Gossip

Mickey Mouse is a jealous god ...

"This is a Mickey Mouse location," stated Microsoft's wireless wizard, Andrew Cheeseman, at the launch of the Mobility Developer Conference. True, true; it's Disneyland - the New York Hotel, to be precise. He should have stopped there ...

Our Sniffer has been replaced, for some reason, by a different investigative deity. And a vengeful one! For Mr Cheeseman, who regularly works wireless miracles for Microsoft at huge venues, was perhaps a bit over-bold with his next comment. "It may be a Mickey Mouse location, but this isn't a Mickey Mouse network," he said.

It would seem that the Disney Deity was roused. The very next thing that happened was that the entire press contingent went upstairs to file copy back home - and the press office WLAN collapsed.

It turns out that the hotel is wired with very advanced technology. It has CAT 3 Ethernet everywhere. And the trunk that goes up to the sixth floor is around 100m long.

Naturally, the wireless signal in the press office - obviously a low-profile, easily missed space for the world's media - is excellent. Unfortunately, the Internet connection between the wireless access point, and the rest of the world, is pants.

A baffled Cheeseman was heard explaining to a colleague that he had insisted that the press office should be down where the connectivity would work, and had been over-ruled. Our Hunky Mouse thinks that Cheeseman is unlikely to be over-ruled on this subject too often again ... Image courtesy of The Head Shop.