First impressions

I've been making the rounds with a new MacBook Pro for about two weeks now, and I've got to tell you that either Macs are intrinsically better at Wi-Fi or the manufacturers have all gotten their act together since I last bought a laptop. I have yet to run into any of the low-signal-strength problems previously reported here. In fact, I'm posting this from the Plaza Library-a place that has taken its share of licks from ath64-and my AirPort indicator is showing four solid bars. Come to think of it, I haven't been anywhere it hasn't yet. (I guess the acid test would be the Town Pavilion, right?)

Anyway, is what I'm observing indicative of what the rest of you Mac toters are finding? And how about the rest of you who've bought new Windows machines in, say, the past year or eighteen months? Ath64's recently deceased primary laptop was nearly three years old when it bought the farm; its backup, the poor radio performance of which has been mentioned here more than once, is a year older than that. Will bringing a new computer into the mix bring this blog's evaluations more up to date with regard to how easy it is to stay connected out there nowadays?

Also, are there locations anyone's visited where Macs-or Linux machines, for that matter-are at a disadvantage due to the way the network is set up? There have been at least two documented here-the Johnson County Library and KCI Airport-whose apparently Internet Explorer-only splash pages don't seem to be fully functional in non-Windows browsers. Although neither network denied a connection outright on this basis, I sincerely hope there aren't any hotspot operators cheating themselves-perhaps unknowingly-out of customers this way. If there are and I come across them, you'll be forewarned here.