Tag: internet

Working From … The Car

Posted on by richardbingham

Sometimes you need to work when you’ve also committed to being somewhere else. Maybe your dad’s taxi or away on vacation – whatever the reason, being able to work from a car is helpful. As such here are a few tips I’ve found through trial and error:

Keep it Short and Infrequent. I cannot actually recommend trying to do too much ‘real work’ in a car. It is not healthy for your posture or especially productive, however the occasional conference call meeting works fine.

Don’t Drive and Demo. If you’re driving, don’t try to watch a screen-share or worse still attempt to demo something. It’s horribly dangerous and is just not worth trying (being illegal also). Either pull-over, ask to demo later on (once you’ve parked up), or simply reschedule. Also, once you’re stationary and using your mobile phone for conference calls, don’t forget to disconnect the bluetooth from the car.

Quiet Parking Space. Find a parking spot away from too much background noise. Nothing worse than distraction and others thinking you are not committed to your job.

Comfort. Ensure the space (if you can) is not in direct sunlight, as the glare can be tough on the eyes, plus in summer you soon get hot without air-con running. Opening windows/doors lets in too much background noise. Similarly in winter ensure the car is warm before you start, as it soon cools down with the engine (heating) off.

Discretion. Stay away from very public or high-crime areas. Visibly showing you’ve got computing equipment in your car could lead to a later break-in.

Personal Space. Having the ability to juggle devices is important … I use the passenger seat, with the chair all-the-way back, allowing enough space for laptop screen at a visible angle, phone in a cradle, and various other peripherals.

Internet. Don’t rely on sharing other peoples internet, especially if you’re attending important calls. You could pair with your phone to share connection, but it can be expensive and slow. I recommend a mobile internet dongle, they’re under-publicized, and plugs straight into your laptop USB port and magically works. It has a data SIM card inside so you pay a monthly (or top-up) fee – just like a mobile-ready tablet. It has a phone number assigned, but as a dongle clearly you can’t make calls. Amusingly I recently wanted to change my dongle plan, and the provider kept telling me to enter the two-factor authentication key they just texted … to my dongle! Frustrated I telephoned them and they told to slip the sim card into a mobile phone – obviously really. The dongle is my home internet backup plan too, meaning I don’t have to relocate if my home internet goes down.

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Your Internet Service – History and Tips

Posted on by richardbingham

Back in 2002 when I started home working home internet was via a 14400 bits-per-second dial-up modem. Your computer would tell your modem to dial right into the company network via a special secret phone number and login. You’d cross your fingers every time as it was fragile, slow (forget anything beyond text or icons) and resulted in high call charges for every minute of connection. Monthly I’d get big bills! It also meant it tied up the phone line totally, before filters separate voice and data. As such, with mobile phone call charges similarly high cost at that point, many people had a second phone line just for the internet (DSL was too expensive to consider).

Then we got VPN from the general internet. Use your normal ISP phone number and then use a VPN client program to connect to your company network. Even then, ISPs would disconnect you every two hours to limit bandwidth use, and after a few months of pain, you prepared so you didn’t loose too much data. Now every minute was charged as a ‘local’ phone call which was much cheaper, and some people got their company to pay the second line fixed fees and the call charges.

Next came broadband (around 2007) and while the speed jumped it became impossible to differentiate work from personal use and so most companies stopped paying. Admittedly without any call charges the cost was much lower but early broadband was still not cheap.

Instability was still an occasional inconvenience – probably once a week early broadband dropped out for an hour or so, and roughly once every three months you’d have a day without any internet. For a while you could revert back to dial-up, but that option quickly closed. Usually you’d pack-up and either drive to the office or a friend/relatives house.

So with the history lesson over here are some considerations about successfully working from home through the internet today … as not all internet is the same and you usage profile can be important.

  • Speed: video calls and working with large files requires significant bandwidth to be usable. Fiber broadband is generally available and should be fine.
  • Use: Even now some cheaper packages have monthly usage limits, meaning that you’ll either loose connectivity, get a drop in speed, or be charged.
  • Sharing: usually the rest of the household will use the same internet connection, as such if multiple people are watching movies when you’re trying to work, you might get a speed drop. Annoying if you’re on a video call. Some routers allow you to set Access Controls (restrict/allow certain devices) or Quality of Service rules which cap bandwidth by usage type or device.
  • Wifi vs Wired: Unless you’re regularly moving around you’ll ideally want a wired connection into your router for speed and reliability. This might need an electrician to run a cable, but it’s worth it (especially if sharing the connection). Wifi boosters I found not especially good (cheap ones anyway) but am impressed with pass-through adapters as good alternative to a direct wire.
  • Backup: Sometimes things go wrong and depending on what you do an internet contingency can be useful. I use a mobile internet dongle, from a different service provider to my mobile phone. It’s really easy to use, reliable, fairly low cost, and has enough capacity for plenty of text-based work. It’s great for doing meetings away from the house/office, and is my home internet backup too.
  • Keep Updated: As my internet service contract comes to an end, I commonly ask for either a better deal or the latest router. I am actually reluctant to swap providers as they’re reliable and I don’t need the disruption, however they don’t know this and it’s a good way of getting a better service, better equipment, or both.

Any more tips … leave a comment.

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