Hi MJ,
Just a few quick comments (in addition to the raddr board thread):
* There is no way to safely access the internet on someone else's client (e.g., with the computers at an internet cafe). There are ways to make it safer using portable apps (your own apps on your memory key), visual keyboard input, run your own spyware/virus checker on the system, etc. But it is inherently insecure and the risk is no longer low. Cut and paste does not avoid this problem. One plausible solution is to bring your own linux drive/flash/CD and boot off that, but I doubt most cafe owners would let you do that and there could be configuration issues.
* IMO, it is pretty safe to use a wireless access point on your client (or to plug your firewalled client into a network). Especially if you have good reason to trust it (you are sure it is not random wayward network spoofing brokerage sites). Also, sites like Vanguard now display a custom image associated with your account, before you type in a password, to avoid the spoofing problem.
* Your client choices are probably a light laptop or a higher end PDA. You can get a decent laptop at something like two pounds now, but they are expensive and fragile. You can get a VGA (640x480) PDA (6 ounces) with Wi-Fi, bluetooth, etc., for about $350 now (X51V from Dell, partly because Dell is getting out of the PDA business). If you get a PDA, and you are not a guru yet, there is a learning curve to using it and you will need to purchase some accessories.
* If you go with a PDA, make sure that your brokerages/banks allow access that way and that everything works OK, since the browsers are not as full featured as a desktop. Sometimes they brokers disable that capability on purpose for some reason (I heard Vanguard did this), and you need to trick the site into thinking your browser is on a PC (IE and other browsers on Windows PPC edition allow this, apparently it is trivial).
* What I like about a PDA is that you can carry it with you. I have visited a couple of countries where carrying a laptop even a few blocks in public was simply not an option for security reasons, and I hate lugging stuff around. You can read books on a PDA at the coffee house, opportunistically surf the web wherever there is Wi-Fi (you only need guaranteed security for a few sites, otherwise it does not matter), you can add GPS, you can run Skype on a PDA, etc. You can view movies on it (although these require preformatting, I had figured to preformat my own movies at home and put them on my web site for access on the road although memory sticks are so cheap now . . .). Notice how there is a learning curve to most of these things . . .
* The new Sony Reader might allow you to get English language books over the internet easily overseas (
http://ebooks.connect.com ). Or you could just focus on regular e-books (this is different from Sony's proprietary format) to read on your PDA + laptop. There are lots of free e-books. The Sony Reader might be fragile and it is really just first draft technology.
Also, please feel free to inbox me with email address if you have more questions. It took me awhile to build up knowledge in this area and I am still learning. I may not be on-line a lot this weekend, though.
Kramer