WiFi is popping up everywhere I go
Now that I’ve got my batteries recharged from a long holiday weekend, it’s time to get to work. In my "infinite wisdom" however, I scheduled an appointment for service on the Highlander Hybrid first thing this morning. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking, but no matter: I tossed my UMPC and EV-DO card in the gear bag and I’m already sitting at the dealership. [I wonder if they'll realize I've got the tires inflated a bit too much but still within standards... it IS helping on the gas though.]
They have a nice customer lounge here and usually I pop in my USB modem and surf over EV-DO, but today I noticed something different. I always knew they had WiFi here at the Toyota dealership, but as expected, it’s protected with a WEP key. Instead of sitting in one of the comfy chairs today, I sat down at one of two little desks they have in the customer area: staring me right in the face is a little sign with the WEP key for customers to use while waiting for service. Nice touch and now I can leave my USB 727 in the bag! Have you found WiFi in any unexpected places lately? It’s becoming more prevalent on my travels…
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Those of us who are EV-DO disabled have to work our whole schedules, work and play, around free wifi (sniff!):-(
bluespapa, I feel for you… really I do. However, I believe the politically correct term is “3G-impaired”. ;)
I recently found that the tire shop I go to, Discount Tire of Chamblee, GA also has wifi in their customer lounge. It had no WEP key however, so it might have just been “stumbled upon” but it saved me the trouble of tethering my Treo 700wx to my laptop like I normally do if I can’t get WiFi access– And since I was “working from home” that day, it really came in handy!
I own two Fantastic Sams beauty salons and I make free wifi available for my customers. There are quite a few people who come in with elderly parents or their kids and bring their laptop or pda and start working. Since I like to find wifi wherever I go I decided to let my customers have it.
I do find wifi in a lot of unsuspected places, but lately I’ve been carrying an evdo modem so it doesn’t matter as much.
Belly Burger on Geary Street in SF. Heh.
Toyota 101 in Redwood City, CA, has had free WiFi for quite a while.
I’ve got to say one unexpected place I found free wifi was in a hospital emergency waiting room. When you’re there for a non-life threatening reason (as thankfully was the case) you’re likely going to be waiting for quite some time. It was surprising because I usually associated hospitals with needing to turn off all my wireless devices, not being encouraged to use them.