Campo Communications

Rain, rain, rain.  40mm since this morning. My Missus really called it yesterday when she went to town for supplies ...the roads are impassable and probably will be for some time.

Well, that has given me a chance to play with my new communications rig.

Okay, don't laugh.  It's a blackberry 9300 cellphone AND a blackberry PlayBook tablet.

I know, I know, it's practically orphan-ware ...but blackberry is still king here in Argentina and the PlayBook is a tremendously powerful piece of kit for about $200 usd ...and with 64gb to boot!

I could have gone with Samsung or Apple but it would have been double, triple, or quadruple ...and I wouldn't have gotten 64gig which kicks ass for any kind of large files like photos and videos. Pretty damned good camera, too!

The Big 64 also allows an almost unlimited number of ebooks on obscure subjects such as heirloom veggies and grass-fed cattle which I can peruse leisurely on its good-sized screen.

I'm sure that all the other manufacturer's devices can do the few things I require ...but I'm not sure ...you tell me.

We have great cell phone service here ...our little burg was chosen as the site of the area tower about five years ago.  But the ranchhouse has a huge corrugated steel roof that is really pretty to listen-to during the rain ...but plays hell with reception in most rooms.

With my rig, I can place my celphone at a sweet spot ...and make it a bluetooth hotspot! That allows me to blog and surf anywhere up to several rooms away. Add to that the fact that my cellphone company can't tell that I'm "tethering" because of the "blackberry bridge" mechanism  ...and I save data charges, as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Perixx-PERIBOARD-805L-Bluetooth-Folding-Keyboard/dp/B00BU4OV50
Not to mention a larger keyboard ...and a treemendous full size bluetooth keyboard that I must recommend to users of any stripe: http://www.amazon.com/Perixx-PERIBOARD-805L-Bluetooth-Folding-Keyboard/dp/B00BU4OV50 (you can relax, I don't know how to make money off of Amazon links ...yet!)  They tell me that you can use it with any bluetooth enabled device. It is super.

All that having been said, I'm really sad that I can't recommend that you buy blackberry ...unless price is as much of a factor for you as it is for me in the peso economy.

BlackBerry's walled-garden makes Apple's look absolutely spacious!

But we are now modulatin' wall-to-wall and treetop-tall from the comfort of just about any chair in the homestead.  No more waiting for a trip to town to blog about something that happened last week.

Yanqui Mike's Open-Bar Ranch, the home of the Happy Bottom Riding Club is on the air!