Domestic cellphone solution: G’zOne Ravine 2

November 28th, 2012 Posted in Cloud Tech, Recommendations
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Casio G'Zone Ravine 2 mobile phone

Casio G’zOne Ravine 2

Frequent readers of this blog know about my dumbphone+tablet strategy, and why I recommend it for other world travelers. Here’s an update to say that I found the “plain jane” phone I was looking for a month or two ago. Well actually, this is more of a G.I. Jane phone…

The Casio G’zOne Ravine 2 (Yes, THAT Casio. Who knew?) has all the settings you need as a phone, it has more to but they keep these functions out of the way and allow you to program your own shortcuts very simply.  It works without a sim in the US on CDMA with Verizon, but with a sim for other countries as a quad-band GSM phone.

This phone is compatible with 2012 technology (including Bluetooth 2.0), charges from USB with a separate headset port so you can use both at once, AND you can talk for 4+ hours without having to plug it in. It has very high usability displays & numeric keypad, and is bright enough to use as a flashlight for finding your keys or opening a combo lock at night as I often do. I love that it holds reception where other phones never have in the hills of West Marin, and that it has truly usable speakerphone. This thing generally feels much like you’d imagine Captain James T. Kirk’s original communicator would. Plus it’s rugged and dependable as they come, it withstands shock, dust, vibration, low and high temperatures, and even immersion in water. About the only thing it doesn’t do that I need is sync contacts with my computer, but that’s not the phone’s fault. It seems that AppleSync has been phased out of the operating system, probably to sell more iPhones. Silly Apple.

G'zone underwater

Seriously? Yes, waterproof.

CNET has a good review of this phone that sold me. The camera is not great by today’s standards, but it’s good enough to take pictures of a car accident for insurance purposes in a pinch (which is about all I’d ever use it for when my trusty iPad has a camera anyway). The texting is slow without a qwerty keyboard, but if you’re texting through GoogleVoice or Skype on your tablet, who cares?

People in the SF Bay Area sometimes look at me with amusement when I pull out this honking brick of a phone. But then I throw it on the ground, pour a glass of water on it, pick it up, and make my phonecall. Try that with your pansy smartphone beeotch! 

This is the smartest dumbphone I have ever met. After almost 2 months of using this phone, I am still pleased and impressed. I love it when good design wins.

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How to use your iPad/iPhone outside the country (simple version)

May 8th, 2012 Posted in Cloud Tech, Travel Tech
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There are a surprising number of really bright folks out there who just don’t have anything off of which to hang new-fangled techy stuff.  Today’s post goes out to my Dad, who got an iPad from the family last Christmas. He’s a smart guy, but being the tech-averse person he is, he was apprehensive at first and still requires some hand-holding.

I configured the iPad for him on Christmas day (just trying to get it to sync to his old iMac properly was the first can of worms!), loaded it up with a dozen or so key apps, and explained it to him — including how to use it overseas. Then, a few weeks later, I explained that point again. And just now, I got the call that he’s going to Poland with Ray Manzarek and he wanted to double-check that he wouldn’t get charged extra fees for data. After I answer a question like this three times, it goes on the blog…

Here is the highly technical 3-step process for both iPad and iPhone:

  1. Go to Settings
  2. Turn Airplane mode to “On”
  3. THEN turn Wifi to “On”

What step #2 does is turn off all connections your device has to the outside world, then in step #3 you re-enable the one that is limited to your immediate surroundings and will not charge you anything on the sly. If you’re getting charged for local wifi, you’ll know it because you’ll have to log in or create an account or something. If you reverse steps #2 & 3, it won’t work. When you’re done it should look like this:

With settings like this, you can still join any open local network just like usual and surf without fear of a big bill when you get home.

In the past, I had made the mistake of confusing the issue by talking about getting a local 3G card and putting that in for different countries like I do, or explaining why it’s okay that Location Services stays on, or even mentioning bluetooth. This was a bad idea for parental communication. Today I just repeated the directions above, since Dad won’t be in Poland long and he’ll probably be at a decent hotel with wifi.

And of course, I posted this so next time I’ll just send him the link! Feel free share this freely for the equipped iPhobes in your life. They really don’t want to read things like http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1355 and probably wouldn’t get it anyway.

 

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Sending It Ahead

May 3rd, 2012 Posted in Cloud Life FAQ, Cloud Tech, Travel Tech
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"So you want to order stuff, but have it sent where you will be traveling to, not where you are?"

This reader question just in from “Jack” in response to my first post about Where Your Mail Goes:

“I will travel to US in the next month in San Francisco and I want to do some online shopping before. Is there any company in San Francisco offering service per parcel? Just to ship at their address and then pick it up when I will be there.”

Well Jack, first off, I don’t know of any per parcel services like you’re asking about, and I doubt they exist yet. But I’ll give you some examples of things I’ve done in the past to work around this very real issue of trying to hit a moving target such as yourself with an order placed online.

  1. Time the delivery date = Anything being sent UPS/FedEx/DHL can be delayed for a few days en route. Usually the provider will charge a fee for this, but not always. Simply put “Do not deliver before…” in the notes of your shopping order when you place it, then immediately follow up with the shipping company with your confirmation tracking number to confirm that it was successful, and deal with it if not. If anything goes wrong, you will need to pick up the phone and talk to a person where you placed your online order (not email/chat), and once you’ve explained that this was part of your order initially and is not a change, they’ll work it out with the shipper.
  2. Send it to your hotel = If you have a hotel booked anywhere along your trip, you have an in. If you happen to be signed up for their rewards program, you have pull. (Hint: it doesn’t matter how recently you signed up! Oftentimes I’ll sign up for a hotel rewards program right before booking just so I can ask for special favors like this.)  I had a bunch of computer gear from OWC sent to an independent hotel in Phoenix the day before check-in without incident. I had a mobile phone from Amazon.com sent to my Best Western hotel in Buffalo a week before I arrived, no trouble. Obviously, if you’re ordering something really expensive and your staying at a cheap motel you know nothing about, another strategy might be better.
  3. Use the nearest FedEx/Kinkos = Especially if something is being sent via FedEx, just have it held at their nearest retail store. I’ve done this a few times with orders and never even been charged extra for it.
  4. Find another a trusted location = Do you have a friend anywhere that you plan to visit for lunch or CouchSurf with? Ask them if it’s okay if you have something(s) sent to their place. This is what I’ve been doing with Netflix DVDs for years, and it’s always worked out great for me. I use it to spark conversation about movie recommendations, live concerts, comedy, etc.

If none of these options work for you, I’d suggest contacting Earth Class Mail and asking for a free/limited trial of their services. One of the services they offer is pickup in San Francisco (as well as dozens of other cities). I’ve picked things up from their Market Street storefront a few times, and the only hard thing about it is finding parking right next to Montgomery Street BART.

Oh, and one more important thing! Regardless of who receives your mail for you, here is my preferred address formatting for sending stuff to someone that’s not you on your behalf within the US/Canada:

YOUR NAME IN ALL CAPS
c/o Name of Person/Business Receiving
Street Address
City, State Zip

Happy travels!

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5-year tech retrospective

September 14th, 2011 Posted in Cloud Tech, Randomnimity
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My reentry to the world of Macs started with the 17″ MacBook Pro in 2006. I was very proud to own such an elegant machine, and elated to have a laptop running WinXP, MacOS, and Ubuntu Linux on it. No more compromises! When that machine was stolen in 2009, I quickly scrambled together just enough cash to get a one-year-old 15″ MacBook Pro. Recently, I swooped in on a great deal on last year’s model of 13″ MacBook Pro. Aside from the mistake of upgrading to Lion too soon (don’t do it yet, trust me!), I really like it.

My 2008 iPhone 3G served me pretty well for two years, but then I got the first version of iPad, and it seemed superfluous. Well, I bought the wifi-only iPad first, but then I sold that and went to the 3G model (and a wireless keyboard) which more than trumped my iPhone. That’s when I downgraded back to my Motorola RAZR V3 dumbphone, which has worked out beautifully.

Noticing a trend here? The big stuff gets smaller, and the small stuff gets bigger. Or is that two trends? Anyway…

I miraculously recovered my 17″ MacBook Pro from the Santa Clara Police Department 2-years to the day after it was stolen. This was right about the time I was buying the 13″ MacBook Pro. In the process of reinstalling everything fresh and shuffling the drives around for the purposes of resale, I thought I’d take some pictures of this Mac family reunion.

Each of these devices has played a crucial role in my Living on The Cloud. Just looking at them together like this and I get all nostalgic.

  • There was the time my friend Zorina’s 80-year old mother flipped my 17″ MBP down like the lid of a toilet seat and sat on it for 20-minutes before I noticed (it was fine, fortunately).
  • Or dialing into my 15″ MBP that I left online at my friend’s house near San Francisco from all the way in Sao Paulo to boot it up in Windows-mode and make Captivate simulations (that didn’t work so well).
  • Or using my iPad to dangerously navigate around while driving on the left side of the road in Tasmania and New Zealand (won’t do that again!).

Then I look at my new 13″ MBP and wonder what adventures we will have together. Thanks to it’s smaller form factor and greater firepower, I think it is even better suited to Living on The Cloud along with me.

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Why I don’t like portable hotspots

September 12th, 2011 Posted in Cloud Tech
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I’ve gotten a few questions lately from people asking about portable wifi hotspots. These are those little devices that connect to the local 3G/4G cell network and broadcast a limited range wireless internet signal for your personal devices (laptop, smartphone, etc.).

While I love the idea of portable hotspots, in practice I find that they just don’t deliver. I researched and tried out the MiFi 2200 Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot with service from Sprint a year ago. It didn’t work for me, and was one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve ever had.*

Here are the reasons I do not recommend them for Living on the Cloud:

  • They are not designed for the global traveler. Whatever you get in America probably won’t work anywhere else, you’d have to get a different device for that country. Once somebody makes the device separate from the network, I’m in. It’s important to be able to swap sim/microSim cards in and out of depending on where you are, like I do with my iPad.
  • They require a 2-year agreement. There used to be a company that leased service if you bought the device, but the wireless providers shut them down. According to Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and T-mobile, either you’re in for two consecutive years or you’re out. So I’m out. I don’t know what the next two years of my life are going to look like, but I’m sure I won’t be in the US for a good portion of it.
  • They are not designed for constant use. All the devices I’ve looked at charge slower than the energy they burn up while running. That means that even with the thing plugged in, you have only 2-hours or so of time online before they shut down. The model I had would often overheat before it got to that point. Fail.
  • The (US) network can’t handle the traffic. I returned the Sprint MiFi within the 30-day window after it didn’t work for me consistently in such remote and rural areas as San Francisco, Los Angeles, & New York City. C’mon, really? I suspect that the carriers downgrade the service to this class of devices. I have no evidence to back this up other than the inexcusably poor speeds and constant dropouts.

Hopefully someday someone will make my ideal portable wifi device. Until then, I’ll stick to my iPad and use it to help me find places to get decent wifi for my laptop(s).

If you’ve had good experiences with portable wifi hotspots, or know something that I don’t, please add it to the comments below! Thanks.

 

* Sprint insisted I owed them two month’s worth of service even though I had the device for 29 days. I got it cleared. Then they “forgot” and I was pursued by collections for a while, then I got it cleared again. Then they came after me a third time — six months later — for the same $72. I eventually threatened to bill them for the 8+ hours of mine they had wasted due to their own administrative errors, and I haven’t heard from them since. This frustrating waste makes me never want to deal with Sprint for anything ever again.

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