Wireless on the Road
I don't know about you, but when I'm in a hotel room and there's high-speed internet provided, I like to have some flexibility. I like to surf on the sofa, or in bed. That ethernet cable is like a shackle, tying me to the desk. In addition, I carry as little as possible when traveling. (I've found that I can get by on very few articles on clothing during a trip. Just don't stand too close.) So although I want to carry a wireless access point, I don't want much bulk.
I did the research. I read all the articles. No matter how you work it, those little wireless access points all involve tradeoffs. I finally settled on one that has been perfect for me. In every hotel room I've tried it in, I plug in the gizmo, turn on my laptop, and browse (sometimes I have to authenticate through the hotel's proxy, and perhaps pay some rediculous fee, but that works too). I settled on the DLink DWL-G730AP. I bought it 6 months or so ago, and I'm sure that by now there are shinier ones out there. But I rarely have encountered a gadget that provides so much satisfaction with so little cost, and such a miniscule density. It weighs just about nothing, and is no larger than 3 or 4 credit cards stacked up. In addition, the power brick is proportionally tiny.
There are some downsides: It only has a single ethernet jack, so if you want to configure it while you're connected to the outside world, you must be able to do that wirelessly. I thought this would be a problem for me, but it hasn't been. There are other, similar products that actually provide multiple RJ-45 jacks (for example, Linksys has one), but these tend to be larger/heavier. And I don't need the functionality. You may, and you'll need to factor these issues in when purchasing one. But I'll never go back--the G730AP is so easy to use, and so small, it goes with me everywhere when I travel.