Cutline Speaks

My Own Personal Hotspot

posted by Erin on October 27, 2009

Last week I was having lunch with a client who showed me a new little piece of electronic heaven that was just a wee bit bigger than a credit card (technically, the claim is that it's the size of about eight stacked credit cards and around two ounces). Being the gadget lover I am, I was immediately drawn to the little black shiny device. And it took all of 90 seconds for my client to sell me on it. In fact, I canceled my evening plans so I could go to the store, buy one of my own, and retreat to my living room (which on that particular evening became a bit of a gadget nirvana; stay tuned for Tech Toybox reviews of some of my new toys). 

Have I piqued your interest? The Verizon MiFi, a portable wireless Wi-Fi hotspot, has changed my life. Sure, there are other options for getting on-the-spot connectivity so you can do that thing you do on the web. But, for me anyway, the whole idea of having a wireless card was never very appealing. The MiFi is different. Perhaps only in an aesthetic sort of way since it stays out of your way, but it's an important difference to me. In just two short days, it proved its worth.

Day One: I showed up 15 minutes early to a meeting with a client who just moved into new digs. I didn't have the password to get on their network and my client was running late. No problem! MiFi to the rescue. (And now you're thinking that I could have achieved the same effect with a wireless card, right? Well, think no more...).

Day Two: I met up with a group of folks at a cafe to talk about a meeting we had that morning with a bunch of bloggers. Sure, the cafe had wireless but it was just as easy for me to pop out my MiFi and give everyone at the table the password. There were four laptops and an iPhone running on my MiFi and it was still blazingly fast. 

And from that point on I was sold. I've now taken conference calls from my car and can quickly pull up email and docs (when I'm parked, of course!) and I now always carry around a netbook wherever I go so I can easily pop online if I have some free time on my hands. And, yes, I have a smartphone (in fact, I have two), but when it comes to surfing the web and seeing things on a bigger screen there's just something about that old Texas saying...bigger is better. 

You can read all about the MiFi here and perhaps you, too, will soon be your own personal hotspot!

Tags for this post: