Mobile working is great. The ability to work from anywhere without needing an office and all the distractions it brings is priceless. More and more people are jumping on the bandwagon and starting to use tablets specifically for this purpose. They offer excellent portability, battery life and in the case of Windows 10 a “proper” operating system to run all your programs on. One big drawback though is lack of storage space as most tablets are in the 16 GB – 64 GB range which for some people is fine and others not so.
This is where cloud storage helps. You can store all your files on Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Onedrive etc and access them when required so long as you have wifi. In Scotland though 3G coverage (and 4G) can be sporadic outside of the main population centres so accessing online data can be a problem.
So how do you cover all your options?
To increase your chances of actually getting online in the first place go for mobile broadband from either EE or Three (this applies to Scotland only) as these seem to have the best coverage. I have used Vodafone and O2 in the past and really struggled to get online in large areas of Scotland.
For instant access to your files purchase an SD card for your tablet and in the case of Windows 10 install Dropbox on it which is exactly what I did for a client last week. The new Windows 10 tablets are actually pretty good and run the full version of Windows. My client now has all their Dropbox files synced to the SD card meaning they can access their files whether they have internet access or not. There were some teething troubles but this article should help anyone out who wants to set this up.
Sorry iOS and Android lovers (me included here) we have to make do with needing internet to access our files. Boo hoo!!
About the Author
Hi I’m Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Cisco, Windows, OS X and Linux based IT Support to small businesses throughout Scotland.
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