[Sigia-l] HOTEL rooms AND Wireless at the IA Summit

[skot at penguinstorm.com]

>There has been some miscommunication about wireless at the Hyatt in
>Vancouver.  They have a new system installed, which explains the confusion.

For those interested, a guide to free Wi-Fi in Vancouver:
http://vancouver.wifimug.org/index.cgi
(not my creation, and I have contributed only slightly.)

Trees (http://vancouver.wifimug.org/index.cgi?TreesOrganicCoffee) is near your location, but does have limited connectivity - you'll need to use webmail, not your native client. Great coffee though, and good food.

Downtown Vancouver takes about 20 minutes to 1/2 an hour from end to end on foot, if even that long. You'll have no trouble getting around.

A plug for my favourite store (at which I can afford to shop only occasionally) Inform Interiors on Water Street, which maintains a great book selection related to all things design from Urban Planning & Architecture to Graphic Design & Interactive Media. I suspect that there are a large number of people on the list who would enjoy a visit, if you get the chance. It's about 15 minutes by foot, on Water Street in Gastown. Paul and Harry and all the staff there are great.
http://www.informinteriors.com/

I had good intentions of getting an area guide up and running with sights to see for people, but got waylaid by a new job, amongst other things. Work in progress is here http://www.penguinstorm.com/vancouverguide/
If people express enthusiasm, I may pursue. It's derived from a site I built prior to my (now defunct) wedding.

Near the conference and hotels is by far the best place to go for food/drinks etc in Vancouver -- the Mill Bistro. You can watch seaplanes land and take off, and by the time the conference rolls around the patio *might* just be open. It's well worth going -- especially for the patio.  It's surprisingly not so expensive (although it's not *cheap*)

Do hope everybody has fun on their visit here: as screwed up as it is, I do think this is the best place in the world to live. If anybody's got any questions, feel free to email me off-list (I can collect and post to list if questions get common.)