John Thawley
04-09-2007, 07:50 PM
Not sure if the fit here was in Computers or Equipment... but...
Any of you that travel or work on location probably know what it's like to be without connectivity... if you're dealing with deadlines, transmitting late at night, or just need to be "in touch" with clients via email regardless of where you are, you know how frustrating it can get.
I've been waiting for the Express sized WiFi cards to come to Cingular and more specifically, configured for Mac. I've seen a couple working with other providers (Verizon, T-Mobile etc) and they're pretty impressive.
Jim Sykes had a better idea... he recently added a Treo (700?) to his service along with an unlimited data account and has been tethering to is Windows laptop.
I had been doing the same thing a couple of years ago with my Mac and Treo 600, but frankly, it wasn't the most stable and the speeds weren't what they are today. It worked... but it required a contribution of agony.
Taking a queue from Jimmy, our hotel connectivity in St. Pete was looking pretty shaky (at least for me) so, we jumped in the car and went looking for a Cingular store. The Express cards were still a few weeks off... and it became apparent the smartphone route probably made more sense. Cheaper data package... and not having to give up my only Express card slot.
I picked up the Samsung Blackjack. Great solution.. and honestly, a pretty nice phone to boot. The guy in the store had trouble, but over a bag of fast food, we had my MacBook Pro connected to it and online in about 15 minutes at the hotel via it's USB cable. In another 15 minutes I had it connected via the phones bluetooth. Pretty sweet.... excellent speeds too!
So, it's a real option. The only downside I can see over having the Express card is if I do use it to connect my laptop to the internet, I'm going to killing two batteries... a little disconcerting when you travel. But, the reality is, it's a backup plan or for the occasion you need to get online in a remote location. I won't be using it as my fulltime ISP.
One other thing, if you're considering one of these phones with a Mac, do a little research. iSync won't work with a lot of them, you'll need to grab a copy of Missing Sync. But all in all, after a few days of playing, I've got all my contact cards in the phone and syncing everything from my iCal, Address Book and Notes.
After years of having Palm Pilots, Blackberry, Treo etc... it's nice these things finally seem to be working the way they should.
JT
Any of you that travel or work on location probably know what it's like to be without connectivity... if you're dealing with deadlines, transmitting late at night, or just need to be "in touch" with clients via email regardless of where you are, you know how frustrating it can get.
I've been waiting for the Express sized WiFi cards to come to Cingular and more specifically, configured for Mac. I've seen a couple working with other providers (Verizon, T-Mobile etc) and they're pretty impressive.
Jim Sykes had a better idea... he recently added a Treo (700?) to his service along with an unlimited data account and has been tethering to is Windows laptop.
I had been doing the same thing a couple of years ago with my Mac and Treo 600, but frankly, it wasn't the most stable and the speeds weren't what they are today. It worked... but it required a contribution of agony.
Taking a queue from Jimmy, our hotel connectivity in St. Pete was looking pretty shaky (at least for me) so, we jumped in the car and went looking for a Cingular store. The Express cards were still a few weeks off... and it became apparent the smartphone route probably made more sense. Cheaper data package... and not having to give up my only Express card slot.
I picked up the Samsung Blackjack. Great solution.. and honestly, a pretty nice phone to boot. The guy in the store had trouble, but over a bag of fast food, we had my MacBook Pro connected to it and online in about 15 minutes at the hotel via it's USB cable. In another 15 minutes I had it connected via the phones bluetooth. Pretty sweet.... excellent speeds too!
So, it's a real option. The only downside I can see over having the Express card is if I do use it to connect my laptop to the internet, I'm going to killing two batteries... a little disconcerting when you travel. But, the reality is, it's a backup plan or for the occasion you need to get online in a remote location. I won't be using it as my fulltime ISP.
One other thing, if you're considering one of these phones with a Mac, do a little research. iSync won't work with a lot of them, you'll need to grab a copy of Missing Sync. But all in all, after a few days of playing, I've got all my contact cards in the phone and syncing everything from my iCal, Address Book and Notes.
After years of having Palm Pilots, Blackberry, Treo etc... it's nice these things finally seem to be working the way they should.
JT