So I was walking through Akihabara today and dropped in the Linux Cafe for a coffee and some WiFi. Akihabara, if you don't already know, is the computer Mecca of Tokyo and there really is a Linux Cafe although really it is just a rebranded Pronto. Pronto is a chain of coffee shops a bit down scale from Starbucks but with free WiFi.
So anyway, I fire up my C3000 and try to log on. Now I've done this before and it has always worked. The required ESS is pronto but otherwise, the settings are standard Non-ESS, Any, Any. Automatic DHCP, no WEP, no PPoE, yadda yadda. Only this time it doesn't work.
I ask this older guy with a WinXP laptop what WiFi settings he is using. Even with my bad Japanese and his worse English we confirm that my settings are right. Hmmm. OK, I decide to ask two younger guys at the table next to me. Each of them is using a W2K laptop and both have browsers open. They must know something. Their English is ever so slightly better but they still seemed a bit confused by something. And this is the comedic bit.
After they looked over my WiFi settings and said yes, it should work, they did something that could only happen in Japan. Both of them reached into backpacks under the table and pulled out a Zaurus. The pudgy, shaggy haired guy pulled a C3000 and the gaunt, shaggy haired guy an 860. In the States, what are the odds that you would run into one stranger with a Zaurus, much less two?
So here is the mystery part. They fired up and opened networking and each had the same settings. Three Zauruses (two C3000s and an 860) with three different known-good WiFi cards. None of the Zauruses are getting online even though all have in the past. But the three laptops, which are all using the same settings as the Zauruses, are on without a problem. What gives? Laptops good, Zauruses bad?
Just in case a little more technical detail will help, here is the setup at the Linux Cafe. Two large rooms, each with a Toshiba WiFi access point. One room has an ESS of pronto and the other of tsunami. I ran Kismet to check the settings and I could see both of them with heaps of packets and good signal strength. No WEP. One thing I did notice with the Zauruses is that when you initiated the WiFi connection it would briefly (maybe two seconds) recognize the correct ESS but then flip to 'Unknown' ESS and lose the connection.
Anyway, after 20 minutes, I gave up on this, finished my coffee and walked out the door. On the way out I passed another guy with a Zaurus (an 860 I think) setting up. I just kept going.
