A new toy for a road warrior

For the last couple of weeks I've been staying at a friend's house while I've been working for a short stint in the South. Needless to say, I was shocked and stunned when he told me he didn't have a wireless LAN at home. (He does have three wireless routers but none of them are configured.) That means no easy connection for my laptop and no connection at all for my Wi-Fi phone or iPod Touch.

This set me looking for a portable wireless router that I could use when I'm away from home. I almost bought one over a year ago but never made it back to the shop in Tokyo where I had seen my then only option. Many months on I was surprised to find there don't seem to be too many more choices. Asus do a WL-330g but I struggled to find anyone who stocked them. Also I was discouraged by the fact these have external power bricks, some extra wire and bulk which I really do not want to have to carry around. The Linksys WTR54GS isn't available in the UK until next month and is equally untidy with a UK power lead. The only example I could find with the size, neatness and general availability I hoped for came from an entirely predictable manufacturer.

Apart from having to configure the device via an unnecessarily clunky MacOS or Windows application (there's no browser based interface), the Airport Express is small, versatile, reasonably priced, at £65, and very neat. I have mine configured so I can just plug in the hotel's (or friend's) Ethernet connection and I'm instantly up and running with 802.11a/b/g/n. Security is unfortunately a feature that didn't make it through the consumer tests so appropriate care must be taken. Removing the UK adapter reveals a very useful figure-8 socket so it's easy to find a lead wherever you might be. Yet again, an Apple Corp product that's hard to resist.

Some might say I did not really need my travel WAP. For a little bit of perspective, my same friend yesterday took delivery of his new £38k 354bhp 4.1 second 0-60 (~10mpg, 328g/km CO2) Mitsubishi Evolution X GSR FQ-360. The mad fool even let me drive it and I can confirm the FQ (Flippin' Quick?) designation is definitely deserved - a crazy machine to sell to any "young" man. :-)