porn year 2012: wifi

Showing posts with label wifi. Show all posts

Monday, November 9, 2009

Panera Bread Borks Their WiFi Even More.

Panera Bread has apparently starting blocking link-shortening services such as Bit.ly.

They say it's to maintain a "family-friendly" atmosphere, since they actually filter all the traffic delivered on their connection, and as such they need to know where the links go.

I'd say it was horseshit, but it's not like it matters. P-Bread's WiFi is already terrible. They've just made it more terrible. I don't know about you, but all this just makes me yearn for Panera's pseudo-urban, synthajazz interior, shitty espresso, and bad fruit salad.

Seriously, the major guys are the last places I would go for my internet fix, and this just confirms that. Hit up a local shop, instead. They'll actually have a good, unfiltered connection.

Panera Bread Blocks Bit.ly Links (TechCrunch.com)

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Please Welcome Borders to 2003.

Borders Books has announced a deal with Verizon, of all companies, to provide free wifi in their bookstores and cafes. The CEO of Borders said this is all part of "Re-engaging with customers as a serious bookseller" and "is one of our strategic priorities."

This of course has nothing to do with the fact that most local cafes and bookstores have been offering free wifi for the better part of a decade and, shockingly, Barnes & Noble just started offering free wifi. Oh yes. This has nothing to do with B&N.

This is the exact reason why Borders is an also-ran retailer that's been on the verge of insolvency for years. They don't lead. They don't think. They follow, and do a damn poor job of that.

Welcome to 2003, Borders. You're only six years behind the curve. Better than you've been in a long time.

UPDATE: Well, this is fun. You know how I complain about Barnes & Noble, Panera, and basically every other major corporation offering free wifi? Unlike Coffee Exchange, or Updike's Newtowne, or Bagelz, there is a portal page through which you must agree to terms, and then sign in.

Why are there terms? Because if there weren't, the company lawyers would have nothing to do. It's shitty, plain and simple. Well, Borders does them all one better. Instead of signing in and then assigning your computer an IP number based on your MAC address (if you didn't understand that, it's ok. All it meant was that the wifi recognizes your computer and lets it in.), Borders and Verizon actually have an application that runs in the background keeping your connection active. It actually hijacks the connection from the operating system and acts like some kind of wifi cop.

I didn't have my laptop with me, so I can't confirm if it's as deathly slow as Panera, Starbucks, or B&N, but chances are it is. These big companies don't fucking get it. It's not a business model. It's not something you can skimp on. Either do it right, or forget it. For my part, you know where I'll be? I'll be at Updike's Newtown, enjoying better espresso and better wifi.

Borders to offer free Wi-Fi (Crunchgear.com)

Saturday, September 19, 2009

WiFi

I just used my laptop for some full-on WiFi access in Coffee Exchange. Much like their coffee, Coffee Exchange is a case study in how to do shit correctly.

The place was packed with people on laptops inside and out. At least a dozen, not including me. The connection was quick and fast. Page to page reaction was measured in tenths of a second, and the connection was fast enough to stream YouTube videos with aplomb. All of this without some inane portal page through which I must "sign in."

Now compare this to Barnes & Noble or Panera Bread, where I have to sign in, which sometimes doesn't work (or in PB's case, NEVER works on my cell phone), and even after that the connection is laggy, and slower than leap-year-old molasses. It's useful for checking e-mail and that's about it.

My experiences at Panera and its ilk further prove that the big guys seriously don't get it. They know how to be a big franchise and apply exacting quality control over a massive empire, but are completely unable to reach beyond that. I can only assume it's because by the time the big guys become big, they've been taken over by suits, armed with MBA's, and applying all the little nuggets they learned from those thick things called books.

This compliment goes to other places as well, including Brewed Awakenings and Blue State Coffee. Many if not most of the small guys know how to do service right, as opposed to trying to hawk over-branded garbage for ridiculous prices.

Monday, May 4, 2009

WiFi Locations

I recently received a comment on my Mainstreet Coffee review about free WiFi and it prompted me to do something I've been meaning to do for some time, namely, start listing WiFi locations for cafes.

This is a pretty big concern since all of the big players, like Starbucks or Barnes & Noble, are still trying to charge for WiFi. And the only big players offering free WiFi, like Panera Bread, suck. They're slow, with connection errors, and only get worse when the place gets crowded with laptops.

And the last one has fallen. Everyone can welcome Starbucks into 2005, since they've finally started offering free WiFi. As near as I can tell, ALL major companies are now offering free WiFi.

Barnes & Noble is now offering completely free WiFi. It's still quite inferior to the local cafes, though. It's slow as shit, just like Panera, and it has a "portal" page, through which you must sign in, just like Panera. This sucks if you have a cell phone, or want to connect to the internet through something other than a browser (Like Yahoo! Go). Cell phone browsers, at least the ones based on WebKit that I use, usually won't even connect. Contrast this with Coffee Exchange, which has an open connection to which you simply connect.

Barnes & Noble even does one better by using the free connection as an opportunity to advertise AT&T "premium" access, whatever the hell that is. So while it initially seemed that B&N had figured out that WiFi as a business plan was as stupid as a pet rock, they actually haven't. It might explain why, during a recent visit, even with a massive FREE WI-FI sign and a filled-to-capacity cafe, not a single person was on a laptop or cellphone.

Borders Books has just followed in the footsteps of Barnes & Noble and started offering free wifi. If you think the sign-in pages at the others is bad, they take it a step further by actually having a small application run in the background that keeps your connection open. It hijacks your computers network connection ability. That's some bad mojo, in my book. UPDATE I just ran Borders on a laptop. The application is apparently only opened on cell phones. It DOES NOT open on my laptop. Not like it matters. The connection is just as bad as Panera, which means just barely usable. The connection is far too slow to do anything but check e-mail. No YouTube, no music, no nothing. Hell, it took 30+ seconds for my Yahoo! page to load. Pathetic.

Panera Bread has done Borders one better by filtering their WiFi to include totally legitimate services, such as Bit.ly. This means that you will not be able to click links received via Twitter. Combined with a connection that borders on dead, Panera's WiFi is pretty much useless. I'd recommend buying food there and going to Starbucks or Barnes & Noble. Or better yet, go to a local shop that has gen-yoo-ine decent WiFi.

I'll concentrate on cafes and restaurants, since it seems kinda' weird to list places like clinics that offer waiting room internet.

I would appreciate additions from readers.

I'm adding star reviews to the cafe's and places I've been to. Some of the reviews are to places I haven't formally written about, so I'm just throwing in the stars I would have given had I written a full entry.

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