Very true. However, we found that if we have to carry the USB dongle anyway, that carrying the mAP instead gave us much more freedom and reliability (the USB dongles seemed a little flaky, if they got pulled sideways in the port, they didn’t work). We could even sit in the truck and work on the equipment without having to run a cable to cabinet, etc. Or have two techs connected to the cabinet at the same time. However, there are lots of ways to skin this cat as you mention 😊 Probably the biggest thing is that you can connect to the network using a phone rather than just an ethernet port based device like a laptop.
Regards, David Coudron From: Af <af-boun...@afmug.com> On Behalf Of Dave Sent: Monday, May 21, 2018 11:55 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Looking for a new Truck/field Laptop USB ethernet fixes that :) On 05/21/2018 09:12 AM, David Coudron wrote: We have been using the Mikrotik mAP in the same fashion as Steve mentions with some pretty good results. Put IP addresses on the one interface as needed and then connect wirelessly. We were killing EIthernet ports too often due to the stiffer shielded patch cables and cable runs on our tower sites. They just put too much pressure on kinds of Ethernet ports many laptops have. Now, it is getting tougher to find a decently thin laptop with an Ethernet port anyway. Additionally the techs are doing everything they can from their phones these days. Normal Mimosa installs are entirely phone based. Our main tech avoids the laptop like the plague. We can firmware update the client radios, configure the radio, make the customer active in Powercode, etc all from the phone. We really only use the laptop and mAP for tower work now, and much of that has moved to the phones too. Regards, David Coudron From: Af <af-boun...@afmug.com><mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com> On Behalf Of Nate Burke Sent: Monday, May 21, 2018 9:06 AM To: af@afmug.com<mailto:af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Looking for a new Truck/field Laptop I've thought about the air-router approach, but probably 90% of my mikrotik work is with MAC-Winbox, setting up new routers. I just found the Acer Travelmate Spin B1. $330. Might pick one of those up and see how it works. On 5/21/2018 8:53 AM, Steve Jones wrote: I paid 1500 for my Toshiba tecra (not toughbook) like 6 or 7 years ago, it's been through he'll in the field, roofs, grain elevators, rain, drops, left running in the bag and getting hot. It's on its 3rd battery, fourth keyboard, but runs strong and never fails, even has serial port. Price could have been less but I wanted the biggest processor because at the time I was running multiple VMs. Lenovo are decent, the antiglare is still visiblish in the sun. The keys fall off and batteries don't last, Ether net is questionable, but God only knows what the techs stuck into it or settings they jacked up. Other than the need for wireshark occasionally, a cheap air router to connect to the device with a ton of ip aliases has allowed me to do 99 percent from my phone now. Onedrive syncs our base config to dump in, we can test, allocate and finalize a customers installation directly from the top of their tower. On Mon, May 21, 2018, 8:38 AM Nate Burke <n...@blastcomm.com<mailto:n...@blastcomm.com>> wrote: The Netbook I've been using for a the last couple years bit the dust on an install last week. Acer Aspire E11. It was working fine one minute, then the Ethernet adapter was not detected by windows anymore. Of course now-a-days nothing comes with a built in Ethernet adapter, I'd really hate having to remember to carry an Ethernet dongle everywhere. Looking for a small form factor ~11" so I can throw it in a canvas bag for a hike out to a tower site. SSD and several-hour battery life are very nice as well. It doesn't need any mighty CPU or Video, the only thing that it does is program Radios/Mikrotiks, and RDP into another machine. The only new machines I've found so far that fits this bill are the Lenovo Thinkpad line. It looks like a current gen 11" Thinkpad is ~$700. More than the $170 I paid for the Acer 5 years ago. I also don't like that all the connections are on the sides of machines now, instead of the back. When it's sitting on the truck console with things connected, that makes it a lot wider. The Thinkpads also specify that they have an 'Anti-glare' Screen. Would that make it easier or harder to see outside? Is there a brand or Type that I missed? $700 for a field laptop is a little more than I'd like to spend for something that has to survive field work. Although the $170 unit has worked just fine in these conditions for several years. -- [cid:image001.jpg@01D3F105.09721BC0]
