HomePage RecentChanges

This wiki was last modified more than half a year ago and will be deleted eventually!

How this is being done

I’m writing this on one of the Martin’s computers. This is a Toshiba laptop which are notorious for short battery life. Seth Martin told me this one would get maybe 20 minutes before dying. That meant it would have to have a source of AC to run for any useful time.

Carl had a Triplite 12VDC/120VAC inverter with 150-watt capacity which should have done the job. It didn’t. It charges Carl’s electric razor, but shuts down as soon as the computer is plugged into it.

So, we stopped at Champagne’s Radio Shack and asked questions. The fellow at the counter had several answers. We bought an Xpower Pocket Inverter 175. That did the trick. (Pocket Inverter is its name, not a reference to its cost.)

It’s a stupid arrangement. The XPower plugs into the 12-volt DC power hole (it used to be a cigarette lighter in the olden days). The XPower changes the 12 volts of direct current to 120 volts of alternating current with a really pretty sine wave. The Toshiba’s power supply cord plugs into the XPower and converts 120-volt AC into 15-volt direct current. That’s a two-cushion shot.

It would have been nicer to go directly from 12-volt DC to 15-volt DC but THAT Radio Shack solution cost $150 and would have been useful for powering Toshiba laptop computers from automotive cigarette lighters and that’s all. The XPower is more flexible and about 1/3 the cost. It just means there is a lot of wire running around the cab of the truck.

Once the Toshiba was powered up, I found Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer which is all I need for this little trick.

Well, that and an Internet connection.

The truck stop at which we lolled about for a few hours in Morton had wireless Internet (wifi) available. The signs said so. I diddled with it in the truck but the signal was a little weak, so I took it inside and set the Toshiba on the counter right next to the wifi center. Inches away from it. Instead of the single bar I was getting in the parking lot, I hit three bars. Not exciting, but better.

I’ve never done this, so I had to gather clues from the environment about how this was supposed to work. The clues were sparse; the station help was clueless. The upshot was that I never made a connection and I didn’t know whether it was them or me.

The next day we hit a rest stop at the Iowas border that had wifi and it all fell together very quickly. The Toshiba recognized the presence of a wireless network and asked if I wanted to connect to it. I did. Once connected, a log-in screen came up in Explorer. I filled in name, address, etc., for a free logon and badda-bing, badda-boom, we were on line. That’s how the first clot of information was put onto the site.

While connected, I also checked and wrote e-mail using Internet Explorer and the IMAP side of my e-mail account provided by my Internet service provider, QNet, back in Palmdale.

Very handy.

The big remaining issue is finding places that offer wifi access. Free, of course. It is not as prevalent on the back roads we’ve been traveling as on the Interstates. It’s also more difficult bending the route and time table (not to mention finding a parking spot) in the truck than it would be in the family sedan.

Iowa offered connections at rest stops, but we were almost out of the state before we figured it out.

Motels and hotels, especially the chains, are really big on internet connections these days and most are switching or installing wireless because it’s, well, wireless. I haven’t seen many restaurants making the offer.

As I wrote this, we entered Medicine Hat. The Toshiba popped up a message that said it couldn’t log on to my preferred network (that’s the ONLY network I’ve logged in to and that’s back in Iowa). I took a look and there were about 20 wireless networks available, about half of which were unsecured!

An unsecured wifi connection means anyone can get on to your network and, if your network has Internet access, allows that computer to roam the Net. A secured network has a log in screen and you have to have some kind of account to get in the door. Some places sell short-term “memberships” for their wifi connections providing you with single-use user names and passwords. A secured wifi network can be detected but, without an account, you’re not going to use it.

I’d prefer to be invited to use someone’s Internet connection, but, if the door is open and I’m not abusive (no movie downloads) I can probably assuage my Puritanical conscience to move stuff along if under duress. Doing so from a moving truck, however, is beyond reasonable. Signal strength was low and connections came and went as we rolled along.

I saw a few other wifi points along the way. We had a meal at a truck stop in Leduc, Alberta, that offered a wifi connection at $6 per hour. Checking it out in the truck while Carl fueled around, I found that I could get to a weather forecast and then to this site without logging in. I quickly posted the second report and then my time was up. Apparently they’d give you five minutes to check the weather, etc., but after that, cha ching!

Between there and Denver, we made no stops that were wifi equipped.