RedButton Wireless Hotspots Blog

Connectivity with a Cuppa

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:26:00 +0000

RedButton appeared in the news recently, read more about RedButton's growing partnership with WebAfrica here: Connectivity with a Cuppa

Product offering - Summer Special

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:06:00 +0000

Summer has arrived and so too have the new Summer Slam credit purchasing options. Believe it or not but you will now have the ability to purchase credit from as little as R10 at a time!

Teaser Packages
Where else can you buy credit for as little as R10? Need to quickly check an email? Want to catch up on the latest news? Buy from our two fantastic teaser packages. These are the first in the market and are made available especially for you.

Summer Slam Starts November 2nd
The on-line purchasing range will be made available from 2 November 2009 so be ready. This is also your last chance to take advantage of the highly successful Spring Special product promotion.

The Summer Slam product range will be as follows:

Welcome Summer! Its getting hot in here!

Happy surfing,
RedButton

Team RedButton Putt-Putting 2009

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:20:00 +0000

Once in a while we break away from the office to do a bit of good old fashioned team building. On this occasion, we went to the Vodacom World of Golf in Tygervalley, near Cape Town, and it all ended in a putt-off between Barry & Shafiqa, with Shafiqa taking the honours.

Another winner that has emerged from the event is the Pitch & Putter restaurant at the Vodacom World of Golf who now have a RedButton hotspot to serve their patrons before or after a hard round of driving, chipping and putting.

In the picture above, we have, from left to right, Shafiqa Toefy, Hanro van Tonder, Barry Steyn, Divyesh Patel, Neal Tosefky, Nico de Wet, Ryan van Aarde and Jalal Ghiassi-Razavi.

Happy surfing,
Nico

Improve your web experience with a faster browser

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:51:00 +0000

A major factor in the quality of your web experience is the response time between a link being clicked and the result being displayed. This response time is dependent on various factors, the health of your computer, the quality of your link to the Internet and also how "fast" your web browser is.

As a RedButton user you would most likely connect from a Windows based machine, in which case the recent "The fastest Web browser" article published on MyBroadband.co.za may be of particular interest to you. In summary their results show Google Chrome to be the fastest, followed by Apple Safari and with the final podium spot being taken up by Firefox. Using one of these browsers may just improve your web experience.

If want to give any of the winners a test drive, here are the links:

Happy surfing,
Nico

New & Improved Hotspot Site Listing

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:37:00 +0000

We've been grinding away at various efforts to improve our services over the last few months. Some of these efforts are now coming into fruition and the first of these is the updated and standardized Hotspot Site Listing.

If you point your browser to www.redbutton.co.za and click on the Sites button you'll see something completely different to before.

Some of the enhancements include the following:

Uniformity in display (e.g. logos have standard dimensions).
The end user rate & any free wifi allowance is displayed (please see further commentary on this below).
Essentials are displayed, such as the address, including city, province & country.
Each store in a chain is individually displayed along with its above mentioned essentials.
The status is displayed - this is whether the hotspot is online or not, note hotspots that are offline for longer than 3 days are automatically removed from RedButton Hotspot Site Listing to avoid pointing end users to locations they temporarily cannot use.
Powered By field - RedButton uses the services of a variety of selected companies to provide you with the quality of service you deserve, in some cases we list some of these companies.

Some aspects to note:

We only list publicly accessible hotspots, that is hotspots where you could realistically access the venue and use the service within the venue. We have many private hotspots but choose only to market their availability to residents that live within these sites.
We have a limited number of authorized third party companies that use RedButton's services to power their hotspots, such sites are currently not listed.

Further commentary on end user rate - average cost per Megabyte

Please note that when a free wifi privilege is enabled at a hotspot, your average cost per Megabyte will never match the advertised end user rate, it will be lower.

Let's consider a particular example, at Constantia Village Mall you get 10MB free per day, so the first 10MB costs you nothing, thereafter you pay 60c per Megabyte. Now let's say on a particular day you use 20MB, given that the first 10MB was free, you would have used a total of 20MB and used up 600c worth of credit, so your effective average rate for that session is 600c / 20MB = 30c per MB. Similarly, if you only used 1MB after your first 10MB, your effective average cost per Megabyte is 60c / 11MB = 5.5c per Megabyte. Naturally your effective cost per Megabyte is a figure that changes over time.

Now all this may be confusing, and it is, so in the near future we will be providing you with a report in the Account Manager that calculates your average cost per Megabyte in real time. If you have ever used one of our hotspots with free wifi privileges, you might be surprised to find that you are paying a lot less than you think.

Thanks for listening,
Nico

Change in Discount Offering

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:05:00 +0000

Dear RedButton user,

We would like to inform you that our discount offering for credit card purchases has changed slightly as of Wednesday 15th July. Please note, we have not changed the usage costs at your favourite venue. These rates remain the same. We have however implemented a different range of credit card purchasing options.

The times are a changing and RedButton has had to make some improvements to our system which will be put into effect over the next few weeks, the first of which is the credit card purchasing options. These new changes will provide you with more accurate and up to the minute reporting on your usage in real time which will keep you more informed each time you log-in. Additionally, a new splash page/login window will also be implemented and we are sure that the additional convenience this will provide will make your experience with RedButton even more fulfilling.

Regarding our billing, you will notice that we have included new purchase options. Please remember though that the discount offering is only available through credit card purchases. We would also like to inform you that we are going to begin a series of "1-time discount specials" so please keep an eye on these in the future as we would not want you to miss out on them.

For further information on our new discount purchase offering please visit our website or login to the RedButton Account Manager. The new discount structure and purchase offering is as follows:

5, 000 credits - R 50

10, 000 credits - R 100

25, 000 credits - R 244 (2.5% discount)

50, 000 credits - R 475 (5% discount)

75, 000 credits - R 694 (7.5% discount)

100, 000 credits - R 900 (10% discount)

150, 000 credits - R 1275 (15% discount)

Thank you for the wonderful support. We thank you for your much valued loyalty. Loyalty, which will not go unrewarded (keep an eye on this space).

Kind regards,
RedButton

Team RedButton Mountaineering - 2006 & 2009

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:38:00 +0000

We have grown quite a bit in the last three years, and the following pictures show Team RedButton on the top of Lion's Head and Kilimanjaro respectively. The more recent 2009 picture was taken at our recent team social at the end of June, while the 2006 picture was taken back in September 2006 on a more extensive trip.

You might wonder why we put these pictures up here, well its not just for posterity or to shoot for fame, at the very least you know what we look like.

June 2009

Missing from this picture is Barry, also this was Kilian's last full time month and in July 2009 Hanro joined the team.

September 2006

We were just three then in Team RedButton, proud and excited. Note we are more now, and still proud and excited.

Ubuntu powered Dell Vostro laptops

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:25:00 +0000

It's been a while since we've blogged, and this will also be a quick note.

We run most of our business on Ubuntu, its a platform that keeps us productive and competitive. In the past we generally purchased entry level laptops with in effect no operating system on it, we would then load Ubuntu on it but with the second last laptop we purchased it back fired horribly, we found out that it took hours on end to get it limping along and in the end gave up on running Ubuntu on the platform, we simply couldn't waste more time on it.

So, when it came to the next laptop, we decided that it would be far more prudent to spend a bit extra on a laptop where the manufacturer took the time to load exactly what we want on it, and implicitly did all the hardware checks themselves. One of our clients recently purchased an Ubuntu powered Dell Vostro and we had it in our offices for a while to turn it into an internet terminal, we loved it of course, for many reasons but in particular since this was a hotel that independently chose an Ubuntu powered laptop.

So when it came to our next laptop purchase, we decided that we'd make the smart choice and get a laptop that already sports Ubuntu, and with a name like Dell, we felt it would be a safe assumption that they did their homework and it will work out of the box - we did look at some online reviews of course. Well so far it works just fine, its not battle tested yet, so to speak, but given the time we've saved its already a hit with us.

About the Ubuntu vs Vista debate and price comparisons, we've got our mind set on Ubuntu, it works for us and not having viruses, trojans and whatever else on our machines keeps us working hard and efficiently.

Finally, have a look at the Ubuntu powered Dell Vostro here on PC Direct.

RedButton Free WiFi Pitch

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:24:00 +0000

In this clip Kilian Hagemann delivers RedButton Free WiFi pitch as a part of our initiative to spread the service to all of South Africa and the world beyond.

We would like to thank the team at Blue Catalyst for the production of this video clip.

Sinns Restaurant & Bar

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:24:00 +0000

There are a few restaurants in Cape Town that have become synonymous with Free WiFi over the last few years and Sinns, based in trendy Wembley Square, is one of them.

Sinns have recently chosen to switch their service, which has been available for a number of years, over to RedButton Free WiFi and are we are naturally delighted. So when you are next in the mood for some fine dining, a cocktail or two, or a corporate lunch coupled with a dose of Free WiFi, head on over to Sinns.

On an unrelated note, when you hover over the Sinns and Wembley Square links above you'll notice that we've installed SnapShots on this blog which basically gives you a website preview. If you don't like it, please let us know. Note its possible to turn it off, if you hover over the little cog symbol in the pop-up window, you can click on disable.

New Account Manager Features

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:27:00 +0000

A belated happy new year!

This is just a quick announcement, as an end user, in addition to being able to check your recent sessions using the Account Manager, you can now also check up on the status of a voucher and also see what privileges you have at various hotspots.

When you log into the Account Manager, you will see the links "Hotspot privileges" and "Voucher status" in the panel on the left hand side in the Reports section. This is shown in the image below, look in the bottom left hand corner:

The "Voucher status" functionality gives you the ability to check up on whether a voucher is valid, whether it has been used in any way and what type of voucher it is. We have two types of vouchers, Prepaid WiFi Vouchers with a Rand value, these are ordinarily sold by venues, and also Free WiFi Vouchers that give you an Internet allowance, or privilege, at a specific hotspot.

As hinted above, the "Hotspot privileges" functionality gives you a report on all the allowances you have across the RedButton network. These allowances can only be used at the specific hotspots indicated in the report.

As always, we'd appreciate your feedback, either here or by contacting us.

RedButton Free WiFi Revolution Continues

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:00:00 +0000

After a series of arduous night marches, we file this dispatch from our Cape Town HQ. Over the last few weeks, the advance of our Free WiFi network has continued unabated. Hard work has met its reward and our hearts stir with gratitude over every inch of ground liberated. This is however just the beginning, our noble cause is yet to reach its highest tide as the fighting spirits of our heroic comrades soar with each new client served.

By now you might be thinking that we're suffering from delusions of grandeur, its just WiFi we're talking about right? Well, we're quite passionate about what we do and in all seriousness we have been working hard on a number of projects over the last few weeks and are overjoyed at the results.

When it comes to our Free WiFi product, launched earlier in the year, we have been delighted to have a number of new restaurants join our network over the last few weeks, some of which have been in business for over a decade, no mean feat in the restaurant business!

One of the chains that have joined our network is the Saul's Group. Saul's is an icon in Cape Town, with the tasty, gigantic burgers available at Saul's Saloon & Grill in Sea Point stirring fond and often very recent memories for many Cape Townians. The Saul's group has variety in their chain of restaurants that is unbelievable, from Italian at Saul's Piccolo Mondo, to sushi at Saul's Sushi @ Vegas. Apart from enjoying the great food, you can also take your laptop along to any restaurant and enjoy 10MB free daily.

Besides new installation projects, we've also made significant updates to our system pertaining to Free WiFi as well as other enhancements. When it comes to the Account Manager, you can now view the Free WiFi allowances (or privileges) you have claimed at supporting RedButton hotspots. When you log in, click on 'Hotspot privileges' in the Reports section in the left hand panel. We'd greatly appreciate any feedback you have, so please let us know what your thoughts are.

The next dispatch will hopefully follow sooner rather than later, in the mean time, happy surfing!

Remote Network Monitoring @ RedButton

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:16:00 +0000

At RedButton remote network monitoring and on site management is a key part of the service we provide to our clients. We actively monitor every single managed router in our network and take action to resolve any technical issues.

What you might be interested in is how our technicians keep their eagle eyes on the network. Well we've got an internal interface for just that purpose, key information listed on it is the percentage of routers online and routers that are offline. When we see routers that are down we get on it like a company that gets paid by the Megabyte, pronto! The green icons below mean that all is well, the red icons with the doctors briefcase means help is needed.

As you can see we don't only monitor the central hotspot device but also all repeaters that have been set up behind it to increase the wireless signal coverage. What's more, as long as all these devices are online, we have dedicated remote access to the respective firmware web interfaces so that we can quickly and efficiently troubleshoot problems and undertake reconfigurations remotely. Without the need for complex port forwarding, dmz or any other hard to maintain workarounds.

Everything is automated and built-in - a technician (or even a customer in case of a self-install) plugs a preconfigured RedButton device into the network and it magically appears on our monitoring system once the orange light goes on, see previous post on our custom firmware. None of our competitors currently offer a similarly feature-rich, powerful and yet easy to maintain system.

The monitoring system as it stands is already quite advanced but we'll continue to add to it over time. Knowing whether a router is online or not, when we last saw it if online and so on is critical information yet its only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to ongoing high quality service. Watch this space!

So how do I really check my usage?

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:29:00 +0000

From time to time users query the amount of credit used up during a session. This is only natural when logging on to check email and seeing usage that does not fit earlier patterns. In this post, which is generally applicable whether using RedButton or not, we discuss what may cause usage spikes, how to keep them in check and how you can monitor usage in fine grained detail.

In terms of your exact usage you may verify it yourself by logging into your RedButton account ("Buy Credits" from the portal page) and clicking on "Internet Usage History" on the left. It will show you when you logged in, for how long and especially what your uploads/downloads and credit usage was per session. This aggregate information is useful but does not provide fine grained detail in terms of which programs ended up using the connection.

When it comes to usage specifics, unfortunately there are many programs in the background that use bandwidth without your explicit instruction. Examples are Windows or Mac automatic security related system updates, automatic anti-virus/firewall updates, java updates, VoIP programs using bandwidth behind your back to route other people's phone calls, iTunes downloading movies and many more. Such usage is sporadic in nature, one day there will be zero available updates (though anti-virus programs tend to update itself daily) and the next your Windows Update will try to download the next service pack which may take up tons of MB's (Windows XP SP3 is 48MB for instance).

In order to prevent this from happening you may temporarily turn off these services though we do not recommend turning off security related service upgrades (operating system, anti-virus/firewall upgrades etc.). If you do it will expose your computer to a whole bunch of security vulnerabilities and problems which could ultimately cause more damage than the additional bandwidth expense is worth. For example we have had confirmed cases in the past where virus checkers were not updated, customers' laptops got infected with viruses that then proceeded to upload heavy amounts of data resulting in their credits disappearing quicker than they could look.

One thing you can do is download Netlimiter Monitor (http://www.netlimiter.com/download.php), a freeware third party tool that let's you monitor which program uses up what bandwidth and how much. It is only 2.3MB large and will help you greatly in tracking down what's using up all your credits. A word of caution, this tool will give you slightly lower total upload/download figures than our system (especially uploads) because it counts the data on a different network layer than we do.

We hope we have clarified why sometimes our system, or any other, shows more usage than you yourself have explicitly initiated. If you have any questions or feedback please let us know.

Cape Town's New Free WiFi Super Circuit @ Beleza

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:34:00 +0000

A picture says a thousand words and so this post consists of the picture below recently taken @ Beleza - a popular restaurant that forms a part of Cape Town's Free WiFi Super Circuit as mentioned in our previous post. Thank you to Ronald from Beleza for the picture.

Cape Town's New Free WiFi Super Circuit

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000

We launched the RedButton Free WiFi product a few weeks ago and are pleased to report that you can now get the potent combination of free wifi and great food at a number of prime establishments in Cape Town's new Free Wifi Super Circuit. Read on to see where you can experience culinary nirvana whilst doing your business online.

Beleza - 20MB free daily

Beleza is a trendy Portuguese & Italian restaurant on the corner of Kloof Nek and Burnside roads in Tamboerskloof. They lay claim to the best deals in town and back that up with a creative list of specials, such as their famous breakfast, and a wide array of menu options. 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' and that's exactly what we recently did, the Peri burger is out of this world.

With their RedButton Free Wifi hotspot service users get 20MB free daily, this serves as a further example of Beleza's commitment of providing fantastic deals, the following comment by an end user pretty much sums it up "I am sitting at Beleza eating the tenderest Prego steak ever, using their free wi fi, it's fantastic."

Depasco - 20MB free daily

Depasco is a cafe bakery on the corner of Kloof and Buitensingel. Not only do they have an array of freshly baked breads and other treats but also a selection of wraps that are out of this world. Try their breakfast wrap whilst checking your email using the free wifi, you'll love it.

Andiamo - 20MB free daily

Andiamo, situated in the Cape Quarter, 72 Waterkant street, is well known for the wide variety offered by its deli with over 2000 local and important delicacies on offer. We have fallen for their Parma Ham filled tramezzinis, they are irresistible. Visit Andiamo.co.za for a comprehensive coverage of what this prime establishment has to offer.

Long Street Cafe - 20MB free daily

Long Street Cafe is a Cape Town icon that has been operating for over 12 years. If you haven't been here you are missing out! We launched our Free WiFi product at Long Street Cafe and it was the perfect choice. They have since built up a loyal base of free wifi costumers who soak up the unique long street cafe ambiance. Long Street Cafe had a plain wifi router prior to using RedButton Free WiFi and now benefit from a branded and automated solution.

Kauai Shortmarket - 20MB free daily

Kauai's menu is unparalleled in terms of the nutritious smoothies, burgers, wraps and soup & sandwich combos on offer. You can not only eat healthy but also surf for free at Kauai Shortmarket, located just off Greenmarket Square.

Wimpy Rondebosch - 50MB free daily

Wimpy Rondebosch was one of the very first establishments to use RedButton Free WiFi. Wimpy is well known for their burgers and are particularly popular at breakfast times when queues are not uncommon. Wimpy Rondebosch management initially chose to give end users a 50MB free allowance but only after 3 p.m, this was later extended to 50MB free all day long. With this the RedButton's Free WiFi product is used exactly as intended, as a product that is flexible and able to meet the venue's changing requirements.

Café Sofia Kloof & Sea Point - free 20MB voucher with your order

Café Sofia is a rapidly growing and group of Meze and Tapas bars that bring together exquisite decor and their trademark menu that includes various tapas, fine wine cocktails and various specials. They have coupled the launch of their Free WiFi service at their Kloof street & Sea Point branches with a selection of fantastic breakfast specials.

Cafe Chameleon, Plattekloof - 10MB free daily

Cafe Chameleon is another Cape Town icon nestled just below the Tygerberg Hills in Plattekloof. It has been in business for over a decade, step inside and you'll see that the reasons for this impressive stint are self evident. Great food, ambience, specials (such as their current "R1 a cup" special before 9 a.m.), a fantastic view over the mother city and of course Free WiFi.

Final word - maps coming soon

In addition to our existing list of hotspot locations, we'll be releasing a national Free WiFi map in the next couple of weeks so you can see exactly where to go. With this you'll be able to either map out your route in Cape Town's Free WiFi Super Circuit or just find the nearest spot where you can get your fix. Happy surfing!

New Default Prepaid WiFi and Free WiFi Portal Pages

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:31:00 +0000

The current default RedButton portal page, a stalwart that put in a good 16 months worth of service, is due for a face lift and so from coming Friday you'll see the new default RedButton Prepaid WiFi and RedButton Free WiFi portal pages go live at relevant hotspots.

If you have any feedback or suggestions we'd greatly appreciate it, in fact we'll send each of the first 10 users to comment a free R50 voucher as a token of appreciation for your time. Please click on the images to enlarge them before your review, some of the changes are subtle but we'd rather not point them out.

NEW Portal Page @ RedButton Prepaid WiFi Hotspots

OLD Portal Page @ RedButton Prepaid WiFi Hotspots

NEW Portal Page @ RedButton Free WiFi Hotspots

OLD Portal Page @ RedButton Prepaid WiFi Hotspots

RedButton's Cutting Edge Network - Fully Upgraded

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:07:00 +0000

We're proud to announce that the upgrade of each and every router in our network has now been completed. Each router in our network now sports the production release of version 0.9.12 of our hotspot firmware bringing a multitude of improvements in service levels to our customers.

We completed the beta testing phase of version 0.9.12 of the RedButton Hotspot Firmware, mentioned in an earlier post, a few weeks a go and subsequently started the roll-out of the production release.

A primary benefit to our customers has been that RedButton is now able to pro-actively attend to network health issues, rather than an inadequate reactive approach. That's valid even for repeaters deployed at hotspots to increase signal coverage. So if there is an issue at any one of the more than 200 routers in our network we know which one is affected, where it is located and when it last reported in. With this our network has truly reached the cutting edge.

Prepaid WiFi Rate Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:09:00 +0000

We have some good news for our end-users, we are in the process of standardising our RedButton Prepaid WiFi hotspot rates into three rate classes - promotion, standard and premium.

Regardless of the rate class at any particular hotspot users also enjoy the following benefits:

Free 12 month carry-over on credit purchased
No monthly contract required
Only pay for the megabytes needed
Convenient prepaid payment by credit card or voucher
Convenient wireless Internet
Use standard, inexpensive WiFi equipment

RedButton Prepaid WiFi rate classes, as of July 2008 onwards, are:

Promotion rate: 12c/MB bulk to 15c/MB default
Standard rate: 24c/MB bulk to 30c/MB default
Premium rate: 48c/MB bulk to 60c/MB default

The default rates are displayed on the portal pages and users benefit from bulk rates with discounted credit purchases.

Please note that even the premium rate is significantly lower than those offered by our major WiFi competitors, the best prepaid wifi rate you'll get from from one in particular is 72c/MB and your credit expires after 30 days to boot.

Please note that there are exceptions to these rates at selected hotspots:

legacy locations with existing agreements with stakeholders
locations that use the Free WiFi product - highly variable since the venue owner can change the rate at will

Enterprise grade, high quality hardware

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:17:00 +0000

At RedButton we run a network of hundreds of routers with our hardware platform of choice predominantly being the Linksys WRT54GL and also MikroTik Routerboards. In both cases the devices run RedButton firmware resulting in a fully integrated, managed and monitored network. Both devices are used by a plethora of local and international hotspot and wireless Internet service providers (WISPs).

Why do we point this out?

Well, we've recently had an amusing report of a competitor claiming that the we do not use enterprise grade, high quality hardware. While this claim in itself is laughable, as most hotspot and WISP companies would point out, it also misses the point in terms of what consumers want, and that is good service. Hardware in itself, regardless of technical merits, will never equate to good service. One company that just about anybody would bow down to when it comes to service is Google - who incidentally use off the shelf hardware, weaved together in ingenious ways.

And We Have Lift-Off - RedButton Free WiFi Product Launched

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:28:00 +0000

We had a highly successful launch of our Free WiFi product at Long Street Cafe yesterday. To top it off ITWeb today published an excellent article Dining out on restaurant WiFi which effectively follows up on an ITWeb article Free WiFi is 'hard model to get right' published nine months ago.

We spent the time in between the publication of the above mentioned articles working on our Free WiFi product. Our intention has always been to get the Free WiFi model right, to make sure that venues are provided with a product that is flexible enough to make it work for them in their unique environment. Market feedback is certainly showing that we have got it spot on but we won't rest on our laurels, the work continues.

If you'd like to find out more you may be interested in our news release Boost your business with RedButton's new Free WiFi product.

RedButton Free WiFi Product Preview

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:28:00 +0000

We are officially launching our new RedButton Free WiFi Product on the 9th of June and it is available for preview. The product has been specifically built to cater for the needs of the hospitality industry, its all about boosting traditional sales and brand loyalty. Restaurateurs and hoteliers have the control needed to use free Internet as a flexible and effective tool to boost their business.

The following picture of a display outside Wimpy Rondebosch serves as a prime example of how RedButton's Free WiFi product can be used. In this case, since Wimpy is generally chock-a-block serving their legendary breakfasts in the mornings and burgers at lunch time, management decided to make the automatic 50MB free wifi allocation available after 3pm only.

The advantage of an automatic allocation is that little intervention is needed from restaurant staff. Should fine grained tracking be required one can correlate product sales with the free Internet allowance by using venue specific vouchers - for example you get a free 50MB voucher if you order a drink.

We've worked hard on this product. Earlier editions, without all the features currently available but with the fundamentals, have been in operation for nearly eight months now. In the process we have spent time listening to what venue owners have been telling us, listening to what their needs are, rather than what we think they are.

With this product we hope to have once again shown our commitment to flexibility and adapting to market needs. Thanks for listening.

Three WiFi Gadgets That Will Change Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Sun, 25 May 2008 10:32:00 +0000

In this grandiosely entitled post we have a look at three WiFi gadgets that could make your mobile life easier, or just help you glow in the dark.

Eye-Fi - Wireless Memory Cards

Eye-Fi produces memory cards with WiFi built in. In essence you are able to upload your pictures automatically to your PC or favourite photo sharing website (e.g. Flickr, Facebook) once you come within range of your regular WiFi network(s). The service that allows for automatic uploading to photo sharing websites, called WebShare, sounds particularly useful. Imagine all the pictures you would finally be able to share effortlessly instead of leaving them on your hard-drive or worse, still on your camera after months, gathering virtual dust.

Eye-Fi comes in 3 versions, Home, Share and Explore. With Home you can upload to your PC at home, share throws in access to WebShare and finally Explore gives you geotagging functionality and complimentary hotspot access in the USA. We can't wait to get our hands on an Eye-Fi SD card, the Share option looks like the one to go for since with Home the pictures will still be stuck on you PC only it will largely happen transparently.

It seems Eye-Fi SD cards have not yet reached South African e-tailers, search results on Digital Planet, kalahari.net and pricecheck.co.za only showed plain vanilla SD cards. The only place we could find Eye-Fi was here on Amazon.com.

Unfortunately Eye-Fi cards will not work with any hotspot network, such as RedButton's network, that require the user to log in via a web browser splash screen (see this Eye-Fi FAQ entry). Allowing access without a browser based login process is something we are not currently working on but we may in future.

Hotspot Detectors / Wi-Fi Finders

There are a number of manufacturers that have released Hotspot Detectors that allow you to check for signal without having to power on your laptop. Why would you ever need one? Well hotspots are not always very well advertised, for various reasons, and these devices make it easy to pick one up. Imagine being in the middle of some town square in a town you don't know and you need to get connected fast and free if possible, you'd look for open networks on your Wi-Fi Finder and probably head to the coffee shop that tops the list in terms of signal strength.

The ZyXel AG-225H Wi-Fi Finder is one that looks half decent. It can do more than just find WiFi, it takes the logical next step and functions as a WiFi adapter.

And Finally...

If Eye-Fi and Wi-Fi Finders don't work for you, why not get the ultimate, a WiFi Detector Shirt? It sports glowing animated bars on the front that dynamically change as the surrounding WiFi signal strength fluctuates. Walk down any WiFied city street at night, perhaps throwing caution to the wind with a quick sprint down a dark alley, and you'll be lighting up like a christmas tree.

Beware the flood trojan - amongst other programs lurking in the shadows

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:04:00 +0000

From time to time we have users who have background programs consuming portions of their credit balances at unusually high rates. While some of this traffic is legitimate in the sense that the user may have at some time given their consent to for example automatic operating system updates, in some cases a flood trojan has used the user's computer without their knowledge or will. This is one of many security issues Internet users have to be aware of, irrespective of their service provider.

So what is a flood trojan? In fact what is a trojan? Will RedButton try to punt a PC Security Suite? First lets go into what they can do by way of an example. While assisting in diagnosing a problem on a particular client's laptop, our records showed that it managed to upload 310MB in only 24 minutes. To get a better idea of what was happening we gave the customer a free 10MB, asked him to log in and closely monitored his data flow. It turned out that all 10MB were used up in no less than 33 seconds by some program sending data to a particular Internet server whose hostname ends with "static.theplanet.com". A google search on this topic quickly revealed that a trojan virus was at fault, one with a demonstrably insatiable appetite. It was like feeding a crocodile with goulash. While this illustrates the high upload speed of the underlying broadband connection, consider that background programs such as trojans can consume large amounts of data that a subscriber had paid for without their consent. Flood trojans add insult to injury by using the hijacked connection for malicious activities.

We are going to skip the details of what trojans and particularly flood trojans are, click here to read more, the gist of this post is that the need to continuously secure your desktop to ensure its integrity cannot be overstated. Without a secure desktop you run the risk of having your bandwidth used up and in some cases this can happen at lighting speed. There are some basic security practices that you need to adhere to if you have an operating system such as Windows XP

Make sure your firewall is enabled
Make sure your virus scanner is updated and scans your PC regularly - if you don't have one, get one
Make sure you install operating system updates - security holes are often fixed in these

There are many anti-virus programs out there, but one free version you could start with is AVG Free, another tool you might want to use is Spybot Search & Destroy.

If the above practices seem like too much hassle, consider an alternative operating system like Ubuntu Linux, it may just be that you can be even more productive with an operating system that is arguably inherently more secure.

Finally please note that RedButton cannot be held liable for any loss or damage incurred through viruses and trojans on customers' computers as their security and administration is clearly beyond our control. This is stated clearly in our terms and conditions that every RedButton customer agreed to (available here).

RedButton's cutting edge hotspot firmware - now even sharper

noreply@blogger.com (RedButton) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:49:00 +0000

In an earlier post we unveiled RedButton's firmware with its focus on making it easy to set up reliable hotspots that deliver the world class service our end users expect. Well things have just gotten even better with version 0.9.12 beta being released, hold on to your seats.....

End-users can effortlessly connect to our service, regardless of network settings

A small portion of our end-users arrive at our hotspots with misconfigured network settings that results in them being unable to connect. We currently assist these users with telephonic support but with version 0.9.12 of our firmware such support incidents will be eliminated since all affected users will be able to connect regardless. Should the user have a static IP address or static DNS servers set they will still be redirected to the portal page where they can sign up or login. Eureka!
Not only does this cut down on general support, but it also enhances the user experience at a hotspot. Using a competitor's solution a user not being able to connect would either phone for support or worse just leave the hotspot and never use it. We are okay with the former (supporting the user) but the latter (a user leaving the hotspot) is absolutely unacceptable and the "dark figure" of the number of such cases seems high. Our new firmware certainly addresses this problem resulting in increased revenues for resellers and venues apart from higher customer satisfaction.

Enhanced service and technical support thanks to automated remote access

With version 0.9.12 we can ship our plug & play routers to any remote location and our clients can be assured that simplified network troubleshooting and customer support will be available on a plug and play basis. This is thanks to all routers being constantly accessible remotely 24/7 by RedButton technical staff and in future resellers, without the need for additional configuration settings such as DMZ or port forwarding.
This also enables RedButton to monitor each and every device 24/7, be it a hotspot router or a simple access point/repeater, as long as it runs our firmware of course. If an outage occurs our system will pick up the disconnection in under 3 minutes and notify the hotspot administrator via email after 10 more minutes of no activity.
Ultimately this means that network problems may be detected, attended to and resolved even before the customer calls in to complain - a feature that none of our competitors can currently offer.

The Cisco LED lights up orange whenever your main node or repeater is online

We predominantly use the Linksys WRT54GL. The picture above demonstrates this ability: We have one router (the top router) with the new firmware, and the bottom router with the old firmware. As one can see, the top router's Cisco LED is orange which means it has a valid internet connection. The light is off whenever the Internet connection is off. It is therefore not necessary to access the device's web interface to determine if the Internet connection is the source of the problem. This even works for repeaters or access points connected to the main hotspot router. Configuration and troubleshooting during both installation and maintenance related site visits is thereby greatly simplified and streamlined.

Greatly simplified hotspot installation

In addition to the above the process of hotspot installation by means of configuring your router has been drastically simplified. After having successfully flashed your router with our firmware there are very few steps that need to be carried out in order to get your hotspot up and running. In the majority of cases where you already have an existing Internet connection such as an ADSL line all you need to do is plug a cable from your ADSL modem to the Internet port of your RedButton router. Then connect to its web configuration interface, set the hotspot id which uniquely identifies your hotspot on the RedButton network, save and apply and you're in business. For more advanced setups there's always the firmware documentation to fall back on but even there the configuration is surprisingly simple. Of course if you opt for one of our plug & play routers everything has been preconfigured for you, you just have to plug in the cabling.

Fully automated remote firmware upgrade procedure

Ever tried upgrading your third party firmware to take advantage of new features or greater stability? It usually is a painful and frustrating experience as all carefully adjusted settings must be erased and everything reset to factory defaults. Even saved configuration images are useless as they are not compatible with newer versions. This means you have to do everything on site - a costly and time intensive exercise, especially if you have a large network like ours with hundreds of routers deployed.
With version 0.9.12 this entire process can be fully automated. You as the hotspot owner or reseller don't have to do anything, we take care of it. And for us the entire process has been streamlined to the point where within less than 10 minutes the entire upgrade may be completed. At any time of the day - and if there are any users currently logged into the hotspot the process will politely wait until all of them have logged off. This minimises inconvenience caused to the users, ensures high up time across our network and still enables RedButton to deploy exciting new features across its network whenever the need arises.

Finally...

In a few weeks time after the beta testing phase has been completed successfully we will roll out the production version, 0.9.12 final, across the RedButton network. Naturally our resellers and those opting for the Self Service option of our Prepaid WiFi Product will be able to enjoy the benefits as soon as it has been released.