During my recent trip to China, I was surprised at how the internet kept me in such close touch with the US. In both hotels in which I stayed, broadband internet was available. Neither was close to being as fast as the cable connection I have at home, but I was able to check e-mail, post blog entries, and make and receive telephone calls. The Vonage softphone allowed me to call my wife Nicole about every day; she was able to dial a local Indianapolis phone number and talk to me when she wanted. It really cut down on the long distance costs. Unfortunately, the X-Pro software provided by Vonage didn’t work very well. I had to re-start it every time I reconnected to the internet, the phone book feature was worthless, and there was no incoming or outgoing call history. They could definitely benefit from a better software package, but it worked well enough to keep me in touch with the US and was easier than using Yahoo Instant Messenger.