{"id":5356,"date":"2013-11-13T00:01:12","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T07:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=5356"},"modified":"2013-11-09T11:33:56","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T18:33:56","slug":"wi-fi-password-mania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=5356","title":{"rendered":"Wi-Fi Password Mania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Out of curiosity, I whipped out my phone while walking through my neighborhood. I opened the Wifi Analyzer app<\/a> just to see how many Wi-Fi networks were in range. I was shocked at the results.
\n
\nWi-Fi is everywhere. I mean, if humans could see the network signals, our world would be painted by them. My guess is that every home in my neighborhood has a Wi-Fi network setup. It’s amazing.<\/p>\n

Unlike wired networking, Wi-Fi requires a password for security. I think everyone knows that. It’s not like the early days where people wouldn’t set the password and you’d get interlopers mooching your signal. Today, I think all Wi-Fi routers have passwords, but that introduces a new element into the mix: How to remember and properly type in the password.<\/p>\n

Especially on a smartphone or tablet, typing a password can be a real pain.<\/p>\n

For example, consider this password:<\/p>\n

10OlII100OOll11I100O<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s a legitimate password. It uses L, O, and I plus the numbers one and zero. I formatted it above using a sans-serif font, which is what most mobile devices use — much to the detriment of password-typing enthusiasts everywhere. The result is obvious: Typing in a password on your phone or tablet becomes a guessing game. It’s frustrating.<\/p>\n

A better solution is to use Wi-Fi Protected Setup, the WPS standard.<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional Wi-Fi passwords, WPS allows you to instantly connect your Wi-Fi hardware to a router or base station without typing anything. All you do is press a button and touch an icon.<\/p>\n

\"wps-icon\" The WPS icon is shown on the left. If the Wi-Fi router supports this feature, then you’ll find that symbol on the router somewhere next to a button. To connect a Wi-Fi device to the router, touch the button.<\/p>\n

On the device, look for a similar button or icon. For example, on an Android device, open the Settings app and choose Wi-Fi. You’ll find the button on the Wi-Fi screen or you may have to touch a Find Network or Scan command.<\/p>\n

That’s it!<\/p>\n

When you touch the icon, the connection is made instantly between your device and the Wi-Fi router. No passwords. No typing.<\/p>\n

Most Android mobile devices I’ve seen sport the WPS feature. The problem you’ll encounter more frequently are Wi-Fi routers that lack this feature. Fortunately, newer routers come with the WPS button. So as folks update their older Wi-Fi routers, this feature should become more popular. Until then, you’ll need to slog away typing those 23-character passwords on your mobile device and praying that you get the letters correct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Wi-Fi nearly everywhere now, its imperative that you become an expert on typing passwords or, better, using the WPS feature when accessing a wireless network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8,15],"class_list":["post-5356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-android","tag-pc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5463,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5356\/revisions\/5463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}