Friends know that I’m not really a techie. I’m often the last to latch onto the hot new technology. But thanks to my generous employer, I’m trying out a piece of equipment for the weekend.

It’s a Verizon / Novatel EXPD CDMA card.

Now, like I said, I’m not a techie, but here’s what I know: I’m sitting in my car right now, with no access to a traditional wireless network — there’s not a Starbucks for at least a half a mile. But thanks to one of Verizon’s ubiquitious cell phone towers and this little doo-hicky that slips into the side of this exquisite MacBook, I’m pleasantly blogging away.

The service has been great — no dropped connections that I didn’t cause — and the speed has been astonishing — nearly broadband.

All this is to say that we’re getting much close to a world where wires need not contain us at all. And that’s pretty darn cool.

UPDATE: Looks like this is the offering that I’m benefitting from. And here’s the doo-hicky itself.

Jim: Okay, I think Marshall is making this up. I just don’t believe him. You will never persuade me that there is a location in the 48 continental states more than half a mile from any Starbucks. I live within walking distance of a Starbucks in Turkey. Last week they opened up a Starbucks… in a Starbucks.

Beyond that, doohickeys like this present a dilemma - particularly for those of us who will need to persuade our employers that we absolutely, positively need one to work effectively, and thus THEY should cover the monthly expense. The thing is… I like working at a Starbucks, or most other cafes with wireless access.

I’ll shift this thread to make an observation: For those readers in cubicle-land who yearn to work from home, I offer words of warning - after a while, you begin to miss co-workers. Even meetings, or the colleague who reminds you of the guy who kept mumbling about his stapler in Office Space. I’ve worked from home since… May 2004 or so. Besides a propensity to work in your pajamas, and an absolute deterioration in one’s table manners and social skills, it’s a bad formula for domestic tranquility. If I’m working at home, I can go through the entire day dealing entirely with the rest of the world by phone, e-mail, Instant Messenger, etc.; making my beleaguered wife, upon her return home, the first live human being I interact with during the day. For her, I’ll be perhaps the fortieth or fiftieth. I’ve got hours upon hours of pent-up conversation; she’s just exhausted.

So there’s something to be said for Starbucks, for the noise of the frothing machines and the orders being yelled back and forth, for the constant buzz of human activity. They make a nice “branch office” for the work-from-home crowd.

My other worry about these devices is that as they become ubiquitous, the market for wireless services at places like Starbucks may dry up; and that once places stop offering that service, people will have to get the devices. Kind of like pay phones. It’s easy to say you don’t need them, until your cell phone goes dead and you need to make a call.

Cam: I’ll agree with Jim that working from home has its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, I don’t have an office space, per se. I have a little space at the kitchen table, with a very uncomfortable chair. I’d love to be able to do my work at Starbucks but a) I have a feeling it would get very expensive for me and b) Elaine would beat my ass for leaving her to watch the kids all day.

As for the little wireless doo-hickey… for me, at least, it’s not needed. I have one of those uber-smart phones (the Treo 700), and do you know the most used application for me?

Solitaire. Well, that and Bejeweled. I don’t use it to check my email. I don’t use it to blog that much. I take pictures with the camera, but for the most part I just use it as a phone. Frankly, I don’t want to be so connected that I can be reached at any given moment. I want to have the ability to get away every now and then.