Mobile Blogging: My Portable Blog Writing Kit

Nokia n95Last week I put a message on Twitter that prompted a couple of people to ask for more details:

On way to sunny Reading, fighting through traffic and rain to see a client, writing blog posts on the road and trying to not feel car sick

Yes, I was literally “blogging on the road” and it seems other people would like to do the same, so here is how I do it.

My setup is comprised:

  • Macbook
  • Nokia n95
  • 3G mobile internet tariff

The Mac talks to the phone over bluetooth and uses the 3G connection for connectivity. In the UK data costs are pretty expensive so I have recently switched from o2 and now have 1gb of data and more calls than I need for much less. It pays to shop around. Even better, my n95 also has Skype loaded, which is completely free while I am in the UK due to a deal with my new phone plan provider, 3. Overseas I still pay through the nose, but luckily outside the British Isles most countries have heard of free wifi.

While I have a spare battery for my laptop when flying, I also have a british plug to car power socket adapter that allows me to plug in pretty much any device and get power on the move. Sometimes I even remember to take it along.

I have been blogging while on travels for a few years but my setup has changed a fair bit, as you can see from this old post at Performancing

My equipment has a much more Microsoft flavour. My humble Samsung V25 laptop runs XP Pro, plus I have a O2 XDA Exec Pocket PC (a rebadged HTC running Windows Mobile 2005 for Pocket PC). For voice I have Skype both on my laptop (I use a $9 Skype earpiece/microphone, nothing so posh as Nicks headset) and also on my Pocket PC. The PDA is actually a phone, but I only use it for data and Skype as I have a Sony Ericsson K750i for normal cellular voice calls.

The n95 is a great phone for bloggers, and with it even without the laptop I am pretty connected, just a shame it doesn’t have a full keyboard like my old PDA. When we were in Chicago for SOBCon, Twitter was the main way to stay in contact, so being able to get web access from anywhere (mobile or wifi) is a boon. Try the mobile interface or TinyTwitter. In addition, IM tools are becoming an essential part of work life, I have been trialling eBuddy for MSN, etc, but it doesn’t seem to like the ‘@’ in my AIM account screen name.

I am looking at the new 3G iPhone quite closely, although I expect I might have to stick with the n95 as it sounds like Apple will still not allow you to hook the iPhone up to a computer to act as a modem which is pretty important for my use.

While I haven’t got this mobile blogging thing down to a fine art like Lorelle, my setup does show it is possible to be pretty portable with your blogging.

Do you blog while on your travels?

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