On the Road: Battling to Get a Connection for a Flight or a Laptop
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Between flight delays, missed connections and crowded flights, a business traveler has to have the resourcefulness of a person ready for stealthy ground combat.
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Some users of the new operating system are having a tough time connecting to the virtual world.
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A temporary Wi-Fi mesh netowrk is enabling pilgrims to Mecca to stay in touch.
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PC World editors from around the globe report on how people in their countries connect to the Internet.
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Web sites promising to find the best travel deals have online travel agents wondering if they have a new friend or enemy. For consumers, however, choices are rising
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Fresno's airport is first to use a web-based wireless radar system to update flight information. Also: Ford announces just how strong a boost it will give Sirius & hellip;. Motorola gears up with a snowboarding jacket that does it all. & hellip;. and more.
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JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Everywhere you look and everywhere you go these days, people are using cell phones. Right now, air travelers can only use their cells phones before their flights take off, but that could soon change.
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Cities and towns are jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon. But a municipal model of connectivity may be tricky to pull off.
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(InfoWorld) - Forget isolation and relaxation. For the seriously connected geek of today, vacations just aren't what they used to be. An informal and completely unscientific poll of InfoWorld readers revealed that -- although a few certified techies unplug completely when on vacation -- most elect to stay at least somewhat connected with their regular life; thanks to the ever-broadening range of cellular and wireless networks, most of them can. [See InfoWorld's Top 10 geek vacation list.] Jeff Helm witnessed the transition at one vacation spot: "I first took the family to Pigeon Forge (near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park) in October 2001. I walked across the hotel parking lot to the new public library to get on the Internet and check mail. I was told I would have to fill out a form, pay $5, let them hold on to my driver's license, and swear that I wouldn't 'conduct any business' or credit card transactions of any kind." Fast-forward to August 2006: "We went to the same hotel. I got out of the car to check in, and my PDA gave an audible report that it found a wireless signal. Yes, the same library was now beaming invitations to connect to the Internet to everyone in the area. Every hotel â¦ did the same. I checked e-mail at the outside mall, waiting for a patio table at the restaurant, and just about every place I went. I shut off the audible alert because the thing was going off constantly with all the networks." "The Outer Banks of North Carolina have a full complement of Net hotspot and cell-phone coverage capabilities," writes Peter B. Young. "I like to sit in the shade of an upper deck on our mansion-of-the-week, my sturdy old laptop plugged into an outlet in the living room or often out on the deck itself, and let 'er rip -- as gentle southern breezes caress my worn and wounded body." Rand Foster recommends cruising the San Juan Islands in northwest Washington between                                                     Vancouver Island and the mainland: "There is Wi-Fi at every marina." Brad St. Pierre found the perfect combo in Canada's Northwest Territories: "At the Bayside B and B in Yellowknife, I could watch the lakeside airplane and boat activity from the lounge or deck all day while surfing the Net. With almost 24 hours of sunshine, it's never too late to do the things you forgot to do while you were online." High-tech contractor David G. Evans found a way to have his vacation and get paid for it, too. "I was on call for production support. I spent a few weeks grooming my contacts to text me if they had an issue. That being done, I found a wonderful camp spot in Seaside, Calif., 20 seconds from pristine dunes and the ocean, 15 minutes from downtown Monterey, private, inexpensive, and well equipped. The recreation room has two hookups for Internet and a Web-mail kiosk. "Since this was an East Coast contract, I would get up at 4:30 or 5 to do a quick message check and reply as a first-thing-in-the-morning connection for them. Then we would drive to the Monterey Bay Aquarium but leave me three blocks away at the Kinko's with my laptop, where access is free, 24 hour, and comfortable. I would spend an hour or two working, then wander down to the wharf to meet them for some exhibits and lunch. If there was work, I would check back at Kinko's; if not, we had family time. Except for some mad coding from the backseat of the Volvo, plugged into the cigarette lighter for a portion of the trip home, this was the best working vacation I ever had." Edward C. Horvath had the best idea for a busman's holiday: "Buy yourself a ticket to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Live on caffeine, sugar, new technology, and the famed Jobs Reality Distortion Field for a week." The prize for the most far-out connected experience has to go to Savio Rodrigues, one of the authors of our Open Sources blog. He proudly sent us a photo from Machu Picchu -- not of himself, but of his BlackBerry, with a strong connection. A close second: April Harris Calderwood's working vacation, "going to a third-world country and helping a community project with technology; you rest and give back to the community."
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The fact that customers want data on demand is nothing new. Passengers who make airline reservations want instant feedback that their frequent flier miles were credited, for example.
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For business travelers, it has become relatively easy to wirelessly connect to corporate networks and the Internet from Wi-Fi hot-spots.
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Most people searching for the must-have device on the Web either want it, want it for free or want help fixing problems
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Problems abound for air travel. But there is hope.
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Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 33,000 feet  -  and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months
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Who needs postcards? Use high-tech ways to stay in touch while you're traveling.
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Getting consistent, reliable access to the Internet at a hotel, regardless of the cost or type of connection, can be a challenge for business travelers.
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Looking around San Diego&#39;s Lindbergh Field, it&#39;s hard to tell that the airline business is in distress. On any given day, tens of thousands of people make their way through its terminals to travel to destinations near and far.