Mobile Group Networking using WiFi
At my current job, what's happening is my company is working together with a large Utility company here in Spain to develop a new billing app in Java for the U.S. market. This means that there's lots of business analysts, architects and developers from both countries flying back and forth and setting up shop temporarily in the other offices for a week or so before flying back. And of course, both companies are on different Windows domains, firewalls, proxies, etc. so access to the net has been a pain.
This week some of my co-workers arrived and because we were doing testing out at Sun's iForce Center here in Madrid, we were all together in one conference room and the connections to the net were limited (there were two ports for 10 people). After the second day, I brought my WiFi cards with me, so I could attach to the network and hand my card to who ever wanted to use the net without having to swap desks, etc. Well, within 25 seconds, my boss saw how totally useful it is to have a mobile network to go with our mobile computers. And after I explained to him how it would work with a hub, etc. he called our boss back in Oregon and got permission to immediately buy cards for everyone.
We're going down to PC City tomorrow and grabbing a handful of WiFi cards and getting everyone set up. This solves a major hassle for everyone. I didn't need to buy the WiFi cards several weeks ago when I was in the U.S., I just took the opportunity to get them because they were low price and I wanted to play. I mean, my apartment is so small, there's no anywhere a 20 foot cable can't reach, so it's not like I needed it.
Once again a technology that I just wanted to play with has become useful at work. This is a small win, but remember I just joined the company, so it's good to start building points. ;-)
-Russ