Flickr Photo Credit: Declan TM
OK, have spent the morning researching the portable keyboard option further, and think I have enough information to go for it.
One of the internet articles I found referenced taking your laptop when studying abroad and just picking up a cheap local keyboard to plug in when you needed to do things in the language of a particular country. I can’t imagine that the same advice wouldn’t work in the reverse; That is, taking the portable roll up keyboard we’ve been looking at buying and plugging it in at the cyber cafes when necessary. It should also work as an easier keying option if we decide to take a palm sized computer for composing articles, emails, blog posts, etc. ahead of time and just uploading them when we get to the internet cafe to save on time and cost (they usually charge by the hour). Hopefully, we’ll have free internet and wireless whenever possible, but I know we won’t be able to count on that.
For those of you who want to read my research for yourself, here are some of the more helpful references I found, including a complete international guide to the locations of internet cafes around the world.
- The Net Cafe Guide I found is an online version. You can search for internet cafes around the world. These guys are also writing an online global travel guide, similar the wikipedia project. Travelers post and edit from the road about great places to eat, stores that may have closed or opened, etc. Interesting concept.
- A Keyboard Swapping Article This is a reference developed for students considering the study abroad option. This particular link is for an iinternational keyboard issues article. One piece of advice mentions the need to use the language of the country you are in when studying abroad and offers a possible solution of buying an inexpensive local keyboard to plug into your
U.S.laptop when needed. This would lead me to believe it should also work the same way for plugging in the portable roll up U.S. English language keyboard to the cyber café computer. - Using Palm Devices While Backpacking Abroad This article offers fairly detailed advice on using the palm computing devices while on the road internationally. Not exactly related to the portable keyboard issue, but since we are considering integrating the use of one of those as well, I thought the reference would be helpful.