Free is a relative term because it doesn’t necessarily mean "no money required". If to get the free access you must do something decidedly inconvenient, that costs you time and effort. But in these times, some are willing to be inconvenienced if it means saving a buck or two.

Method 1: Hotel parking lot.

Many hotels offer free wi-fi, and most have no security in place on access whatsoever. It’s completely open.

Method 2: Coffee shop, some restaurants

Shops like Panera Bread have free wi-fi. As long as you’re a customer you can sit with your laptop, have a coffee and check your email.

Other chains that have free wi-fi in most of their stores are Chick-Fil-A, First Watch and Hooters. Some independently owned Subway shops also have free wi-fi, but you have to call and check.

Method 3: RV campground areas

RV means Recreational Vehicle. Many campgrounds have free wi-fi on the premises. And no, you don’t need an RV to drive on one of these properties.

Method 4: Retail stores

All Apple stores have free wi-fi as do Office Depot stores.

Method 5: Airports

Most larger airports will have free wi-fi access.

Method 6: Vacation rental properties

Most of these rentals will openly state on the internet if the location has free wi-fi or not. All it takes is a drive over, start up the laptop and see if you can connect.

Method 7: Free Dial-Up

There are a few ISPs that offer dial-up for absolutely zero dollars. One of them is FreeDialup.org, available in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Method 8: Driving around (literally) using NetStumbler

I have not seen a better wi-fi scanner than NetStumbler for the Windows operating system. All you have to do is turn on the laptop, enable the software, set it on the passenger seat and just drive around slowly until your hear a tone telling you there’s a wi-fi nearby. When you hear it, take a quick glance at the screen. The software will tell you instantly whether it’s protected-access or not. For the open ones, save the settings for later use.

Disclaimer: Don’t do this. Using a laptop while driving is dumb.

This is written for the benefit of those who use the Hotmail webmail service. If your e-mail address ends in @msn.com, @live.com or @hotmail.com or you use Windows Live Domains, this applies to you.

POP-based Hotmail is not available in the free version at the time of this writing and I’ll say that right up front. You need to flip over $19.95 a year to get that feature currently. Yes, this turns off a lot of people (considering Gmail offers the same ability for free) but if you want the POP you gotta do it.

So let’s say you go ahead and do that. What are the server names you need to use to get to the goods?

This is what they are:

POP3 incoming server: pop3.live.com
Secure required: Yes
Port: 995

SMTP outgoing server: smtp.live.com
Secure required: No
Port: 25

How to login: Use your Windows Live ID (i.e. your e-mail address) and your existing mail password.

Will POP access ever be available in the free version?

Microsoft has said they "have plans" to do so. So watch for it. For now, you have to pay for POP if you use Hotmail.

As you may or may not be aware, airlines have been testing out in-flight internet access for consumer flights.

And you just had to know someone would start viewing porn while flying.

Well, that didn’t happen.

But the Association of Professional Flight Attendants thinks it could be a problem.

Let’s put this into perspective for a moment.

How STUPID would you have to be to view porn on a plane? Do you think the guy or girl sitting right next to you won’t see that?

The likely result of this will most likely be "nannied" internet while flying. How lovely. You’re going to pay 10 bucks for internet that’s no better than the filtered crapola at work – because you know the filters are going to censor out things it "thinks" are "bad".

To American Airlines and all other airline companies offering this service: Don’t filter your internet.

A recently conducted study has proven that those who choose to use dial-up internet (yes, the agonizingly slow method of getting online) do more so by choice rather than lack of choice.

Explained: There are more than a few people out there (35% of all dial-uppers in the USA – a huge chunk) that just don’t consider broadband worth the price tag. It is available to them but purposely choose the low-cost dial-up option instead.

And if you guessed most of these folks are in rural areas, you guessed correct.

If I were to use (shudder) dial-up internet I would definitely have to switch to lightweight apps to do my stuff, that being:

Opera. I wouldn’t think twice about this. I would switch to Opera as my web browser because it loads pages the fastest (some would disagree with that but it’s faster to me).

Miranda. A super-super-lightweight multi-protocol chat client. Many people (even with really fast connections) swear by this. I would use it simply because of one reason: Speed. The only faster way to chat is from the command line.

Sylpheed. This is a lightweight e-mail client. Has Linux and Windows versions available. Again, this is all about speed. When using dial-up a client is faster than webmail in a browser.

I’d probably change over a few other apps I use as well just to get the lightest possible load that takes the absolute least amount of bandwidth.

In fact there’s a darn good chance I’d purposely just use a lightweight Linux distribution to take care of all this stuff for me like Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux. Lightweight OS generally means lightweight apps. And with lightweight apps that connect to the internet, they usually (but not always) don’t consume as much bandwidth.

I have discussed previously in this book how IP addressing and DHCP servers operate. If you are interested in some of the technologies behind this, back up and have a read. For now, let’s just get down to business and get you sharing an internet connection.

The first thing you might need to do is configure your router. The good thing here is that many routers will automatically configure themselves to work with most cable services. More times than not, when I have set up a simple network, all of my computers can simply get online as soon as I plug them into the router. However, if you are using DSL or if your cable modem provider requires username/password authentication, you will need to perform a little router configuration. Also, if your ISP is providing you with a static (fixed) IP addresses, you will need to configure your router to use this.

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