Advice To Compose Write Email Offline While Travelling?

Hello

Searched here but cannot find a specific thread.

I was in India last year and finding internet cafes was hit and miss. I was involved with a Habitat For Humanity aid project and busy most days.

What I wanted to do was sit down in my room at night and write daily emails as a record of the experience while everything was fresh. I didn't take a laptop with me and didn't want to being overweight on baggage anyway.

So I was left with frantically typing (one finger) when I found an internet cafe. Of course I lost at least one long report when the local net went down...............

So I've been trying to find an electronic means of writing email/documents in free time for later download at a cafe and sending.

The way I see it, I'd need a small QWERTY keyboard, a usb connection, and a USB pen thumb drive to load the information into. But the pc or PDA whatever needs to be small and light.

I imagine many people would like to do this so there must be a simple inexpensive answer somewhere. My laptop weighs 2kg at least - far too large.

Two solutions...

PDA. Quite light and not too expensive. You would probably want to take a folding keyboard if you are going to do any extensive writing.

Ultra light laptop. They are under 2 pounds/1 kilo, but still over $1k/500 pounds. They do have the advantage of doing computer things such as editing photos, watching videos, etc. Again, you would want a separate keyboard as these are basically tablet devices.

I have a Palm TX PDA and it would work well for that. Get a SD memory card and a USB card reader so you can plug that card into a computer. My card reader looks like a thumb drive, but you insert an SD card into the side of it. If you order the Palm TX online it comes with a free folding keyboard if they have the same promotion.

Forgot to mention -- for a small laptop, try a thinkpad X series. I think it's called the X60.

The X60 is about as heavy as the laptop that he has and doesn't want to carry.

Take a look at this. Maybe with the addition of a folding keyboard.................

Thanks for the suggestions and that OQO Model2 looks just wonderful. Pity about the price...........sigh. It seems strange that small highly portable computers aren't all over the market. I suppose the Treo/Blackberry etc do the same job.

It came to me last night that a card and a reader might be an alternative to direct USB pen drive dowload, so thanks Boatcrew and Bob. As it happens, I have an unused Treo 600 (as a cellphone it's range was pitiful so I just put it away) and it has an SD card slot. With a keyboard attached rather than playing with the small onboard keyboard, this might very well do the trick. I think I'll compose an email, load it onto a card, then see what I can do with that.

Internet cafes in India varied widely in terms of equipment. Some places I could attach my camera directly to USB to download photos, others the manager did it himself. Generally they controlled (as you'd expect) what was downloaded onto the pcs.

Thanks for your help. My enquiry is hardly novel and I'm surprised that after 2 days of casual searches, I haven't come across any discussion on the subject. Surely the tedious job of typing an email is easier offline in a room, or beside a pool, rather than in a cramped cybercafe in 100 degree heat. Certainly with enough money spent there are solutions but as one person suggested elsewhere, just take a porter along to carry the extra weight. The key to pleasant travel is being light-weight and having very little of value to steal.

I second boatcrew's opinion. I brought both my new laptop and my new Palm T/X PDA on this extended trip, and I cannot say enough good things about the Palm. It allows me huge amounts of freedom, still offers minimal typing even without the keyboard, and mine has WiFi and Bluetooth should I ever want to use it. The ease of using the SD card and a card reader makes it a very versatile system for communication.

Another way of tackling the problem.

You need a Symbian mobile, a portable Bluetooth keyboard (Nokia sell them), a flash card converter so the Mini or Micro SD card you get with the mobile is converted to the size of a normal SD card (but you won't need this if the phone has an MMC card, e.g. Nokia 6600), and a USB SD card reader.

http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/poormanwp.htm</a><BR><BR>As you probably won't have access to a computer with Bluetooth (see the description on the web page), instead you can create an empty text file template with a computer by plugging in the mobile's card (converter if necessary reader) and Notepad.

Later on, on the mobile, to create a new file, you use the file manager to copy the empty text file template, rename it to something else more appropriate, and then open it with the Notes application. Type out the text using the keyboard, save and exit the Notes application, remove the SD card, then read it on the computer.

Be careful with the PDA option, if you go that route, always make sure you backup your files to a flash card, as they have a tendency to destroy data when the battery goes flat.

If you had the money, I'd say go for the Sony UX range, and perhaps a folding keyboard if the built-in didn't do it for you ;)

P.S. My solutions to data loss in cafés is - either make sure you select all, and then copy the text before you submit - or, write in notepad and copy'n'paste when you're finished.

Thanks Lan for the tip about not losing email while writing. After I had this experience I began using Notepad and only copied and pasted once I'd finished.

The other option is to have a Googlemail account. The Google server does a "Save" automatically every minute or so which means at worst you might lose a paragraph. I have such an account (it is free) and find the auto-save option very useful.

Thanks also Luddite, I'll think a bit more about that option. Theorectically Bluetooth or Wireless should solve the problem but in my experience, cybercafes were very busy, used a wide variety of computers, some with Windows 98 and it wouldn't be wise to assume Bluetooth or similar technology.

Data loss due to power loss is not such an issue with the modern PDAs (2003 on-wards).

I use PocketPC 2003 on an ipaq. It has a secondary battery that retains all the program and user data. It has never let me down, and I've run it dry a few times. I'm not sure, maybe this is specific to the ipaq. I would guess that WM5 handles this even better, as supposedly that is one of the major improvements.

However, as pointed out it is still important to regularly back-up, as not only are these PDAs not 100% reliable yet, but being so portable it would be very easy to misplace it, drop it, or have it stolen.

Using a mobile phone may work, but I would find it slow going with such a small screen.

Unfortunately in my experience, the secondary battery rarely shows a warning if it's flat... Never understood why they don't automatically backup to flash - it would take only a few more $$$ and a fraction more time - but would actually result in a useable product. Last one I lost data to was a Sony Clié of some form or another. Having lost data to a selection of Psions as well, I just gave up on the genre.

Get yourself a Blackberry if email is all that you are doing overseas.

Why not use the new Google document system. They provide a fairly basic word processor - compatible with DOC files - and it is saved on the Google server and you can access it from any where else. When using it - just save every few minutes and then if the system goes fown - well you onlt have to retype a small bit. and it saves the need to carry any form of machine at all - you just need a working Internet Cafe.

To access it - go to Google.click on 'more', click on 'Docs & SpreadSheets

You have to sign up for initial use.

David

Winston:

Thanks also Luddite, I'll think a bit more about that option. Theorectically Bluetooth or Wireless should solve the problem but in my experience, cybercafes were very busy, used a wide variety of computers, some with Windows 98 and it wouldn't be wise to assume Bluetooth or similar technology.

The keyboard and mobile, although bluetooth, don't depend on the café having bluetooth.

The web page I linked to says you should pass your completed notes to the computer using bluetooth, which is why I explained another way using memory cards instead of bluetooth in case the café doesn't have bluetooth.

Cheers Luddite, I did understand that.

drdavidknibb - The Google document system is a winner here in the first world but still requires time spent on a keyboard in a cybercafe. For that matter, Googlemail does the job because it automatically backs up anyway as you type. And using Notepad, which virtually any computer has, to compose offline then cut'n'paste into email is a simple answer.

However all of these solutions require you to find a cybercafe in the first place, wait for a vacant terminal, then frantically compose your thoughts and type them out. Meanwhile friends might be waiting or you need to be somewhere else...................

It would be far easier to write stuff at your own time and pace, in your hotel room or in a park - anywhere - then take it to a cybercafe, and send it off. No time/connection pressures.

I used emails as a quasi diary/record and felt secure once they were sent. I usually spent an hour - hour and a half writing. I experienced power outtages and the net going down, thus losing my current work which was extremely frustrating. Many years ago my 8 months of diary was stolen in Mexico and I've never felt safe simply using a diary since. Email is a wonderful solution, there just needs to be a simple, cheap, lightweight way of writing at our leisure.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I have since noticed an earlier thread on the same topic, yet when I searched there was nothing obvious found. My hope is that we have collectively helped other people which is why I used the words email and offline in the title.