Problem
You take your laptop away and when you open it up it wants a password.
1 My machine is too big and heavy to carry. It's brand new and I don't want to risk losing it.
2 Move your software onto an old machine of your own or an old machine owned by another member of your family.
1 I forgot my password
2 It doesn't recognize my password
3 I want to use a different password whilst on holiday - how do I remember the new one?
Solutions
1 Leave a copy at home. Phone home to ask for it. Then change it again, making a note of the new one.
Do not keep the new one visible next to the computer nor in its case. Do not drop the piece of paper in the hotel waste paper basket.
3 Change your password. If you don't know how to change it, just google for the website where you can log in with your email and demand a change.
BUT I CAN'T GOOGLE BECAUSE I CAN'T GET INTO MY MACHINE!
Get the hotel password at reception on check-in. Check the information book on the bedroom desk. Go downstairs to ask. Ask other people in your corridor or a member of staff on your level to save making a trip downstairs.
Using A Phone
Calm down. If all you want to do is phone or email home to say you arrived safely, somebody else might help you. Go for breakfast. Use your phone to find the login details.
Failing all else, you will have to use your phone to take notes, or write notes by hand and take photos.
Confirming Flights
Confirm your return flight using your phone. If you have a multi-stop journey. you might have to confirm each leg.
Look around the hotel. Ask at reception. At one hotel in the USA I found computers for visitors around the corner in the ground floor hallway. The same thing happened in a motel near a conference centre in London. Since I was checked into my hotel for another day, in theory I could have gone back to my hotel at lunch time and used their computer corner.
Re-Confirm Flights
This may apply towards the end of your holiday or when you have a stopover. Why? Because sometimes people decide to stay over at their first stop. Sometimes they miss their connection through incompetence. Sometimes they forget about the second half of the journey or take a different route but do't cancel the first one. Sometimes the first flight is delayed so they miss the connection. Sometimes they are taken ill on holiday. The good thing is that means seats which other people are not using are freed up for you. You may be on a waitlist and able to get a new seat or a new flight.
Can't use laptop or phone and just want to make a quick message?
Calling Your Host
I was on the railway platform in the USA and needed to tell my hosts that I had arrived so they could meet me. But my phone would not work.
I thought, I've flown miles, spent loads of money, kept everybody busy for days organizing this trip. I'll ask three people if I can phone or if they can send a one liner saying I've arrived. I'll ask three types, a station official, a local person, another visitor with luggage on wheels like myself. I'll get one person who can't help, one who claims they can't understand my English, and one who can make the call for me.
I asked a station official. He could not make a call, but he told me the password I needed to log into the station's wifi.
I tried another person, but they were racing onto a train.
Finally, I found a person who made a quick call for me, "I'm ringing on behalf of Angela whose phone isn't working so you can't call her back. Can you meet her at the station."My helper reported, "They said they are on their way - go to the car park by the entrance and they will meet you there."
Remember, if there's a problem, there's probably a solution. You are not the only person on the planet to have had this problem.
By this time next year, or tomorrow, or this evening, your problem will have been solved and you will be onto the next problem.
In a motel in the USA I arrived and went to plug in my laptop and realised I didn't have a connecting lead of the right type.
I went down to reception. Did they have one I could borrow. The first receptionist told me where I could buy one and drew a map. It was a mile away, a taxi ride there and back.
No use to me. Costly. Time consuming. I had other plans.
I continued chatting. He went off to help somebody else.
Another receptionist arrived and asked if he could help me. Not thinking he could, I told him my woes. Just a minute! He went and brought out a box of lost property. Several leads which people had left behind. He said he could lend it to me for half an hour but I must bring it back.
I was allowed to keep it all day. When I went to return it, the receptionst shrugged and said they had several and would not be posting them back, so I could keep it.
Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
You take your laptop away and when you open it up it wants a password.
1 My machine is too big and heavy to carry. It's brand new and I don't want to risk losing it.
2 Move your software onto an old machine of your own or an old machine owned by another member of your family.
1 I forgot my password
2 It doesn't recognize my password
3 I want to use a different password whilst on holiday - how do I remember the new one?
Solutions
1 Leave a copy at home. Phone home to ask for it. Then change it again, making a note of the new one.
Do not keep the new one visible next to the computer nor in its case. Do not drop the piece of paper in the hotel waste paper basket.
3 Change your password. If you don't know how to change it, just google for the website where you can log in with your email and demand a change.
BUT I CAN'T GOOGLE BECAUSE I CAN'T GET INTO MY MACHINE!
Get the hotel password at reception on check-in. Check the information book on the bedroom desk. Go downstairs to ask. Ask other people in your corridor or a member of staff on your level to save making a trip downstairs.
Using A Phone
Calm down. If all you want to do is phone or email home to say you arrived safely, somebody else might help you. Go for breakfast. Use your phone to find the login details.
Failing all else, you will have to use your phone to take notes, or write notes by hand and take photos.
Confirming Flights
Confirm your return flight using your phone. If you have a multi-stop journey. you might have to confirm each leg.
Look around the hotel. Ask at reception. At one hotel in the USA I found computers for visitors around the corner in the ground floor hallway. The same thing happened in a motel near a conference centre in London. Since I was checked into my hotel for another day, in theory I could have gone back to my hotel at lunch time and used their computer corner.
Re-Confirm Flights
This may apply towards the end of your holiday or when you have a stopover. Why? Because sometimes people decide to stay over at their first stop. Sometimes they miss their connection through incompetence. Sometimes they forget about the second half of the journey or take a different route but do't cancel the first one. Sometimes the first flight is delayed so they miss the connection. Sometimes they are taken ill on holiday. The good thing is that means seats which other people are not using are freed up for you. You may be on a waitlist and able to get a new seat or a new flight.
Can't use laptop or phone and just want to make a quick message?
Calling Your Host
I was on the railway platform in the USA and needed to tell my hosts that I had arrived so they could meet me. But my phone would not work.
I thought, I've flown miles, spent loads of money, kept everybody busy for days organizing this trip. I'll ask three people if I can phone or if they can send a one liner saying I've arrived. I'll ask three types, a station official, a local person, another visitor with luggage on wheels like myself. I'll get one person who can't help, one who claims they can't understand my English, and one who can make the call for me.
I asked a station official. He could not make a call, but he told me the password I needed to log into the station's wifi.
I tried another person, but they were racing onto a train.
Finally, I found a person who made a quick call for me, "I'm ringing on behalf of Angela whose phone isn't working so you can't call her back. Can you meet her at the station."My helper reported, "They said they are on their way - go to the car park by the entrance and they will meet you there."
Remember, if there's a problem, there's probably a solution. You are not the only person on the planet to have had this problem.
By this time next year, or tomorrow, or this evening, your problem will have been solved and you will be onto the next problem.
In a motel in the USA I arrived and went to plug in my laptop and realised I didn't have a connecting lead of the right type.
I went down to reception. Did they have one I could borrow. The first receptionist told me where I could buy one and drew a map. It was a mile away, a taxi ride there and back.
No use to me. Costly. Time consuming. I had other plans.
I continued chatting. He went off to help somebody else.
Another receptionist arrived and asked if he could help me. Not thinking he could, I told him my woes. Just a minute! He went and brought out a box of lost property. Several leads which people had left behind. He said he could lend it to me for half an hour but I must bring it back.
I was allowed to keep it all day. When I went to return it, the receptionst shrugged and said they had several and would not be posting them back, so I could keep it.
Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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