Dev Dawn

Having recently had a two week holiday but unfortunately having to do some pretty involved support on occasion I can report on the state of affairs re: Internet cafes and IT Travel etc.

* If you are staying at a decent hotel you can arrange ADSL (for $$$) or perhaps you will get a wireless signal in the room or in a coffee house nearby. Of course you can’t always rely on getting either of these thing reliably – my advice here is more for someone on the move frequently who, like myself, was nowhere near a metropolitan hotel.

* Check out all the Internet Cafes near where you are staying. Try a few out. Chat with the Internet Cafe owner/admin as some will be quite flexible knowing you will be coming in to check your mail each day and do some work. Some will offer a 3 day pass etc.

* For involved work a fully setup laptop is the best bet – many cafes (but not all!) allow you to plug into their network. This has advantages in security too but involves lugging a laptop which can also be stolen. A small portable insured laptop is a plus. The only other possible security concern would be a dodgy cafe intercepting your network traffic etc so ensure XP and your NTFS drives have full security properly set up and avoid dodgy cafes (for many reasons!).

* A USB pen with software installed on it (as most cafes will not give you admin rights to install anything). I ran several applications off my USB pen successfully but this is dependent on the particular software of course. A USB pen to store your downloaded data which is better than using their public harddrives – however it did appear that Windows was temporarily storing downloaded files on its hard drive first and then transferring it to the USB pen.

* Web mail is a little inconvenient but is an acceptable solution for contact. Ensure your account has enough space to store emails over time as you will find it easier to leave your emails on the server and download them all when you get home. Remember to log out fully from the client and use secure passwords.

* Security is a major concern. Remember to hard delete (not recycle bin – press SHIFT DEL) your files from their drive but be aware Norton Unerase could still recover these files. Most cafes reimage their machines every time cycle but still who wants to rely on that. Add a password to your USB pen. Logout fully from web mail, delete the IE buffer and press the hard reset when done. This is the time when all those good security protocols that we usually ignore should *actually* be used!

* Organise your files as best you can to make re-integration when you return easier. The best advice I can give is to head to your local Internet cafe before you leave and try your travel solution out with some proper work – most issues will occur in the first couple of times.

Or better yet just refuse to do any work on holidays and leave your mobile phone at home!

- CodeMonkey Blog