Monday, January 14, 2008

FON 社群新功能迎新年!

FON 網站新增了三個新的社群工具，包括：傳訊系統 (messaging system)、
重新設計的 FON 地圖，及新改良、具個人化功能的 My FON (舊稱 Userzone)。

傳訊系統 (messaging system) 方便你跟其他 Foneros 互相交流：誰連接過你的 FON 熱點？你又連接過誰的 FON 熱點？你的 Foneros 朋友又有哪幾位？傳訊系統讓你一覽無遺！你還可在 My FON 的個人專頁內設定個人資料及頭像 (avatar)，讓其他人在 FON 地圖上的 FON 熱點看到你。

你絕對會愛上 FON 的新地圖！新地圖的搜尋器大大改善了下載速度，令搜尋 WiFi 熱點更快更易。你更可以透過新的 FON 地圖傳送訊息！假想當你在馬德里旅遊時，你可以透過 FON 地圖找到馬德里的 Foneros 並傳訊息給他，請他推薦好用的 WiFi 熱點！

另外，My FON 頁面已集最新的社群工具於一身，My Travel Log、My Visits 等紀錄一目了然，立即登入你的 FON 帳號並享受我們為你準備的一切吧！

刊載自 Angel Yeung on Foneros
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

FON Router 另類好用處

筆者最討厭安裝 Remote Desktop，事關無論你多有把握，也不能夠 100% 保證能夠成功。

最近因工作需要，要在公司連接家中的電腦，往常的做法是先為家中的電腦設定好 Host 模式，翌日回到公司測試，倘若不成功的話(通常是錯填網域或工作群組吧！)便要等到回家才能跟進。運氣不好時真的要花個三數天才能成功從辦公室遙控家中的電腦啊。

昨天遇上相同課題，實在不想重蹈覆轍，突然間靈機一觸：將 Laptop 連接到 FON 的 Public Network，模擬 External Network ，然後便可輕鬆測試家中桌面電腦的 Host 設定。以前花個三數天的 Trial & Error，如今只需 15 分鐘便大功告成！

刊載自 FON Team on Foneros
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Thursday, April 19, 2007

FON 在亞洲揭起熱潮

FON 進入香港市場已有一段時間，而 La Fonera (FON Router) 亦在短短時間之間進駐了不少用戶的家中。

雖然FON在亞洲的起步時間比歐美遲一點，可是 FON 在亞洲的滲透率亦不比歐美遜色。就已日本為例，日本只佔全球 2% 的人口，但卻擁有全球 13% 的網絡連線！日本的FON業務比歐美遲了一年開始，但增長的速度卻快得驚人。上週我們在當地提供購買 La Fonera 的「大割引」，24小時內就被用家掃清了 8700 隻 Router！

香港人常說「人情紙咁薄」，就連歌仔都有得唱。但透過 FON 社群我們看到了截然不同的東西，就是無私的分享精神！

刊載自 FON Team on Foneros
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Deploying WLAN for office visitors and guests

Hong Kong is an entreprenual society, as such our economy thrives on small and medium enterprises. A lot of these organisations have minimal IT support if any and yet are huge consumers of the latest IT products and keep up with trends.

Wireless LAN (WLAN) or as its more popular name WiFi is increasing in usage in our city particularly as people start using handheld devices such as PDA's and the new generations of mobile phones with WiFi support.

A business doesn't work in isolation and one has visitors, vendors, customers and guests all coming into an office location. Whilst the office staff is generally networked very well (typically with a wired network), visitors are generally left without any access or sometimes offered access via the office WLAN.

Offering access via the office WLAN or even via a wired connection opens up the risk of having an external entity access to an office's internal network. I'll leave it to your imagination as to what could possibly go wrong here (virus infection, internal file shares visible etc).

Whilst it is always possible to deny any form of Internet access to a visitor, it is possible via a La Fonera not only to provide access but at the same time be secure.

You may rightfully ask

Won't it require the visitor/guest" to be a fonero so that he could connect to our office's FON Access Point ?

The answer is

Use the Friends and Family mechanism available by logging in on the FON User Zone.

The Friends and Family mechanism in the FON User Zone enables a fonero to setup local users on his FON Access Point with an associated password. This username and password is specific to that FON Access Point.

Thus with this mechanism, one could allow access to the Internet to visitors/guests in an office environment and still have them separate from the office internal network. Hmm, isn't this like having your cake and eating it too ?

刊載自 Yusuf Goolamabbas on Business, Foneros, Gadgets, Technology
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Thursday, December 7, 2006

Some scenes from the FON Booth at ITU

The FON Booth at ITU has been a beehive of activity with existing Foneros from all over the world making their way and meeting with us and loads of new Foneros signing up for the Fonero Promise. Here are some photos from our booth at the ITU

technorati tags:fon, wifi, itu, hongkong

刊載自 Yusuf Goolamabbas on Business, Events, Foneros
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Tuesday, December 5, 2006

A warm welcome to our Japanese colleagues

Yesterday, FON founder Martin Varsavsasky was in Tokyo participating in the launch of FON in Japan. We at FON Hong Kong extend a warm welcome to Junichi Fujimoto, Nina Nikkhou and others in the FON Japan team to the worldwide FON family.

FON Japan is making the La Fonera available for 0 yen via its Japan shop till the 9th of December so readers of this blog are encouraged to tell their friends and family in Japan to avail themselves of this excellent opportunity. Japan is a popular destination for Hong Kong residents travelling there for leisure and business and similarly for Japanese residents Hong Kong is one of their top destinations for travel.

We hope that with wider availablity of FON Hotspots, residents of both countries will enjoy Internet experience in many locations in the respective countries.

Technorati Tags:fon japan hongkong wifi

刊載自 Yusuf Goolamabbas on Business, Events, Foneros, General
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Thursday, November 30, 2006

The Fonero Promise to schools, non-profit organizations and NGOs

FON isn't just a company with big name investors like leading Internet companies Skype and Google. FON is also a social movement to spread the benefits of information technology to all parts of the world.

In recognition of the valuable role they play in society, FON Hong Kong is proud to announce The Fonero Promise for schools, non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations based in Hong Kong.

What is The Fonero Promise ?

FON's promise is to give you La Fonera for free!
La Fonera is a WiFi router for the FON Community. La Fonera sends out two WiFi signals: one is for your personal use, and the other lets you share your broadband at home with other members of the FON Community (the Foneros). This means that by sharing a little bit of your Internet connection at home, you can enjoy free Internet access at all other FON Access Points anywhere in the world.

Your promise is that you will activate your La Fonera and share part of your Internet connection at home with other Foneros.

In the event you are unable to keep your promise, please give your La Fonera WiFi router to a neighbour or friend so that they can start sharing their Internet connection and join the FON Community.

We invite the appropriate persons from educational institutions, non-profit and non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong to contact us at hongkong@fon.com.

tags technorati : fon wifi hongkong promise

刊載自 Yusuf Goolamabbas on Foneros, General, Technology
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Fonero Promise in ITU

Readers of our blog may be aware that from December 4-8 2006, ITU will hold its first ever ITU Telecom World event outside of Geneva, in Hong Kong. This event will bring together the world's leading Information and Communication Technologies and decision makers.

This is the biggest telecom event in the world and boasts an exhibition, a high-level forum, and countless opportunities for meeting and networking. FON is proud to be exhibiting in the Hong Kong/China Pavilion.

We are going to offer La Fonera via the Fonero promise to visitors at our booth at ITU which is located at Booth 8019.010 Hong Kong/China Pavilion Hall 8 Asiaworld-Expo Hong Kong

What is the Fonero Promise ?

FON's promise is to give you La Fonera, without any cost!
La Fonera is a WiFi router for the FON Community. La Fonera sends out two WiFi signals, one for your personal use and one is for you to share your WiFi at home with other members of the FON Community, the Foneros. This means that by sharing a little bit of your Internet connection at home, you will have access to free Internet at all of the other FON access points all over the world.

Your promise is that you activate La Fonera and share a part of your Internet connection at home with other Foneros.

In case you can't keep your promise, pass on your WiFi router La Fonera to a neighbour or a friend so that they can share a part of their Internet connection and form part of the FON Community

We look forward to meeting with current Foneros as well as future Foneros at our booth in ITU.
Let's have FON!

Update: If you are from overseas, you will get the La Fonera via The Fonero Promise (whilst stocks last) and if you are from Hong Kong, you will get a redemption letter to allow you to pick up the La Fonera from our redemption centres.

itu fon wifi hongkong

刊載自 Yusuf Goolamabbas on Business, Events, Foneros, General, Technology
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Thursday, November 23, 2006

FON Software version 0.7.1.1 Released

Greetings fellow Hong Kong Foneros. We @ FON have recently released FON Software version 0.7.1.1 for the La Fonera. Your La Fonera routers will auto-update to this version in a few days.

We have come across reports from some Foneros who pressed the reset button. This might have reset the FON Software revision to 0.7.0.4, which seems to be causing some problems to Foneros, particularly those with PPPoE connection.

For those Foneros who are having problems connecting via PPPoE and are using FON Software version 0.7.0.4, here's the link to the software image for 0.7.1.1. Reflashing with this image may take a while (up to 10 minutes), but your new baseline FON Software version should you press the reset button will be 0.7.1.1.

You can reach the FON Software upgrade page on your La Fonera by connecting to the private SSID via WiFi and then going to the router config page at http://192.168.10.1/. Click on the 'Advanced' button on the left hand side and then on the 'Firmware upgrade' link.

You can also reach the router configuration page via wired interface.

Here's the changelog for version 0.7.1.1.

刊載自 Yusuf Goolamabbas on Foneros, General, Technology
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