Mobile Office Setup

after some very recent research comparing 4g and 4g LTE, decided maybe be time to sign up probably with verizon. like to choose another provider, but right now coverage is the issue. considering just the newest version of ipad with 4g, plus probably a blue tooth capable printer. anyways with ipad do not have to have a contract, all prepaid. expensive though, apples been on a gold digger craze for eons now. rich pr$#ks ha ha

 

This from using all sorts of mobile internet configurations in two years of trucking and many more traveling in my former career: Bridging a cell phone for data service is useful if you don't need to make many voice calls at the same time, and is generally slower than a dedicated, non-voice-capable device (hotspot). Part of that due to the processing power of the phone having to do internet in addition to all it's running apps, the other due to bandwidth limitations.

On bridging cell phones: providers that use CDMA technology (Sprint, Verizon, and some others) do not support simultaneous voice and data. If you have to talk to a broker while using Google maps, load boards, or whatnot, your internet connection will stop when you take the voice call. Ones that use GSM (AT&T, T-mobile, and others) like to brag about data staying active during a call. What they don't tell you is that it will slow to a crawl while your talking on it too. Voice + data are using the same bandwidth and voice always has priority on a network.

An operator that leases to a carrier and gets their dispatches via qualcom, phone, or email will probably do fine bridging a phone. Someone running under their own authority and needing to do a lot of voice and data at once will be shooting themselves in the foot trying to save a few bucks on a hotspot.

On the truck I use a Macbook Air, Verizon hotspot, and the 2nd cheapest* HP all-in-one inkjet printer. I don't have the time or really care about TV or movies on the road, so bandwidth isn't a concern. If I did find the time or interest for that, I'd go with an over-the-air antenna and DVD rental versus internet content.

* On the 2nd cheapest printer: Most are aware that printers are the 21st century razor. Manufacturers practically give the printer away and make their money on the consumables (ink, paper, etc). There's another dirty little secret. HP and probably others usually make one or two "loss-leader" models you ought to avoid. These are the ones featured in the sale papers. They take cheap construction to a new low, and usually have ink that is more expensive than what fits in other models. So if your super cheap printer survives more than a few weeks on a truck, you'll end up paying the difference with the next better model just in two-three ink refills. In general these lower-end printers are designed for stationary and occasional use. Shake them around in a truck running off inverters and suddenly the reliability goes down hill.

I buy HP because it's the Crown Vic of printers. They are everywhere and you can find the supplies for them anywhere. The last two I bought were Photosmart 5500 series (2nd cheapest). Prior to that I bought two Photosmart D110's (dirt cheapest). One of the D110s is still running in my sons truck and gets the job done. It's lasted because he doesn't print much. The other bought for the second truck wouldn't run off the inverter right out of the box. I was on the road when we tried it out (my bad) so we ended up picking up a 5510 at a BestBuy. That one lasted a year and developed a print head problem that I haven't had time to diagnose and bother with. I replaced it with a 5514 which is still going.

 

One more thing on printers, at least the HP ones. Wireless connections have always been problematic. They are designed for single printer, single network setups. If you only use the printer on the truck, it will probably do fine. If you use another printer somewhere else on another network (home), good luck with that. Scanning will be the first thing not to work, followed by printing. The more variables you introduce, the more trouble you will have with a wireless print/scan setup.

USB connection, on the other hand, has been dead reliable.

 

i got a hp laptop, verizon mifi card ( had it for 6 years still true unlimited ) , hp printer canner copier j611 uses #61 ink, its all configured wirelessly. i also have a myfax.com account . its 10 bucks a month and i can send 200 and recieve 200 pages a month. it comes in handy for the dinosaurs who still fax. you get a toll free number, when someone faxes to that number , myfax converts to email and you print it off. to send a fax, scan the page , save to my documents, then you email to myfax.com with the fax number, they convert and fax it to the number provided.

that way ya got the bases covered for any situation, i also scan my bills for settlements from the truck. just take along a extra ink cartridge, they got out at the most inopportune times.

 

Has anyone ever used the virgin mobile usb stick or the virgin mobile overdrive pro for internet??

 

ipad, hp printer/scanner. use an online fax source-fax.com and laptop

 

iPad 3
htc evo
officejet 100 Bluetooth printer( battery power is good to print 500 pages. I will take this out of the truck into the hotels with me since its so easy to use and portable)
some HP 3 in 1 printer, can't remember the model but it has AirPrint (that's what I really needed for printing on the fly), but fired it up and the iPad sensed it and connected right up.

i have an HP laptop, but since I got the iPad ( with its extremely long battery charge), I just use the laptop for watching DVDs.

 

Never really thought of it like this but I did wonder why my printer was such a bargan. I think I got it on sale for $75 on Bill's recommendation cause that's what he used and I figured it would be much easier if I had any technical issues and needed answers to have the same one. The ink is expensive even at Wal Mart. Like $39 for 3 color cartridges and then you have to pay about the same for one black cartridge.. But he also had an internet source for much cheaper ink... I never really thought of the abuse a printer takes in the truck, and knock on wood here I hope I don;t regret this lol but, Brother MFC-J410w is one hoss of a printer.. Never have any problems with it other than the fact that for some reason it quit connecting to my hotspot wirelessly... ...i figure that is probably something simple that I just don;t know.. Just as easy to plug it into the laptop so no big deal.. You are spot on about using a cell phone for a hotspot, you just cannot do that and check miles while talking with brokers in any reliable sort of way...

 

Agree, I still have my old scanner/printer that is a flatbad scanner with no page feed. I've been meaning to upgrade, but just haven't determined which one I want to switch to. I also have a lot of ink left that I want to burn through first.

 

Excellent point. In fact for a few more dollars, you might consider a dedicated automatic feed scanner. Particularly if you do a lot of loads with bills that exceed more than a few pages. Not an all-in-one with a feed tray. Those things are notorious for paper jams, at least in my experience. More common once they get a little age on them. Plus they tend not to handle odd size pages like lumper receipts very well. On the truck I really don't have the volume of scanning to justify the cost.

However, at home I have a Neat (that's the brand) desktop scanner. It will go thru a stack of bills in seconds. A bit spendy though.. $400 unless it's on sale. It's small enough to fit on a truck. I use the HP one-page-at-a-time in the truck and it's not that bad. Neat has a portable for $200 that would fit in a briefcase, but I think the all-in-one-printer makes that worthless for me so I haven't considered it.

Another thing that cuts down on printing and scanning is using pdf software to complete carrier agreements and rate confirmations. I use PDFpen on a Mac and installed PDF-Exchange 5 Pro on my son's Windows laptop. Both are nearly as robust as the full version of Adobe Acrobat at a fraction of the price. The only actual printing we do on the trucks any more is logbook pages off Eclipse, and I like keeping a paper copy of the rate for keeping notes. Invoices, rates, and bills are all electronic for us. Only customers that need paper in the mail get those printed and I do it at home on better equipment.

I neglected to mention e-fax service as others have. We use Ring Central for about $10/mo. There's less expensive options. I happen to like the interface they offer so that's the one I picked. We're set up for e-mail to fax, so sending is as simple as sending an e-mail with an attachment. On receiving, I get a pdf in email. My son can log in to the web interface and download. They also offer a free desktop and smartphone app if you'd rather get your faxes that way. That said, there's not many brokers we deal with that cannot just email a rate in the first place.