I have a user who travels a lot and he wants to have his laptop set up so that he can connect to the Internet from any hotel connection. Does anyone know how to do this?

Heather

There are multiple ways. But first be sure the Laptop has a software firewall installed. Zone Alarm works well for us. This will stop the 'misc stuff' from getting through during hotel connections. And there will be a ton.

The best option is to have 2 different ways of connecting.

Most better hotels offer high speed connections (DSL, Cable, whatever). The Laptop user should carry a short Cat5 wire to connect to their Laptop network connector. Also the Laptop will need to be configured for DHCP. The hotel server will assign a temp IP address when the Laptop is connected. Should connect right at boot if DHCP is set in Control Panel. That's it for high speed. Be sure to have the user add important contacts to the Smarter Email here.

Next would be if the hotel only offers dialup. If your company uses DSL or Cable your provider may have a software that can be installed and a long list of local numbers to call throughout the country. If not the user would need a service like AOL. If you look in your trash basket you probably will find 700 AOL CD's. Have the user stick one in thier Laptop case.

Thank you so much for the information! That all makes sense to me. What did you mean when you said to "be sure to have the user add important contacts to the Smarter Email here." What is Smarter Email"?

I meant SmarterMail. That's the web based Email client here at HMS.

Using the web based mail is important to people who travel. We have client's use it all the time. I use it from home and on the road.

Yep, very nice webmail. The user will be able to have all his messages just about anywhere that has a internet connection so he doesn't have to boot up the laptop and fiddle with all the settings if he just wants to check for new emails (some hotels will have a computer setup for browsing in their lobby or lounge) or send a really quick email.

I have Zone Alarm and recommend also. As far as connecting from hotel rooms, I haven't had any issues using wireless networks except that you have to pay at many hotels--usually around $12 per day. I've stayed at a few places where you need an ethernet connection but the cable is usually provided by the hotel.

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Manager, Downtown Las Vegas Hotel

Better idea,
Tell him to get a Data card for his laptop and then get a dataplan from one of the wireless providers. Then he can use the internet everywhere, and doesn't have to worry about the hotel's crappy connection

Last year during Huricane IKE my wife and I left Houston and lived out of a Marriot for a week in San Antonio. The internet connection was terrible. I had to call in every 15 minutes to have them kick people off the internet as they were hogging all the upstream bandwidth by running P2P and Bittorrent programs. Most Hotels go really cheap on their Internet connection. Usually is nothing more than a low speed DSL connection for the entire building. Trust me get a datacard, or teather you laptop to your phone for internet.

Let's disregard the internet connectivity bit for a moment since that is your client's responsibility.

By default SmarterMail runs on port 8080. This port will most likely be blocked in a hotel's network. You can configure SmarterMail to run on port 80 which will not be blocked. Here's a support article detailing this setup:

http://www.hostmysite.com/support/vps/windows/stiis/

You'll simply need to add the appropriate Host Header values to IIS for port 80.

Step 12 in the following article:
http://www.hostmysite.com/support/dedicated/iis/newsite/

Typically you would setup a domain such as mail.example.com replacing example.com with your domain name.