Wednesday 16 February 2011

Brought to you by three

It feels a bit Sesame Street to say this post is brought to you by three (the letters M, I, F and I and the number 3), but as our BT landline and broadband internet were switched off on Monday in the countdown to going off grid although I am still using mains electric for now to power the laptop the magical internet powers that bring my words from my laptop to the rest of the world are now truly wireless.

My friend Jax over at Live Otherwise brought along a Mifi to a group holiday we were at before Christmas and I was most impressed with it. It allows you to set up your own wireless hotspot wherever you are and hook up up to five seperate devices to it. This means I can be blogging, Ady can be checking his emails on his phone, Dragon can be hooked up to the internet on his PSP and Star can be checking animal facts online all at once. It sounded perfect so I got in touch with Jo at Three and she sent us a Mifi so we can test it out for ourselves.

So far I am really impressed with it. It is tiny, smaller and thinner than the tiniest mobile phone, able to be charged off mains or a USB port on the laptop, dead simple to connect to the internet and is providing high speed, reliable internet access for us to check emails, blog, google and more. Staying online is really important for us this year - to keep in contact with family and friends via email and skype, to keep the blog updated and be able to upload photos, to check in with hosts to confirm bookings and access the WWOOF website, to look at online weather forecasts, maps and keep checking in with our planned route.

There are a host of gadgets and gizmos we could fall in love with and consider 'essential' along the way but living in such confined space every single thing we bring has to justify it's place. On first impressions the Mifi is worth at least ten times it's tiny size.

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