Insights For Success

Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

Restaurant

How to fix issues at hotels, airports and other public WIFI hotspots

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

A captive portal is the intercept page you see when trying to log into most free public WIFI hotspots (e.g. airport, restaurant, hotel, etc.) You are normally shown a page that collects your email and then asks you to agree to the provider's terms of conditions. 

As browsers adopt more secure protocols by defaults (iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, iPad, etc.) there are situations when your device may not trigger the portal webpage correctly. The browser may block redirection to the portal page because it is typically transmitted using unsecured HTTP. 

In some cases, devices will attempt to detect and open an unencrypted webpage to allow the public WIFI router to inject a redirect URL. WirelessPhreak has a good technical article that discusses why new more secure tech is causing this issue. 

Each smartphone manufacturer uses a different non-SSL webpage to detect a captive portal:

  • Google Android: http://connectivitycheck.gstatic.com/generate_204
  • Apple iPhone & iPad: http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html

What do you do if that automated portal detection doesn't work? How to you trigger the captive portal?

Enter the webpage Never SSL. If you are connected to a public WIFI (that should work) but are not seeing the captive portal, open your browser of choice and navigate to http://neverssl.com/
 

This will fix your issue and you should be bathed in warm loving WIFI Internet. 

Now you too can smell like pizza

GeneralEdward Kiledjian
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Do you have a pizza fetish. Do you eat, sleep and dream of pizza? Are you jealous of the pizza man because he always smells like fresh pizza pie?

Now Demeter brings you Pizza Cologne ($US20). What does it smell like? Tomato sauce, cheese and oregano. This is sure to make you irresistible to the ladies. surprisingly, the customer reviews are positive. 

You can buy it straight from the manufacturer (link).

Amsterdam is home to the only one person restaurant

TravellingEdward Kiledjian
Humans are social creatures and we dread eating alone (unless you are on a business trip of course). 
A new restaurant in Amsterdam called Eenmaal was designed [from the ground up] for single person dining. 
“Eenmaal is a restaurant like any other restaurant, but one thing is totally different: you only find tables for one person here. Eenmaal is an exciting experiment for those who never go out dining alone, as well as an appealing opportunity for those who often eat alone at restaurant.” - Marina van Goor, social designor
This is a social experiment as much as it is a restaurant. It will be open tomorrow (Thursday) for 2 days only in the Bos en Lommer district.