Thanks everyone for your replies. All five were negative, so nuff said
about direcway.

I have used a cell phone with a something-or-other since 1996 until the
Mac OS hit 10.3. Now I can't find drivers for my verizon phone. I can
and do use my verizon as a modem with my PDA, but it's a PITA to use
two devices, one to work on and one to communicate on, and they don't
really share any apps I need for work. On my PB daily I use
dreamweaver, fetch, freehand, photoshop, you get the picture. I need to
send and receive some pretty good size files at least once a week and
sometimes several times a day. With the 14.4 speed of a cellphone,
simple email communication is fine but job delivery is out of the
question. I have done website maintenance with the cellphone from the
road, but that was back when my Mac could communicate with my
cellphone.

One of the place I travel to is the gulf coast (Alabama and Florida)
and in the Gulf shores area, there's the Orange Beach library with
offers 24/7 broadband. The signal is so good to the parking lot that
you don't even have to get out of the van and no external antenna is
needed.

But I still miss my cellphone/laptop combination, and if anyone knows
of a driver that will work I'd like to know about it.

We already "save" DVDs (don't watch them at home) to watch them on the
road. I don't watch TV so I don't care about that, but my wife would
like it once in a while. May main need is for general email, which I
can handle with the pda/cellphone if a bit clumsily, and the other is
to receive and deliver work when I am on the road. I have the kind of
job I could do just about anywhere as long as I can deliver and receive
images to and from clients. Therefore my interest in a traveling
connection.

For some time, while in NYC, I used Starbucks wifi with great success.
Now my daughter has a cable modem so I don't bother with starbucks, but
they don't have hotspots in many other places we go which tend not to
be urban areas.

I noticed on a recent trip that Mcdonalds is wiring up, and I took my
G4 PB into a McDonalds between here and atlanta I think. I got a
signal, the network didn't work though and got no connection, and the
folks there would turn away and keep mopping like in a bad scifi movie
if I asked any questions. Who knows, maybe that will turn out to be
something sooner or later.

The cellphone setup is all around the best, but I need for it to work
again with my computer, not just my PDA, for it to be really useful.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Jim
On Aug 18, 2004, at 8:18 AM, Gnarlodious wrote:

> Entity Jim Felder spoke thus:
>
>> The idea is internet access and maybe TV when we travel. Anybody have
>> any experience with this at home or traveling, or any warnings or
>> alternatives I should consider?
> You might as well forget about DirecPC/Direcway, the hardware is a
> bulky
> powerhog and the satellite is hard to find. It's not mobile
> technology. I
> know the Roadhaus had sat tv but that was just for ostentation.
>
> Your best bet is a DVD laptop. You can use free public WiFi hotspots
> which
> are plentiful in the city, especially with an antenna you can do it in
> your
> driver's seat stealthily:
> http://quickertek.com/products.html#al1517whip
>
> My TiBook rests nicely in the steering wheel for comfortable surfing.
> Run
> "Stumbler" software while bmoving to find AP's (Access Points). An
> external
> antenna like this will get you a lot more range with tight
> directionality:
> http://Gnarlodious.com/Vanagon/Electrical/Pages/Internet.html
>
> A text-based cellphone can fill in the gaps while you don't have
> internet
> access although they are difficult to use and you are limited to
> sending
> from your cellphone's ISP so you can't send to mailing lists.
>
> For visual entertainment, DVD's are great. They take up little room
> and you
> can rent/buy on the road. Your laptop can run from a DC-DC converter
> so you
> can save power by not even needing an inverter.
>
> If you want realtime media anywhere the best deal is Sirius or XM. If
> you
> just want music an iPod can be the most efficient way, you can have
> thousands of songs on it and broadcast on your Van sound system.
>
> -- Gnarlie
>