It's a little thing, but it bugs me every time it happens. I go somewhere that I have a WiFi account with (eg t-mobile at Borders), power up my laptop or pull out my WiFi enabled cellphone and expect to surf the airwaves...

But no.

Even if all I want to do is sync my Outlook I still have to go into my web browser and fill in some extra credentials on their web form before I'm authenticated on the connection.

At Tullys I can't even complete the form in PocketIE so I can't make use of their WiFi with my phone.

At least on the corporate network I get a prompt from the WiFi connection to enter my username and password (but I wish it remembered them, rather than asked me every time).

Would it be so hard to set these hotspots up so that however it needs to work I can store the relevant credentials in the same way I can store the SSID and my WPA2 password?

WiFi may well becoming more ubiquitous but until I can use it everywhere without worrying about roaming, who I have an account with and what credentials I need to log on (and how to do that for each particular service) it's not going to become an invisible technology.

Heck, I often find myself using the EDGE/GPRS data connection on my phone to sync Outlook because it's quicker and easier (I do have a flat rate data plan luckily)

Anyone got any suggestions, tips or handy tools to make this easier?

Update: Excellent news for Vista users... it appears for the first 90 days after the Jan 30th launch Vista mobile users will have free access to t-mobile hotspots ;)