Gunillocentrism – web diary of a freelance journalist

Today, New York Times started a serie of articles that promises to be interesting, on the prospect for democracy in the Middle East. This is the first one, check it out:
Saudi Reformers: Seeking Rights, Paying a Price

My professional life as a journalist changed dramatically when I realized there are free, wireless connections all over the place. This was …oh, my God, only a year ago, I think!
I used to think wireless was something exclusive and expensive, and couldn’t believe I already had a card for it installed in my computer (but I had).

I bring my sweet Apple with me almost anywhere I go – and to be able to check my e-mails, do research, and submit texts with my own lap top when I am out and about means so much I almost can’t describe it.

I also can’t tell how much money, time, and not the less frustration I have spent over the years, since I started out with freelance journalism (May/June 1995!), to communicate with editors, newsrooms, interviewees, sources, friends, and other people. First, via pay phones and faxes, then increasingly via slow connections in Internet cafés. (The ones in China are terribly slow, but they are not very quick anywhere – and worst of all, they are almost always PC’s.)

Now, there are so many places that offer free, wireless connections. Any time I go to a new city in the USA, I check out the hot spot opportunities on this excellent site. It has helped me being online in, for example, nice cafés in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, sitting in my car in Philadelphia, and in hotels in LA and Washington.

Actually, when I was in Cap Haïtien in northern Haiti in November, I discovered I could be wirelessly online in the lobby of a luxury hotel there – so I listened to direct broadcastings of the Swedish Radio, while a Haitian rebel was sneaking around there in the middle of the night, with his big machine gun! (Yes, it was scary, but also exciting.)

Right now, I am sitting in the middle of Midtown/ Manhattan, in Bryant Park. I come directly from a social event for food and travel writers at Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur restaurant at Grand Central Station, and wanted to sit down for a while and check my e-mails before jumping on the uptown train.
Bryant Park is a very vibrant and perfectly located little space, only a few subway stops from where I am living, and like a few other parks in Manhattan it is wired and so would be a perfect “office” any day. But it is almost impossible to work outside on a computer when the sun is shining. Now, in the dark, I can actually see what’s on the screen. It is very inspiring to work outside, surrounded by all of the bustling New York…

So, wi-fi technology has truly changed my lifestyle. Too bad it is not at all common in Sweden! I can’t even think of a café in Stockholm where I could go and work online. Hey, what happened with Sweden being the most technologically advanced and Internet-savvy country in the world???
According to this list Sweden is lagging far, far behind as of free wireless. It’s not even among the top ten!
If this list is accurate, I’ll have to stay in the United States a little longer…

/Gunilla