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Blow your mind wide open at Supernova 2002, a 2-day conference Dec. 9-10 on decentralization, and the fundamental questions facing software, communications, and media.

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I'm at 802.11 Planet in Santa Clara: Still stinging from paying so much for a decent breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I'm using the Proxim/Boingo-sponsored free wireless near the session rooms. The tutorial/workshop day has just begun.

I ran into Alan Meckler while registering; Alan is the man behind so many Internet beginnings: MecklerWeb (early portal, shut down when it was clear portals wouldn't make money near-term); Internet World, Web Week, and other publications (sold to Penton at the height of their value); Internet World, the trade show (sold to Softbank, ditto). Meckler's current venture spans from purchasing the domain name internet.com a few years ago after spinning off everything but the editorial Web sites he ran.

Meckler in his incarnation as INT Media bought Jupiter Media Metrix's remaining fire sale assets and changed the company's name to Jupitermedia. Meckler is one to watch, because he's usually into things before anyone understands there's money or interest there, and out of them while people laugh at his caution -- until usually a few months or even weeks later, when the industry or segment tanks, and he's laughing all the way to the bank.

Meckler is bullish on Wi-Fi.

Meckler launched the first 802.11 Planet conference for early Oct. 2001, and Sept. 11 forced a reschedule and almost a cancellation. The event was rescheduled to November, a brave financial move, and had just a few exhibitors and a small but focused group of attendees. This year, there are four dozen exhibitors, and a full house -- the hotel sold out its 802.11 Planet room block, in fact, always a good sign.

The conference this year is tightly focused on business and IT: how to, where to, why to, when to, and how much to. One track today is on wireless LAN security; I'll be moderating and presenting at the afternoon tutorial on hot spot security. (You can view in PDF form my presentation.

<bookplug>The presentation itself is adapted (and refocused onto hot spot security issues) from the security chapter of my new co-written book, The Wireless Networking Starter Kit, which is due in bookstores like Amazon.com early next week.</bookplug>

Other News

Trevor Marshall on antennas: Just met Trevor Marshall here at 802.11 Planet. Follow the links on the top of his site to the links for antennas: he's produced some excellent visualizations of antenna patterns. Trevor is speaking on antenna design this afternoon.

NewsFactor on Apple Titanium's range problems: NewsFactor offers a thorough examination of the Faraday cage that is the Apple Titanium PowerBook has a range problem. They tried to uncover more, but there's not enough out there to tell us the details.