Why NORAD Tracks Santa

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The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

via Why we track Santa, found via Nick.

Blog Slacking? Nope, Limited Bandwidth.

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Looks like I’ve been slacking on my blog updates in the last two weeks, but it ain’t really so. I just had to conserve my 3GB worth of 3G bandwidth for work. On the other hand, not only will my real vacation kick in tomorrow (24th), but we’ll also be in a villa with (likely) ADSL and (for sure) wifi. Photo/video posts to follow! :)

Sharing 3G Internet Via Mesh Networking

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As you probably know, my family and I are in Mexico for a few weeks. Because we’re here for close to a month, I’m working full-time for part of our trip while my wife and kids enjoy the goodness that is the all-inclusive Sandos Playacar (we’ll be moving in a villa for the last 2 weeks on the 24th). This lead me to acquire a TelCel Amigo 3G USB stick (comes with 3GB of monthly bandwidth).

Since this is the only constant internet connection we’ll have throughout our stay, I wanted to be able to share the connection so that I can also connect via wifi for our iPhones (unlocked, also set with simple pay-as-you-go local SIMs, but no data) and my son’s netbook.

If you happen to be on OSX, doing so is absolutely dead-easy.

  1. Connect to the internet via your 3G connection
  2. Make sure Airport (wifi) is on
  3. Go to Systems Preferences → Sharing
  4. Select Internet Sharing
  5. Select your USB stick’s hardware from the list of ports in the “Share your connection from” section (see screenshot below)
  6. Check the “Airport” checkbox
  7. Set a network name and WEP password using the “Airport Options…” button

Tada! You should be all set and now be able to see your mac-as-an-access-point from any wifi-compatible devices. Enjoy! :)

Update: Had forgotten to attach the screenshot I mentioned. See below.