Free Wireless - popup on user logon?

Gordon

A mate of mine owns a bar and has wireless for anyone wanting it, without a password just free to all. He is wondering if it's possible to have some sort of script/program that makes a popup message/opens a url when someone logs onto the network for advertising purposes.

I doubt this exists as I don't think it's possible, but I could have sworn I've heard of something like that happening somewhere. But then, I am getting older..

Thanks for any info!

su_dios

Something like the BitBuzz service that you get in Kylemore etc. Would be better to have password etc and to give out tokens when someone buys something from the bar.. they then must log into the site which is the bar's website to use the wifi?

No idea how to go about this though. Why is this in the Mac forum though? Try the web developers forum

xebec

I've seen it used in hotels where the first web page that shows up after you connect is the homepage of the hotel or a T&C page, then you are free to browse after that. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?

Not sure how it works though, sorry!

Gordon

I guess that's the thing yeah, like hotel startpages.

I put it in the Mac forum as I need to do it with an Airport base station (I should have said), or maybe that doesn't matter? Would it be better in the webdev forum or is there a Mac-solution?

WizZard

It's called a "captive portal".
Free software is available to turn a Linksys WRT54G device into a hotspot with a captive portal.

See www.nocat.net for more info on the software (can run on any of the *WRT firmwares)
Not sure if there is a way to do it *on* an Airport base station... I doubt it's possible without another machine. It's mentioned here but it doesn't say if it can be done on the device itself.

Urban Weigl

Gotta love this quote from the nocat web site:
"Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied:
"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

Gordon

Cool, thanks for the info lads, I'll check out the possibility of getting a linksys router instead.

Cheers

spidermonkey

or a good cat;)