Last Updated on January 27, 2020 by Christopher G Mendla
Summer vacation time is approaching. Many of us will either take vacations or mini vacations.
For the self employed, that means that you are not at your office or home office. You might head to the shore for a couple of days or perhaps take a trip for a stay at a resort. Will you have access to the information and resources you need?
The key to success is to plan ahead.
Internet access.
You will need to have some level of internet access while on the road. There are a number of options available:
- Onsite Internet – Many vacation rentals, hotels and campsites offer wifi for guests. That is usually a decent option. However, you should be aware of the possibility of “Man in the middle” attacks, especially in hotels. This is where someone sets up a laptop in between you and the real connection. This allows the perpetrator to view all of your traffic. You also need to make sure that your sharing and firewall settings are protecting your data from other guests.
- Cafes/Restaurants/businesses – Many restaurants will offer wifi. Libraries are also an option. The key is to plan in advance. You can search for mobile hotspots from the convenience of your desktop before you leave home. Some localities simply don’t have much in the way of wifi hotspots available.
- Comcast Xfinity – Xfinity is an example of an internet provider that gives you access to wifi hotspots. There are other companies that also do this. The secret is to make sure you have your xfinity id and password before you leave home. Comcast is bundling hotspots with business routers. You can log on once or twice a month without a Comcast account. However, with an account, you can log on to any Xfinity hotspot. Comcast is also pushing hotspots to home users so your neighbor may have a hotspot that you can use. You can check the Comcast site for a map of available hotspots.
- Tethering – Keep in mind that very few people have unlimited data on their mobile devices any more. You can set up a wifi hotspot with most phones. However, you have to be VERY careful regarding your data usage. You can also purchase a mobile hotspot device to connect about 5 devices. If you are going to do this, make sure that you turn off updates for your laptop and tablets.
Phones
- Cell phones are great. However, suppose you have 700 shared minutes and you will be working from the shore two days a week. My plan charges .50/minute for excess minutes. A few sessions with support or a client can turn out to be very expensive.
- Skype – Skype is one example of an internet based phone service. You can prepay $20 or so and make calls anywhere for about .02 to .04 cents/minute. This is a LOT less expensive than .50/minute. You can get a more advanced plan where you can have an incoming phone number. You can get Skype apps for your smart phone or tablet as well as your laptop.
Contacts/Calendar/email
When you are away, you will find a need to access your calendar and contacts. There are several approaches to this.
- Sync your phone and Outlook – You can purchase apps such as DejaContact/Companionlink that will sync your calendars and contacts. Sync apps can be a little tricky at times so make sure that you back up your Outlook data before setting up the sync.
- Put everything on the cloud. Cloud storage prices are dropping. There are solutions such as Google Calendar that will sync with your phone and allow access to your contacts/email/calendar from anywhere.
- Office 365 – This is a cloud based solution that will provide a lot of on-the-road functionality.
Whatever solution you choose, consider your need to save copies of sent items, especially CYA items, if you send emails from something other than your desktop application.
UPDATE Dec 2017- I have moved to using Google contacts, calendar and email as my primary data location. There is a bit of a learning curve but I am now location and device independent.
Files
If you are away and suddenly find you need a file from your desktop or network. There are several ways to handle this. Any remote access needs to be secure. In almost all cases, you will need to configure your workstation and firewall to allow the connection.
- RDP – If you are running a professional version of Windows, you can set up RDP (Remote desktop protocol) to allow remote access
- VNC – an alternative to RDP – If you are not running a professional version, you can use a virtual network connection such as VNC – These solutions are a little trickier to set up and you need to pay attention to the security settings.
- FTP – You can set up File Transfer Protocol access to your files using a free FTP server such as the Filezilla server. This require some advance networking and once again, you need to pay attention to security.
- Hosted solutions – There are solutions such as Go2mypc and logmein that will allow you to set up remote connections to your computer for a monthly fee.
- Put everything in the cloud. – I am not a fan of this solution yet. For one thing, if you do this and lose internet at your office, you have limited access to your files.
- Backup solutions such as Carbonite – You can purchase a carbonite subscription for as low as $60/year that will allow you to back up your computer(s). With Carbonite and other similar products, you can access your backed up files from your laptop, phone or tablet if you set things up previously. Keep in mind that the backup might not be the latest version of the file.
UPDATE Jan 2018 – Google drive is an excellent cloud solution. However, you can use up your Google space quickly. However, you can upgrade to a 100 GB plan for a mere $2/ month. See https://www.google.com/drive/pricing/ for other plans and their pricing.
Keep in mind that there will be situations such as your home office machine locking up, internet outages or power failures that could make a remote computer inaccessible. Also, keep in mind that if you shut off your air conditioning while you are away, you will have to consider the room temperature and it’s effect on the machine.
Another issue in remote access is that most home office users will have a dynamic IP assigned by your internet service provider. That means that your IP, which is critical to establishing a connection, can change at any time. There are low cost services such as no-ip.com that will provide a static address so that you can connect to your home computers at any time.
Notes –
- Be sure to use strong, unique passwords for any access solution that you implement.
- Don’t forget to enjoy yourself. While it is nice to earn a few billable hours and it is great to be able to help a client in need, you should make time to body surf, fish, smell the roses and just kick back.
- As stated earlier, you need to plan well ahead and do some testing in order to make sure that your remote solutions work.