The best thing about the E90, though, is the VGA screen, great web browser and the built-in keyboard, which lets you blog on the move even without your laptop. You can see an example of how good the E90 is for mobile blogging here:

http://mobilementalism.com/2007/12/24/oh-i-do-like-to-blog-beside-the-seaside/

All content, both text and photos, were written on the E90, which was then used to submit the content to my blog over the air. I now find the E90 indispensible and feel lost without it! (but that might just be because I’m a geek!)

Dell laptop with two batteries
Logitech webcam
Olympus Digital audio recorder w/USB plug
Canon SX100si camera with multiple cards, batteries & charger
Logitech headset

I haven’t settled on all the software yet but I will use audacity for audio editing, typepad’s web interface for posting, and Photoshop Elements for photoediting. Still working on the video portion of the tech.

Obviously, this time I’ll be doing more than just several sentence/one photo posts. I will be doing live blogging of sessions, video notes in the evening and whatever else I can!

see link http://reutersmojo.com/2007/10/22/the-mobile-journalism-toolkit-contents/

Tink *~*~*

@Donna – I am sure Apple with catch a clue at some point!

@Patricia – The options are sure to grow as time goes on, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia, there are a lot of players all innovating

@Gavin – It’s great to have a business where we can do this Sometimes it takes planning, too many times I have found myself with zero connectivity. I depend so much on my 3g connection that I forget there are places with no cell signal!

@Daniel – Let me know how it works out for you

@Lorelle – The UK is pretty backward, but getting better. I hear McDonalds now provides free wifi to customers (though I know you wouldn’t actually want to eat there), and Starbucks are getting pretty commonplace where you can buy wifi through t-mobile, but not cheaply in comparison to what I have paid in North America. Hotels are split between free wifi and stupidly expensive. The 3g has been the least wasteful solution for me.

@jhay – I have friends who have found their own blog filtered!

@Mike – Even though the pocket pc os is slow and frustrating at times, I love the convenience of that little devices keyboard and flexibility (even down to tools like remote desktop)

@Dennis – I think companies like the highly profitable tarrifs they can impose. Plus more people used to share their wifi but the RIAA/MPAA and fears of bandwidth being used for nasty purposes put a stop to that. The iPhone might change things commercially somewhat as people begin to demand connectivity.

I usually connect my MacBook Pro to my Nokia E51 or Nokia N80 using bluetooth depending on the mood

As in the UK data traffic is insanely priced and has nothing to do with reality.

Same thing for public wifi. There are almost no free wifi hotspots anywhere.

-Mike

Like you, I’ve simplified things as much as possible in the past few years, taking advantage of smaller and faster everything. I now use a smaller laptop (half the weight of my last laptop) with the new Hawkins H-Gain USB Wireless G Dish Adapter, my own mini satellite dish, and grab WIFI from anywhere I can. The cost in the US of cell connections, and the horrible speeds and high rate of no connection from many of the locations I spend too much time is still not as handy as finding a free WIFI hotspot.

The Hawkins “Dish” is about 15×10cm and looks just like a little satellite dish. It travels better than the Canantenna from Wireless Garden, which I loved as it really is a great booster grabbing WIFI across longer distances. Unfortunately, The only protective casing I could find for it was a plastic bread box holder, so I can honestly say it is as big as a bread box, a painful waster of space in a suitcase. The Hawkins is much smaller, weights a hair less, and takes up much less space, though doesn’t have the range. Still, it works better than the built in WIFI.

Is WIFI now as prominent across England and Europe as was proposed a few years ago? I talked to a few people who traveled through England recently and they did not have joyous things to report. Maybe a cell connection is easier there than WIFI.

Daniel

I blog on the move and am, as we speak, in my apartment in Spain. I use either my mobile / PDA via the mobile network or my laptop via a Vodafone 3G card.

Data abroad is expensive however if you ring Vodafone there is a flat rate available per day in most locations. This gives you good access and in fact I have found reception abroad as good or better than that in the UK a lot of the time!

For a laptop I find light is good and a decent keyboard is essential. I have an IBM Lenovo X60s which seems to balance both well… it’s light, robust, powerful (since I stuck 3G RAM and 250G hard drive in it) and has a great keyboard.

With my laptop on my knee I have blogged from Ireland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Marrakech, the US, Canada, Sweden… you get the idea.

“The best way I can sum this up is something quite a few of the mobile blogging community has shared: The iPhone is for consuming content, while the N95 is for creating it.”

http://www.atmasphere.net/wp/archives/2007/10/08/nokia-n95-or-apple-iphone

I carry my fav music ripped to MP3s(…I already have the CDs, why do I need to buy the music again?). I create my own ringtones from those same MP3s. With the available Symbian OS software, I can read PDFs as well as read/write MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. What’s not to love?

I had the external keyboard for the T/X to make typing easier and had Typepad’s Palm app installed to make posting via the conference center’s wifi easier. I took pictures with my camera and then transferred the SD card to the T/X’s expansion slot to use the photos in the entries.

It worked great and saved me from lugging a laptop all the way across the country!

Here’s a sample of the entries that I posted: http://www.scrapbookupdate.com/scrapnancy/2007/01/welcome_to_cha.html

The entries were all one or two sentences and a photo – just giving people a glimpse of what was on the show floor as I walked it, posted throughout the day.

And yes, the iPhone’s bluetooth only works with mono headsets…and poorly.