Sounds like someone REALLY needs to grow up.

Schlotzky's Deli
12071 Metcalf, Overland Park

802.11g
SSID:  Schlotzsky's

It's really been a long time since either of us has reviewed a new location-or at least one we haven't investigated before-and been forced to deliver a "do not use" recommendation.  And the reason I'm doing it here may brand me as an old fuddy-duddy in some eyes.  Well, too bad.  Don't hit this hotspot-or any of Schlotzsky's others-until its corporate management abandons its protracted adolescence and stops disrespecting users by blasting music from the company's homepage into their unsuspecting ears as part of the connection process.

I can't think of anything more rude than this.  There's a reason the vast majority of websites that used to go in for this nonsense abandoned it years ago.  If I were to emulate the level of emotional maturity this represents by going out into the parking lot and cranking my car stereo up with the door open, how long do you think it would be before I was politely asked to leave-and if I didn't, how much longer after that would it take before my enforced departure-in the company of the police-came about?  Why, then, would anyone think that I-or any other adult, for that matter-would appreciate a company doing the same thing as I'm trying to sit down to dinner? 

And while you're at it, Schlotzsky's, you could stand to lose the Javascript clickthrough page as well once you've fixed this, since you won't need the boobytrap script anymore. 

Schlotzsky's has at least one other location around town that's listed as lit up, but I'm not going to bother with it for the time being.  Anyone else who wants to look into it is welcome to give us a report.  As far as this one goes, there are only a very few power outlets along the walls; I'm currently plugged into one against the north wall towards the front, right next to the window.  It's about 7:30 p. m. so I can't estimate how much the apparently tinted glass would help with daytime screen readability.

It's from the government, but it's NOT here to help you.

Very interesting, what happened in Coshocton County, Ohio according to both Glenn Fleishman at Wi-Fi Networking News and an on-the-scene newspaper, when media conglomerate Sony contacted the operator of the county's city-block-sized free hotzone with regard to an alleged copyright infringement by a user of the network who supposedly downloaded a movie. The operator notified county officials, who in the grand tradition of government bureaucrats everywhere at every level, promptly proceeded to panic, wet themselves and completely shut the hotspot down.

Now where do we start with this? Obviously neither the county nor the operator was exposed to any potential liability to the copyright holder, since ISPs are exempt from responsibility for their users' actions in this regard. Perhaps if they'd paused to take a deep breath and then put in a call to the county attorney before dashing to the restroom, these officials would have at least saved themselves from the well-deserved roasting they're receiving in the blogosphere for their rashness.

Then again, maybe this is just a belated example of why "muni-fi"-large-scale networks planned or in some cases actually set up by local governments during Wi-Fi's first great wave-never panned out. Not counting the local public libraries-which, of course, are a special case-the only publicly run hotspot I'm aware of locally is the one up at KCI Airport-and even it was originally built and operated by Sprint. The bureaucratic mindset is, sadly, one firmly ensconced in the twentieth century or earlier, and thus not well suited to the challenge of providing such services despite gallant efforts to do so earlier this decade.

Too bad.

Oh, and to ath64...One is tempted to suggest that had one bought a Mac to start with, one would not face the need to point out what one sees as the shortcomings of the current product line, would one?

It's baaaaaaaack...

Well, I guess in the interest of fairness I should pass on this report from Joyce Smith of the Kansas City Star that the coffeehouse in the Power and Light District which opened last spring touting "free" Wi-Fi but showed no open routers when I visited and then went belly up in September has risen from the grave, so to speak.  It's scheduled to reopen today, in fact, under new ownership.  No mention of whether the access situation will change, however, but the shorter hours noted in the story don't bode well.

I think we'll give everyone a couple of days to settle in before one of us does a walk-by to see if further investigation is warranted.

Oh, by the way, Mac-the outfit that ran the other coffeehouse north of P&L on Grand with the Wi-Fi signs in its front windows which piqued your curiosity last year may have bitten the big one, given that their website is now defunct.  Might be worth checking out in person.

No, Starbucks, you STILL don't get it.

Well, Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News has a somewhat different take on Starbucks' latest machinations with regard to its "free" (read "buy something and we'll throw a little in") access than I do.  At least we both agree that it's misleading to call it "free." 

Frankly I don't see how adding "levels" and a FAQ that even Fleishman calls "insanely complicated" makes anything "easier."  Sort of like how moving the USB ports right next to each other and making the batteries non-user-swappable makes the newest MacBook Pros more appealing to us road warriors. (Sorry, Mac-I was really thinking about one until I took a close look.  Really, I was.)

When is Starbucks going to throw in the towel, do away with this nonsense once and for all and join the real free world?  From this, I guess it'll be a week or two after Apple introduces a mouse with two buttons.

The more some things change...

...the more one sometimes ends up wishing they'd stayed the same.

Remember about a year or so ago when I stopped in at the KCMO Public Library's Southeast branch and commented on the big table they'd set up towards the back that seemingly could be a boon to the building's laptop-friendliness if they'd wire it for power?

Well, they have...but unfortunately-or actually fortunately for the non-laptop toting crowd that frequents this place-they've employed the table for what they'd apparently intended it for all along-to add ten sorely-needed public-access computers, only one of which is sitting vacant as I write this just after 4:30 p. m.

It just would have been nice if they'd taken my hint and also done a bit more toward accommodating not only patron-owned laptops, but their loaners, since either would go a long way toward alleviating the pressure on their public desktops if there were more places to sit with one, and more readily available power outlets-which is important given that since this is essentially the only free hotspot anywhere around here, you've got to expect patrons to stay longer than they would otherwise.

And while I was out this way...

Panera Bread
15108 West 119th Street, Olathe

802.11g
SSID:  PANERA

First, the bad news.  The Javascript clickthrough page I complained about at the Legends location is apparently a systemwide "feature" now.  That and a user agreement that takes longer to read than eating your dinner are downers.  (Just as an aside, if that agreement actually reflects the attitude of Panera's corporate management and isn't just bought-and-paid-for legal boilerplate, they really need to think about whether they truly even want to continue offering Internet access-before, not after, they're faced with having to try and enforce it.)  On the up side, power outlets abound along the walls and the tinted windows might help with screen readability in full daylight (it's just now 7 p. m.).

And just to see what would happen...I fired up Java and jumped onto bipolarworld.net's site to try the chatrooms and guess what?  Here's another network administered by people who don't think that keeping port 7000 open is dangerous.  Gee, you'd have thought from that user agreement that someone from the KCMO Library's IT department would be moonlighting for them.

You forgot about Olathe, Mac.

Never mind, however.  I appreciated the opportunity to revisit a location I haven't used since I believe this blog's first week or so.  I'm in the main Olathe Public Library at 201 East Park downtown and I'm happy to report that if the patron KCMO so shamefully shunted aside spends any time out this way and would like to drop in with his or her laptop, port 7000 is ready and waiting on this connection.  Let's see-that makes 2 for 3 among the public library systems that still have open networks.  If keeping 7000 open were truly so dangerous as KCMO's IT director thinks it is, that wouldn't have been likely, would it?

I've got two quibbles with this location, however.  The first is that owing to the makeover they've given it since I was last here, the only laptop-friendly seating is at an eight-position carrel table towards the back.  Well, at least they thought to provide a pair of power strips so maybe I protest too much.  Quibble No. 2 is, I'm afraid, a bad one:  This is the slowest connection other than Johnson County's that I've run into in a public library in years.  Signal strength is OK so it's got to be on their side of the router.  Let's just hope I'm here at a bad time of day (5 p. m.) and this isn't indicative of the network's regular performance.