allright

thanks

nukeularwinter,

Sorry, you won't get legal advice from anyone but an attorney familiar with the laws governing such use in the jurisdiction where you're located. But it's certainly not right to "borrow" someone else's connection without their permission.

Jim

Seeing how Windows will auto associate with any open network on its own, how could you get sued by a numskull who leaves his network wide open??  Could you countersue Bill Gates?

I'm not too sure that your comment about auto-connect is still accurate.  A few weeks/months back I was working on changing my WEP to WPA at home,  and my notebook kept automatically connecting to my neighbor's open wireless rather than to the one I was trying to get it to connect to.  It was frustrating for me.  At the time,  I think I was running XP SP2,  although  may have only been at SP1a.

if you select to connect to an unsecured network once, it will be put on your preferred networks list and windows will keep trying it ...  you can of course remove it from the list and it will stop the automatic stuff

That's what the difference in the purchase price of the Dell vs the IBM gets you.  Sounds really neat and also handy.  And we fight with drivers and utilities that haven't learned to talk to each other civilly.

I have to admit that this past year,  I managed to get someone else t buy me a ThinkPad R50p to replace my Latitude C840.  Not a big upgrade in CPU (from 202GHz P4m to 1,7GHz PM),  but now I have USB 2.0,  and about 66% the weight,  plus about twice the battery life,  and a DVD-RW to boot.    I still manage the Latitude C840,  as my wife finally upgraded to it from my old Latitude C800 (just about a month ago) so I still work with the Dells.  I also like the IBM Software Installer.  You run the tool on your PC and it connects to the IBM web site to get a bunch of XML files to tell what is the current software/driver versions on their site,  then it allows you to pick and choose which ones to install,  even BIOS updates, etc,  and does it all with only one (or maybe two) reboot(s).  It is now so easy to keep the system current with drivers/patches (from IBM),  almost as easy as Windows Automatic Updates.

 

In my case,  I realized that Windows wasn't managing my wireless connetivity.  I was working with an IBM ThinkPad at the time,  and it was using the IBM Access Connections software.  If you get a chance to use that it is great for people who move around a lot.  You define location profiles (including IE home page, default printer, IP settings, Wireless settings, etc.) and it automatically sets it all when you "connect" in that location.  If you are working with your wired NIC plugged in,  then unplug to go to a meeting or something,  it automatically turns the wireless on and connects to the configured wireless access point/router,  and when you re-connect the cable to your NIC,  it starts using it again,  and powers-off the wireless NIC.  Since I have started using that,  I find it "quaint" to have to set it all manually every time I use my Dell. 

Dell, are you listening??!!!

It will be interesting to see what happens to laptop support and pricing now that that whole product line's been sold to Lenovo.

Jim