Coffee break- comfy in Panera Bread
I don’t get into Panera Bread enough, I don’t know why. It is far more comfortable and amenable to productive work sessions than that big coffee retailer. The free WiFi is more than welcome too. I’ve been here for over an hour and gotten a lot done with far fewer distractions than that other place. It’s been interesting too as I have been working on the MacBook. It seems I have totally adapted to the multi-touch capability of the touchpad as I don’t even realize I am doing it while I’m working away. I was working for a good while when one of the professionals working behind me approached and asked me to demonstrate it. He had been watching me work and was intrigued how I was interacting with the computer using light touches on the touchpad. We spent a good while with me showing him how many different things I was controlling via the one- to four-finger touch gestures on the pad. It made me realize how intuitive the touchpad is that I have totally integrated it into my work session without thinking about it. This guy was visibly impressed too.
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Panera is a problem if you work with a VPN. Not sure what they, perhaps renew DHCP leases very frequently but you can’t keep a VPN connection open for more then 10 minutes.
They do block some content I’ve found. Regular sites, nothing funny, that somehow are on some NG list. Not too bad unless one of the sites is critical for your work.
Hi James,
A while back I posted a comment that I preferred Panera to Starbucks for working. I’m not a coffee person (I’m a diet soda nerd) and I find the food, tables/booths and free WiFi much more conducive to work than Starbucks….unless you don’t like Panera coffee!
Do you think you’ll continue to carry your wireless mouse or is the new touchpad so good that it won’t be necessary?
Alan, I have yet to even connect a mouse of any kind to the MB. This is the first time I can state that ever.
Hi James,
Regarding Panera blocking sites, I’ve found that as well — on rare occasions, but still. Panera blocked Robert Scoble’s weblog!
I sent a scathing e-mail to the software filtering company as well as posting an item about it in one of my weblogs. A few days later, the filtering company wrote me that they unblocked the site.
I am definitely not a fan of this type of filtering and have written several columns about it. We might see more of this with the FCC’s interest in auctioning spectrum with a “family friendly” filtering mandate — that I call “intellect-hostile (http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id=155118).
Hi James,
Thanks for the info. Using a mouse requires moving your hand from the keyboard (duh). So if you don’t need a mouse, you might also be faster.
Actually, I’m not sure how you guys sit in a busy coffee shop of any kind and get things done. I spent last Thursday in a Panera’s with a friend brainstorming and writing, and I was just too distracted by the various meetings going on between the medical people, the teacher and student having a conference behind me, the noise of the counter, everything.
Our local SBs is just as bad – the noise of the drive-thru is terrible. It’s not that I need silence to work, but I guess my ADD kicks in with all the comings and goings.
I tend to agree with pam- i can’t think of a more distracting place to try to conduct business. I love my sbux- but i go there for a cup of coffee and perhaps to meet someone for a short meeting. Between the people talking too loud on cell phones, people constantly coming and going.. it seems like a zoo. A public library is a much better choice if you need to actually work on a computer. How many times have we heard james talking about how he was asked a question about whatever toy he brought in on one of his many coffee shop travelogues? I really don’t need to play “Mr. Wizard shows off his new device” when I am trying to get some work done.
I tend to agree with Pam and Bill; coffee shops are way too loud. The Common Roots Cafe in Minneapolis is the most productive place in Minneapolis in my humble opinion. Some of the reasons it’s the perfect place is: they have really amazing food, good coffee, local micro-brews (good with their food), free wifi, people don’t hold meetings there, and I can’t even remember the last time I heard a loud cell phone conversation. The number one reason that I like it is that over all everyone is very respectful. Everyone does their own thing quietly which allows everyone to get things done. I’m sure in every city there is a place a lot like this, you just have to search for it.
Necropost, I know, but I just tried to VPN @ Panera today, and I couldn’t even get connected in the first place. Both DDNS and fixed IP, and full signal.
So, unencrpyted, I made one VoIP call home to check in, was told my brother was sick and needed to be picked up, so I called his phone, and each call was just silence. I’m not sure why it worked one minute, and not the next. Was I the first person to use this VoIP port, and it got content filtered automatically after that, or was there some human intervention? In any case, passwords changed…
Disregard that last paragraph, VoIP isn’t working at home either. What the frak.