27 Comments
As Columbia enters the last few days of the “midterm period,” bunkering down in Butler may look more and more enticing. But, to help you hang on to that precious wireless signal, Bwog spent Monday night in the Milstein and Reference Rooms measuring signal strength. The key corresponds to the average readout out of four bars on a standard 13 inch MacBook. You’ll never be more than a click away from procrastination!
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27 Comments
@17-Inch So, my computer’s screen is bigger, and that means it’s better and that means it don’t lie.
WIFI = BAD IN THE CAFE
WIFI = GOOD JUST ABOUT EVERYWHERE ELSE ON THE SECOND AND THIRD FLOOR.
@BWOG COMMENTER I LIKE POINTING OUT WHEN PEOPLE DO THINGS WRONG LOL
@person If you use the iwconfig command line tool it rates strength much more precisely. Shame on you bwog, for going on a scale of 0-6 instead of 0-100.
@actually Mac OS 10.5 doesn’t have iwconfig installed by default (even if you have Developer Tools) and by God I can’t imagine blog actually compiling an open source program with dependencies — many CS majors at this school don’t even know how to do that (moreover, is iwconfig even compatible with Apple Airport hardware?) The truth is, it’s just not trivial to get a wireless signal value from Mac OS X.
That said, one way you could do it — without installing anything — would be to run a little-known command-line airport utility. It is indeed well hidden.
To get information about wireless signal strength, you would run “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I”
To address the issue of error bars and all that crap, you could then pretty easily write a perl program that get data with the
print `airport -I`; $@=$data;
(excuse me if my syntax is wrong, this is just the main idea; these commands cause perl to throw the airport command to the terminal then grabs the result and would store it in a variable $data)
Then, from the output, parse the signal strength data every second, say, and throw that into an array. Then, while the program is running, walking around the room at a constant speed, being sure to cover every portion of it. Finally, have the program parse that array into a csv (a type of file that Microsoft Excel can deal with), and you can go wild calculating all the error bars, confidence intervals, and averages that you want.
Oh yea, and PS: You probably won’t believe me, but I’m studying Biology in the College.
@oh wow you’re so cool.
@As a frequent bwog reader who procrastinates religiously (ie reads nearly every comment) i believe i just read the first line of your comment and skipped over it. that’s right i chose, instead, to take a moment to pause and actually roll my eyes here in my room.
thanks
@#20 hahahaha
@... no error bars. you fail frontiers of science forever.
@I'd say Milstein 212 deserves a better rating. I study there regularly and always get good wireless (you can see the router on the south wall).
@wow some of you guys are kinda super pathetic. Fighting over whether or not you actually have spoken to James Franco? Who cares?! This isn’t middle school, get over yourself.
@impressed wow bwog, this is almost scientific. kudos.
@CCNA/MCSE WiFi antennae locations can vary across all notebooks, regardless of brand and size. Some are in the case (under your palms, right on the chip itself – bad) some are wired up on top of the screen (best). Astute to mention type of notebook, BWOG.
@... who needs wireless when there’s a billion free computers taking up valuable space on the deathstars in 209?
@what? I can’t believe this map, I can *never* get a signal in the reference room but once I move to 303 it’s very strong. How could that be?
@Ok first of all #8…calm down. You act like they caught him peeing in the bathroom or making out and posted it. Secondly, nice post bwog! I think it’s super useful.
@whoever sent that picture in is an asshole. james franco is actually a very nice guy. tmz is the most degrading garbage ive ever seen.
@oh please james franco is a very nice guy? as if you’ve ever spoken to him
he’s a ego-tripper who visits butler solely for the attention. lame.
@screw you, I have talked to him and he seems like a pretty normal guy. undeserving of the stalkerish behavior he gets around columbia, at the very least.
@wow bwog, which columbian took a picture of james franco sleeping in scherm and sent it to tmz? get on this!
http://www.tmz.com/2009/03/10/james-franco-sleeping-photo/
@haha nice link. wd.
@Aw, he’s just like every other Columbia student this time of year.
@Butler the Documentary Are we going to get extreme Butlering pictures Bwog? Those are the best! When I see the stacked coffee cups and disheveled papers my inner child cries but also, with hand over mouth, secretly giggles. And maybe, cutie pie that he is, farts a little too.
@Uh... “out of four bars on a standard 13 inch MacBook”
As if the size of the MacBook affects the signal strength?
@are you retarded?
@Eh... I fail to see what is retarded about the comment? Whether Bwog got 2/4 bars in one room or 3/4 bars in another, the fact that the MacBook used had a 13″ screen is irrelevant. Or maybe you don’t understand sarcasm?
@Oh The Horror... Hawkma tore apart a pigeon today outside of Hamilton. Horrified children looked on a a mass of white feathers littered the ground.
@lol Worthless post. Thanks bwog.
Nice to see someone has spare time on their hands.