What’s on your back-to-school tech list?

The Houston Chronicle has a tech-oriented back-to-school shopping list for college students: Bluetooth headphones, a Roku or Apple TV box, and a 5 GHz WiFi router. The headphones are presumably for tuning out your new roommate as they recount every episode of Game of Thrones they watched on their Apple TV. But the last item is interesting in the way the article suggests students use it: to create their own private WiFi network, using the 5 GHz router plugged directly into a wired access point. That way, they won’t have to compete with other students trying to sign onto the dorm’s general WiFi router. The lesson for apartment owners? No matter what you install in your property to connect your residents, some will invariably try to set up their own little network within the network to leapfrog others, especially if the access points in your building cause a bottleneck. So next time your wondering who set up the new WiFi network in your building’s lobby, just look at the guy, or girl, next door. Read the full article here.