It’s hard to believe, but despite the really bad uptake of broadband services, or perhaps because of it, Ireland leads the way in WiFi hotspots!
Last week I had the pleasure of using the free WiFi services in Douglas shopping center to make a post on the Mallow Camera Club site. I had half an hour to kill so I popped into O’Brien’s, bought a coffee and a biscuit and settled down. I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of this generous gift. I spotted three others seated at various points around the library tapping away on their laptops. It’s something I never imagined I’d see! Yes, yes, yes. If you’ve enjoyed the use of free WiFi in your city this won’t be anything new, but this is in the “Celtic Tiger” economy where nothing is free and everything is over-priced.
So, next time your significant other is popping down to the shops, tag along. They might have free WiFi and it’ll do you the world of good to get out from behind that desk! I’m waiting for retailers and restaurant owners in Blarney to realise that free access to the Internet would draw all the self-employed Internet geeks out of their homes and into their establishments. I wonder how hard would it be to drop that hint …
I’ve seen that in the Douglas SC and its great seeing people tap tapping away on their laptops. The other shopping centre beside it also has wifi I think.
You don’t get that in Dublin much at all.
I can’t see free WiFi lasting myself. There’s money to be made out of it, everyone’ll convert over to tokens/CC payments in time.
Out of curiosity Donncha, why are you sourcing js files from various hostnames?
Take a look at this page. It recommends using multiple hosts because browsers will download the content of your site more quickly from various hosts instead of one.
It also recommends using keep alives but when I do that bad things happen because my VPSes aren’t very powerful. I’m not sure if there has been much of a difference in load times tbh.
For what is worth I have put a map on my blog of places that I know that have free WIFI in Cork. I am starting to colour code it so that as I confirm that it is 100% free I will hange hte pin colour.
Hope people find it useful – Go here http://tekkytips.blogspot.com/
Kieran