Why SkyRoam Won't Work For Me

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I don't have a SkyRoam, and have never tried or used it.  I'm sure its a good device and service because it gets great reviews on Amazon.  So this is not a review of the device, just some preliminary findings based on what I wanted to know before I spend money to consider reviewing or evaluating SkyRoam.

I had to dig a little bit about this for a number of things:

1. Where does it work?

2. How fast are the speeds?

3. Cost for the data?

4. What don't they tell you up front?

 

1. It works pretty much globally.

2. Somewhere between 3G and 4G speeds.  

3. $8-$10 a day 'unlimited'

4. You only get 350MB of high speed.  After that you get 2G speeds, which is very, very slow.  "

"Note: Skyroam is not optimized for video services like YouTube, Netflix or other heavy streaming activities."

The answer to #4 pretty much makes this no better than what T-Mobile already provides for me on my phone.  I can get slow speeds that are OK for emails, and light browsing already with no additional cost with my plan in many countries.
What I want to be able to do is upload photos and videos while on the go, and the SkyRoam only ensures that I can send and receive emails for $10 USD a day which is something I already get with my T-Mobile Plan.
**Not an endorsement for Tmobile and SkyRoam**

Vector Cupholder is Awesome For Cafe Crawlers

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Lately I haven't been working in cafes as much, but when I do, I notice a few things have changed.  There are now smaller tables, less power outlets, slower (but free) wifi, limited parking just about everywhere.

There are ways to alleviate some of those problems, but none really worked well for the smaller tables and my need to use a 15" Apple MacBook Pro, and sometimes a Wacom Intuos Pro without hogging a big group table.

So, enter the Vector Cupholder.  

It travels flat, and rotates to hold a multitude of cup and mug sizes.  Most importantly, it holds your cup securely so that I can't accidently spill a cup of joe all over my stuff.  I got it on kickstarter, but you can now order it on Amazon below.

I've so far used it around the house and outdoors in the patio.  Unfortunately it doesn't fit my current desk simply because the table top is too thick for the clamp.  I'll report back as I use it further.

Staying Cool on a Budget with a Great Air Cooler

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Air coolers work.  Unfortunately most air coolers you can find locally don't work all that well - I know I've tried several.  There is exactly one company that I've come across that knows their swamp coolers (evaporative coolers), and that's Convair.

Yes, they aren't cheap - often times the models exceed the typical cost of a typical window box air conditioner but there are a lot of advantages.

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Go-Ped Factory Tour

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I'm a fan of alternative transportation (vs regular gasoline powered cars).  Personal transportation in particular is one that I feel more people can improve upon in their lives.  Does it really make sense to drive a 2 ton vehicle out for a local trip to the grocery store or rent movies?  What a waste!

Sadly, at least in most of California, I see few people using alternative transportation for such short local trips.  I've seen one segway, a few bicycles used by some staff, a motorcycle every now and then, and a handful of people who walk from across the street here in So. Cal.

Go-ped goes a long way into making personal transportation fun and practical.  They recently released a line of bulletproof kick scooters that I think everyone should consider in an urban / city / metropolitan environment.

Enjoy the factory tour!

UnbeatableSale.com

Sells Go-Peds.

Which Android Tablet to Get? True iPad2 Competition Here.

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Wow, I lost count of how many Android based tablets I saw at Computex in Taipei this year.  Literally hundreds of models that are out, available, or coming out.  There are still only a few that you shouldseriously consider if you want the best Android experience though, and I will go over these here.

Hardware differences:

The latest tablets (running 3.x HoneyComb) from the top manufacturers all have very similar specs CPU hardware side and so will have very similar performance.  The differences you will see will be in screen size and quality, physical casing dimensions and materials, ports, built-in camera(s), and accessories.

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Tips from Road Foodie founder Michael Stern

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Road Foodie Michael SternMichael Stern, author and founder of the Road Food series of books, and website gave the following top 3 tips on finding good food on the road:

1. Roll down your windows and sniff your way to good food.

2. Look for a restaurant full of off-duty police cars, fire trucks.  Chances are they serve decent food, at a reasonable price that is safe to eat.

3. Look for places that do only one thing really well. 

 

Backups - Here we go again

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This is probably my third post this year about backups, but it's sooo important.  

If you have been following my twitter feed, you will know that I've recently experienced a hard drive failure of my boot (C:) drive on my main multimedia computer tower which is actually composed of two uber fast hard drives (at the time anyway) that spin at 10,000 RPM (normal is 5000+ RPM, up to 7,200 RPM).

The drive is covered under the 5 year warranty so I will get a free replacement from Western Digital, but what isn't covered of course is any loss of data.

Here's my current backup scenario for the main tower.

My backup system for the C drive is composed of an Acronis True Image Home edition backed up weekly to my Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ 4 Terabyte system, which itself is backed up to an external USB drive system.  My C drive does not contain any data, just programs and windows so its non-critical.

When I am ready to restore, all I need is access to my image files (copy them over to a local drive probably), and my restore CD created within Acronis.  

For my drives containing data, I use another external hard drive for immediate backups using Acronis True Image and then online / offsite backup using Mozy. 

I should note that I have multiple computers that also serve as backups to this main computer I work on.  So in case nothing is working right on this computer, I have a few more I can jump on to get work done.  Although sometimes with licensing issues, I experience some downtime while I transfer a license or program over - same thing with settings and macros.  

I haven't decided if I want to go all flash storage yet for the C drive, especially since my drives set in RAID 0 is pretty darned fast already and Black Friday is coming around the corner.

I think I'll wait.

Save 10% on MOZY and get up to 3 months free by using the promo code OCTOBER

Acronis True Image Home 2011