Category: Mobile Devices

This is a bit dated. But, since I tend to use WiFi at Starbucks now and then, I wanted to make a note for myself to remember where I read this Starbucks blog item about its WiFi hotspot program since they don’t seem to have permalinks for individual blog items. Check out the March 25, 2008 blog entry titled…

Wi-Fi changes—coming your way

Here’s a repost of that blog item in its entirety in case it becomes hard to find as it finds its way into the Starbucks blog archive…

This is Kevin Shawver and I work on the Wi-Fi program at Starbucks. First of all, I am excited to see all the energy around free Wi-Fi—we know it is important to our customers. I was secretly hoping that free Wi-Fi would be #1 amongst the popular ideas, but I’ll take #2.

Back in February we announced that we’re switching to AT&T as our Wi-Fi provider in our U.S. company-operated stores. As Brad Stevens mentioned in his post on March 24, we’re thrilled to be rolling out two hours of complimentary Wi-Fi service for customers who have a registered Starbucks Card. It’ll be simple to sign up. All you have to do is:

1. Register a Starbucks Card
2. Sign up for an AT&T Wi-Fi account (and limited ATT marketing)
3. Come to Starbucks and login

To keep your newly created Wi-Fi account “active” you’ll need to make a purchase with your registered Starbucks Card or add additional funds to it within the prior 30 days of logging on. We feel that the complimentary two hours is a meaningful amount of time and a fantastic way to reward Starbucks Card holders.

We have customers with a variety of needs—some want to come in and read, some want to chat with a friend and others want to use Wi-Fi. Starbucks means different things to different people and the two-hour limit helps balance the many needs of our customers so that everyone can enjoy spending time at Starbucks. This service will be available to all customers nationwide later this spring.

I had a Banana Foster Cream Pie for dessert as part of my lunch the other day and didn’t know what it was. Searching for the term on the web led to famed TV chef Emeril Lagasse’s website. And, what do you know, it has a mobile friendly version. This was important since I was using a Windows Mobile smartphone at the time and not the more browser capable iPod touch. Still, mobile friendly sites look better than conventional websites on the iPhone and iPod touch too. So, I’m always pleased to find a mainstream (non-techie) site that is mobile friendly.

I was just reading the article about the release of Ubuntu Linux 8.04 over on Arstechnica…

The Heron has landed: Ubuntu 8.04 officially released

…and this comment caught my eye: The next major version is Ubuntu 8.10, which is codenamed Intrepid Ibex and is scheduled for release in October. During the Intrepid Ibex development cycle, the focus will be on mobile computing and desktop scalability.

I’ve installed a bunch of different Linux distros and distro versions on notebooks over the years for testing: Fedora, Ubuntu, Puppy Linux, etc. Everyone of them has been flawed from a mobile notebook point of view. Battery management was non-existent, WiFi support was awful, LCD displays were acceptable at best. I assume Asus’ custom Linux for their Eee PC handles these issues well. And OLPC’s Sugar OS (based on Fedora) seems ok too. But, these were tailored for their hardware. I’ll give Ubuntu 8.04 a spin on a notebook for testing. But, I’m not expecting much.