Wednesday, February 21, 2007

laptop housekeeping on the bus

We're always on the look-out for ways to keep occupied/entertained/educated/productive/satiated during a bus ride. For those who cary a laptop, a bus commute would be a great time to check email, catch up on the latest carfree ann arbor tips, and all the other Internetty items on your to-do list. Unfortunately, AATA buses don't offer internet service yet. Some cutting-edge bus commuters may be taking advantage of GPRS connections via PDAs and smart phones, but many will have to wait for AATA wireless bus hubs or (more likely) the Wireless Washtenaw project in order to access the Internets on the bus.

That said, there are all kinds of manual maintenance and gtd (getting things done) tasks from which Net connetions tend to distract us. A 20 minute bus ride may be the perfect Web-free time to focus on a little virtual house cleaning. commutesmarter.blogspot.com posted a list of Internet-less tasks that help keep your commute productive. They include updating itunes playlists, deleting old files for disk space, and catching up on RSS feeds. We would add calendar and task list updates, prepping email and blog posts, and sorting and labeling pictures as other mundane but necessary tasks that fit nicely into a bus ride.

Of course, there are limitations to how productive bus seat typing can be. Sunlight makes the screen hard to see, bumps and sudden stops could send a laptop flying, and the twitching elbows and wandering eyes of other passengers might make you think twice before booting up on the bus. But we would, as always, be interested to hear how you take advantage of the free time on the bus, with or without technical aids.

8 comments:

Edward Vielmetti said...

cell phone with google mobile gmail, and "gtd gmail" on the laptop. keep the laptop closed, use the cell phone to check lists of things to do downtown while you're heading downtown.

cell phone with google mobile talk and twitter. entertain your friends around the globe with your current bus whereabouts.

Anonymous said...

I just recently got a new laptop battery, such that I can now actually make it a whole 20 minutes without plugging in.

I am amused that "make itunes playlists" is considered "productive".

One of my prime bus laptop activities is opening up a dozen or so interesting articles linked from PLANetizen so that I can read them on the bus. Works best for the articles that are all one download, like Brookings Institute pdfs, less well for news articles that are broken across a few pages.

Catching up on the "need a response" e-mails is a good use of a desktop mail client - cue up the responses to send the next time you hit a signal.

Unknown said...

soon enough, wireless washtenaw will be up and running, and really darn affordable. i'm participating in the pilot now, and while not without wrinkles (it can be easy to connect, but difficult to authenticate), it has promise, and the nodes are all around the core of downtown.

Scott said...

Does anyone know how WW will deal with wireless node transfers? If I'm using my laptop on the bus, will there be any problem as I move from one tower to the next?

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