Why does hotel wifi so often suck? I am very glad to have a Verizon “MIFI” card. I hate paying for it, but even the hotel wifi that they charge for is pretty bad. The speeds are slow and the bandwidth is not good. Given the number of people that actually pay for it, why can’t this be a selling point? Advertise what you mean by “high speed” and I let me compare.

As I travel, I keep trying to lighten my load without sacrificing a lot of capability. The MIFI card is probably a necessary evil because there are so many places without decent wifi, but I would like to lighten my load.

I have an iPad 2, with lots of storage and both WI-Fi and 3G. I have it to consume: books, email, the web, movies and music. But as much as I would like to, I still don’t use it to create. I have had a couple of keyboards and those don’t help much; mostly because I don’t want to take my fingers off the keyboard to tap the screen. The keyboards are limited, so there are a lot of things that I would do with a mouse. I guess that I have not found the right angle at which to type, either. I just don’t like the whole experience.

I have had a couple of stylii and those too do not help much. They are thick tipped and my handwriting is “challenging.” So, I don’t think it is the fact that we do not have enough accessories or even the right accessories. I think it is that that we don’t have the right interface yet. It may be that speaking will be the interface, I have not fooled with my wife’s “new iPad” enough to understand the interface, but if we could use the headset microphone that comes with the .

I am posting this using my 11” Macbook Air. I always tell people that since it took me a long time to learn to type, I want use that skill.

It is more than that. When I type, or dictate, I work harder at being clear. I don’t mind typing or saying the extra sentence if it helps me communicate better. On the iPad, my replies are short and often terse. I don’t like it as an input device and so I minimize my time inputting on it. The device is limiting what I am doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I would like to seem almost all emails shortened. Most are too long. However, they should be short because they are well thought out and well edited, not because I am trying to stop using the input method as fast as I can.

I also like my iPad better for consumption. I like the battery life. I like the touch screen for turning pages.

So, I carry both an iPad and a Macbook Air, and the their power cords, and the wifi and its power cord. It seems that I still carry too much stuff.