:

• PlayStation3 – The Wi-Fi on this does a lot more than I originally anticipated. Not only does it allow for free online game play, but it facilitates game updates.  Once such example of this is in sports games where updated team rosters can be downloaded from online servers.  You can also stream movies directly to the PS3 from NetFlix.

• Pet Rock – My Computerworld editor actually pointed out this reincarnation of the pet rock: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/c208/ Oddly enough, this version of the pet rock *isn’t* wireless.  Uhg…

If you are still puzzled about what to purchase, check out the Super Tuesday Poll that I ran here at WiFiJedi.com to see what wireless-related gifts others are buying for their loved ones.

Happy shopping!

The Ning community is called “802.11 Heaven” and is accessible at http://80211heaven.ning.com/ The website’s subtitle is “The place to chat, argue, debate and understand all things 802.11″.  The site was founded by Tom Carpenter (@carpentertom), who is a CWNA and CWSP author.

To be honest, the 802.11 Heaven community is extremely small at this point, but it definitely has some of the best minds in Wi-Fi including Joel Barrett (@joelbarrett) and Keith Parsons (@keithparsons).  Let’s get the word out as the value of the community is strengthened with each new member!

My thanks goes out to Jamey for highlighting this resource.  Speaking of resources, you might also want to check out Jamey’s blog “Wireless Journeys”, which is available here: http://wirelessaficionado.wordpress.com/

1. The infrastructure
2. The clients
3. The environment

The Infrastructure

This includes not only the access point(s) and the WLAN controller(s), but any of the routing & switching gear used for uplinks.  Also included in the infrastructure would be any of the network infrastructure / services leveraged by the wireless LAN (examples include RADIUS, Network Time Protocol, Syslog, etc.) 

The Clients

The IEEE 802.11 specification refers to these as “stations”.   Clients/stations could be computers such as laptops or tablet PCs.  Other examples of wireless stations include dual-mode phones, handheld scanners, etc.  When thinking about the clients, realize this includes not only the hardware, but the software (such as a client driver or management supplicant). 

The Environment

This most commonly refers to the Radio Frequency environment.  The RF environment can be evaluated with a spectrum analyzer, which can show you the signal level of your APs, the noise floor, and any interference in the area.  Interference can come from other Wi-Fi devices, or non Wi-Fi devices (such as microwave ovens, cordless phones, and Bluetooth).  I also think of the Physical environment, which is the type of construction materials used, the amount of vegitation in the area, the terrain/line-of-sight, etc. 

I often get called out in troubleshooting situations.  In many of these cases, the infrastructure has been evaluated as a potential source for issues (for example, are the authentication/encryption settings correct), but the clients and the environment have been neglected. 

Conclusion

In these troubleshooting scenarios, it is imperative to take a thorough look at all three components.  Not only should you take a look at the configuration file of the infrastructure, but ensure that wireless clients have the most up-to-date drivers.  Look to see that clients power-save and roaming agressiveness settings are appropriate for the application.  Double-check to see there is no interference from Wi-Fi or non Wi-Fi sources, etc.  In short, evaluate your WLAN as a system.