Technology on the Road

China is a Communist country and some of the freedoms I have come to take for granted as an American citizen are pretty apparent here.  Well, actually, all I have experienced so far is limited access to some websites and just as the news reports, Google is not well loved by the Chinese government.  That really sucks for me because at work, we use Google Apps and all of my personal emails are gmail accounts.

Email seems to work, which is quite critical.  However, blogging using Google owned Blogger was next to impossible.  I successfully posted once and never again.  I was blocked by China and at the same time I was struggling with this, I saw a news report on CNN talking about just this issue: China blocks Google services.  BOO!

Hubby to the rescue.  Not to be too sappy, but he really made such a huge effort in the 24 hours just before my departure to get me all squared away for any contingencies. His efforts must be acknowledged.

My client warned me that if I had to use a client issued laptop or desktop, it would be in a Chinese OS. Oh, and I would get intranet access on it but I wouldn't get internet access. Intranet access is just access to the client's internal websites but you don't actually get access to the internet.  Well, hell.  It would have been good to know this with more than 15 hours notice. I had a prep call with my client at 7:30 pm on Wednesday night and was due to board my plane at 1pm on Thursday.  At 8pm, Wednesday night just after my call with my client, Hubby and I jumped in the car to head to Apple so I could pick up an Airbook just before the mall closed by my house.  Crazy!

But I have no regrets.  I love Apple. My brother will be sick that I didn't involve him as he works for Apple but I seriously didn't have time to ask him or inquire if I could use his discount.

So, to get around all kinds of access issues, I bit the bullet. It is a business expense after all but as you can see, this is quite an expensive business trip.  But, a laptop like this should last me a year or two.

It seems minor, but I use the internet to do my job, it's as simple as that.  And I need it to communicate with my husband and family while I am away, just as important.  The coolest thing by far, is my Apple Airport.  It is a small wireless, secure access point (like a router by cooler).  I plug it into the ethernet cable at the hotel or work and from there, all of my devices can access the internet wirelessly from my own private, mini network.  It is hacker resistant, too. Maybe not for the Chinese but still, it will take them an awful long time to hack into my network.

For this trip, I needed:

1. Apple MacBook Air laptop (super thin, super lightweight and pretty powerful for such a lightweight machine)
2. VMWare Fusion 5 software - this allows me to run my Windows-based Virtual Machines on my laptop
3. Apple's International Charger and Converter kit - this has adapter plugs for various countries which means I can recharge my laptop using China's electric outlets. If you don't have the right adapter/converter for your electric devices, you will kill them (no lie) if you try to plug them into a socket without one.
4. An extra converter we "adopted" from a hotel we stayed at and accidentally didn't return, which turned out to be pretty important. This one I use to plug in the Airport above.  The other Apple converters charge my devices: iPod, iPad and Airbook.
5. A spare ethernet cable
6. A portable external hard drive (where I store my work stuff)
7. My iPad and iPod - yes I need them all!
8. My cell phone - it actually works now using Wi-Fi (no roaming charges for calls or texts) thanks to my Airport. Otherwise, it would be useless here.

That's a lot of stuff just to make internet access work in a secure and protected way, huh?  But well worth the effort.  It is a major part of the work I do and since the Chinese are known to be excellent hackers (ask the U.S. Government lol!), it is only prudent to take security seriously.

One other thing we had to do was to use a proxy server (thank you, again, Hubby, you genius) to mask my Chinese IP address.  This was necessary because the Chinese were blocking me access to this blog account and other websites.  Since we set this up, my internet sites load so much more quickly and since I need access to certain websites for doing my job, it was critical.  Hopefully, I don't get a knock at my hotel door asking me to kindly stop... :)