Panera Bread...part 2

Esto es una coincidencia de verdad y veo que no soy la unica que le facina el WiFi gratis de Panera Bread. Normalmente recibo e-mails de parte de una revista tecnológica llamada Small Biz Resource y dá a casualidad que en la sección del Blog habia un articulo que me interesó con tan solo ver el titulo - WiFi To Go: Who needs a home office? I can get coffee, ambiance and surf for free - pero solo lo guardé para leerlo más tardecito. Despues de escribir el post acerca de Panera Bread, me puse a leer unas cuantas cosas...entre esas, pues el articulo ya mencionado. Y pues dá la casualidad que tambien habla sobre la comodidad del WiFi gratis aqui en Panera Bread. El artículo está escrito por Naomi Grossman, Editora Asistente en Small Biz Resource, y su articulo lo quiero compartir con ustedes así que disfruten...eso sí, está en inglés:


June 28, 2007


I got a phone call a few weeks ago that made my knees go weak, caused me to groan out loud, and compelled many of my family members to come running to my side to see what was wrong.
"What is it?" they cried in unison. (They never do anything in unison so this was a treat which, if I wasn't so upset, I would have enjoyed.)
"The boys' camp called," I said sadly. "There will be no bus from Boston. They have to leave from New Jersey."
My husband's face broke into a broad smile. Everyone else muttered, "that's it?" or some variation on that idea (no longer in unison) and returned to whatever they were doing. My husband hung around to gloat.
See, if my boys went to camp from Boston (near where we live), my husband could drop them off at the bus. If they leave from New Jersey, it's up to me because my job is more flexible and I could, theoretically, work from anywhere.
"Please, please," I implored. "I can't take that scene. All those kids, all those parents, all that luggage."
"Sorry," was all he would say. "I can't take off." He tried to hide his glee but it was painfully apparent.
I resigned myself to a day of chaos and then got online to figure out where I could find a suitable wireless hotspot. My requirements were free WiFi, coffee and the hope of a little quiet. Our local library has free WiFi and is fairly quiet so I checked out the WiFi availability in libraries in the New Jersey area where I'd be — of which there were quite a few — but without the promise of coffee a few steps away I knew I wouldn't be able to work.
As usual, Web Worker Daily came to my rescue with a list of franchises with WiFi.
I knew I could go to Starbucks, but I wasn't prepared to pay. My choices were then limited to Cosi (which I had never heard of) and Panera Bread. I found two Panera locations right near the bus stop, got the directions from Mapquest, and threw the duffels in the trunk.
I won't go into the gory details of seeing my boys off to camp but it was as noisy and frenzied as I anticipated. In addition, the heat wave that New Jersey was experiencing took us all by surprise and was a nice little "bonus." In contrast, Panera bread was an oasis of calm, with iced coffee available anytime I wanted, power outlets to keep my laptop going, and no one making me feel like I needed to leave. The lighting was great and I had my choice to sit in a comfortable club chair or at a table.
My only complaint was that Internet Explorer consistently acted up, with extremely slow load times and frequently refused to load any images. Mozilla Firefox behaved much better.
I had been bugging my husband that we needed to add on an office for me in the house, but if Panera bread opens up in our town, I might reconsider.

Comments

algarcia said…
igual no te hagas lios, ya con el de la panera tienes porque son fijos en todas las tiendas. yo creo que starbucks no deberia cobrar por el servicio, o bueno, cobrarlo para el mayor ancho de banda y con WEP para el que lo quiera pagar y navegar mas rapido y seguro, y dejarle a la gente comun una coneccion insegura, lenta (1024k en comparacion a los 4mb de la relativametne ancha) pero gratuita. de cualquier modo en jiwire.com estan bastantes locaciones no solo en el pais sino en todo el mundo, y especifica si el hotspot es gratuito o no En Caracas si hay mas lio, aun cuando hay ciertas listas de los sitios con WiFi yo he estado revisando y muchos no sirven. En un tiempo pienso poner una listica de los sitios que si funcionan (he visto dos realmente buenos y seguros) Tenia tiempo que no pasaba por este blog, un par de meses, saludos.
LaTati said…
Montandole cuernos a Starbusck???

QUE HORROR!!! jajajaja
Marole said…
Epa Alfredo gracias por visitar y comentar denuevo. A mi me facina Starbucks, pero simplemente creo q' es un robo lo q' cobran por el Internet. Panera Bread es rico y ofrece WiFi gratis.

Tati, no cambio mis cafecitos Starbucks por nada de este mundo pero la comodidad del WiFi gratis es incomparable jejejeje.

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