Tech and Mobile Tech

I'm a geek, there it's out in the open, though anyone who knows me will know that.

I have in my time had LOTS of tech, and when I say lots, at one point I had 15 PC's in the house, there's only two of us! I had touch screen smartphone when most people had just discovered snakes on their Nokia's, I had a network running round my house when most big businesses had only just realised that they could connect computers, this was to distribute my lightening fast internet, a whopping 128mb dual honed ISDN!

Have I lost most of you? I'm not at all surprised.

So, on to the present.

We have been planning this trip, this complete change of life style for a little while now, and one of the things that has been on my mind quite a bit is the tech. There has been this big battle between need and want, I know what I want, but what do I need? Well the answer is, relatively little, a few items selected to meet a 'need' and I think we have the bases covered, or at least we have the plan to cover the bases.

We both come from different sides of the fence with regards as to what tech should do, Ali is an 'i' person, and over the last two years has gained an 'i' pod, phone and pad (nano, 4s and 2).  I on the other hand am an Android type person so have a Google Nexus one and an Asus Transformer (TF101).  All of these items have been bought with the trip in mind, and have been considered purchases. I also bought Ali a Mac Mini for Christmas, which was a stroke of genius to my mind, not only have we both had some time to get used to it's ways, it's small enough that when we go it'll go into Ali's hand luggage for safe keeping.

So that's the easy bit done, now I have to think about... how to connect to the outside world!

Mobile phones,
We all live with these things, and we live with our numbers, I know I've had mine for a good ten years, possibly more, the wife has had hers for about five.  We have changed carriers, we have changed phones, but we have always kept the same number.  So, what to do when we go out of the country? Do we both keep our contracts (Rolling Monthly) ruining, which will be fifteen pounds a month or is there something else we could do?  I'm still investigating.  When we are out there we'll be looking to use Skype or some other VOIP type service to call back to the UK and inevitably will have to get a PAYG sim only deal each so we can call each other and others within the US.

Mobile Internet,
I can't go without, Ali can't go without Facetube for too long, she gets withdrawal symptoms! Most RV sites have some form of WiFi setup and the option is to have a 3G / 4G dongle type device, they are available, but they are far from cheap ! I think for  the most part it's going to have to be a case of having a look at what's available when we get there and try to get a good deal because we'll be getting a bunch of stuff at the same time.

Well I think that's about enough rambling from me for now...

/Adam