This is only a guess, but it worked for me down here in the “unassigned media filing center” on the 3rd floor: disable IPv6 in your Network Preferences. Before I did this, I was getting the dreaded “self-assigned” IP; once I turned off IPv6, things magically worked. Don’t know enough to know why.

By the way, the wired Ethernet access down here on the 3rd floor is fast and reliable (unlike the WiFi, which, reports are, is quite flaky and seems to depend a lot on the location of your lap). Easiest way to get down here from up there is to take the elevator that’s just outside the blogger-area exit; get off on the third floor, and walk to your right until you see “Press Filing” on the door.

It looks like it’s possible to get access to the actual “floor” in some sort of rotating fashion. I’m going to try and investigate this next.

The day I leave the country, my landlords at get to ride Segways. There is no justice.

I’m slowly filling up the DNC Photo Album with pictures. This photo of Barack Obama shows why having a camera with 10x optical zoom comes in handy.

David Sifry, from Technorati is working with CNN here at the DNC. Apparently this requires many, many computers; witness his command post:

As I am sitting behind him in the Fleet Center, I presume this means (a) I am the Shawn Murphy of “CNN on blogging” — the guy in the background while the Minister of Finance is delivering the budget and (b) I am the blogger who is charged with blogging the guy who indexes the blogs. I feel very Mobian.

There are non-Mcdonalds food options in the entrance of the Media Center. They appear to have cases upon cases of Red Bull. What is Red Bull, anyway? There are also salads, breakfast cereals, and what looks like fruit salad.

Here’s what I’ve found so far, here at the Fleet Center.

There’s a large temporary stucture beside the Fleet Center. You will know it by the yellow tubes running out the side and the snack bar at the front. This is the (or at least a) Media Center. Large news organizations — NBC, USA Today, AP, Reuters, NPR, and the like — have sectioned off areas here, filled with monitors, edit bays, and other tools. Other than the hallways, there doesn’t appear to be any “unassigned” space here. But there is plenty of WiFi. I post this, for example, using the open WiFi of the Washington Post (thanks!).

In the Fleet Center proper, the third level does, indeed, contain an “unassigned press filing center.” I peeked inside the door: it looks like the boiler room on the Queen Mary. There are desks and (it is said) wired Internet up for grabs here.

Way, way up on the seventh level (take the escalators, or the elevator), in section 320 (look for the signs over the doors), is the “blogger area.” There’s WiFi up there, but if you have a Mac you have to do a little voodoo to get it to work (the DHCP server doesn’t appear to work with Macs: manually assign yourself an IP address in the 10.128.21.* range and things might work; maybe Panther only). There’s also power. Which I’m going to need in 38 minutes or my iBook will die.

The bloggers are very friendly.

On the ground level there is a Mcdonalds and Dunkin Donuts.

Watch the elevators: if you get off on the wrong floor, you may get castigated by the Secret Service (I saw this happen).

I came downstairs to get something to eat so as to avoid collapse. And I found my brethern news service:

Here are the bloggers, doing their blogging. In the Fleet Center:

I have found the secret “blogger area” and because I have a digital camera around my neck, and a laptop on my lap, I am blending in and nobody seems to notice that I’m in the lower “news service” caste. With the help of a help fellow Mac user, I have tricked the WiFi device into getting me online.

I have not been so brazen, however, as to have taken one of the official blogger desks. So I’m sitting in a yellow arena seat, perched high above the convention floor.

Speaking of which: more light has been shed on the credentials vs. access issue. In formal convention terms, there is a “floor” of the convention. This is actually the floor of the Fleet Center. It is red carpeted, and labelled with the names of various state delegations.

While I have Hall credentials, I do not have Floor credentials. Although apparently I can enter some sort of lottery by which I might acquire 15 minutes of floor fame. I believe, however, that this would also require that I anchor the NBC Nightly News. I’m not ready for that yet.

So here I am. Covering. The Convention.

It’s mid-afternoon, and the band is going through their sound checks. There’s a whole lotta singing of the national anthem — proudly hailing, and so on. Right now it’s Miss Teen New Mexico’s turn. If the sound checks are any indication, the anthem will be sung many, many times tonight.

More as events develop.

PS: I have not eaten or had anything to drink since my 4:30 a.m. trip to Tim Hortons. I think maybe I should go and do that now (that is Catherine’s little voice in my head speaking).

I’ve made my way through the security check — nothing more than what you would see at a smalltown airport — and into the temporary building that’s been set up for the media. There is reputed to be “unassigned media filing space” here somewhere, but it is like the Holy Grail — I keep getting pointed along the hall.

So I have created my own space, here on a dolly beside the curtains surrounding the Associated Press. There is free Wifi — indeed it seems to be in abundance, as there are about 10 networks in evidence.

If you’ve found the “unassigned media filing space,” please let me know. I’m off to look some more… gotta file!