I do quite a bit of travelling. Most places in Norway are accessible through public transport but I used to prefer using my own car because that is much faster. Especially if you have to change transport on the way. Using public transport you’re also limited to specific schedules.
But lately I have started preferring the much more environmentaly friendly public transport like trains, boats and even long distance busses. Now it saves me a lot of time. Why?
Internet connectivity. Two hours in a car driving gets you there. But apart from that it’s a waste of time. Two hours on a train has turned into very productive hours. Norway has pretty good coverage of Edge and 3G. On my last boat trip from Bergen to Balestrand I could turn the four hours of travelling into productive work. Emailing, answering comments on the blog I work on for the NRK, NRKbeta. Getting some answers from people all over the world through IM. I had a reasonably good internet connection through my mobile on the entire trip. Something between 90 and 160 kbps. Not broadband, but enough to make me productive.
I know that I am no average person when it comes to how I spend my time and what I need to be productive. But more people might want to choose productive transportation as they get laptops, iPhones and all kinds of devices with internet connectivity. To be able to spend more time working and having fun online.
But we need to fix the pricing, speed and stability.
I like the fact that during Live Earth they made note of the fact that buying music online is environmentaly friendly. And I still like the old slogan of the first online only newspaper in Norway, called “Nettavisen”: “Ten of ten trees prefer Nettavisen”.
Actually the internet in general is environmentaly friendly. Especially here in Norway where we power our server farms with hydro electric power.
And by the way. This post was written on board a bus on my way from Kongsberg to Oslo.
(I have also written a Norwegian version of this article over at NRKbeta)
eirikso 
Hey, I’m from Kongsberg! 😉
Cool. I was on my way home from Bolkesjø. Where I gave the keynote presentation at the Nordic Sound Symposium. Snapped this image in Kongsberg when I arrived at the train station yesterday evening:
http://eirikso.smugmug.com/gallery/3554603#201376201-L-LB
I must say i’m quite fascinated of the way our work environment has changed and how we work in general. I would say the best thing with this ‘always connected’ opportunity we now are experiencing, aside from being environementally friendly, is the potentially increasement in a workers productivity. Even those who earlier experienced quite a bit ‘downtime’ while traveling can now get some work done. Short version: Wireless connection = increased level of productivity.
“Wireless connection = increased level of productivity”
Indeed!
A small tip from a useless networker!
I have two pc’s: one laptop (Vista) and a desktop (XP) and a wireless network (ADSL).
I ran into major problems and a timeconsuming effort to try to connect the laptop to the desktop. Then I read about Network Magic. Installed the free trail! Worked perfect, but only for 7 days or so. The software cost § 39.95 or something like that. Now the trial has expired and by chance I tryed the Vista networking to see for the final time if I could get the network to work – before giving up – as supposed!
And then what? It works! Have not run any wizards or checked out forums or what ever! It WORKS! This is a pre christmas present for me! Halleluja!
Bought the laptop after the summer break (aug) and BY THE WAY (RECaptch): “Aug, decade” tell just about how long I have troubled with that d… network settings!