zhisou (old blog)

I now have a Posh New Nokia Internet Tablet thingy to add to my inventory.  This flies in the face of my policy of not investing in gadgets as they are annoyingly disconnected and have annoyingly overlapping functionality.   My mobile is rubbish, and needs to be upgraded to Bluetooth to improve the disconnection issue, but then I´ll have a phone with a camera, but I already have a camera and a camcorder, the latter also taking stills making the former superfluous.  Grrrr.  Then I have a Posh iPod which syncs my Posh iMac and even holds photos and contact details overlapping with the phone … I have avoided the PDA and the GPS and other such things just not to add to the jumble, I cannot wait till they offer the fully integrated solution offering Internet, TV, email, everything, all running off central processors and syncing automatically with remote units and mobile bits and pieces.  This is technically simple, but the money men need to ensure only incremental iprovements and minimal integration to ensure maximum spend.  I shall just have to wait.

The Internet Tablet however is actually quite good. The battery life is quite short because the connection via WiFi or Bluetooth sucks it dry, but overall it´s a very usable piece of kit for on the road emails and Internet access.  I went for this option to avoid needing to make a decision on a laptop because I have Mac at home and PCs at work and need to consider a sensible laptop strategy within a holistic technical approach.  I couldn´t be bothered, hence the cheaper halfway house solution.

Using it is not so easy for those us yet to get a Bluetooth phone because it needs WiFi.  I don´t have a WiFi at home, because they don´t do them compatible with Macs here in Spain, but I don´t really need it to work at home so I don´t care.  Public WiFi in Spain is a closely guarded animal – where I am currently vacationing, for example, is a WiFi wasteland. 

The first hotel I tried had WiFi in principle, but in actuality it didn´t work.  The second hotel, despite phoning ahead and being assured that WiFi was available, working and open to the public, it was actually only available to hotel guests via a complex password system.  So, there´s me, wanting to sit in their empty cafeteria and buy their coffee, a potential customer of their restaurant, function rooms and accommodation, being denied access to something that costs them nothing to give.  I guess the idea of building relationships with the public is alien to them.

The third hotel charged 10 Euros a day for access, so obviously that was out of the question as it would be cheaper just to get Bluetooth.  Eventually I found one that offered free WiFi to all customers, not just those stealing the toileteries in their rooms.  Even there, however, where I go three or four times a week, I am starting to get funny looks as if I am somehow taking advantage – getting something for nothing.  The Manager and I had a staring contest, which I appear to have won as he now says “hello” and I am allowed to continue buying their coffee and using their network that noone else seems to bother with.