Mac360 on Maui: Dialup Is Not Cheap, Not Fast.

It’s hard to argue with a trip to Maui. If anything, it points out just how much vacations are necessary-- even for Mac users (we tend to live in a different, albeit, better world). Still, the need for speed doesn’t decrease while vacationing on Maui.

First, home is Honolulu, so it’s not as though we’re going from upper Minnesota to Florida. Honolulu is well connected, digitially-- plenty of high speed DSL and Time-Warner RoadRunner to go around. We have an Apple Store, too.

Still, vacations are needed from time to time. Where do Mac users in Honolulu go for vacations? Only three places: Neighbor islands, Las Vegas, anywhere else.

We hadn’t journeyed to Maui in a couple of years and decided to take up the bargain offered by the once great Maui Prince. Like an aging rock star, the Prince is a member of a number of Japanese hotels called “Prince” something or other.

The Prince is showing its wrinkles these days. As getaways go, the Prince is “away” on the south west side of Maui, just below the slopes of Mt. Haleakala.

Yes, there’s electricity here. Air conditioning. A few great restaurants,too.

My intention was to relax, write, catch up on reading, put a couple of new cameras to work, get to know the new version of Portraits and Prints, finally get through the introductory manual of Logic Pro, and iPod my brains out.

So far, the Canon 20D has performed VERY well. A one gigabyte flash card delivers about 240 high resolution shots and in just a few days I had nearly 600 decent digital photos in iPhoto.

A Mac PowerBook is almost like being at home ("almost" is the operative word-- home is a dual 2.5 ghz PowerMac with 3 gigs RAM, and a 23” Apple Cinema HD Display) so email and most applications travel well.

In fact, the only problem encountered at all was connectivity. While some of the more progressive hotels and resorts on Maui have in-room high speed connections, others have wi-fi scattered throughout the hotel, the Maui Prince is royalty from a different generation.

Can you say “dial up?”

The best connection so far has been 30k which is tolerable for email and some web sites, painful for any kind of downloading. Making the best of a tough situation for laptop users, the Prince also charges $1.00 for a local dialed call (I use Earthlink for on-the-road dial up).

To be fair, high speed access is available. $8.00 for the first 15-minutes and 50-cents for each additional minute. 30-minutes for about $15.

Earlier this week, a reader pointed out that high-speed was available (via wi-fi) at the Westin. Enjoy it when you got it.

How’s the photography? Well, weather on Maui for the long holiday weekend could not have been much better. A few clouds, no rain to speak of, daytime highs in the mid-80s.

Not bad for the end of November.

Oh, the photography? Weather makes a difference. We traveled through Lahaina, Maui and I got a nice shot of the Lahiana railroad. The Canon 20D takes photos which are very realistic-- Kodachrome it’s not. What you see is about what you get.

With Portraits & Prints I was able to do a couple of “click clicks” to add color saturation and sharpness, then export to a perfect size for the web. The photo above is from the Iao Needle-- a 1,200 rock a few miles behind Wailuku town.

Tomorrow-- more Maui photos, a luau from our balcony, and more.

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