David E. Smith wrote:
Ah, but I'm at the baseball game. At best, my laptop's in my car. (If
I felt like putting up with traffic, that means it's in a nearby
parking lot, ten or fifteen minutes away, plus however long it takes
me to find a wi-fi hotspot in an unfamiliar downtown area. Most of the
time, when I go to Cardinals games, I leave my car about 45 minutes
away and hop on a train. That still leaves the whole "no Internet
connection" problem in addition to waiting for a train, which often
adds another half hour.)
It's more likely that my laptop is at home, which under ideal driving
conditions is an hour and a half. Assuming I'm even fit to drive; it's
a baseball game, and I do like my overpriced watered-down beer. If I
were gonna drive that far, I'd just drive the extra six minutes it
takes to get to the office.
And no, I can't phone it in (so to speak...) and have someone else do
it. Discarding for the nonce the fact that I'm probably the only one
in the office that can even tell you what BGP means, I'm sure you're
well aware that, for this kind of troubleshooting, the ability to
actually SEE what's going on is amazingly valuable, and no amount of
"dude on the phone typing stuff in and reading what happens" can make
up for that.
(Disclaimer: I'm exaggerating a bit, for comic effect, but the point
remains. First-hand troubleshooting is almost always better than
second-hand troubleshooting IMO.)
Is it so comical though? You are suggesting that there is a situation
where there is a problem so important or complicated that only you can
fix it yet you want to be able to fix it remotely via a cell phone at a
baseball game. It would appear you are trying to solve the wrong problem.
Matt, you have some good ideas, but they're not good for me, or for my
network. I'd love to be able to build some super-duper do-it-all
widget in-house, but as I'm the only developer here (and that's
certainly not what it says on my business card), it's not gonna
happen. The odds of finding a developer who can do all this for less
than the cost of a handheld gizmo and a couple years of service for
said gizmo are very nearly zip.
You have convinced yourself of what you need and can't see anything that
could compare. The problem with your straw man is that no such device
exists.
If you've used one of the small portable devices I was asking about -
actual first-hand experience - and can comment on compatibility, let
me know.
Yes, I have a Motorola Q with EVDO that is a very effective device. I
have access to our web-based OSS as well as tons of web applications
built by the likes of Google et al. I can tell you quite specifically
that the whole experience is awful. Even with EVDO it takes 3 to 4 times
longer to get movie times, directions, etc than just making a phone
call. The device works great for phone calls, messaging, and simple
web-based tasks. I'd rather shoot myself than try and use SSH from it.
-Matt
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