As a flight attendant, I am now staying in about 15 different hotels a month. I use an Acer netbook that's a few years old. My coworker flight attendants and pilots that I fly with sometimes have MacBookAir or other high end computers.

It seems that if the guest room internet service in a particular hotel is exasperatingly slow, it doesn't matter how expensive the computer, you just don't get anywhere with it. It seems that when we meet after one of these hotel stays, we're all complaining about the slowness of that hotel's internet no matter how expensive or cheap our computer is. On the other hand, when a hotel's internet is good, it's good for all of us.

I'm getting tired of carrying around the netbook, although when I purchased it it seemed like a lightweight miniature marvel. I also carry the AC adapter, since I usually set it up on the desk in my room which is where I mostly use it. Also having to dig it out to go through security so often is a pain.

I've noticed that many of the hotels we stay in have business centers or airline employee crew lounges that have full size computers that work well and are much faster than the internet in the guest rooms. I'm thinking about leaving my netbook home and using those. The problem is we often work strange hours, and I feel funny sitting in the business center on the internet in the middle of the night with the hotel security guard constantly peeking in wondering what I'm doing there at that hour instead of sleeping. At least with my netbook in my room, I have privacy.