When I arrived at the Mirage I was happy to hear they had broadband net access in the hotel. Upon settling in the room I was pleased to find a special laptop hookup with power, ethernet and modem connections. Looking under the desk, I saw that they used D-link wifi to ethernet bridges to distribute access. I could either plug in with a cable or use the wifi to connect to the net. Pretty advanced for a Vegas hotel.

I did have to sign up for access via the TV set and get a code number that allowed me in. A pain, but not the end of the world.

Yesterday, after dinner and drinks I finally got back to the room sometime around midnight. I tried to log on and for some reason I couldn't get in. The DHCP wasn't working right. I tried and tried and wrote off the failure to my state of intoxication. This morning, I tried agian with no luck.

Calling Guest Services, they told me that 'the internet is down, we are trying to fix it'. I asked it was down last night and they said it was. Well, if you are going to provide net access in a hotel at $10 a pop, you better be able to fix it in less that 8 hours...

In other show news, there haven't been any really new things announced. Apple has some serious deals with GVG, I heard Leitch bought Videotek, HP announced their work with Warner (which I knew about...), and not much else.

Gone are the days of Newtek and the Video Toaster where you couldn't get within 100 feet of the booth. But that's another story.