Jean Galea

Health, Wealth, Relationships, Wisdom

How to Bypass Time-limited Free WiFi Restrictions

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Picture this: you arrive at an awesome cafeteria and decide to sit down and do some work on your laptop. You buy a nice croissant and coffee and immediately connect your laptop to the WiFi connection.

After 25 minutes you finish your snack and start working, but alas, your session only lasts 5 minutes before the WiFi disconnects and you are notified that there is a 30 minute limit to the connection. There goes your work session!

How can we bypass this restriction?

All you need to do if you’re using an Apple laptop is to download a free application called LinkLiar. This application enables you to generate random MAC addresses and that will prevent the WiFi network for identifying you between sessions. Every time you generate a new MAC address using LinkLiar, you are effectively seen as a new user and given another 30 minutes (or whatever the time restriction is) to enjoy free WiFi.

This is a great tool to use in airports, where it is very common to have time restricted free WiFi, but it can also be used in cafes and restaurants or other areas with time restricted WiFi.

Of course, use your common sense and make sure that you are not disrupting other people by using this technique. It’s pretty harmless in airports, but hogging a table in a busy restaurant during lunchtime is not respectful. 

Building a NAS Backup System (With Extras)

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A while back I wrote a guide to backing up one’s important digital assets. In that post, I mentioned that I decided to go for Synology instead of the Drobo, specifically the Synology DiskStation DS916+.

Apart from the negative comments on the Drobo, I had also begun to understand the potential of NAS technology in a deeper way. I realized that I would want to do more things with my NAS box than the Drobo would allow. The Drobo is not really powerful enough or doesn’t have a good enough operating system for doing things like media encoding or handling a home surveillance system.

Some readers might also be familiar with the QNAP brand. They are also highly recommended, but most prosumer users tended to prefer Synology. I’ve also read comments saying that the Synology OS is better and more user-friendly. This might be more important to you depending on what you want to do with your NAS. For example Synology have very good functionality for creating a video surveillance system.

Synology also seems to release more frequent updates to their NAS products. Synology are generally regarded as the most popular NAS choice for Mac users.

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The Best Coffee Shops in Barcelona

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coffee-shops-in-barcelona

I love working from coffee shops or just stopping by for a chat with my wife whenever we need a break from work.

Here are some of my favorite coffee shops in Barcelona. Some of these are not really good to work from, but they do have great coffee. My main criteria for this list is how good the coffee is.

Buying Coffee Beans

If you want to buy coffee beans so you can make your own blend of amazing coffee at home, here are my recommendations for local coffee roasters:

Coffee Subscriptions

If you know any other great coffee places that I should try, please leave a comment.

Best Cafes & Libraries to Work From in Barcelona

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cafes-for-working-in-barcelona
I have the good fortune of currently living in the amazing city of Barcelona, with it’s outdoor life culture and tons of restaurants and cafes.

Armed with my trusty Brompton and uber-light Macbook, I frequently head out to work from the cafes that dot this city. In this post, I will be listing my favorite cafes and libraries.

If you’re an entrepreneur or digital nomad and you also live in Barcelona, make sure to join the Barcelona Digital Nomads and Entrepreneurs group, where you’ll find lots more advice on making the most of the city.

The following list will be periodically updated as I try out more places, but please do leave a comment if you know of any particular place that is pleasant to work from and has good Wi-Fi.

Cafes

Sant Gervasi

Gracia

Vallcarca

  • Sandwichez – Coffee is low quality though.

Eixample

Sant Antoni

  • Coco Coffice – a new concept in Barcelona, where you pay by the hour and have access to refreshments and coffee.

Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera

Gotico

  • Federal Cafe – On the expensive side but exquisite food and coffee and a nice ambience to work from.

Poblenou

Libraries

Sant Gervasi

Gracia

El Clot

Here’s a Google Sheet by my friend Theo that lists several places that he tried out, it’s a good reference point too.

Looking forward to your suggestions!

Are You Color Blind?

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color blindness.jpg

I recently discovered that I’m color blind to a certain degree. There are several degrees of color blindness, and this congenital disease affects mostly males (up to 7% of the total male population).

The test you need to take at your eye clinic in order to determine whether you are color blind or not is called an Ishihara Test. You will be shown a number of slides and you will need to determine what number is shown on each slide.

If you want a free quick test to determine whether you are color blind or not, you can use the Enchroma color blindness test.

My test results put me in the mild deutan category. Here’s the description of moderate deutan color blindness:

Deutans are people with deuteranomaly, a type of red-green color blindness in which the green cone doesn’t detect enough green but is too sensitive to yellows, oranges, and reds.

As a result, greens, yellows, oranges, reds, and browns may appear similar, especially in low light. It can also be difficult to tell the difference between blues and purples, or pinks and grays

If color blindness causes you problems on a daily basis, or if you just want to experience what the world looks like to the vast majority of people, Enchrome makes special sunglasses that aim to correct color blindness. There are several videos on YouTube capturing the emotions of color blind people trying them out for the first time; they’re quite interesting.

Personally, my color blindness hasn’t significantly affected my daily life. In fact, I didn’t even know about the condition until I visited a museum that had some basic information about color blindness on display, and I realised that I couldn’t see the numbers shown, meaning that I had some degree of color blindness.

I am curious, however, to try out the Enchroma glasses, especially in a sports context. I’d love to see whether correcting my color blindness would help me in my padel play. It would also be interesting to know whether specific padel court surfaces are better and provide more contrast with the ball for a color blind person.

Anyone else tested positive for color blindness? Has it affected you in your daily life? Let me know in the comments section below!

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Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete