Mar 17 2015

Recommendations for your mobile office

Julie and Ken C.—on the road to Georgia—need some tips about Airstreaming with office electronics.

“Please share with us the various electronic office equipment you take with you. What is the small size printer (and scanner/copier?) you take along? We are needing to purchase one soon!”

Julie and Ken, if you’ve got a mobile office and need to print and scan documents, there are several good solutions to consider. The smallest and lightest printers are ink jet printers. Hewlett-Packard’s Envy series are medium-sized and very inexpensive, at about $80-100. They print in color, scan, and copy.

However, if you boondock frequently and want a battery-powered printer, or need something physically smaller (and don’t need scan capability) the HP Officejet 100 Mobile series might be your choice at about $200. For that price, you also get Bluetooth wireless connectivity, so you have fewer cords to deal with.

There’s another option for scanning, too: your smart phone. Look for a smart phone app like Genius Scan, which uses your phone’s camera to “scan” documents. These apps are surprisingly good for routine document scanning. Genius Scan will help you crop and optimize the scans for best readability, organize your documents into folders, upload them to cloud storage like Dropbox, or email them to yourself as PDF or JPG files.

It’s much quicker than pulling out the scanner and laptop computer, and so convenient you may find yourself scanning fuel receipts and bills just because you can!

Feb 24 2015

Are surge protectors really necessary?

Are surge protectors a necessary expense to protect the electrical systems of the Airstream?

Surge protectors and related electrical protectors are like insurance policies: you only need them when something goes wrong, but you have to buy them in advance if they’re going to be of any use at all.

A basic surge protector can stop a sudden electrical spike from damaging electronics in your Airstream. More sophisticated power protectors can do that as well as protect against unsafe conditions like incorrect wiring, or low/high voltage conditions that might burn out your air conditioner or microwave oven.

Most campgrounds have good wiring, but if you travel a lot you’ll eventually run into a shoddy-looking receptacle with bad wiring, or find a campground that is struggling to maintain proper voltage to all the campers (especially during air conditioning season). Since you can’t be there to monitor the power all the time, a good power protector is a wise choice. Expect to spend about $200-300 for a quality unit.

Jan 13 2015

RV Internet Options

“For anyone thinking of hitting the road, figuring out how to best keep online while exploring the world offline becomes critically important,” said Cherie Ve Ard, co-author of the recently-updated The Mobile Internet Handbook.

Many Airstreamers are acquainted with fulltimers Cherie Ve Ard and Chris Dunphy—the technomadic couple who began traveling and working together in a tiny T@B before graduating to a customized 17ft Oliver trailer, and now a “geeked out” 1961 GM Greyhound-style bus.

“Mobile technology has come a long way since we first hit the road in 2006,” said Cherie. “Chris and I have always traveled a lot while keeping connected, and we’ve witnessed an incredible amount of change in just a few years’ time.”

“The technology for connecting while on the go has advanced at an incredible pace,” agreed Chris. “There’s a vast difference in speeds and coverage today, and it’s only getting better.” The price per gigabyte of data has plummeted too, says Cherie, though “typical monthly usage has gone up even faster than prices have gone down—so things certainly don’t feel any cheaper!”

As mentioned in the last issue of Outside Interests, “public WiFi spots are all over now,” said Cherie. “So many improvements in cellular coverage have been made that you can now get usable connectivity across the bulk of the nation, and sometimes connection speeds while on the go actually exceed what you could get via the fastest fixed-place connection.“

“Despite all these advancements, there are still limitations and plenty of frustrations,” she said.

“The most important thing you can do to prepare yourself for relying on mobile internet is to reset your expectations,” said Chris. “We’re not trying to scare you away, but we do want to make sure your expectations are realistic. Keeping online most of the time while traveling is entirely possible—but it’s not necessarily easy or cheap.”

The Mobile Internet Handbook will help you navigate the confusing world of cellular data plans, and offers advice for employees who travel. Here’s a sneak peek at some of what’s inside.

Common options: pros and cons

“There are multiple ways to access the internet while on the go these days, and each of them has attributes that make it more attractive than the others,” explained Chris. “By far the two most common ways that RVers get online is via a cellular data connection or campground or another public WiFi network.”

“More than likely, most RVers will create a personal arsenal that combines multiple options.”

WiFi

The short-range local wireless network technology built into all current laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Via WiFi, you can connect to a nearby hotspot that is at most just a few hundred feet away (without special equipment). A hotspot may be one you create and host yourself, or it may be one provided by a campground, cafe, library, or hotel. The hotspot itself is providing access via whatever its own upstream internet source is—cable, DSL, satellite, or even cellular.

Pro: Often free or low cost; no special equipment needed.

Con: Can vary vastly in quality and are frequently too overloaded to be a reliable source. And unless you’re wiling to take your laptop closer to the physical hotspot, you may need additional gear to get a usable signal from the comfort of your RV.

Cellular Data and “mobile hotspots”

Longer range data connection established over the same basic wireless network that carries cellphone voice calls. When using cellular data, you are “talking” to the internet via a cell tower typically up to five miles away. (In a remote area the tower may be 15 to 20 miles away or more; in a busy urban area there may be cell towers located every few blocks, or even inside buildings.)

Pro: All smartphones, some tablets, and even some laptops have cellular data capabilities built in. If you want to make connecting via laptop easy, you can get a “mobile hotspot” (a small dedicated device called a MiFi, Mobile Hotspot, or Jetpack) from major cellular providers, which turns the cellular signal into wifi. And coverage is good: “It’s now available in some surprisingly remote locations,” according to Cherie.

Con: Cellular data is rarely free, and priced by how much you use, “which can add up fast,” she said. “And you might need extra equipment or boosting gear to optimize utilizing cellular in remote locations.” Selecting your carrier(s) and equipment wisely to best match your planned travel destinations and routes can be a hassle.

Satellite internet

Once the ultimate option for getting online at better than dial-up speeds while mobile; now nearly a thing of the past. “The glory days of relatively affordable, available-almost-everywhere satellite broadband are now fading for mobile users,” said Chris. “Cheap and increasingly widespread cellular 3G and 4G has eaten into the advantages of satellite.”

Pro: “Still a great option for some situations,” said Cherie, “especially those situations where it is the ONLY option.” Can be picked up anywhere with access to the southern sky—even remote locations and across borders into Mexico and Canada.

Con: Comes with a host of drawbacks: slow speed, high price, latency (the time it takes for data packets to be sent or retrieved), complexity.

What Is—and isn’t—“Data Usage”?

Though it may take a few weeks or months to fine tune the data plan you’ve selected for your mobile device, you can mitigate surprises by anticipating the bandwidth amount you’ll need.

“There are plenty of things you can do on a computer or smartphone that will not count against your monthly data usage,” said Cherie. For instance:

Stay offline.

“If you’re not currently connected, then you’re obviously not consuming any internet data.”

Work with pre-downloaded files.

“Even when you’re connected, anytime you view files that are already stored on your computer, tablet, or phone you don’t have to worry about affecting your data plan,” she said. Viewing photos and documents stored locally doesn’t use data—only transferring them via the internet does.

The same goes for photos.

“You won’t use data when viewing and editing photos copied from your camera or phone,” Cherie advised, “unless you decide to share them on Facebook, Instagram or upload them online to a service like Flickr, Picasa, or SmugMug.”

Read an ebook.

“Usually no data usage is involved once the book has been downloaded the first time.”

Talk on the phone.

Voice time is not considered data. “If you make cellular phone calls using your carrier’s regular voice service, the call won’t count against your data usage,” Cherie said. “However, if you use an internet-based service like Skype, Google Hangouts or FaceTime to have an audio chat or make an outgoing call, that will.”

Common RVer tasks that draw down your data plan

Planning your route

Example scenario: Using RVillage and RVParkReviews to scout out future potential campsites, and then planning the route in Google Maps (including checking out the satellite view of the destination campground to make sure the spot looks like a good fit), and finally, using GasBuddy to scope out fuel prices along the way. Data use: 17.6MB.

Paying bills

Example scenario: Sync transactions to Quicken, check balances and schedule two credit card payments online at two different online banks, transfer funds between accounts, and check your investments. Data use: 13.7MB.

Sharing a photo

Example scenario: Posting to Instagram or Facebook. Data use: 2.6MB.

Staying in touch

Example scenario: Sending an email letter to friends and family back home, with a “large” picture attached. Data use: 747KB. (A short iMessage text chat exchange, including a photo and a contact transfer, will set your plan back 500KB.)

Dec 23 2014

My Campsite, My Worksite

More and more Airstreamers are taking their jobs on the road with them. No, not camp hosting, or even work camping — they’re keeping an office job afloat as they travel from place to place, either temporarily in extended vacation mode, or on a permanent basis, year ’round. The rewards are obvious (like that view, below), but there are challenges, too.

Oceanview from an Airstream — Airstream ocean view (photo by Laura Domela)

Kevin Morris and wife Laura Domela run their own business (an online publication for electrical engineers) and manage ten employees. “We really can’t take much of a break from work,” said Laura, a professional photographer—but that hasn’t stopped them from regularly traveling in their 27-foot, 2010 FB Airstream International. “Kevin does the writing and manages most of the business side, and I do the layout and publishing of our articles and newsletters,” she said. “After eleven years of taking our work on the road we find that it’s really important not to just work the day away without taking a good break to go see or do something new.”

The Airstream office of Morris and Domela

Kyle Bolstad, (who has traveled to every state in the nation and all ten Canadian provinces while succeeding at his job as a software developer), concurs. “My one piece of advice for others who work while they travel is to try and take breaks during the day, to get out and explore,” he said.

Kyle Bolstad - jobs on the road — Kyle Bolstad

Itching to see the country, Kyle moved out of his apartment and into an Airstream five years ago. He maintains a full time job while full-timing in a 2008 23-foot CCD International, towed by his trusty Touareg. He’s currently in Hawaii (the only state he has visited without the Airstream).

“I typically work a bit in the morning, take a break during lunch to explore the area during daylight hours, and then continue working later that night when it’s too dark to explore much,” he said. “If your job doesn’t allow you to take a break during the day, try to mix up your work environment by getting out of the Airstream to work in a cool coffee shop, park, hotel lobby, restaurant, you name it.” As Kyle’s website states, “with a MacBook Pro and an internet connection, he works out of an Airstream—anywhere.”

Getting (and staying) electronically connected to employers, coworkers and associates while traveling is a challenge that Kevin, Kyle and Laura solve by using a sophisticated variety of hotspot technologies and all the associated gadgetry. More casual users will be glad to hear that plain old campground wifi is increasing in reliability.

As recent as three or four years ago, the internet connection at most campgrounds was nonexistent or spotty. “When they first started out they used consumer-level, homeowner solutions,” said Michael Sullivan, an Apple certified support professional and owner of MPS Consulting. “They put the router in the clubhouse, or the laundry room, or some other ‘central location’.” RVers requiring the internet learned to ask where the signal was strongest when checking in, and then selected the nearest campsite. “You’d put up with being next to the laundromat just so you’d have a good wifi signal, or you had to walk over with your laptop and sit there,” said Sullivan.

“There were a couple of problems with the campground wifi setup,” he explained. “Obviously, the range—the further you’d get out, the slower it would be, if you got a connection at all. And the consumer level units providing the signal were a combination of router and wireless device all in one box that wouldn’t give very good partitioning.” Each user on the network was visible to all. “You could look at your neighbor’s dirty laundry very easily,” he laughed, “especially if they have their computer set up for guest sharing. You’d be able to print to their printer if they had one! That would be really funny.”

Campground owners have recently wised up and learned from commercial hotels. “Mid range hotels provide reliable free internet, and they realize the better it is, the more likely you are to stay with them,” said Sullivan. “The campgrounds are just now figuring this out. They know wifi is a major pull. A high speed, high bandwidth connection is the new swimming pool.”

Look for higher-end campgrounds that have installed professional level equipment; meaning, a wifi controller box in a central location with a wire loop running throughout the grounds with a series of WAPs—wireless access points—broadcasting out. “Instead of one antenna, you have a whole series of antennas throughout the property,” said Sullivan. “So you could be parked way out on the end or wherever you liked, and still get a strong signal and high bandwidth.”

“Another problem with consumer level units is that they’re only meant to support a small number of wifi connections before there’s a great degradation in quality of the signal,” he continued. “Often times if you exceed the number of people, the wifi unit kind of freezes. The manager had to unplug it—knocking everyone off—plug it back in, and then everyone can get back in the pool…until it exceeds the quantity again, over and over. The commercial ones don’t tend to do that; they’re better controlled and better partitioned, with better security, and better availability. They don’t tend to croak.”

Another good thing: professional equipment usually comes with a maintenance contract. “If somebody has a problem, they call an 800 number instead of the poor hapless guy running the KOA who might be really good at cleaning pools and maintaining the site, but with the internet, not so much,” Sullivan said. “Now you can get a guy on the other end who will be able to remotely see what’s going on with your system and fix it for you, or troubleshoot the problem.”

Sullivan’s consulting business is located in a town popular for it’s outdoor recreation. “We have a lot of clients that we do tech support for that say ‘do you mind, I’m not in a traditional house, I’m not in a traditional business, I’m in an Airstream’ halfway to nowhere,” he said. “Do you mind dropping in on us? I say ‘no, we live for that!’”

“You see somebody with a really nice Airstream, and pulling it is a really nice rig — that’s somebody that wants to be taken care of in the same way as somebody living in a really nice house,” Sullivan said. “That’s our market—we take care of these people. And the mobile market is growing.”

“It seems like every mammalian species out there has an iPad or iPhone,” he joked. “Everybody wants to be mobile, and everybody wants to be able to take care of business while they are lounging about at their cabin, or in their RV. It’s getting harder and harder to cut the cord, so to speak; to say “I’m going on vacation and I’m not turning on my cell phone or device.”

“We’ve even snowshoed to a client, with our equipment in a backpack,” he said.