Travel Tech

For those interested, this is my travel technology:

Cell, Internet, and email: The trip with started with a first generation (1G) iPhone. In each country I buy a new SIM card and dump the old (I was very happy to de-contract with AT&T).  With a new Indian SIM card my 1G iPhone did not work well — no email and Apple Store applications would not load or update.  So I swallowed the $650 price and purchased a 3G iPhone in Goa, India. This was hefty price, much more expensive than in the US, but with no required contract it was less expensive in the long run.  Since the resurgence of terrorist attacks, India requires a passport, local address, and 2 days wait for a foreigner to obtain a new SIM card.  In the process of moving the data to the new unit, all photos, music, and calendar events were lost. Contact info remained intact so thankfully a virtual you, friends and family, remained with me.

The new 3G iPhone worked fine in India and the data access was decent in all areas I visited.  There is no 3G network network of course so data was accessed via the GPRS network, the same as in the US with the G1 iPhone. The cost is an extremely low $9 per month for unlimited email and Internet. That’s 30 cents a day for all the slow Internet surfing I wanted. The low cost of cellular service is why most Indians, poor or not, own a mobile phone. WiFi is rare in India, and when available proprietors charge per hour, even at high-end hotels.

Once landing  in Hanoi I put in a new SIM card, set the GPRS, and now receive surprisingly good data access throughout Vietnam. I sold the first generation iPhone at the same store for $250, far more than it would have sold on eBay, and it was cosmetically damaged too when it was dropped on the concrete floor at a Lowes in CA looking for some kind of screw.  A new 3G iPhone is $850 in Hanoi. In both countries phone minutes and data is simply “recharged” as needed at an amount I specify, for example $5, $10, etc. A very easy system which the US needs to adopt. The requirement of a one- or two-year contract is criminal.

Blogging: WordPress.com has an iPhone application so I type the post on the phone then sync it up to the Internet as a draft. If Internet access is not available the post is saved as a draft on the iPhone. Once at an Internet cafe, I edit the post and check spelling, then publish it. Photos are first emailed to myself from the iPhone then added to the blog.

Wordpress iPhone application

Secure Interneting: My online accounts, including bank accounts are accessed with confidence using a combination of tools.  I don’t  use the iPhone for these sites as they typically require Flash or other web services which the iPhone does not support.

For secure access on public computers I use the following: A portable version of Firefox is installed on a USB flash drive. This version of Firefox has all my saved bookmarks. I then launch Mashedlife.com which is a site that allows one to consolidate all important online web addresses, profiles, and passwords, then automatically launch/logon to them directly from one single Mashedlife.com sign-on.

The secure sign-on Mashedlife.com is accomplished via a YubiKey. This physical devise is a one button USB keyboard with a single purpose – to insert into the password field a very strong random 44-character password.  This logon then allows a single click access to any and all of my stored online accounts.

Assessment: The iPhone has been a wonderful devise to take on the the trail, and a new and shinny wonder locals and foreigners have enjoyed playing with. The camera would be mediocre without a secondary application called Photogene which allows cropping and editing of the image. The end result is a pleasing photograph.

However, the iPhone is problematic — crashes often, poor typing keyboard for someone with fat fingers, requires attaching to a computer with iTunes to install music and sync data, short battery life – and for these reasons, I am looking forward to competitive alternatives. I may even sell it here in Vietnam and make a small profit. Apple has set the bar to an amazing level for next generation of the all-in-one devise but I am looking forward to other hardware options based on Google’s Android OS.