Writing On The Road by Phil Philcox My brother sent me an e-mail from a mountaintop in Colorado while he was hiking using his cell phone. The nearest phone, store, hotel or civilization was 20 miles away. Amazing! With the AlphaSmart3000 to write and the TM20/PocketMail to communicate you're in business no matter where you are.

If you write while you're away from home like I do as a writer and don't want to lug a laptop around or can't afford a laptop, do what I do: write on an AlphaSmart3000 (888-274-0680 - http://www.alphasmart.com ). It's compact, lightweight (it weighs less than my desktop computer's keyboard alone), and is compatible with every word processing program I'm aware of. It measures only an inch-high, 12-inch wide and 9-inch long and best of all, the keyboard is full-sized, so can type normally.

When you get home, you can transfer everything you write to your computer's word processing program through a connecting cable and edit or print it out. You can also download text from your computer to the unit. It runs on batteries (over 500 hours on three AA batteries), so you can type sitting in a hotel bed, riding as a passenger in a car, in front of the TV, with one hand while eating dinner, etc. You can store your words in eight, separate files, each over 12 pages in length, so the unit will store over 100 single-spaced pages, enough to write a book. Throw in a spell checker, and a host of accessories and you get the perfect portable writing machine at a fraction of what you'd pay for a laptop.

I'm interested in only two things when I'm on the road: writing and e-mail. I solve the e-mail problem with the Sharp TM-20 and a PocketMail subscription. You can tuck the TM20 in a jacket pocket or purse and use it with a hotel phone, a pay phone and even a cell phone while you're walking down the street, sitting in a park, or driving down the road. You can dial a toll-free number if you're in the U.S. or Canada (800-762-5386 and 800-320-6727), an international number if you're in Japan or South America (among other places - +1-408-919-7444) and local numbers in countries like Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, the U.K., etc. and send and receive e-mails to friends and business associates without a computer or modem.

You're address would be yourname@pocketmail.com and you can have your regular e-mail forwarded. When my wife and I were researching travel articles last year and traveling around the country, we did all of our email sending and receiving with the TM-20 and a cell phone...often right from our car or at a restaurant table in some remote city. The TM-20 unit has a keyboard and big button on the back. Type in your messages, dial the number, hold the unit up to the phone and push the button. Your messages go out and new messages come in. You can read them on the screen after you hang up.

My brother sent me an e-mail from a mountaintop in Colorado while he was hiking using his cell phone. The nearest phone, store, hotel or civilization was 20 miles away. Amazing! With the AlphaSmart3000 to write and the TM20/PocketMail to communicate you're in business no matter where you are.

Further information is available online from http://www.sharp-usa.com or Sharp Electronics, Mahway NJ 201-529-8200. Information on PocketMail, the link provider is available at http://www.pocketmail.com or calling 408-919-7444.