I was in Dallas a few weeks ago for a few sales call, and I met my sales guy in local McDonalds parking lot. I needed to jump online real quick (still can’t get a broadband card OK’ed), and I noticed that the McDonalds had a AT&T WiFi sign on their front window. I decided to try it since I have AT&T broadband at home, and I’ll be darned if it didn’t work. Had a nice sign on page where I could input my broadband user name and password. Very nice.
Of course, there are not a whole, whole lot of Micky Dee’s that have WiFi. So I usually find myself in a Panera Bread because, unlike Starbucks, they have free WiFi. However, Panera’s are not near as prevalent as Starbucks, which often leaves me in a quandry (in my not-so-humble opinion, Starbucks should pay for my Internet access if I buy a coffee and a scone - believe me, I very rarely leave a Starbucks without at least having a tall non-fat no-whip mocha).
But a few months ago I heard that AT&T was getting in on the action at Starbucks as well, and they supposedly were offering free WiFi to AT&T broadband customers. SWEET. So I went to few Starbucks over the last few weeks, but I never saw an AT&T WiFi sign. Oh well. I figured it was taking them a while to get it all in.
Well, being the dumba&& that I sometimes am, I never just tried to see if they had it going by simply connecting to wireless and seeing if I saw an SSID out there. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a go. And there was not an AT&T SSID anywhere. Dang! Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait some more.
But I really needed to get on the Internet (I had a proposal that was due, and I was about to be on the road for 4 hours), so I hooked up and prepared to shell out some money to T-Mobile. And then, what did I see up in the top right-hand corner of the T-Mobile page (kinda small and inconspicuous, BTW)? There was a AT&T Broadband image that beckoned me. I clicked, signed on (just like McD’s), and I was on. OH HAPPY DAY!!
Now, I have not tried this at any other Starbucks yet, but my assumption is that it was not just this little Starbucks in Ennis, TX (25 miles south of Dallas on I-45). So I am happy. Now I can go to Starbucks, buy my mocha, and then surf to my heart’s content.
Vet
I have heard some good things about Safari for Windows, so I am going to try it out. And since they are pushing it with the new version of iTunes (not quite as heavy handed as the push out to Mac users - I had a choice to decline it), I figured what the heck.
The first load was pretty slow, but that is to be expected the first time it comes up on a new system. It loaded much quicker the second time around. I’ll play around and let you know what I think later on.
Update. I said later, but here are a couple of thoughts / impressions right now:
- The load status of webpages is in the address bar, which is different for me (maybe that is standard for Mac users).
- Intense Debate (the new blog comment system that I am beta testing) seems to work fine with it. Intense Debate also works great with Firefox on my system, but IE seems to choke on it quite a bit.
- The fonts seem to be a tad hazy. Not as crisp maybe
- iGoogle looks pretty good on it
- The redlines under suspected misspelled words is much more noticeable
- I still like IE7’s new tab feature rather than needing to hit CTRL-T
- I don’t like that there is not a history arrow in the address field. Instead you have to click the history menu. Maybe that is just because I am used to it, but I like that feature on IE and Firefox
Maybe some more later.
OK, more: Where is the area that gives you a preview of the link you are about to click on? I can’t see where I am going!! Oops… OK, found it. You have to choose View > Show Status Bar. This is becoming more like a twit post than a blog post. 
Vet
December 31 is the last day of free SkypeOut calls (calls using Skype to regular numbers outside the Skype network). I know a lot of people use Skype for calls. I personally use it for conference calls from the office quite a bit. I can switch to my mobile or office phone easily, but I know some people who use it for podcasts, and it makes it quite efficient.
The good news is that SkypeOut is pretty cheap. It will be $29.95 a year for unlimited US and Canandian calls, which I think is dang good. If you buy now, you can get it for $14.95.
So, anyone planning on signing up?
Vet
Thanks to Pito at salas.com for the link to this site. Very sweet looking speed test site. And you can choose speed test servers all over the world. Of course, they could be downloading malware on your PC, but hey, it is still cool!
Vet
