As you'll know if you read my blog, I'm almost constantly away from home. Unfortunately, I do require an almost constant Internet connection whilst I'm away. I've tried various methods of staying connected, most of which have not been entirely successful.

I've tried connecting using a 3G dongle, and using Internet connection sharing on my laptop to connect to my iPhone etc. This always seemed to be a pretty flaky solution. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't and there didn't seem to be any real pattern to it. I've tried connection sharing on my iPhone and Android devices, with a similar level of success.

I've also tried a MiFi unit, which, whilst it was a good idea in principle, failed due to a lack of signal by the service provider, in this case 3.

I had never considered a portable router solution, mainly because I never knew such devices existed. However, after a little research, I came across the Zoom 3G Wireless-N Travel Router on Amazon (disclosure: that's an affiliate link). it had rave reviews. In fact, many were so good, that I began to suspect that they may have been planted. I did a little checking on some other sites and they seemed to confirm the reports on Amazon. Given that nothing else seemed to have worked properly, I decided to take a chance on it.

The unit duly arrived, and I proceeded to set it up as per the provided instructions. I went for the portable version, so the first step was to insert the rechargeable battery provided and charge the unit. You can use the unit whilst it is charging. The next step was to connect the device to my laptop using the supplied network cable. You can then browse to the control panel via your web browser and configure the security (it's off by default).

The next step was incredibly easy. You just plug in a 3G dongle (I have an O2 and Vodafone dongle and they both work without any problems), and connect to the unit via Wi-Fi. And that's about it. It's easier to set up than using the software provided with the dongles! I've got my laptop, iPhone, iPad and Android devices all connected at once and it works beautifully. Switching between dongles appears to present no problems to the unit, but I do switch it off before switching just to make sure.

Another great benefit of the device is that I can now stream video from my laptop to my iPad, which gives me a little more freedom. I can leave the laptop perched in a corner somewhere, and not have to worry about viewing angles etc, as the iPad is right in front of me.

I'd happily recommend this portable router to anybody who does a lot of travelling and requires Internet access whilst on the go.

Talking of things that just work, I dictated this entire blog post using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, which is so good, it's almost like living in a sci-fi movie. More on that to follow.

With T-Mobile's latest attempt to reduce their data allowance to 500Mb (since reversed for existing customers), I do wonder where it's all going to end.

The constant reduction in the data allowance can only be a temporary thing. I can see one of two things occurring:

1. People will simply stop buying the phones. Would you buy an iPhone or other "always connected" device with only 500Mb a month allowance? I know I wouldn't. What would be the point? I wouldn't be able to use it most of the time, as the majority of that 500Mb would go on email alone (I'm away from home 6 days a week).
2. The handset manufacturers will ask the rather obvious question, which is what's the point in them creating all of these whizz bang devices if people won't be able to use them for anything much more than phone calls and text messages, which we can all do with a ten quid phone from Tesco?

Either way, the situation has to reverse at some point. The eventual financial losses to the mobile operators (from reduced sales) will, I hope, make them realise they have to come up with the goods.

There's no point telling us how great these devices are and that we can use them to stay connected with the world and then not provide half the equation, e.g. the data.

I know 3 already offer unlimited, but they can do that because so few people can actually get any kind of connection.

So, how long before they turn back? I give them 3 months.

Good news for my Dell Streak and I today: the device got its update to Froyo and Posterous released their Android app, upon which I am composing this very post.

Still getting used to the Dell Stage UI, but first impressions are favorable. I'm a Launcher Pro user, but I'll give this a go for a while to see how I get on with it.

The performance increase is quite amazing. The device now responds the way it always should have. No more laggy menus and dialogs :)

As you'll know if you've read my previous moanings, I have a site hosted by Ning.

I've had issues with them in the past, but they've excelled themselves this time with what should have been the relatively smooth introduction of a new text editor. Now, being a "social network", as you can imagine, almost everything on the site results on some good mechanism to add content to it. So why the hell replace something that, although it looked a little dated, worked perfectly well with something that has generated about 30 pages (yes, pages, not comments) of complaints?

I wouldn't say they've rendered sites useless (although some of the comments seem to indicate it's close for some sites) but, my oh my, what a cock up.

We weren't even given the option of using the old or new editor, just a blog post to say "Here you go - have fun" (okay, I've paraphrased somewhat).

They say it's been extensively tested. I'd like to know by whom, as some of the gaffs are so very obvious.

Here's a few that I've noticed:

• When adding an image to a post, it renders differently to the poster than to the rest of the world, so you need to log out, check it looks okay, then log back in to continue. Great.
• The toolbar often just doesn't appear in Chrome on Mac or Windows
• The editor adds so much crap html, you can now easily break the post character limits imposed
• Switching between html and wysiwyg view adds spurious html

Check out this page for a list of other issues provided by just one site owner. Shame they didn't use them during the testing phase.

Now, I'm all for change, but it has to be managed. It's no good saying "work with it a few days and see how you get on with it" when getting on with it actually means working around bugs.

I've actually started holding off posting to my own site in the hope that they fix it, so god knows what my members think.

The biggest complaint I've had with Ning has been lack of communication and this holds true yet again for this effort. At the very least, they should be telling us how to do in the new editor what we did in the old editor to get the same results.

Come on, guys, this is getting beyond the joke now.

If you're a flight sim fan, chances are you're getting sick of spam from the constant Flight Pro Sim ads on Facebook. In case you weren't aware, these guys have taken the open source FlightGear simulator, stuck it in a box and are selling it for between $49 and $97, with no proceeds whatsoever going towards the developers.

Join our Facebook page to help spread the word about this unethical bunch : http://amplify.com/u/h6wt