When you’re travelling, you probably bring your laptop, so you can do some work and keep up with your email. Some of the ritziest hotels that I’ve stayed in charge for daily access to their wireless network, or you can trudge down to the lobby for free access.
At other, mid-priced hotels, the access is sometimes free. If you’re paying an exorbitant rate for the room, can’t they throw in a couple of dollars worth of wifi?
If you’re planning a trip, the following chart, from Book of Joe, shows which hotel chains have free access, and which chains charge for it, or make you balance your laptop on your knees in the lobby.
If you have trouble finding a nearby wireless network, the Wi-Fire might help you find something a bit further away.
I haven’t tried it, but there have been many times that it would have been very useful.
As an alternative, you could always download NetStumbler, which is a pretty neat little tool to scan for available Wifi networks. I’m guessing the hardware would have a better range, but NetStumbler locates a surprising amount of networks in my experience.
(You can get it at http://www.stumbler.net/. One caveat is that I don’t think the last copy I had worked on Vista 64, but they may have fixed that.)
Thanks Ken, it’s good to learn what’s working for other people. And I don’t have Vista 64, so that won’t be a problem.