This week at Mobile Tech Manor #24- back home again

mobile-tech-manor-large-21I am happy to be back home again from the traveling that I’ve done the past two weeks.  I’ve missed doing this column that chronicles my week at Mobile Tech Manor (MTM) but there is no need to do one when I’m not here.  That changed this week as I’ve been happily working in my office and had a very busy week playing catch up.  There has been a rash of gadgetry show up at MTM and I’ve discovered how emotional it can be to change tools that I’ve used for years.  Come on in for a visit, the coffee is free.

The two trips I took were very good ones, the CES trip went well and the visit to the GigaOM office in San Francisco was nice.  These trips gave me a good opportunity to fine-tune my strategy for mobile working and I found that simple is better.  I only took the MacBook, Verizon EV-DO modem and iPhone with me and those worked very well for my needs.  The Verizon EV-DO service worked impeccably everywhere I went and kept me in fast 3G the entire time.  I jump on hotspots whenever they are available but the high speed 3G is more than enough for the rest of the time.  I didn’t even pay for hotel WiFi in Vegas this year and didn’t miss it.

Taking just the iPhone on both trips demonstrated to me just how flaky the AT&T network is.  I often found myself going from full bars of 3G to No Service within a very small area.  It was constantly frustrating and something I never experience with Verizon service.  San Francisco is the absolute worst for AT&T service I found, and Vegas was not much better.  I have never seen a carrier (and I have tried them all) whose signal was so negatively affected by buildings.  More than once I had to go outside just to get a signal to make a call.  What’s up with that?

Changing the work setup hurts

There is nothing like being back at home, especially when you work there like I do.  This week has given me time to begin making drastic changes to the tools I use to do the work and I must say it’s been hard for me to bring myself to make some of these changes.  I have mentioned in this column in the past that at some point I was going to do away with my hosted Exchange Server (ES).  While a necessity in my past life as a consultant the ES is not really needed anymore given my work arrangement.  I agonized for months over canceling this service because it’s an expense I can’t justify any more but I  wanted to make sure that I had access to that old archived information should something crop up.

This week I thought back on the past few months and it was clear that I have not accessed my ES for several months.  No questions have arisen about old consulting projects and I haven’t received a valid email about that work in months.  It was clear the time had come to cancel the hosted server and save that monthly fee.  I must say it surprised me how difficult I found this to do even after determining the time had come.  I have used that ES for over 8 years and even though I’m not using it for anything currently the attachment I felt for the service made it hard to turn it off.  I held firm however and the ES lives no longer.  It feels strange.

I have made the switch to GMail and the Google cloud and that method is working well for me.  Google Calendar, GMail and Google Docs is working perfectly for me now and is synced to my computer and phones nicely.  I won’t miss the Exchange Server in practice but nostalgia is another matter.

The other big change in my work tools is one I have to admit I have not brought myself to make yet.  It’s time to cancel my Verizon voice line and I can’t bring myself to do it yet.  The Verizon voice line has been my business phone number for 15 years and even though I don’t use it anymore I can’t bring myself to kill it off.  I haven’t used that number for 6 months and I don’t need it at all but it sure is hard to give it up.  My Verizon bill is very expensive and I could save well over $100 per month by doing so and it’s getting very difficult to keep it around.  I hope to get my game face on and cancel that line in the next few days but it sure is harder than I thought it would be.  I will keep the 3G line for sure as I use it all the time.

Look at all the new stuff

I found myself in geek heaven this week due to all the stuff that came in to Mobile Tech Manor.  It was one of those weeks that keeps me hopping trying to figure out what to try first and that is a great feeling.  The stuff that arrived covered the very extremes of mobile gear with the smallest 10-inch netbook, the HP Mini 2140 arriving first.  It is amazing how a “full-sized” device can be so small and it is great for extended usage.

The other end of the mobile gear size spectrum was represented with the arrival of the Lenovo W700ds.  This is the biggest ThinkPad Lenovo has produced with the huge 17-inch screen, WACOM digitizer and last but not least the second 10.6-inch display that slides out from the main one.  It is so big it’s not really a laptop in the conventional sense but instead is intended to be a mobile workstation that can be moved when needed.  It’s still unbelievable that you can pick up a multiple monitor setup and carry it with you when you need to work somewhere else.  I am having a good time working with it that’s for sure.

On the tiny gadget front the Kodak zi6 HD Pocket Camera arrived and I’ve shot a number of videos with it.  It is very easy to use but I find I have to put it on a tripod as it is very shaky in the hand.  The only issue I am trying to deal with about the Kodak has to do with the way I shoot video of gadgets.  With the zi6 on a tripod I can’t see the LCD display to make sure everything I am shooting stays in the frame being recorded.  I may have to come up with some sort of mirror to put behind the camera to deal with that.  I am impressed with the camera otherwise and find it a joy to use.  I bought a Transcend 16 GB SDHC card to use in the camera as it doesn’t have much memory and HD video creates very big files as expected.  I was surprised to find this 16 GB card only cost $26, a sign of the times for sure.

The Apple 24-inch Cinema Display arrived and I am still experimenting with the best layout for work.  Right now I have it directly in front of me with the MacBook off to its right within easy reach of my right hand.  I am using a wireless keyboard and mouse but still find myself using the MacBook multi-touch trackpad for quick navigation within web pages.  I use the MacBook screen to keep my email program open all the time at the desk freeing up the big screen for everything else.  It’s been a boon to my productivity and I am glad I bought this screen.

Until next week

That wraps up my busy week at Mobile Tech Manor.  I am knee-deep in gadgets and loving it and will keep sharing thoughts on all of this gear as usual.  Take care and see you next week.  It’s good to be back, this is my favorite writing task each week.

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