change name of group

I was thinking in terms of being within the bowels of a client corporation and needing to use their network.

I don't do anything with hotel computers except download my boarding passes... since I don't carry a printer with... projector, yes, printer, no :-)

The rooms almost always have a network connection.

As cheap as you are though... Motel 8 ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

Laptop. I'm at the compliance lab now. ;-) ...or :-(

I'm using a guest WiFI connection at our compliance lab now (very nice of them), though I can't use a newsreader from work anymore. The IT droids have blocked access to NNTP servers. I can't even seem to get to the port-80 address for Individual.net.

I've found that the cheaper the hotel the *more* likely to have free internet access. Some of the three and four star hotels charge as much as $15/day for WiFi. I use POTS, just on principle.

You should look at the Acer Aspire One. Very good, small and $300.

Cheers

They usually don't want you to cruise Usenet :-)

Same here, I usually carry a laptop or netbook. But James wrote that he doesn't.

Nope :-)

I like the hotels of the Marriott chain. In remote places I prefer the little hotels, usually there is nothing with web access there anyhow. You know, in areas where a keyboard is the place "whar the keys to the John Deere is kept" and a port is "fancy flatlander wine".

Yeah, that blew me away. Fairfield Inn -> complimentary, as in free of charge. Heck, they even had the choice of using WLAN or wired LAN (which I always prefer). At another really, really fancy place -> $12.95/day!

Hint to newcomers: Carry a 6ft length of CAT-5 patch cable. The ones in hotel rooms often have the plastic latch broken off.

Exactly. But the big thing is that you also loose track of what messages you have read. Google Groups excels at this because you can casually access groups from any internet machine or phone and it tracks what you have read. I used Google Groups for a long time (and still do) and that was one of it's main benefits because I routinely used many different machines. Even if I had set up a newreader program on each machine, there is no way to keep them synchronised.

Dave.

I like my little Lenovo ThinkPad X61s.

...Jim Thompson

In general, the fancier the hotel, the more they want to nickel and dime you for everything.

Quite bizarre, IMO.

I'd told the logic is that if you're spending $150/day on a room, you won't notice a $12.95/day WiFi fee, whereas the steerage down at Motel 6 would. (Motel 6 actually charges $2.99/day, though!)

---Joel

Motel up near your neck of the woods (Nevada City)... L-shaped classic... drive right up and park in front of your unit... adjacent home-cooking restaurant ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I understand some hotels lost big bux when conventions canceled because they had a stupid charge for WiFi. They've wised up and include it in the packages. They still rape the tourists, though I have heard that it's negotiable for peons too. Hotels are hurting pretty badly right about now. Deals are everywhere.

Why not? In fact I am right now. ;-)

Got two. One company, one mine.

I usually don't care. If I don't finish by 9:00 tonight (it's a three hour drive back) it's a Comfort Inn across the street. I won't be on the Internet but I hope the roaches have all been fed.

$2.99 would be reasonable. After all, someone has to maintain it and they need to replace the cables that "grew legs and vanished".

My wife had the most painful experience in Arizona. Breakfast was complimentary but only sweet stuff and we don't like that in the morning. So she asked for a simple American breakfast. Two eggs, bacon, coffee, nothing else. 45 bucks!

That's the other reason I like Fairfield Inns. They are reasonably priced and have a nice free breakfast with good cereal and stuff. And wired LAN. Courtyards are nice as well but usually no complimentary breakfast and I don't remember whether they have wired LAN besides WLAN. Nice pools but who needs that on a business trip?

Yeah, and never just book over the phone from a client. I had one case where the secretary did that and the hotel charged the "corporate rate" of $129. Found on the web that it's $89 there, got on the horn, haggled a $40 plus tax refund for the client (took two minutes).

Also, look for "manager specials" when booking online, especially for the Bay Area.

Well, if I am on client time I never do that, except on breaks or when I need to search something we need for the job right then.

At EMC labs it's mostly radio silence anyhow and I am always watching the screen like a hawk. Just to see what could become a problem in the future.

They are usually pretty good, too. Free breakfast and Internet.

I always call the hotel direct, rather than the 800 number, and easily get the "special-deal-of-the-day" ;-)

(The local guy always knows how under-booked he is.)

...Jim Thompson

Cables? I've never seen a hotel room with cables. Perhaps you took 'em already?

Yikes! Did she see the menu beforhand?

Courtyards are expensive. The Fairfield I've been in had a pretty small rooms (or maybe it was just the bathroom, don't remember).

their

The DUT and analyzers are locked in chambers. No one is watching anything; no hawking allowed. It's dead time between runs. I have a tech with me so even the time between tests is dead (it's his soldering iron).

So I've heard. I'm the second string on this trip. The other engineer was here overnight last night. I *think* I've got it though (doing the "final" scans now).

They probably stayed at the Biltmore ;-) [snip]

...Jim Thompson