Zit Seng’s Superwall

The new school year at NUS has started. Many people are buying new computers. Some of them will be buying Macs, particularly since they have gotten quite popular in the last few years. Now, how do you get it working in NUS? Most official help resources are going to focus just on Windows XP or Windows Vista. So here you are, my concise guide to getting a couple of basic things setup to work in NUS.

(more…)

Have you ever wanted to share your 3G data connection with another device? You can easily setup a cabled or bluetooth connection for your notebook or PC. But what you wanted to offer 802.11 wireless connectivity to your friends’ notebooks or mobile phones? Well, there is a free software available that can turn your 3G mobile phone into a 802.11 wireless hotspot. Now you can easily “deploy” wireless internet connectivity wherever you go with just your mobile phone!

(more…)

One of the stumbling blocks to the use of Wireless@SG has to be the ease of logging in to the network. If you’ve found a Wireless@SG hotspot with working coverage and network access, you’re still faced with the challenge (though just a minor inconvenience) of manual login. Can we have automatic logins?

For phone users, you’d appreciate the difficulty of manual login from your phone’s browser: keyboard entry is difficult, the screen is small, etc. It seems mighty inconvenient if you just needed to quickly check something on a website. (Compare this with 3G, where your phone’s authentication to the network is automatic.)

(more…)

Just taking a quick swipe at a pet topic: Wireless@SG is lost. Lost as in it doesn’t know where it is. I was at NUH today. Surprise, Wireless@SG was working and I could login. But bigger surprise: The SingTel web page said “Welcome to Toa Payoh”! NUH in Toa Payoh? Luckily we don’t depend on Wireless@SG to get our bearings.

That’s how it is with captive portals, you are redirected to a web page to login, and there you have to type your username and password. Can you imagine how inconvenient it is to login from a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA? Even if it does have a tiny weenie keyboard? Is there an auto-login client for Wireless@SG? Can IDA sponsor someone to write a client for Symbian OS and Windows Mobile?

(more…)

The N95, N95 8GB and probably other similar Symbian phones work great connecting to the wireless network in NUS. If you want security and avoid the fuss with login through a captive web-portal, configure your device to join the NUS SSID wireless network. It’s more complicated to setup, but you only need to do it once.

1. Go to Menu, Tools, Settings, Connections, Access Points.
2. Click Options, New Access Point.
3. Enter a descriptive name (e.g. “NUS”) for the Connection name.
4. Set Data bearer to “Wireless LAN”.
5. Set the WLAN netw. name to “NUS”.
6. Set Network status to “Public” (already the default).
7. Set WLAN netw. mode to “Infrastructure” (already the default).
8. Change WLAN security mode to “802.1x”.
9. Click on WLAN security settings. You will go to a new page.
10. Set WPA/WPA2 to “EAP” (already the default).
11. Click on EAP plug-in settings. You will go to a new page.
12. Ensure that only EAP-PEAP is selected. Select the EAP types, click on Options, then Enable (for EAP-PEAP) and Disable (all others).
13. Then click on EAP-PEAP. New page again.
14. Personal certificate can be left as Not defined.
15. Authority certificate must be set to Thawte Premium Server.
16. Change User name in use to User defined.
17. Type your NUSNET userid (no need for the domain portion) into the User name field.
18. Change Realm in use to User defined.
19. Leave Realm blank.
20. For the next 3 options, Allow PEAPv0 should be Yes, and No for Allow PEAPv1 and Allow PEAPv2.
21. Press your right arrow (to move to the EAPs tab).
22. Only EAP-MSCHAPv2 should be enabled (check mark beside the EAP type). By default EAP-SIM and EAP-AKA is enabled. Highlight the EAP type, click Options, then click Enable (for EAP-MSCHAPv2) or Disable (all others).
23. Click on the EAP-MSCHAPv2 type. New page again.
24. For User name, enter your NUSNET userid (no domain needed).
25. Change Prompt password to No.
26. Enter your password in the Password field.
27. Click back, enough times to get out of the configuration.

Finally, you should be done with the configuration.

To test, launch your phone’s web browser. When asked to select access point, find the NUS entry in the list and click on it. If you had followed the instructions above to save your password, you should automatically connect to the wireless network now.

Note for iPhone users: The iPhone 2.0 software is supposed to support 802.1x PEAP as well. The information here might be useful to configure the iPhone. But since I don’t have an iPhone or access to one, I’ve not tried/tested.

I recently came across a new high-speed wireless development that promises over 10Gbps of bandwidth, or some 100-times the speed of current Wi-Fi networks. While existing Wi-Fi operates at 2.4GHz frequency, this new technology uses 60GHz millimetre wave radio technology. What’s interesting about 60GHz is its oxygen absoption properties: 60GHz electromagnetic energy is absorbed by oxygen molecules much like a piece of food in a microwave oven.

(more…)

Wah, I thought Malaysia boleh. This morning on CNA I watched how a Malaysian astronaut has gone into space. It must have certainly been a proud moment for all Malaysians. Then from a ping.sg link on 4G wireless broadband in Malaysia, I thought, wah not bad leh. How is it that Singapore is loosing out in mobile broadband?

Alamak, someone needs to inform iZZinet, the Malaysian operator of this new mobile broadband service, what 4G is. For a start, check out the Wikipedia definition. Oh no, iBurst, the technology that iZZinet uses, is classified as pre-4G. The “4G” service sold by iZZinet operates at a mind-boggling 1Mbps downlink speed. Yes, that’s right, 1Mbps. Anyone wants to guess the downlink speed for a modest 3.5G technolog humbly known as HSDPA?

(more…)

3G is the third-generation of mobile communications technology for mobile phones. Although not the newest thing anymore (it’s been out for maybe two years now and 3.5G is already being rolled out), widespread use of 3G services still isn’t very common. Many people probably already have a 3G-enabled phone connecting to a 3G network, but not many are really making use of the 3G services or applications that ride on 3G services.

Recently, I had the need to get readily available Internet access (that means from “anywhere”). Sure in Singapore you have free Wireless@SG, but Wireless@SG is oversold — it is far from being everywhere. 3G is everywhere. You don’t need a Delifrance or a Starbucks or a MacDonalds. You just need a phone signal… and that’s basically everywhere. But one of the problems with 3G is the somewhat prohibitive data charges.

(more…)