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10 Internet access tips for travelers

I once stayed in a hotel, in Hong Kong, which charged, excessive, rates, for internet, however, in the dining room, (for breakfast), you could pick up the Wi-Fi, from the Bank next door
Sometimes, finding 'free' Wi-Fi, is quite interesting

I put an SD card in my laptop and with Active Boot Disk in a pen drive I made a new installation restore to the SD card.The Pen drive has the program to make the restore and to restore the back up to the hard drive.The drive can be totally erased and restored with this pen drive program.If my computer goes down I'm back again as brand new.Wi-Fi in planes will be a must have.Carry an extra set of batteries or two for long flights.Maybe a movie to watch.Remote desktop is a serious consideration too.I even see web camming to the home office especially for truckers at the dock or enroute.Make web cam big.A small computer that folds open would be nice.

Fn and the little antenna icon.

I travel a lot, mostly in remote corner of the world where internet access whatever its flavors can be limited and expensive. Its also ime consuming - and loosing precious time oversea to sit in front of a computer to write and answer email, publish blog is not my kind of soup.
So in order to same money and time, I use a mail client app to manage all emails. This way, I can take my time to write and reply to my emails while I am offline, in the calm of my room, when I feel like doing it, not pressured by anything.
I also use a desktop blog client to do the same for my blog.
This way, I can stay in contact with me world while exploring the world and make new friends.

Im a little surprised that these two options werent added in this article, but these two aspects, or tips, are extremely useful when using public internet access while on the go.

1. Use Good Virus Protection

There have been various experiences Ive had in the past where myself or another friend or relative has had the data on their computer or their internet traffic intercepted and used for malicious intent because they either had no virus protection running on their computer, or they had some free, knock-off virus scanner that only did a half-a** job of protecting the computer and the data stored on it. Zone Alarm is an Internet Security program that I have had the best luck with, as far as it doing a REALLY good job of protecting the data stored on my laptop and other computers when i used them on the go (www.zonealarm.com). This isnt a free internet security program, but in the long run, it is a small price to pay for protecting potentially hundreds of dollars or gigabytes worth of information. The programs virus protection also does a really good job without bogging your computer's performance down. If you feel secure enough using an internet security program that is free, Comodo is a really good option as well. From just one software download, Comodo gives you the ability to install just their virus protection, firewall program, or both rolled into one. One of the features that I love in both Comodo and Zone Alarm is that if someone tries to access your computer remotely, the software will kick up a warning message to let you know.

2. Use a Good VPN Service

There have been various times when Ive been traveling out of state or just around town to different locations and Ive needed to access a particular website for business purposes or utilize a particular program on my computer to assist clients and other customers, but the wireless connection blocked that particular website or blocked the particular kind of network traffic associated with the needed program. HotSpot Shield is a free, but from my previous and long experience with it, a good VPN client to use when encountering either of the above mentioned situations. It allows you to access legitimate websites or services that have been blocked for no apparent reason, and it also does a good job of masking your network traffic from people who try to use network sniffing programs to unlawfully intercept your network traffic

Last year I was in downtown Toronto. The hotel I stayed at had only wired connections in the rooms and only had guest wi-fi in the lobby. I did complain hard to hotel management on property & in their corporate offices about how more & more people are using tablets & smartphones now, how those devices do not come with ethernet ports, and how having wi-fi only in the lobby was limiting how their business customers could do their work.

Also, was in Wheeling, IL in the early fall. The hotel had very slow & throttled wi-fi at 950 Kbits down. Local 3G service was faster at 3100 Kbits down. Don't always rely on the hotel's wi-fi for speed.

Know wether or not your cell and especially data plan supports roaming and in what countries. Fortunately, I can set my blackberry data plan to "off when roaming" so I don't have any accidents.
On cruise ships, its especially important to understand how this works. Especially if you have a teen or someone who doesn't realize that "unlimited" usually doesn't stretch outside your own border. You'll also recall that cruise ships charge by the minute, not the byte. So be careful to switch off your wifi on your laptop and avoid hooking up things like tablets and smartphones to wifi.

Nice article Brien.
I was on the road in December, and was just at the very limit of my provider's cell range. To add to my frustration, the place we stayed offered Wi-Fi coverage, but the bandwidth was really slow, and our condo was also at the extreme range of the network.
Next year, I'm going to take a signal booster with me. Still researching what will work best for our needs.

Generally, internet access limits at hotels are per IP address. If you have both a laptop, smart phone, Ipod, etc., you can get the free time for each, using the same access code.

Referring to "10: Never underestimate the value of local storage": This is not explicitly true in hotels, but location independent and subject to Digital Murphy's Law: The harder you need that particular file, the greater the change that the network will let you down.