Therese and I will be hanging up the chalk sticks at the end of 2011 and moving aboard Aussie to do some cruising. For how long ?...... until Aussie finds a new owner...I guess.
I am really quite excited about the whole project. We will be moving out of our townhouse at Alexandra Headlands and are now busily storing and giving away much of the "stuff" we have accumulated.
Of course, there are a whole bunch of projects that I have earmarked for the boat.
Project One: Going Wireless !
I have ordered a new Lenovo Thinkpad x1 (13" laptop, gorilla glass, superbright screen) for the nav station. It should arrive in a week or so. can't wait to play with that. We will have to give up the work computer we have beed using.
"For those who do". I think that says it all.....sigh.
But a new computer is not enough to satisfy the consumer in me. I have also bought a wifi antenna with a usb adaptor, so I can pinch all that free and unguarded data out there in the wireless world.
I can plug it straight into my new Lenovo X1 or using an active USB cable
hoist it into the rigging in marginal areas. So if you have an unguarded Wifi hotspot.... look out.
But that's not all....steak knives ?...no., not quite. I have also given my useless,overpriced Vodaphone sim card the flick and switched to Amaysim ( Optus network - would have gone for Telstra but too expensive). Amaysim really suits me. No plan (quit anytime), reasonable call and data charges and I kept my old number... easily. I am now buying a High gain 3G antenna to fix as high as possible on the boat. ( That's right, another antenna !) and an Optus Mini WiFi modem. This will allow me to maxinmize my connection to the nearest Optus access point and I can set up a little wifi hotspot on the boat - sit anywhere on the boat with my new Lenovo X1 and surf the net. The modem is locked to Optus network but will operate with Amaysim sim card because they are on the same network. Yeh ! Great deal at Big W, Dick Smith and Joyce Mayne (many others) at the moment. You buy an Optus Mini Wifi starter kit for $99 on a prepaid plan. You get 8 gb free for 6mths. That's about $80 worth of data. I am going to use up the free stuff from Optus and then stick an Amaysim Sim card in once the 8 gb is used up. They charge $9.99 for 1 gb/ month. They also charge in 1mb increments unlike Optus who charge in 10mb.....rip off. ! The great thing about Amaysim "pay as you go" is that if we find wifi hotspots easy to access. We can just stop buying the data packs from Amaysim ( no penalty). They give you 6 mths to use the service before they cancel.
So, there you go. Project " Going Wireless' underway.
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