Archives for Wireless travel

Electronic Travel: Foster Braun

Electronic Travel: Foster Braun

May 4, 2013 | Comments Off on Electronic Travel: Foster Braun

Foster Vacation

Foster on Vacation in British Columbia 

Two biggest issues: Power and Wireless Access

Power:

You can have the very best gadgets in the world but if they don’t have enough power; they are just added weight to lug through TSA, Customs and Airports.  I carried my MacBook Pro laptop and got pretty good battery out of it until I started really using it, e.g. to watch a movie that I had downloaded from iTunes. When I got to Seattle airport the battle was to find an outlet!  A cagey 20 something girl found the only available outlet in a dining area and I was about to dispair since both my laptop and iPhone were running out of power.  Then I got to Alaska airlines for my connecting flight and found that there were extra power outlets in almost ALL the seats in the waiting area.

I was not so lucky on the ferry ride back to Seattle.  There were many outlets…but all were taken.  During the extra long 5 hour ride I nearly ran out of battery on my iPhone 4 which seemed to go really quickly.  This was critical because I needed to change my flight because of weather …


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Electronic Travel: Shane Hamelin

Electronic Travel: Shane Hamelin

May 4, 2013 | Comments Off on Electronic Travel: Shane Hamelin

Airport power

Since Foster and Shane came back from their respective vacations, we wondered what the best and worst aspects of the experience were for them.

Shane Hamelin (Cancun, Mexico)

Just coming back from Mexico, this was NOT easy.

I set up a skype US phone number, added a Skype app package and called T-Mobile to change service before I left. This system I set up was based on getting free wifi. I spend  about $50.00 in apps and services before I left..

System = Fail  

Spotty Wifi and or costly Wifi put this plan to its knees early. I think it all depends where you travel. 3rd world Mexico? Not so good, can’t rely on anything working. Canada?.. Probably would have had a total different result.

Even when I had full, free Wifi… skype and phone service didn’t work as intended or promised. Dropped calls, no dial tone, no ring back, static and roaming – even though I changed service so it wouldn’t roam in Mexico..  Bad, bad, bad…

When we got home I called my phone company and this is what they said AFTER they sold me extra service. “Well Sir… It is Mexico and we really have no control …


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