BarTalk June 2005
Volume 17, Number 3

Stay Connected from Remote Vacation Spots

by Janice Mucalov, LLB

“If I go on holiday to a North American city, it’s easy to phone or e-mail the office. But how can I stay connected from a cruise ship or remote vacation spot?”

It’s important to leave work behind and take a complete break once in a while. But sometimes a client matter or file demands that you keep in touch. Thankfully, today’s technology makes it easier than ever to stay connected to the office.

Use Wi-Fi
You’re most likely to want to be able to easily send and receive e-mails. Wi-Fi (short for wireless fidelity) allows you to access the Internet, without the need for wires, from “hot spots” around the world. Using a Wi-Fi enabled laptop or other computer (including a handheld PDA - “Personal Digital Assistant”), you can wirelessly send and receive e-mail within a typical radius of 1,500 feet from a hot spot antenna – at speeds 50 to 100 times faster than a dial-up connection. Thousands of airports, hotels, coffee shops, wilderness lodges – and even parks, RV sites and cruise ships – all offer Wi-Fi hot spots. By year’s end, 118,000 such hot spots are expected. To find them, check websites like www.wifinder.com and www.wi-fi.net.

Most newer laptops are wireless ready; if you have an older laptop, you can buy a wireless adapter (about $35 to $85). If you don’t want to lug a laptop with you, hotels and cruise ships typically have desktop computers available.

Many places offer free Wi-Fi to their registered guests. Quebec’s Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello, surrounded by 65,000 acres of forest, features free wireless connectivity in all rooms so you can work on your laptop in the privacy of your rustic suite. At other hot spots, you pay a small fee and may be issued a password. Available by the end of June 2005, a 24-hour Wi-Fi session at 85 California State Parks and Campgrounds will cost $7.95.

Major cruise lines usually have designated Wi-Fi hot spot areas as well as Internet cafés on board their ships. All of Princess Cruises’ 14 cruise ships are Wi-Fi accessible with computer terminals on board; it costs $10.50 US for 30 minutes of time. Carnival Cruise Lines’ new Carnival Valor goes even further – it’s the first cruise ship to offer “100% bow to stern” wireless Internet access from every pool deck, bar, lounge and cabin. Laptops are also available for rent in case you haven’t brought your own.

(If your ship doesn’t have an Internet facility, then head for the nearest library on shore. They usually have free computers for the public. Or, ask the crew for an Internet café close to where the ship docks.)

Also consider setting up a free e-mail account like Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) or Gmail (www.gmail.com) that can easily be accessed from anywhere around the world, whether wired or wireless. You can also have your e-mail forwarded from your regular office e-mail account to your Hotmail or Gmail account – remember to copy your office e-mail address with any responses you send to clients or other lawyers.

Sign Up for a “Documents on Demand” Service
What if you need the ability to do everything on vacation that you can do at your office computer? Handy technological solutions include software such as GoToMyPC by Citrix. You download the software to your office computer before you leave, and leave your computer running and connected to the Internet. Then from the little Internet café you’ve discovered while elephant trekking in Chiang Rai, Thailand, you log on to www.gotomypc.com (providing your sign-in name and password) and your Thai computer monitor literally displays what you see on your office computer screen.

Basically, you can connect directly to your office computer and access and work away on your word processing, billing and other programs in the same way as if you were at your office desk. The software includes a remote printing feature so you can print the construction agreement you’re reviewing from your office computer at the Thai Internet café as well. The latest 4.1 upgrade even gives you good access with a PDA. The “Personal” version costs $19.95 a month for one computer and you can register for just the month you’re going to be away.

Alternatively, for $2.99 a month, get one Gigabyte of storage (enough for thousands of documents) through Box.net (www.box.net). Save the draft legal opinion you want to revise on holiday to Box.net and you can access it from any remote computer around the world.

Another service, NetDocuments (www.netdocuments.com) allows you access to your entire firm’s repository (archived and work-in-progress documents) via the Internet for an annual subscription fee of $300 per user, per year.

On the Horizon
With current “voice over Internet protocol” (VOIP) technology, you take your VOIP phone and box with you and plug it into any Internet connection to make free or cheap long-distance calls. As well, new Wi-Fi ready phones are coming out this year, so you can wirelessly connect at any Wi-Fi hot spot.

*All prices in US dollars.

This article, by Janice Mucalov, LL.B., is brought to you by CBA’s PracticeLink. Ms. Mucalov is an award-winning veteran travel writer as well as a legal writer.

PracticeLink
PracticeLink is the CBA National's award-winning online collection of practical articles, tools, and tips to help cope with the day-to-day issues of running a law practice. Visit www.cba.org to access these new PracticeLink articles:

• Five Ways to Get More Business from Existing Clients
• How to Attract (and Keep) the Best and Brightest Legal Talent
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This article originally appeared in the June 2005 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.