Milestones and iPhones, er, iPads
There are five school days left. I don't even know how to process that.
My youngest will be a second-grader.
My son will be a fifth-grader.
My oldest will be leaving elementary school behind and entering sixth grade at middle school.
Just, wow. It is shocking. We're moving out of the little kid years, and now I've got all big kids. Although they are still delightful in (almost) every way, they've got different needs from even a year ago. Meanwhile, I'm grinding the gears a bit, trying to get it into second.
Every year I write about how THIS summer, we're not going to let life get away from us. THIS summer, we're going to plan day trips and swim every day and not let the weeks fly by until school starts again.
And then I let work swallow me whole, and the kids get by on occasional outings, and lots of television and playing in the yard. And when I lay my head down at night, I feel the guilt clawing at my insides.
This year, I'm getting a wireless thingie so that I can take the internet with me to handle work stuff on the fly. So, if my kids want to swim at the pool in our neighborhood, I can actually work from poolside, instead of stealing 45 minutes from my workday and poking at my iPhone screen. I'm torn about what to get, though.
I was thinking about whether I wanted to get a wireless 3G modem thing for my laptop - which might be the best plan, but I don't want to get locked into a multi-year service contract for ANOTHER internet access point. I work from home primarily, and we've got a wireless router blah blah blah. I don't know. I should totally ask our homeowners association to make a wireless hotspot at the pool. They won't, though.
So, what are my other options? Should I get something like an iPad? I don't know much about the capabilities for the stuff I actually use for work. It's mostly email and IM, but I need to be able to download and manipulate documents in Excel. I do know that the 3G is month-to-month pay as you need it, which would suit my summer aspirations nicely. But is it an actual work tool I can USE, or is the iPad just a cool toy?
Help me!
Comments
If you need the connectivity for places like the pool where there's no wifi, there's no way around getting your own portable wireless unless you can do it all from your phone. And once you get the portable wireless, you probably want a netbook.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If it's any consolation, I really feel like my netbook and MiFi have paid for themselves. ;)
Posted by: Mir | May 20, 2010 1:33 PM
i love my netbook. There isnt one thing I did on a PC that I havent been able to do on my netbook- media storage, torrenting, even photoshop and this thing still isnt overloaded.
I also thought most wireless phone companies were offering those little usb routers/wifi cards whatever theyre called.
Also- I hear the Ipad is just an iphone without the ability to make calls ;) no usb or sd ports either.
Posted by: Amanda | May 23, 2010 7:37 AM
My hubby, our resident geek, would say netbook as well. Besides functionality, there's also a huge cost difference.
Posted by: Melissa | May 25, 2010 1:07 PM