Cell Tower Overload

by Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.com RV Rallies present major issues for Internet Access.  Rarely is Wi-Fi provided throughout the rally grounds, and, when you try to use your Cellular provider for data, you may find it doesn’t work so well. That was our experience at the FMCA SE Area rally last week in Brooksville, FL.  At times like these I wish we had our Satellite Dish back. If you doubt that cell tower overload is a factor, check out this article on AT&Ts troubles due to all the iPhone users out there. Actually, this article has me a little worried about Verizon as well, once the Droid (Verizon’s answer to the iPhone) catches on.  You see, once you have Internet browsing capabilities on your cell phone, you use it a lot more.  When I use my phone to make a voice call, I’m on for 5 – 20 minutes.  When Jim uses his new Droid to browse the web, he’s on for hours.  Both usages connect to the Cellular Tower, but the data usage represents a quantum leap in loading the Tower’s connections.  Read More →

Wi-Fi – A Better Antenna will Get You a Better Connection

We’ve said this time and time again, but it’s been a while and we have a lot of new readers. If you’re using a Wi-Fi hotspot and it’s not working so great, get an external Wi-Fi adapter. We have quite a collection of them over the years, but we recently bought a new one to go with our Windows 7 64 bit computer.  Here’s the one we purchased, a Hawking HWDN2: Read more  Read More →

Make a Wi-Fi Hotspot with your Cell Phone

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksOnTour.com If you’ve been reading my posts here – you probably know that you can tether your cellphone (if it’s the right model with the right service) to your computer.  Tethering your cellphone to your computer will give you Internet Access on that computer.  What you may not know is that you can tether it to a router as well. The Cradlepoint cellular router is very popular among RVers.  Most people use it for their Data Cards.  Plug the data card into the router and configure the router for your hotspot.  Now several computers can use that same Internet connection.  The router that we have will accept a Data Card, an Ethernet cable from DSL or Cable Internet, or a cell phone USB connection. While we are parked for the season at Paradise Island RV Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida – we decided to spoil ourselves and get a month-to-month DSL Internet connection.  The telephone cable comes in from the post outside (the yellow cable) and plugs into the modem and then to our Cradlepoint router.  The Cradlepoint creates a wireless network called ‘GeeksOnTour.’  We can both connect to that network and we have Internet supplied by the DSL cable. We’re on the road right now, headed toward Holiday Travel Resort in Leesburg, Florida where we are presenting some computer classes.  Then, on to the FMCA Southeast Area Rally in Brooksville, Florida.  As we pulled into our overnight site at Thousand Trails, Orlando – I felt a bit of panic. ... Read more

Turn your Computer into a TV

by Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.com When we first bought our motorhome, it had 2 TVs.  One in the front, living/dining area, and one in the back – the bedroom.  We got rid of both of them and set up a TV tuner with a projector and a window-shade screen.  It’s great!  We have a big screen with surround sound – a pretty good home theatre for any house, let alone a 30 foot class C motorhome!  When I recently purchased a new Windows 7 laptop, we wondered what to do with my old laptop.  It was still working fine, ( see rule #1 for buying a new computer) so I wasn’t going to send it off to recycling.  How about a TV for the bedroom!  Jim found a stud in the wall and installed a TV shelf bracket that fits my old laptop just perfect.  The antenna connection was already there, all we needed was the TV tuner.  The one Jim got is the ATI  TV Wonder (he got a great deal – $25 – by buying it on the daily special at Woot.com), but he’s also used the Hauppage.  Just google for USB TV Tuner to see lots of other choices.  Basically this tiny box is the guts of a television!  Just plug one end into the USB port of your computer, and the other end into an antenna.  Of course, there is software as well, and you need to be sure whatever you get works with your computer’s operating system.  Once you have it all set up, you have TV!  Ours even came with a remote control.  And, since it is still a computer – it is even better than a TV – you can get the... Read more

Cruising vs RVing, and Wi-Fi

by Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.com I think there are a lot of RVers who also take cruising vacations.  Cruising is very much like RVing in that you don’t have to check in and out of a room for every destination.  You keep your stuff all in one room, yet you travel to multiple locations.  Then there’s the food.  Sure wish I could have that available when we’re RVing!  The primary reason I love RVing is the complete freedom and independence of going wherever we want to go, whenever we want to go there.  Although that does not describe cruising, I find cruising to be a nice change of pace where I don’t have any decisions to make.  We took a short, weekend cruise to the Bahamas this past weekend with the whole family.  Six of us.  It’s a great way to spend time together and be sure that everyone is comfortable. The only decision I had to make is what to eat! I was also looking forward to staying connected while we were on the cruise ship.  I could have sworn I saw, “Free Wi-Fi on board” in the promotional literature.  As it turns out, I was only half right.  There was Wi-Fi in the public areas, but it was not free.  $24/hour for Wi-Fi! An I thought $10/day was high the last time I was in a hotel!  It is amazing that they have an Internet connection at all way out at sea, but for that price I decided to leave my computer in my bag!  I can survive 4 days being disconnected, but not much more.  We did find a free Wi-Fi hotspot at the Ferry terminal in... Read more

So, Are You As High Tech As Your RV Is?

GPS navigation, cellular phones, Bluetooth technology, what did we ever do before these became common place in our lives?  I remember when one could take a road trip for several hundred miles without the thought of a need for any of these things.  Read more  Read More →

Computer Backups are Worthless

by Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.com Has this ever happened to you? Your computer crashes and you take it to a techie who gets it working again but needs to reformat (erase) the hard drive.  You get your computer back with nothing on it.  No problem you think, you have a backup of your important data on Disk, either CD/DVDs or a USB hard drive.  But when you try to restore you find: there is something wrong with the backup disks, either the data is corrupted or there simply is no data on the disk(s) or: the backup was made with software that you don’t remember or don’t have.  You need that software in order to restore. If you can’t restore … your backups are worthless. Read more  Read More →

Technology Top 5 for 2009

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksOnTour.com Jim and I are always learning about new technology – it’s what we’ve done since the early 80s – and there is plenty to keep us occupied.  But, 2009 has been remarkable when it comes to the proliferation of useful technology tools. There’s something qualitatively different this year about technology and gadgets.  People are actually *using* them.  You don’t have to be a geek to want this stuff.  Not all my top 5 are brand new this year, but this is the year they’ve gone mainstream.  Everyone I know had at least one technology item on their holiday gift list this year.  You should also know that this is my personal list – I use a laptop computer a *lot* and  I don’t listen to very much music, otherwise I’m sure some of the fantastic new music players would be on my list.  Every item shown below we have purchased and are currently using.  If you are interested in buying one yourself, the links provided will take you to Amazon.  They have good prices and good service, and, these links will tell them that you heard about it from Geeks on Tour – maybe we’ll get enough credit to buy our next toy (a USB Video Camera)! Ok, here they are – in reverse order: #5: USB External Hard Drives I put this in last place only because they aren’t sexy.  But, OMG are they useful.  They’ve gone mainstream this year because the capacity has grown and the price has dropped. ... Read more

Computing in the Clouds is Good for RVers

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksonTour.com Have you heard of ‘Cloud Computing’?’  It means using applications on the web rather than on your computer.  Blogging is one example, it’s all web-based, any computer will do.  As long as you can connect to the Internet (the ‘cloud’) you can use the blogging applications.  And, there are more web-based applications every day.  Now, you can even create spreadsheets and letters in the Clouds with Google Docs. Read more  Read More →

Laptop GPS Reviews

by Chris Guld, www.geeksontour.com I’ve written here a couple of times about GPS mapping software. GPS, Which do you prefer? GPS: Laptop or Dashboard Thousands of POI’s for Streets and Trips I use Laptop GPS World as a resource for anything I need to know about GPS software and hardware for laptops.  So, I thought I’d pass these reviews along.  I’m afraid that this post is a day late for you to enter the giveaway, but it’s a great list of product reviews anyway! Win PC Mapping Software of Your Choice with USB GPS Receiver Laptop GPS World announces a promotional give away of a variety of PC mapping and navigation software programs and laptop USB GPS receivers. Everyone is invited. To participate, simply post a reply, a comment, or a question, to any or all of the following reviews, between December 11 — 17, 2009: Read more  Read More →

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