Wi-Fi Woes

After a few days 'breaking in' my laptop at home I thought today was time for a road-test. So I packed the 17" beauty into it's Ferrari red padded sleeve, squeezed it into my bag and headed for the bus. After completing the few errands I had to run (see my other blog) I decided to see how my new baby handled in the wild.

On my trip to Florida earlier this year I'd brought a borrowed laptop with me and made use of the abundant available free Wi-Fi. The only places I encountered that didn't offer it were the beach and the Church my friends wedding was being held in.

It seems Harrow doesn't believe in the same need for public internet access. Neither shopping centre appears to have it and the only premises I could find which advertised their internet connectivity were McDonald's and Starbucks.


Having had issues with this particular branch of McDonald's' sketchy signal before, and unwilling to put up with the noise and ruckus of rampaging teenagers for a free surfing session I passed in favour of Starbucks.

Presuming (rightly) that the BT Openzone in Starbucks was not not something you could just log on to, agree to the terms and get straight onto the web I asked the lovely young lady behind the counter if they gave free Wi-Fi access. Bearing in mind that my public Wi-Fi experience is limited I had presumed I'd receive a voucher/code thingy giving me an hour or so of surfing. The lovely young lady didn't have a clue what I was talking about, neither did either of the two lovely young men also behind the counter.

As I had come to expect from previous encounters with Starbucks over the years, there was no manager on duty, it seems they're only wheeled out for special occasions and wouldn't be found dead working on a weekend.

So I find myself sat in Starbucks, sipping my Grande Mocha (no cream, seasoned with Nutmeg) and a enjoying a tasty Cinnamon Whirl, with laptop before me. Sadly I'm reduced to typing this into OpenOffice for later upload to Blogger instead of seeing how my new portable computing beauty handles when you pop the top down, spin the wheels gun the engine and head on down the information super highway.