Bill Cosby once said, “Parents don’t want justice. Parents want quiet.“

Nowhere is this more true than in the family sedan driving down the highway on a road trip. With the home or home office far behind, adults find themselves locked in the tin box with kids clamoring for their mobile devices. Meanwhile, parents find their own wireless phone, iPod or MP3 player, or GPS device competing for power with the kids DVD player or powerable game consoles.

So many plugs, so few ports. Most cars have only one cigarette lighter / power port (vans and SUVs might have several more). And splitters and adapters are so cumbersome.

So if you need to charge the phone, and the kids want to watch a flick, to achieve détente, you appease. 

ReSource has come out with a great way to silence the hordes by providing cheap power to all: The  PowerStation Traveller. Read More »

Cindy Krischer Goodman, blogger over at the Miami Herald’s WorkLife Balancing Act, cited a study from Take Back Your Time that discovered that some 28% of Americans took no vacation time at all last year. Five in 10 took a week or less. Another study from Steelcase in 2006 says 49% didn’t take what they had coming to them.

No home officer workers here, apparently.

An interesting turn: some 69% of us here in the States support a paid vacation law; a bunch of those want three weeks or more each year. The obvious question: What the heck would we do with that vacation, since many of us aren’t using the vaca time The Man gave you in the first place.

This isn’t about The Haves whining about not using what they’ve got. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says one in four get no paid vacation. Not surprisingly, around half of men and women said they take work on vacation.

No home officer workers here, apparently. Read More »

Home Office Highway was about using portable tools like a broadband access wireless Internet card and a laptop to tap into the “cloud” that computing is becoming.

But what if the cloud followed you around like (not to pick a lousy metaphor here) the cloud that surrounded Pig Pen in Peanuts. Toyota and Apple have partnered to ponder a solution that will bring ultimate portability.

Trend watcher and domainer Owen Frager at Frager Factor put it this way: “The vehicle is designed for a buyer group whose unique combination of lifestyle activities and vehicle needs requires a compact pickup offering good fuel economy, advanced functionality, maneuverability and unique styling in a durable package suitable for an active lifestyle … But here’s the juicy part. According to sources close to the review, the car will also launch the in-dashboard ME.COM cloud-access panel from Apple … the ME control panel would become the hub of all activity and provide secure access to any passenger’s server-based applications, data, mail, calendar and credentials and download to a hand-held device…” Read More »

Home Office Highway always was envisioned as a two-part program. First, a family would travel the highways and byways — and see how technology would keep a business owner connected to work back home, and vacation on the road.

Second, we wanted to share the tools we used on the road. More than 60 people entered the Home Office Highway drawing for a chance to win an Ativa wireless router, surge suppressor, USB flash drive and “Cable Burrito”; a Targus Flare laptop bag, and even a copy of the Home Office Highway booklet.

So watch the drawing and to all those who entered, accept out thanks.

My comrade Allan over at RVRoaming.com had this image on his blog. He said he’s in the third row. I’m a hybrid: Just move the seventh image to the sixth position with the kids and dogs from the fifth spot, and you’ve got me pegged.

Reminds me of the parable: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three in the evening? The answer, of course, is Man (crawling as a youth, upright as an adult, and with a cane as a senior). If you’re an RVer, though, somewhere in that lineage of age must be six – as in wheels.

Our home office road trip up the Eastern Seaboard was made possible by a few things — an RV, my laptop, my wireless phone, and my broadband access service.

But was the last element even necessary?

Many teleworkers and road warriors already know this: If you’ve got a smartphone, you have Web access. With a USB cable and a piece of software, you can tether your laptop and surf with freedom.

Read Peter Wayner’s NYTimes review. Then, read your service agreement. With a simple download, and possibly a monthly fee, you might no longer need Wi-fi, a wireless broadband card, or much more than you already have in hand to access the Internet. And frankly, it’ll be safer than surfing in a public Wi-fi location, where snoops and other malcontents are perpetually seeking new laptops to ferret their way into.

Check it out. Then log on…

As home officers, road warriors and teleworkers pursue paperlessness, there are instances when “strictly digital” just isn’t an option.

Sometimes when I’m editing a large document, the screen is good. But when I need to mark it up, Track Changes just doesn’t cut it. I’d prefer to review on paper rather than on a computer screen.

During Home Office Highway, I had to print, fill out and sign a W-9 for a client. I didn’t want to leave my RV park just to print at a Design Print Ship Depot. So I powered up our portable printer. Ditto for when I had to ship a couple of packages.

For the trip, we were traveling with an HP OfficeJet 470. It completed the office in a compelling way.

GottaBeMobile had a pretty thorough review of the unit. Another was posted at TabletPCBuzz. My own thoughts would focus on portability (it was small, neat and easily retrieved and stashed again), speed (22 pages per minute in black, and 17 ppm in color), and functionality. It was plainly a power tool. It’s simple to set up, easy to power up, and equally easy to power down and stash away.

When space, speed, power and portability are important — in a device that costs around $250, the 470 is a pretty cool power tool.

Ever wonder how your wireless phone works?

Of course not. Just like a car or an Apple Computer, we don’t wonder about these things. We just turn them on, and they work. Miracles abound, but we don’t really think about them.

I had a chance recently to think about — and actually see — how my wireless phone works. It was pretty impressive.

I visited the Verizon Wireless switching facility, “Mobile Telephone Switching Office” or “switch” in Orlando. It’s a fortress where all Verizon calls to and from Central Florida feed through. This otherwise non-descript building, with its brick trim and secured entrance, represents the brain and spine that mean when I hit “Send,” my call gets sent. Or when I log on with my broadband access card, Gmail comes to my laptop. It knows all.

The name “Hal” came to mind.

My first impression, though? Cool. Read More »