No “tinyurl.com” at Panera Bread WiFi
Posted By RichC on August 6, 2008
Hmm … I stumble upon this irritation today while having lunch at Panera Bread. In the past it has been a enjoyable lunch stop when on the road in different cities as I can check and respond to emails, etc. Unfortunately it has been getting more and more difficult to access what you want, when you want at more and more public hotspots — including hotels. Not only does Panera Bread limit users to 30 minutes access during the day, but they are also blocking certain domains. One example is the site “tinyurl.com” which has become a popular way to share long cumbersome links. Many users of email groups, forums and the popular Twitter have adopted URL shortening, but unfortunately Panera customers will not be able to access them.
Pet peeve number two has to do with the 30 minutes of access as today I was in the middle of updating a GoogleDocs online spreadsheet and zap … no more access. Grrr. (BTW, I’ve tried KLC Consulting’s SMAC 2.0 in order to switch my MAC address and ‘steal’ another free 30 minutes, but the ‘trial version’ doesn’t work with OS Vista)
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