Author Archives: patrick

Wireless Toronto & Indian Electronica’s Holiday Party

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It is starting look a lot like . . . Winter – Christmas – Hanukkah – Kwanza – Eid ul-Adha or may be just the WIRELESS TORONTO & INDIAN ELECTRONICA’S HOLIDAY PARTY!

A special audio-visual interactive instalment of Dishoom, hosted by Wireless Toronto and Indian Electronica!

Featuring: Qasim Virjee, Abdul Smooth, Anuj Rastogi, Patrick Dinnen + Guests

Thursday December 13, 2007 @ Lot 16
1136 Queen Street West (at Lisgar St) in Toronto Canada
9PM – 2AM/close (no cover, no attitude, no samosas)
http://www.indianelectronica.com/dishoom

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Toronto the Good party, May 15

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Toronto the Good is an annual party celebrating some of the good stuff that Toronto has to offer. Wireless Toronto is mucho honoured to be a featured guest at this year’s event.

Here are the details, hot off the press of the Spacing blog:

The Festival of Architecture and Design will take place again in May, and the folks at ERA Architects, Spacing Magazine and [murmur] are throwing another Toronto the Good party to celebrate your faithful city. This year the Toronto Society of Architects are also co-hosting… They also want to introduce all of you to Wireless Toronto, an all-volunteer community group celebrating their 2nd anniversary providing free community wireless hotspots in caf?©s, bars, and outdoor places like Dufferin Grove Park and Dundas Square. Come by anytime for some food, drink, interactive and wireless games…

When: Tuesday, May 15th, starting at 7pm
Where: Fermenting Cellar, Distillery District
Who: DJ Chris Thinn
How Much: $10 gets you into the building, plus food
Cash Bar

Hope to see many Wireless Toronto friends, supporters and just plain curious at TTG this year, it should be a lot of fun.

UPDATE: The event website is now up: torontothegood.org

Fun wifi event January 23rd, you’re all invited

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Talk/Drinks/Beats at Lot 16 (1136 Queen St West)
Tuesday Jan 23, 2007 7-11PM
No cover, cash bar, free nibbles

7:00 PM – Welcome & Social
8:00 PM – Talks & Discussion
9:30 PM – DJ & Drinks

Wireless Toronto is hosting an open discussion/meet & greet with some
of Canada’s best known community wifi innovators and researchers at the
Lot 16 bar.

Featuring brief presentations by Michael Lenczner of Ile Sans Fil and Graham Longford from the Community Wireless Infrastructure Research Project.

If you’re curious about wifi, social media, alternative communications,
telecom policy… come join us on Jan 23rd for a fun night.

Sign up on Upcoming, Locate the venue on Google Maps

Toronto Reference Library gets free wifi

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It’s not one of our hotspots, but it’s great to hear that the Toronto Public Library is finally getting into wifi. Found via Shawn at Spacing wire (with a bonus nod to Wireless Toronto).

…laptops get lonely when they can’t connect to anything, and sometimes books just aren’t enough.

There are little signs around the library directing people to the 1st and 2nd floor to connect, but I’m on the 4th floor now and my Powerbook is picking up a usable signal.

…Best part of the TRL wifi is all you do is hook up, check a box that says you agree to terms and conditions, and that’s it, you’re on.

Join us for a wifi hardware hack-night, Tuesday Jan 9

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*UPDATE – VENUE CHANGE*
If you’re interested in attending email for details: gabe-at-pwd-dot-ca

For Wireless Toronto’s first hacknight, we attempt to build the wifi roach coach, a backpack housing a wifi router, wimax modem for uplink, and powered using cordless drill batteries. For bonus points, we can build additional backpacks with wifi repeaters, for additional coverage using the same wimax uplink.
Anyone who’d like to help build, or watch, or just chat, is welcome to come — tech sk1llz not necessary. This won’t be much like our past meetings; no agenda, etc.

The hope is to have hacknights like this every month or so, with a different project each time.

*UPDATE – VENUE CHANGE*
If you’re interested in attending email for details: gabe-at-pwd-dot-ca

Tuesday, Jan 9 7-10pm at the Interaccess space, more details over on Upcoming. Hope to see you there.

Yonge-Dundas hotspot named #1 by Now Magazine

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Wireless Toronto get a mention in this week’s Now Magazine, in the Best of Toronto: Tech piece.

In July, not-for-profit group Wireless Toronto helped give the public a new reason to visit the square. Over the summer a steady flow of laptop users began occupying tables and other corners of the big granite slab. The free WiFi service is giving people something to do other than stare at the advertising or run through the fountains while they take their lunch break and soak up the summer sun.

It’s really great to get this recognition in Now. And they’re not wrong about the steady flow of laptop users in the Square either. I just checked the stats and 850 people have signed up from Y-D Square since we launched there, under four months ago. That’s pretty impressive.

Newest hotspot, Mini Bar

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Mini Bar mapThe Mini Bar is at 107 Mutual Street, just a few blocks East of our recently opened Dundas Square hotspot.

I haven’t been to the Mini Bar yet, but it sounds like a cool place. I found a review on The Martini Boys website, and they seem to like it:

And mini it is; small, charming, sophisticated. In what seems like in the middle of nowhere, the unique little martini bar and patio takes over the previously unused space behind Mutual Street Deli.

This is one of several new hotspots we’ve added to the Wireless Toronto network recently. You can always check out our full network on the WT map.