This summer I plan a road trip that includes hotels with internet hook up. I want to maintain this site for the two weeks I am away but want to spend as little as possible doing that. I also plan to visit some US micros for photo-laden posts at A Good Beer Blog. I have no laptop. What would you recommend? What is the absolute cheapskates's approach to mobile blogging?
Update: I am keeping this up top for a few days. I need more butt kicking from portland as well as a good idea or two. One question - what is the most backwards laptop available second-hand which you could use? A Tandy 100?
Comments
"herself" - January 19, 2005 11:53 AM
How very exciting, my dear. I look forward to our trip.
Alan - January 19, 2005 12:13 PM
...I did mention this...didn't I???
Stephen - January 19, 2005 12:20 PM
Uh oh...
you can always use your cellphone to text message to an email address that will post automatically to your blog. Might be frustrating though.
Perhaps it's time to get a laptop too. Every blogger should have one.
Alan - January 19, 2005 12:22 PM
If that is the case, what is the cheapest laptop. I am not convinced that is the case as I can mooch of friends, use hotel "business areas" and visit libraries. I am, however, interested in every potential solution.
John - January 19, 2005 5:35 PM
Alan -- you should look into a Palm or similar PDA with a full size keyboard attachment. For about $450 you can set yourself up with a Palm with wireless internet built in. Cheaper, lighter, and infinitely more mobile than a laptop, albeit not quite as functional yet.
Fail that, you can probably find public access terminals in libraries and other public buildings. Uploading photos would be your only barrier.
portland - January 19, 2005 7:40 PM
you can phone me everyday and i'll post on a site called where's aldo? i promise to transcribe our conversations faithfully and............. (sorry i laughed here)and...... (still laughing).
Alan - January 19, 2005 7:45 PM
I would like to avoid emotional scarring.
portland - January 20, 2005 12:31 AM
i'm always gentle baby. you know that.
Chris Taylor - January 20, 2005 1:32 AM
There's really two schools of thought here. PDA and laptop.
If you want a cheap capable PDA then there's always a Treo 300. The Treo 300 is a cellular phone (GSM, so you have to be on Rogers or Fido) and PDA. You can fire off e-mail from it, surf the web, yadda yadda and it has a little (but useable) BlackBerry-style thumb keyboard. It also has a colour screen. The 300 is an older model now so it goes for around 80-100 bucks (Cdn) on eBay. The more capable Treo 600 and 650 pack in a lot more features -- they sport a cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, and camera -- with the little (but useable) Blackberry-style thumb keyboard. They go for 600-800 bucks Cdn. The big advantage in a PDA/cell phone is that it's always with you, you don't have to cart around extra devices, and these particular PalmPilots have little thumb keyboards right on the unit, eliminating the need for a fullsize keyboard attachment. The big downside in these sorts of units is the cellular data package, which is separate from your standard cellular voice plan and usually a little pricey. Still, it's possible to have an affordable data plan if you are only sending text e-mail and not doing stupid bandwidth-racking things like surfing the web from your phone.
If you want cheap refurb laptops check out tigerdirect.ca, canadacomputers.com, and factorydirect.ca. You can find golden oldies like HP Omnibooks or IBM Thinkpads (usually P3 800MHz, 128MB RAM, Win2000 or Win98, 10GB HD) for about 700 bucks. They will not have all the latest toys like Firewire ports, DVD drives and built-in wireless-G adapters, but they will have a regular wired Ethernet LAN port that you can connect to a hotel business centre's spare LAN cables. If you want a nice fast laptop with all the modern toys like built-in wireless-G, DVD/CD-RW combo drive, etc then be prepared to pay about 1200-1400 at minimum.
Alan - January 20, 2005 8:38 AM
So far I am still going with mooching and libraries. You would think after all these years there would be something that is little more than a browser screen into which you can plug your digital camera or other tools one at a time. Maybe the PDA and keyboard is that but the cheapest is over $500 when you put it all together. I don't think it ought to cost that.