Hello my lovelies I am in need of your help. I will be sitting in the shop “Off Centre” every second Tuesday and I want to be able to access the internet from my laptop while I am there.
Yesterday was my first day in the shop and there is a lot of time when it is just me and the pots. It isn’t practical to take any work up with me to finish off up there and reading novels of a daytime makes me sleepy.
I bought a prepaid vodaphone usb stick thingy for my laptop and I installed that yesterday but oh my gosh what a pain in the butt it was. The internet connection kept on dropping out and when I did manage to connect it was incredibly, painfully, frustratingly slow. I would just get twitter to load to the point of signing in and then bam my connection would time out.
So how do you connect to the internetz when you are away from home? Who do you reckon I should talk to? Do you think that a mobile phone might be the way to go instead of using my laptop? Bearing in mind that I have to be frugal and that I can’t use a mobile phone here at home as we are in a Telstra black hole of doom, reception wise.
I want to be able to connect to twitter, my email, my blog and google reader. Now surely in the 21st century it should be simple.
I am off to the studio today to make the mould for the dragon eggs, I will try and remember to photograph the process so I can show you. But in the meantime Iam really really looking forward to hearing what you have to say about my connectivity problem. Cheers Kim
Comments on this entry are closed.
I wish I knew! I love my little 2 lb netbook. I have a feeling though the answer is going to be iPhone.
I cant justify the expense of an iphone if I am only going to be using it once a fortnight *sigh*
Ok I am not really very good at this sort of thing. But would a cheap option be getting ‘the shop’ connected to the internet. It should be cheap. If there is a phone line then it would be easy. Then you could just stick your ethernet cable into the router if it were done like that. There is so much competition for connections these days that I would imagine it would be an awful lot cheaper than new iphones, blackberry’s etc! If everyone who uses the shop chipped in towards the cost of connection etc then I would imagine the price should be completely manageable. Obviously better if its done wirelessly as its easier to sit where one likes then.
I don’t think it unreasonable in this day and age that the shop should have internet access as a matter of course.
Forgive me if I missed a good reason why the shop can’t have internet access.
Sharing the cost with other users I imagine would make it cost effective. As you run a business you could offset the cost agaisnt tax?
If anyone is reading this who is a computer/internet expert please forgive me if I am talking gobblydegook and have just completely made a fool of myself at the above suggestion!
If its not viable – you could go cold turkey and remember what it was like before the age of the internet etc. Making one day a week an internet free zone! But then again maybe not.
Good luck. Let us know please how you overcome the situation.
bfn
ps the blog is looking great visually really well laid out for my confused EDS eyes.
My USB stick isn’t that slow (on it right now), but depends on connection strength/signal.
At the farm it is slower with weak signal.
One idea to check if something in background is slowing the computer down.
2. You might be able to get an antenna boost …I got one from Telstra.(though didn’t fit yet because I a missing something 😉 )
Goodluck !
I hope that made sense I was typing fast because my battery is critical 🙁
Check if you are in a free wireless hotspot. If you are, and your laptop does not have built-in wireless reception, you can either get it installed or buy a wireless dongle.
If you aren’t in a hotspot, it might still be worth getting someone who has a wireless-ready device to check if there are any local connections anyway. Sometimes people don’t have the proper security in place and anyone can use their bandwidth – but that isn’t what I’m suggesting. If you find some, you could check with neighbouring store owners to see if the accounts are theirs and ask if they wouldn’t mind granting you access once a fortnight. Maybe offer them one of your pieces, or something? Might be a long shot, but doesn’t hurt to ask.
Otherwise, the only option I see is to check with the locals to see if they get okay connections with USB modems from providers other than Vodaphone. If they do, you might want to switch. It would suck to have to buy another modem, but you should be able to sell the Vodaphone one you bought on Ebay.
I bought a usb stick thingy when my landline was lost due to a fault in the line. I went with Optus because that’s who my usual provider is and got a prepaid mobile broadband usb. It worked really well. Except for some reason I couldn’t always access my email on it. Now I’m back to the dial-up because it’s a cheaper option, I only by broadband hours when I can afford to.
If the shop has a phone line, just take the power cord and phone connection cord along with your laptop. Buy some prepaid internet hours if you have to for using while you are there. (get a prepaid starter kit and install it).
Using the shop landline sounds like a good idea put forward by others. If there’s a reasonable number of people manning the shop who would also like connection. perhaps you can split the cost of getting the connection sorted (which will involve both a phone company, e.g. Telstra and an ISP). Then, you would be able to log onto google, Yahoo, your blog or whatever. The antenna is a good idea too. I know little about this, but perhaps Dick Smith or Tandy can help.
Eek, sorry, can’t help with this. I’m not at all technical. I hope you find the answer very soon though.
We have a USB dongle too, ours is with ‘3’. It seems to work ok for us, but we are in Melb and generally use it within the metro area, so that could be part of your issue. I would talk to Vodaphone and check what your area is like.
Otherwise I really like another commenter “Achelois” ‘s comment on getting the shop hooked up. Maybe look into what the cheaper options are (may be plain old dial up) and then put options together for the shop owner to look over? A “chip in as you use it” option may also be liked by all?
Good luck!
I like the idea of using the broadband thru the shop if it’s viable. One option to look at is to go with a provider who will supply broadband and phone rental all in one. For example, I know with iinet, we pay around $70 a month for ADSL & the home phone. All local phone calls are free. So our only out of pocket expenses are if we call STD numbers, and then they are really cheap. There is no line rental for the home phone (like you pay telstra etc) so for phone & internet (minus STD calls) $70 for a shop might be cheaper (although there are probably better deals out there, and not sure if this option is actually allowed for businesses). Good Luck.