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Now I’ve done it.  Well, me and about a million of my closest friends who like to work on their laptops at Panera Bread restaurants across the nation.  

When I sat down at my favorite Panera in Edmond today to log on to their free Wi-Fi service I was greeted with an advisory in bright red letters.  Wi-Fi users will be limited to 30-minute sessions during “prime time” hours of 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.  I’ve blown it and my friends have blown it.

For the past four years, whenever I’ve needed to get away from the office to transcribe a long interview or work on a story without editor interruption, Panera has been my place of choice.  Sometimes that means I’m in the store and logged on for two or three hours at a time. I alway at least buy a cup  of coffee, and most of the time I buy lunch.

 I thought something was up because I was working at the Panera out by Mercy Hospital a couple of weeks ago and lost my connection. When I tried to log back on I got a message that I had “exceeded” my time limit. And I didn’t even know I had one! 

I’ve got to hurry to get this posted. My 30 minutes is almost up.

Jim Stafford
Business Writer 

PS: I had to move to the Edmond Public Library to post this blog post. My 30 minutes ran out at Panera and it cut me off, just like that.

So AT&T brings up a Samsung Blackjack smart phone they want me to try out, which means I have to find a use for it.  I found it in the GPS that is onboard the phone.

 The wayfinding technology includes a link to a site that finds the cheapest gas stations in a particular location.  Users can select the location by zipcode or let the GPS find stations in the phone’s location.

It was an “aha!” moment.   As a result, I let the phone guide me to a gas station in far north Oklahoma City that promised gas for $3.67 a gallon Friday. 

 See Saturday’s Business section for the results.  And check for a video that documented the cheap gas search. 

 Jim Stafford 

Business Writer 

The obituary for Windows XP was written by Microsoft more than a year ago, but the demise of the computer operating system was delayed until June 30. 

That means that Monday  will be the last day that the software giant will sell the OS that is being replaced by the much maligned Windows Vista. 

 Here is what Microsoft has to say about the impending death of XP:

Last year you told us you weren’t quite ready to say goodbye to Windows XP. We listened. That’s why we delayed our plan to stop selling it until June 30, 2008.

We love that you love Windows XP. We’ve seen it on our website, in e-mails, and through independent online petition drives. Our engineers work hard to build innovative software that empowers our customers. It’s nice when you tell us we’ve made a difference.

But our commitment to innovation sometimes means making tough choices. This is one of them.

After careful consultation with our customers and industry partners, we’ve decided to proceed with our plan to phase out Windows XP in June. It’ll be a long goodbye. We plan to provide support for Windows XP until 2014.

Well, I wouldn’t exactly describe my feelings for XP as “love,” but it’s what runs the computers here at The Business. I’m sure it will be years before we actually say goodbye to the old OS. 

Jim Stafford

Business Writer

The S&P report released this week reported that in the top 20 markets in the nation, housing prices fell when looking at April 2008 to May 2007 in comparison to April 2007 to May 2006. When looking at the same time period,

It’s debatable, but I think including refis in the data is important. If overinflated appraisals influence the index, fine. The market is what it is.

Plus: Having an idea of home values is important as an indication of what kind of price my home might fetch if put on the market. All homes have values. Only homes recently sold have prices. They are not the same.

2. The OFHEO index uses only data from conforming, conventional mortgages provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The S&P/Case-Shiller index uses data from county assessor and recorder offices.

This is debatable, too, but since everyday people, at least in Oklahoma, live in a conforming, conventional world in conforming conventional houses bought with conforming, conventional loans, what happens in the high-end “jumbo loan” world doesn’t concern me that much.

Of course, changes in the prices of upscale homes affect the market as a whole — but I think they have more effect on aggregate statistics and averages than they do in my — and most people’s — humbler neighborhoods.

3. The S&P/Case-Shiller indexes are value-weighted. Trends for higher-priced homes have more influence on the index than other homes. The OFHEO index weights trends equally for all homes. See paragraph above.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index is not without value. But the truth behind one cliché can be used to get at the truth of another, in finding the proper way for Oklahomans to regard it:

Use the axiom that “location, location, location” means everything in real estate to separate meaningful information from the “lies, damned lies and statistics” flooding the housing news.

Richard Mize, Real Estate Editor

Are you leveraging your resources to deal with challenges on a going-forward basis?

Is your team leader getting granular about incentivizing your platform’s 2.0 capabilities?

Do you actually understand any of this nonsense? Unfortunately, many of us can decipher this “office-speak,” most of which is designed to obscure or impress rather than communicate.

BBC News readers recently shared some of their least favorite office-speak phrases. Elsewhere, Investopedia provides a handy buzz word glossary for financial and investing terms such as “click and mortar,” and “gazump.”

If you’ve got a particular phrase that sets your teeth on edge, share it in the comments. I’m getting tired of “at the end of the day,” which almost always refers to something other than “the end of the day.”

Don Mecoy
Business Writer

One day I was yakking on the cellphone with my wife as I drove east on 15th Street in Edmond, waiting for the light to change so I could turn left onto Broadway.  Both of our kids were in the back seat.

When the light changed and I pulled into the intersection I found myself nose-to-nose with an ambulance — lights on and siren blasting — that was trying to get around the intersection traffic.  I had neither seen nor heard the emergency vehicle.
I stopped where I was and the ambulance somehow maneuvered around me.

After the ambulance cleared my car I turned into the northbound lane and drove about 50 yards when I saw the flashing lights of an Edmond police car in my rearview mirror.

My first reaction was to put the phone down into the console between the front seats  —  with my wife still hanging on the other end of the call  —  and pull into a parking lot with the policeman right behind me.

“I guess you didn’t hear the ambulance,” he asked.  No, I didn’t, apologizing profusely for my inattention. He told me to be more careful in the future and let me go on my way.

My kids were loving it, of course, but the point was that my attention to my cellphone call almost cost me big time. 

Of course, I still use my cellphone when driving, although I recently purchased a Bluetooth wireless device that lets me drive and talk without having the phone stuck in my ear.

All of which leads me to a front page article I saw in last Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune newspaper. California has passed a law that makes it illegal for drivers to use a cellphone unless using a hands-free device.  Beginning July 1, California police will begin ticketing drivers caught with a phone in their ear. 

California isn’t the first state to make talking and driving illegal, and it won’t be the last.  I’m sure that such a law will land on Oklahoma books in the not-too-distant future.  I’ll be ready, Bluetooth device planted in my ear.

Jim Stafford
Business Writer

We love our SUVs here in Oklahoma.  Just drive up to the intersection of Broadway and 33rd in Edmond some afternoon and watch the parade of Suburbans, Tahoes and Hummers roll past.

There seems to be a “what, me worry?” mentality among many Oklahomans when it comes to the price of fuel. It’s either that or the rugged individualist attitude of “you can take my SUV when you pry my cold dead fingers off the …” well, you get the drift.

Now, Men’s Health magazine has confirmed what we Oklahomans already knew. We’re not very “green.”

In an article in the magazine’s July/August issue, Men’s Health grades the 100 major cities in the United States on the “green” tendancies of their drivers, and here’s what Oklahoma City and Tulsa earn: 

Oklahoma City … C-
Tulsa … D

To uncover the best emission-minimizers and the worst gas-guzzling offenders, the magazine tabulated data on gas consumption, measured miles racked up annually, checked air quality (ozone and particle pollutants), logged vehicle efficiency (that is, their size, age, and frequency of tuneups), and incorporated mass-transit quality and usage.

The nation’s worst gas-guzzling offenders?  Arlington, Texas (at No. 100, the absolute bottom of the barrel); Yonkers, N.Y.; El Paso, Texas; Riverside, Calif.; Birmingham, Al.; Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas, all earned “Fs.”

The magazine awarded “As” to 13 cities, including top-ranked Seattle. Also earning an A+ were Burlington, Vt., and Portland, Ore.. Earning As were Madison, Wis.; Fargo, N.D. and Rochester, N.Y. The cities of Minneapolis; Spokane, Wash.; San Francisco; Norfolk, Va.; Boston, Oakland and Buffalo, N.Y. each earned an A-.

Find the complete list at www.menshealth.com.

Jim Stafford
Business Reporter

They struck the set at the BIO 2008 International Convention in San Diego on Friday afternoon when the four-day conference concluded.  There were still about a dozen Oklahomans working the booth when the convention ended at 2:30 Oklahoma time.

 No one will know what dividends the $250,000 or so investment the Oklahoma BioScience Association made in the show will yield for months or even years down the road. I do know that state had a high-profile pavilion and that folks like Emergent Technologies and OU researcher Paul DeAngelis were meeting potential business partners right to the last hour of the conference.

 I took several photos on the last day of the show, and will post a few here.  At the top is the BIO sign that stretched across the front of the San Diego Convention Center.  At left is Mike Moradi of Charlesson LLC, who was staffing the booth at the close.

Other photos below include Dan Luton of OCAST and Joe Parli of Tulsa Community College, as well as H.K. Lin from the University of Oklahoma.  There is also a photo of DeAngelis and John Hoopingarner with Emergent holding a last-hour meeting in the Oklahoma booth’s meeting space, as well as a photo of Brien Thorstenberg of the Ardmore Economic Development Authority talking with Tom Walker of i2E.

We’ll see all these folks back in Oklahoma soon

Jim Stafford

Business Reporter

It was wall-to-wall presentations at the Oklahoma pavilion on Thursday, with six companies or entities delivering slideshows to small audiences. I caught the first three. The cool thing was that some passers-by would always stop, listen for a minute from the aisle, then take a seat in the audience.  One guy even had a long discussion of Tom Kupiec from DNA Solutions and Analytical Research Laboratories after his presentation.

 Here are some photos of the first three presenters at Thursday’s show.  That’s Tony Hugli of Health Aide at the top, and at the bottom are Kupiec and Ken Miller of Kemmx Corp.

Jim Stafford
Business Writer

The Wall Street Journal grants front-page territory today to a story about the resurgence of ventriloquism, led in part by Terry Fator’s victory in the NBC television show “America’s Got Talent.”

I recently interviewed Oklahoma City ventriloquist Gary Owen, who remarked on the recently growing popularity of ventriloquism. After our interview, Owen told me he drove to Ponca City to see Fator performed and was wowed by the show. Owen wondered why Fator, who recently signed a $100 million contract to headline in Las Vegas, was playing such a modest venue. Turns out Fator’s agent had some trouble with maps. He thought Ponca City was very near Branson, Missouri, and booked his client there during an off day.

Don Mecoy
Business Writer