Second Most Favorite Travel Gadget…

… has got to be my Cradlepoint PHS300 cellular to WiFi portable hotspot. As you can see in the picture above I even use it in my car. In fact, I’ve used it in my car while my wife or I was driving – both with my netbook and with my iPhone. I’ve used it to make Skype calls on my iPhone while driving myself.

It’s an awesome device that allows me to quickly and easily stay connected to the Internet, while bypassing any AT&T restrictions on iPhone applications, and just lets me get work done. I’m really loving it!

Our Most Handy Travel Accessory

Wow, it’s been a month since I’ve posted anything here! That’s primarily due to the fact that I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling and vacationing with my wife, Rosemarie. We’ve actually had two honeymoons in the past month – one in the Cayman Islands and one in Orlando.

During our travels I found one device that I carry to be of most usefullness to my wife and I – the Richard Solo 1800. This is an iPhone recharger par excellence!

It’s got enough watt-hours to top off both of our iPhones and charges them about as fast as plugging them into a power adapter. This device comes with a USB charge cable that can be plugged into a computer USB port or its own power adapter. When it’s so hooked up, if an iPhone is connected to it the device charges the iPhone first before recharging itself.

In addition it comes with a very handy car-adapter plug that can power two USB cables at once. This means that we were able  to plug the Richard Solo charger into the car-adapter, plug an iPhone into it, and then plug an Apple sync/charge cable into the second USB port and thus be able to charge the Richard Solo, my iPhone, and my wife’s iPhone all at the same  time.

I can’t tell you how many times we used this device to top off our iPhone batteries, but it was pretty much constantly in use. All-in-all, it was the most useful gadget we carried with us – making sure that no matter how much we used our iPhones they always had sufficient power.

Cradlepoint PHS300

I recently purchased a new device that has turned out to exceed my expectations for it. I just love it when that happens!

The device is the Cradlepoint PHS300. It’s a portable device that creates a WiFi hotspot that accesses the internet through a cellular USB modem. It works great with my AT&T USBConnect Mercury cellular modem.

The main reason I bought is was my experience in the Cayman Islands, which I related here in a previous posting. I needed to be able to access the Internet through WiFi in order to use Skype on my iPhone  to make calls. Skype doesn’t work over the AT&T 3G network, only over WiFi. So my wife, Rosemarie, and I found ourselves constantly scrambling around the island looking for free WiFi hotspots. Luckily, we found an abundance there.

Nevertheless, this experience really got me thinking. There are a few key iPhone applications that are blocked from directly using the AT&T cellular network and require a WiFi connection – applications like Skype and Sling Media Player. So why not get a device that would allow me to carry my own mobile WiFi hotspot around in my pocket and have access to the Internet through it wherever I was able to access the AT&T cellular network, i.e., pretty much everywhere I travel in the US.

The Cradlepoint PHS300 is just that device. So far it has worked flawlessly. It’s got a rechargeable battery good for a couple of hours usage, and includes an AC adapter for when electrical outlets are available. In addition is has provided me with an unexpected benefit – better connectivity at my work location with my current consulting client. I’ve written here before of my problems in getting a decent AT&T 3G connection in the part of the building where I’m now working. Well, it turns out that if I put my AT&T USBConnect Mercury cellular modem into a vertical orientation (see picture above), I get a great signal there! So, I’m using the PHS300 at work all the time and not even plugging the AT&T USBConnect Mercury device into my Asus 1000H anymore. I can even carry the 1000H into conference rooms on the floor I work and still maintain a usable WiFi connection to the PHS300.

End result: I’m really happy with the PHS300!

Using the iPhone Outside US

I just returned yesterday from a 9-day honeymoon  in Grand Cayman. During our time on the island, both my wife and I used our iPhones extensively, even to make calls back home to our kids. How did we do so without going broke from international roaming charges? I’ll tell you.

First of all, I signed up for AT&T’s International Data Roaming plan at the minimum 20MB level. That seemed quite adequate for just a 9-day visit for checking email and occasional web surfing. In fact I ended up using just 15MB of data. One surpise for me was the fact that the built-in Map application worked pretty well on Grand Cayman, so we used it a couple of times – once to help us find our way back to the hotel when we were quite lost. It was slow with Grand Cayman’s Digicel’s Edge network, but it worked!

For calls home we used Skype. We had free WiFi at our hotel and the coverage there was great. We had a strong WiFi signal even when sitting on the beach behind the hotel. In addition, we found quite a few restaurants on Grand Cayman that offered free WiFi through Cable and Wireless Hot Spots. This allowed us to make Skype calls and access the Web and email a lot faster than with the Digicel Edge network.

So, between a small International Data Plan and free WiFi, our iPhones were completely usable and proved extremely helpful in navigating around Grand Cayman and staying in contact with our family.

On Honeymoon

Right now I’m on my honeymoon in Grand Cayman Island! We’ll be back next week.

Need for Speed Undercover

Need for Speed Undercover is a new game I reently downloaded to my iPhone. It’s certainly the most sophisticated racing program currently available for the iPhone/Touch. It has a simple story line complete with videos of the characters you are interacting with. It features a rock sound track and amazing graphics. You play an undercover cop attempting to infiltrate the illegal racing scene. The game is easy to control, and just difficult enough without being frustrating. You particpate in a vareity of races, and each race is challenging and not too long. All-in-all, I’m finding this to be a very sophisticated and very fun game on my iPhone.

Metal Gear Solid Touch for iPhone/Touch

Metal Gear Solid Touch is a fairly new game for the iPhone and Touch. It’s a shooter that makes innovative use of the touch interface of the iPhone and Touch. It’s got interesting graphics, a simple story line, and just enough challenge to make for an interesting but not overtaxing game. You’ve got access to an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, and sometimes a rocket launcher. I’m not a hard-core gamer, but I found this game to be enjoyable without being frustrating. Hard-core gamers my be disappointed but I think most people will find this game quite enjoyable.

MapsBuddy for iPhone/Touch

MapsBuddy is a wonderfully simple little 99 cent program that I’ve found to be extremely handy to have on my iPhone. It does just one thing, and one thing well. It allows you to tap on a search term contained within the program, and have the built-in Maps program launched using that search term. It has multiple categories of search terms and allows you to create new ones, and to move search terms into a favorites section that appears at the top of the list. Above you’ll see my favorites – the terms I use most when I’m travelling on business.  This little program saves me lots of typing, especially when driving!

Presto For Quick Work on a PC

I recently installed Presto on my Asus EEE 1000H netbook, and I’m loving it. Presto is a subset of Xandros Linux and installing it on a Windows XP or Vista machine automatically sets up a dual-boot environment. Booting into Presto is super-fast compared to booting into Windows XP on my netbook, taking only about 25 seconds. Shutting down from Presto takes only about 3 seconds on the 1000H!

So, it’s fast, but what good is it? The Presto environment comes with Open Office for working with Microsoft Office documents, the Firefox browser for Web browsing and email (if you use something like GMail, which I do), Skype for audio and video calls, and an IM client that supports most major IM services (I use GoogleTalk with it). In short, everything I need to get 90% of my work done. There is also a Presto App Store with a limited selection of sofware available for download. I got the latest Java Runtime Environment and the AVG Free Anti-Virus program from it.

I use Presto at my hotel, at the airport, at home – in short, anywhere I need to get to some straightforward PC work done quickly. It’s very fast and very solid. Best of all it only costs $20!

Skype for iPhone

Skype is a free application for the iPhone that seems to work extremely well. I placed some test calls using it this morning and it worked flawlessly and with excellent sound quality. I tried it with both Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls to the public telephone network. The application currently only works through Wi-Fi, but should nevertheless be a wonderful way to save minutes from your AT&T voice plan. It even intefaces with the built-in Contacts application, although you need to make sure that phone numbers stored there include the country code (which is 1 for the US). In summary, a wonderful application, and it’s free, too!