Laptop friendly cafes, or not
A nice overview of laptop friendly cafes, for Sydney and a couple of other global cities, indicating if they offer free laptop powerups, public wifi and have any 3G connectivity. Check out the Sydney locations, and vote on your favourite.
Having said that, some cafes, at least in the US/New York, are feeling the GFC pinch, as the WSJ writes “Coffee Shops Pull the Plug on Laptop Users“:
Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables — nursing a single cup and surfing the Web for hours — and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading…
As Norm Elrod experienced first hand, blogging on Jobless and Less:
…but waiting for me at my home office away from home office was quite a shock – little plastic covers on the electrical outlets, secured with little padlocks. The cafe was unemployed Norm-proofed, and I was devastated. They might just as well have kicked me in the crotch and pushed my hunched-over body into traffic.
Might not be a bad thing, as people might start to talk to each other again…
EDIT: As Cr@iG notes, LaptopFriendlyCafes.com now also has an iPhone app!