Getting out of a tight spot in South Africa: Kieran Alger reports

When my South African friend called me back in January to reveal he'd landed us World Cup tickets, I could picture the electric atmosphere, watching great games under floodlights in huge stadiums as the world's finest players battled for the ultimate prize. I could envisage the carnival of a competition like the World Cup taking a new continent by storm. At no point did I expect that I'd be holed up in a VW Polo saloon, in the pitch dark, somewhere on the outskirts of Mtatha, in the middle of the Transkei - the first of four territories to be declared independent during the Apartheid era. I hadn't bargained on being in a place white South Africans advise you strongly not to be driving in the dark. In the dark. Lost.

At no point had I mentally prepared for driving down a pothole-peppered road, having passed a 'Road closed' sign about 10km back. I'd also not realised that my South African friend behind the wheel, who'd driven us so expertly and confidently into this wilderness from Durban, like a man who knew his end destination, was actually relying on me have brought the printed address of our hotel with me. Needless to say his carefully compiled itinerary was sitting snugly on my laptop, 6,000 miles away in West London.

Luckily as the editor of a gadget website, my trip to the World Cup was never just going to be about football. To help convince the boss to give me 2.5 weeks off, I'd decided to make the most of my travels and come loaded with travel tech to test en route. In my kit bag: One MiFi portable hotspot, a CoPilot South Africa sat nav app loaded onto my HTC Hero phone, an iPad loaded with apps including Scrabble and LogMeIn, some mini speakers and a million cables and chargers.

As the fear factor rose and the panic started to set in, I put the tech to the ultimate test. Fired up the WiFi, switched on the iPad and set about using LogMeIn to retrieve that vital address and contact number from my laptop at home. After five more bumpy minutes I was in possession of our end destination, slapped it into the satnav on my phone, used the MiFi to run the app over WiFi and confirmed we were heading in the right direction. The isolation of Coffee Bay was just another 70km of moon buggying in car made for suburbia away and the big question now occupying us was would we make it in time to see Spain v Chile?

Bio:
Kieran Alger has been indulging his passion for tech by editing T3.com for over two years. He also has over ten years experience in building websites and digital media. Before joining T3.com, Kieran headed up the digital team for men's magazine, ZOO, and prior to that he spent 6 years at AOL UK.

Back to Reality

It’s been a great run the last 4 weeks of the World Cup – We’ve enjoyed the posts from our LogMeIn correspondents and the comments from our user community – whether on our blog, our Facebook page or in response to a ‘tweet’ on Twitter.

Now that the office pool results are known, and ‘Football Widows’ everywhere find themselves with partners again, we wonder – what is next for you? How will you spend the summer doing the things you want to do and stay connected? High season for travel is underway – with people going to destinations near and far, exotic or otherwise, for both work and holidays with family before going back to school in the fall.

Vacations are something many of us save and plan for many months in advance, yet few plan for the possibility of disruption – something that was clear this past spring with the ash cloud in Europe. How will you cope with disruptions to your personal or work schedule this summer?

We’d love to hear your top travel tips – what is a ‘must pack’, what do you never leave home without? How do you plan to stay connected, wherever your travels take you this summer?

Thank you for participating in our first World Cup Blog. If you’ve enjoyed following us, let us know that in the comments, too! If you’d like to continue to follow us for news, promotions, contests and fun, you can find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Have a Wonderful Summer.

Jurgen's report on the final game

Weer niet

Deze wedstrijd heb ik net als vele anderen in Amsterdam bekeken. Een fantastische sfeer voor en tijdens de wedstrijd, en natuurlijk droop de teleurstelling ervan af, na deze zinderende pot. Zinderend als je Nederland of Spanje een warm hart toedroeg tenminste.

Spanje heeft terecht gewonnen. Laat ik dat voorop stellen. Natuurlijk was het een corner wat vooraf ging, en hoe Webb dat heeft kunnen missen ontgaat me, maar wellicht keek hij net even een andere kant op. Neemt niet weg dat het doelpunt in orde is. De buitenspel situatie die eraan vooraf ging was niet strafbaar, aangezien de bal niet bij Iniesta kwam. Keurige goal dus. Om dus de reden van het verlies bij Webb neer te leggen, zoals sommigen deden, gaat mij te ver. Laten we wel wezen, hij had De Jong er in de eerste helft af moeten sturen! Heeft hij óók niet gedaan. Ook een fout.

Robben heeft twee prachtkansen gehad. Die had hij ‘gewoon’ moeten benutten. Niet gedaan. De Spanjaarden hebben er ook diverse gehad. Eén wel benut. Einde verhaal. Zo zit een finale nu eenmaal in elkaar. Dat er niet veel gescoord zou worden wisten we denk ik allemaal wel. Spanje heeft zich met 4x 1-0 op rij tot wereldkampioen gekroond. En daarmee terecht.

En Nederland blijft met een kater zitten, maar moet gewoon terugkijken op een goed toernooi. En kan derhalve trots zijn op de prestatie.