I know it’s been around for awhile. I even sat in the back of a taxi in 1993 using a Mobidem (a packet data radio from RAM Mobile Data) with the windows email client I’d just written for it and had the experience of getting and sending email on the move…
But I recently plugged my Blackberry into my laptop and started using it as a modem in cars and trains and houses without easy connectivity. Not fast, but it works. Looks like I was just getting about 58k downloads in Firefox. And of course, I’m posting this while speeding through some mid-island towns on the Long Island Rail Road. Let me tell you, the LIRR needs all the help it can get and this helps.
Part of what kept me back was having to install the connectivity software that Verizon provided. My experience of Verizon never encouraged me to think that their code was anything I’d want running on my system…but finally I needed that connectivity more than my fear and tried it out. Looks like Smith Micro Software (whoever they are) wrote a decent little app that works reliably on my XP laptop.
The interesting thing is that the phone/modem draws power through the USB cable from the laptop — it’s charging up while I’m using it. That doesn’t seem to be draining the laptop battery much, since I still got about 2.5 hours of steady use on my last trip. Of course, that’s not very long, but I think I get maybe 3 hours of steady use otherwise.
Ultimately the best part is just the feeling that I can use it, get online and find what I need despite being stuck on the train for a few hours. If I bothered to dig out my list of things to be searching for, I could actually get something done. But I can’t quite bring myself to research a better business bank right now.
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