Wireless connections to devices are pretty much the norm now.  Using your phone with WiFi (to save money with Skype or GTalk), connecting your Tablet to the Internet, or just knocking out some email on your hotel bed …. WiFi is the way to go.  Also, WiFi allows you to have all of these devices connected at the same time.

Unfortunately, some hotels and other public places have not yet caught up to our special road warrior needs.  The ubiquitous RJ45 8-Wire Ethernet Connector is still a frequent method for hotels to offer Internet Access.  Or if Wireless is offered, the signal can be so weak it is virtually useless.

Fear not … there is a simple option to create your own field of digital bits, right in your personal space.

Check out a Wireless Personal Router !

I personally use a D-Link DWL-G730AP (though it looks like there is an Upgraded Model to DAP-1350 Wireless N Pocket Router & Access Point)

These devices are small, cheap and simple to use.

(After Set Up) All you have to do is plug it in to a power outlet, and connect the hotel Ethernet cord in to the router.  That is it !  It will then broadcast out the wired connection to as many devices you want to connect to.  All of them sharing the same wired connection.

A word of caution – Set up the device the first time with an SSID you will recognize, and a Secret Passphrase (just like on your home wireless router).  It is likely that the signal from the router will be strong enough that other rooms could get access to it.  If another hotel guest does hop on, they could drain your bandwidth (less for you) and can use the miracle of the Internet for evil.  You do not want to be called down to the front desk to explain some unusual porn site access or illegal downloads.  Keep the connection secure, and you will be just fine.

Other Uses:

Share a single Wired Connection to multiple Wireless Laptops at Work Meeting

Use the USB mode to connect any Printer to a Wireless Network

Use the WAP Mode to connect a wired Ethernet Device (Older Laptop, XBOX, etc.) to a Wireless Device.

The Devices are under $100, and you get get them anywhere.  Below is a link to the latest D-Link one from Amazon:

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For those that have found an unusual  amount of “no-vacancy” of the Trader’s Upper East Hotel over the past few months, here is an explanation.  There was a fire on May 24th, 2011.

The fire triggered some needed updates and improvements (and repairs from the fire and water damage).  As a result the hotel has been closed for business since then.

Good new though !  I have received confirmation that the hotel will reopen for business on Oct 9th.

Traders Upper East is one of the best deals in the Beijing area.  Right off of 4th Ring Road on the East side of the city, it is close to the Wanjing Technology area and they have a free shuttle bus in the area to stop by all the main corporations (Motorola, Siemens, Ericsson, etc.).

It is also within walking distance to the Lido complex and the stores in the surrounding area.

Traders is a Shangri-La property, so all benefits of the Golden Circle Club apply.

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United has cut back a lot of the promotions they used to run in previous years. I have been watching them come and go, but this one popped up, and I had to report on it for a couple reasons:

1) I live in the Chicago area
2) LAX and SFO are huge hubs for Asia and other destinations
3) It is includes double EQM’s too !

If you do not already know, EQM’s are the miles you need to accumulate to earn status on the airline.  Status is king.  The higher you go, the better chance of your upgrades going through, better availability and just a better chance of being cool in general.

Go check out the promotion at the United Website !

Details on the promotion below:

Ticketing dates: May 19, 2011 through August 31, 2011
Travel dates: May 19, 2011 through August 31, 2011
Offer: Register and fly between Chicago (ORD) and Los Angeles (LAX) or San Francisco (SFO) on United® or Continental® by August 31, 2011, and earn double elite status miles (EQM) and double award miles. Even better, there’s no limit to how many miles you can earn. Don’t miss this chance to put your elite status on the fast-track. Register and fly today!

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This technology is really not new, but Dropbox does it in a way that is totally seamless and easy to use.

The simplest explanation on how it works is:

It allows you to connect 2GB (or more) or files to any device that has Dropbox installed.  Like a magic portal that connects all the devices and synchronizes instantly.  This could be your Smartphone, your home computer, your work computer, even a random computer accessed via the website.

Even better, it allows you to share files with other people too.  GREAT for sharing pictures and videos when on vacation.  Unlike Snapfish or other Photo sites, you can share the original file with them, not just prints.

And the best part …… drumroll ….. 2GB is FREE !  That is plenty for the casual user to synch in cloud.  Sell those USB Sticks on Ebay now

The applications are really endless, just because the function and the interface is so simple.

Go to the site and check it out, or use this referral code to get a storage bonus (2G + 250MB Bonus !):

http://db.tt/EYShuG4

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Everyone, I am pleased to announce that GeekTravel.Net will have a new content contributor.

JP will add technology write-ups, but also give some in depth field insight to the bars and nightlife across the world.  Put it this way, if JP has not been there, you do not need to go

Please welcome JP, and we look forward to his involvement in the future.

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This site I recently subscribed to on my Kindle (one of the Blog Subscriptions). It has some pretty good info on Kindle News, but lately the site author has been posting the most recent free books for download. Many of them are promotional to get readers introduced to the author, so go download now and read them later before the free offer is pulled. You have a virtually unlimited virtual “bookshelf” on Amazon, so it does not hurt to download more than you could ever read.

Also, these sites are pretty good too for getting other free books.

http://m.gutenberg.org/

http://manybooks.net/

http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search By converting with Stanza (http://www.lexcycle.com/desktop)

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It has been a long wait, but Skype just released their App in the Google Marketplace.  Skype always had an app up there, but it only supported chat, which was kind of useless since there are a million IM clients already.  The new app, supports full voice calls over WiFi (and cellular) and your existing Skype Contacts.  It will also synch with your Android Phonebook which is a nice bonus compared to the desktop app.  Download is fast and easy, and so far the app is pretty stable.  I do expect this to improve in quality over time as new upgrades are released.

This is working well on Eclair, and also on Froyo.  For all you DroidX users out there, this new Skype app will also get around the blocked WiFi path that the phone came with.  Total Roaming Nirvana !!!

More Info is here:

http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/10/android.html?cm_mmc=socialm|twitter-_-global|intl|en-_-skype-_-android|announcement

Go download and make your free calls !

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The new world of on demand movies and entertainment is amazing.  An stimulus starved consumer can now get a subscription to have games, movies, television, and music all delivered straight to their laptop.  This is a fantastic set of tools to have when you are travelling, but there is one problem.  Most of them do not work outside of the US !!!! (when you usually want to use it most).

Well, there is really an easy work around to this:  Keep your computer “virtually” back in the US via VPN software. This way the services above will not know your physical location, and they will think you are in the US (as long as the VPN server is hosted there).

How does this work:

IP’s (the address your computer is given when it connects to the Internet) all have a public mapping to where they are physically located.  Pandora and other sites can simply reference this database and find out where you actually are in the world.  They will block out sending anything to places that they do not have a licenses to broadcast to.  In all most all cases this is anywhere outside the US.

VPN software communicates to the sites you are trying to access through a server, and encrypts the data from that server to your computer.  This is very handy to keep prying eyes off the data you are transmitting over WiFi or other unsecured data lines.   The server basically does all the work of talking to the websites you want to see (Yahoo, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon), and repackages everything to the computer you are working on into an encrypted bundle.  In other words, the website does not see past the server and knows nothing about your computer.

So … all you need to do is find a server in the US, and you can “Virtually” keep your computer back in the US.  Or .. if you live overseas, you can pretend your computer is located in the US and enjoy the streaming services available there.  This also solves the Facebook blocking in China too !

There are several companies out there that will set up the VPN for you with a US hosted server:

HotSpot Shield: Free and probably the best known.  It is super easy to set up, and very fast ! Only problem is that it takes over your browser and puts up annoying ads.  But still it is free and will let you get up and going right away.

VPNGates: The service is $120 a year, but offers a lot of other services like unblocking of VoIP and extra encryption.

HotSpotVPN: Service is $8.88 per month and works on iPAD’s and they provide a second instance for PDA’s and other devices.

Enjoy your downtime a little more next time you travel !

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A lot of info crammed into a 7" Screen !

To be perfectly honest, this is something I probably would not have purchased on my own.   The only reason I own it, is my wife bought it for me with some free some points we had to use up.   The Dash looks super sexy, but you have to question the usefulness by looking at it online.

What the specs say:

• Get information and entertainment in your bedroom, kitchen or office, without being tethered to your PC
• 1500+ apps available to deliver weather, traffic, social networking, movies, music and more
• 7-inch touchscreen with gesture support and WVGA (800×480) pixel resolution
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi to easily connect to your wireless home network
• 500Mhz processor with 32kB I/D L2 cache; 256 MB, 667MHz DDR2 DRAM

So, to break that down, you have a 500Mhz computer with a 7″ touchscreen that connects to a server via WiFi.  Not bad for under $200.  But the functionality all comes down to software.  What do you do with it ?

Well, I was actually surprised after I set it up !  Once I explored all that was packed in here, I started to find ways to use it quickly:

1)  The Alarm clock is fantastic.  You can build a list of different alarms, and customize them in many ways.  For example, if you have meetings on Tues / Thursday very early, you can make an alarm clock for those days, and have another wake up time for Mon, Wed, Thusday and pull them up from your stored list easily.  You also are able to set the alarm to either stored sounds, videos, etc.  Wake up almost any way you want to !

2)  The clock itself is also has a perfect display.  When you go to bed, you put it into night mode, and it shows the time and pending alarms in a very clear, high contrast display.  A very pleasing font that takes up the whole screen.  No more worrying “Did I set my alarm correctly” ?  It is shown very clearly on the screen.  The only wish I had is that it was on a timer to switch modes, instead of manually setting it.

3)  The unit comes preloaded with Pandora !  Just enter in your account and all your channels are loaded and can listen to your own, tailored music anywhere you want.  The Pandora interface shows album art, artist info and allows you to like/dislike, the same as the webpage.  The music sound is great and very loud.  My wife and I have been using it to play music while working out.

4)  This was the biggest surprise … Netflix runs flawlessly on the Sony Dash.   We have set it up to run Diego and Thomas the Tank Engine in our Play Instantly Queue, and let our son watch his shows, while we use the main TV to work out in the bedroom.  In fact he also likes watching his shows better on the little screen.  He will come in the bedroom and say, “put Thomas on there !”.  The sound and video is perfect, and the clarity is amazing.

5)  The main thing you see first on the Dash is the Widgets.  Built off the chumby platform, the Dash owner is able to tap into thousands of apps to customize the information flow to your device.  Some are very useful like Facebook picture and photo updates, weather and stocks alerts, and Woot and other hot deal updates.  Honestly most of the widgets are useless, but some people’s trash is some people’s treasure   It is fun to dig through everything there and see the creativity of some of the contributors.  Got to love the Gene Frenkle Tribute app, rocking the cowbell !

I just got a new update last night, so I need to go in and see what new features are added.  I’d like to see more Theme layouts and some new features (like the timers for mode switches I mentioned above), but the frequency of updates they send out, I am pretty optimistic that they will come soon.

Love my little Dash, and I keep on finding new ways to use it.

Pick one up at Amazon for $195.  Prices have been jumping around, so when you go there it might be a little higher or lower.

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As you can read from my last post, I have become a repeat fan of the Kindle.  I never really gave up my fan interest, just that I tried to find other way to overcome a couple limitation of their previous devices.

Now, I can safely say all those limitations are gone with the addition of the new Kindle 3.0 Cover.

The one thing that was a minor annoyance with the Kindle was the fact I needed light to read it.  Not much different than a normal paperback, but being on the technology cutting edge, I expect more.  I tried the tablet and mobile phone approach (since they have a backlight to read), but they still did not cut it.

Well, I just received the new Kindle 3.0 cover and I was very surprised.  A few things:

1)  The cover has the same locking mechanism that made the second generation such an improvement.  It has notches in the Kindle that the case locks into to keep it very well connected and not popping out all the time like the first generation.

2)  The closing mechanism is much improved.  Calling a rubber-band-like-thing a “mechanism” is a stretch, but it has a little sliding tab on it to make closing much easier than the second gen cover.  Also a little channel on the cover is there to keep it in place and not pop off.

3)  Biggest addition though, is the new pull out light on the upper right of the cover.  This is a very small, directional “whip” light that when pulled out, points right at the front of the Kindle Display.  Power also comes from the Kindle, so no need to manage multiple power sources.  The light slides back in with ease, and adds virtually no bulk to the case overall.  Part of the reason it is not bigger, is by using the power from the Kindle, no bulky batteries need to be added to the case.

So with the new case and the Kindle 3.0 I have a unit that is smaller, faster, better (front lighting), cheaper and just plain cooler than the predecessors.

Nice job Amazon !!!  You have done a great job listening to customer feedback and incorporating the right changes into this awesome device.

Get it here from Amazon

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