A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
I hope y’all don’t think I’m getting redundant in this monthly Whatchamacallit article. Once again, I’m sitting on a cruise ship writing about the consumer technologies of cruising. After all, this is the third time I’ve written on the topic. You’d think that in eight years I could write about something new. Oh well, if you’re bored, just turn the page and see what the other club members have submitted for the newsletter.
Still here? The past week, I’ve been reflecting on how technology has changed some of ways I cruise. The Mrs. took me on our first cruise ship in early 1990. I don’t remember much about it except for some concern that the airplane wouldn’t be able to take off for Miami because of all the snow on the ground and the bad weather. We finally left late. Our luggage left even later and didn’t catch up to us until we were on the ship for two days. There wasn’t a lot of personal tech back then. A few people were getting desktop computers, laptops were almost unheard of and the internet was in its infancy, mostly restricted to universities, governments, military services, etc. The World Wide Web and America On Line was still a year or so in the future.
Fast forward to March 2013. I was on my eighth cruise with the boss (this time, she didn’t have to force me to go). On this cruise, I didn’t take my laptop. Instead, I used my new Archos 70IT tablet. It was running Android 2.2 (Froyo). Paired with a Bluetooth keyboard it made an excellent machine for shipboard cruising. I used it to write an article for the club newsletter. I just recently retired that tablet from my tech arsenal last month.
Two years later, I did basically the same thing for another newsletter article. Same equipment, except for adding my first “smart” phone. It was the Galaxy Note II. I liked that phone, but it had enough quirks that I’ve never gotten another Samsung. In both of those articles, I discussed the high cost of internet connectivity at sea. I’ll just mention here that for seventy-five cents a minute, I didn’t have any connectivity.
Now it’s 2017. What’s new? This trip, I’m carrying more equipment. I’ve got my new seven inch tablet (see my review in this newsletter), my year old Moto X and my ten inch Nextbook Windows 10 convertible. I brought a Bluetooth keyboard for use with the tablet. I haven’t yet used it and probably won’t. My reason for taking the extra laptop was that I would be spending a lot of time putting together this newsletter. I’ve since changed my goal to spending SOME of the time editing it.
The other biggest change is that I bought the Satellite data plan. Surprisingly, upload speed is faster than download. Of course, faster is a relative term. Speeds average between 1-1/2 to 2 mbps. The good news is that I’ve got plenty of time to watch people and to practice my thumb twiddling. I’ve mostly been able to download and play the podcasts that I like to listen to. A few sites are extremely slow. Unfortunately, the club’s website is one of them, so I haven’t been able to do my daily check. Although fairly slow, the connection has been mostly reliable. I haven’t found any area of the ship where I haven’t been able to connect. You’ve got keep using it though. If my screen saver comes on, the connection goes off. The only other aggravation is that you can only go online with one device at a time. I had to delay downloading a major security update for my phone until I could shut down my laptop for an hour.
The satellite data plan is a little pricey, $120 for the entire cruise. I justify it by telling myself it is free because I use the cruise credits I get for being a frequent cruiser. My guess is that is as good a story as any other fairy tale.
Many other things have remained the same. I’ve had a few discussions with other passengers and showed them ways to make their electronics easier to use. There are also a few that can’t wait to get back home to check if their local library subscribes to Overdrive, Hoopla, Zinio, etc. I met one person that thought I was an electronics wizard when I plugged a flash drive into my phones USB to watch a video. The weirdest thing I saw was a fellow that came to the table where I was writing this article. I was there because that was where one of the few plugins were. He plugged his phone in and asked if I would watch it for him. Then he just walked off and was gone for a half hour or so. Maybe, I look trustworthy?
Life is good. Thanks for reading.