Laptops, Motels And The Transient Life

[cd34]

All Courtyard by Marriott are supposed to have WIFI (Wireless Fidelity, 802.11 wireless, 11mb/sec wireless, however, their upstream link may only be a 1mb/sec) or hardline access to the net. Bass Hotels and Holiday Inn/Holiday Inn Express are also supposed to have internet access. Wyndham has done most of their facilities with HotelNet.

Problems you might run into:

Email will need to go via a port OTHER than 25/SMTP if you want to use your own mailserver
Sometimes SSH will not work outbound because of their proxy-nat. FTP & Web Surfing usually works with no issues. FTP will probably require passive mode.

If you're going to depend on hotels, check to make sure that the Hotel chain works in one city -- then it is most likely to work in their other cities.

There's always T-mobile and their WIFI network at McDonalds, Starbucks, etc

http://tmobile.com/hotspot/default.a...&WT.mc_t=Other

As for using a laptop as a machine, you might consider what they call a DTR - Desktop Replacement. You might find some of the ones with longer battery life to be too slow or too compact for what you need it for. I've used a laptop as my primary machine since '93 or so and I would NEVER use a desktop again. Generally, I'll get about 3 years of life out of them and I don't really treat my laptops gently.

If you are going to be in 'civilized' areas, Cingular has their Edge service which offers up to 200kb/sec on their network. If you're going to be on Sprint/Nextel's network, you can use their phones for a 19.2 digital dialup. Sprint has mentioned an Edge service as well, but, I haven't read much on it. GPRS3 was being deployed by AT&T/GSM prior to them getting purchased by Cingular. Some areas have it in beta where it offers 300kb/sec. GPRS3 has the ability to support multi-megabits per second.

Verizon offers VZAccess which has reasonably good coverage and 300kb/sec down with 64-300kb/sec up depending on facilities.

Basically, the closer you are to civilization, the more likely you are to get higher speed connections. If you're going to stay in resort towns, I doubt you would have much problem finding connections.

You might check with some of the motorhome/motorcoach clubs like 'Good Sams'. Since people live on the road, they have probably run into the same issue and might have recommendations, discounts, etc.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by cd34

I've used a laptop as my primary machine since '93 or so and I would NEVER use a desktop again. Generally, I'll get about 3 years of life out of them and I don't really treat my laptops gently.

No desktop here either. Been that way for about 3 years now. I'll never go back to a desktop, just no reason.

It has been 3 years since I bought this one and I will probably replace it with whatever Apple is selling in the 17" size to replace the current 17" one that I'm using. All Apple Powerbooks (their pro laptops) have built in wifi plus support for 2 monitors for lots of desktop space while working. I get about 2 to 3 hours on a battery plus I carry a second battery plus the power charger if I'm lucky enough to be within reach of a wall plug. I edit video, run Photoshop, plus all my other stuff like html editors, ICQ, mail, browsers, etc. Everything is plenty fast enough and I have absolutely no need of a desktop machine.

As far as sending e-mail I have Comcast cable as my home service and they also provide an authenticated smtp server (this is what you send mail from) on port 465 for when I'm using another ISP.

The T-mobile wifi service also comes with an authenticated smtp server.

There are also other places that will provide an authenticated smtp server for a small yearly fee like www.mac.com .