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45 Tips For Travelling Geeks
16/02/2007 By Chad Davies, Staff Writer, On The Beach Holidays

Even though commentators are predicting that the number of people travelling by air will rise in the future, promptin concerns for the environment, you will probably fly somewhere, go on a road trip or spend a few hours on a train at some stage this year. Travelling for a geek is a whole different ball game compared to the typical person, even in such a wired world it's a challenge to stay connected when you are away from your desk. The notion of travelling and staying within touch of your contacts is a huge issue, but it is one that can be solved.

What Do You Need When Travelling?

For a geek, there are a number of basic prerequisites that must be addressed before going on any trip:

  • Staying connected. Emails, chats, blogging, podcasting et al require an internet connection.
  • Being prepared. A geek should be in a constant state of readiness, capable of circumventing any problem at any time, ie. your laptop battery dies.
  • Getting things done. If you want to get anything done while on the road, you better have the software you need and access to good online services.

With that said, here are a few things, 45 to be precise, that are intended to provide the optimum travelling experience for the geek.

Macbook Pro

Hardware

Get yourself sorted with the best hardware for your trip. This list should keep any geek on the road connected, available and ready for action.

  1. MacBook Pro - Quite possibly the geek's laptop of choice, Apple's MacBook Pro has just about everything you will ever want or require from an inanimate object. Runs OS X but can also emulate Windows or Linux with Parallels or VMware.
  2. iPod - The world's most popular MP3 player is at the top of the heap for a reason, it's head and shoulders above the competition. Enough said about that.
  3. MagSafe Airline Adapter - Even with energy saving settings in place you'll be lucky to get more than 3 - 4 hours battery life out of your MacBook Pro, but that's not much use when you're on a transatlantic flight. Just plug this adapter into the airline seat power port and stay powered up for the duration of your flight.
  4. iPod Car Charger - There are plenty available and they're affordable too, any iPod-toting travelling geek should have a car charger in their backpack. If you can be bothered, you could also just make your own battery pack.
  5. iPod Speakers - While listening to music through headphones is fine while on the road, there are times when you just want some background sound to set an ambience. Invest in some iPod speakers that are small and light, perhaps the Logitech mm50 or Altec Lansing inMotion.
  6. Bose QuietComfort 2 Noise Cancelling Headhones - When you're sitting on a 10 hour flight with a pair of Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines only feet away you'll appreciate the money invested in a pair of good headphones that reduce background noise!
  7. Voltaic Backpack - This backpack comes complete with a 3 panel solar panel unit that produces 5, 6 or 7.2 volt power for your gadgets. It isn't built to power your laptop, but it can power a MacBook Pro according to reports. The Voltaic Backpack also has handy pouches to store files, your iPod and cables etc.
  8. Voltage Converter - One key piece of equipment that is easily overlooked is the humble voltage converter, but it should be on your list of travel accessory essentials. Check whether you'll need a converter or transformer first.
  9. iSkin - I couldn't recommend an iSkin highly enough. I only wish I had bought one for my old iBook, whose screen now lies in ruins thanks to the grease from my keyboard.
  10. Extra Laptop Battery - Although there are many techniques to extend laptop battery life, at some stage you'll need a charge. The problem is that buses, parks and sidewalks don't have handy power sockets to use. Buy yourself a spare battery and save yourself the bother.
  11. Kensington WiFi Finder - Walking round town searching for an open wireless network takes time that you could otherwise use to see and do things. Invest in a wireless network finder to speed things up.
  12. WiFI Range Extender - When you do eventually find a network chances are it won't be very fast or you'll be on the outer limit of it's range. That's where a WiFI range extender comes into play. Just make sure you get the right one!
  13. Airport Express - It might be tricky to setup, but once working Apple's Airport Express portable networking device is very useful indeed. Plug in the hotel's network cable and unwire your room!
  14. CAT5 Ethernet Cable - Wireless networks are great when available, open and without interference. However, sometime the stars won't align for you and you'll have to fall back to good old ethernet. It's faster anyway.
  15. DVI Cable - The panel in the MacBook Pro is great for working on and watching movies, but it's still only a 15" widescreen, 17" if you have remortgaged recently. Don't forget to bring a decent DVI / DVI to VGA cable so you can hook up a larger screen when possible.
Applications

Software

You can have all the cool gadgets you want, but you need good software to get things done.

  1. Firefox - I like both Safari and Camino, but my browser of choice has to be Firefox simply because of it's extensibility.
  2. Skype - Stay in touch with people back home with Skype, an essential application for any travelling geek. There are also plenty of alternatives incuding Gizmo, Google Talk, iChat, SightSpeed and Jajah.
  3. MacStumbler - If you don't want to spend on a wireless range extender then check out MacStumbler. It will scan and list all available 802.11b/g wireless access ports in the vicinity, no support for 802.11n just yet. Perfect for wardriving!
  4. Chicken of the VNC - Popular VNC client that allows you to interact with a remote computer.
  5. iAlertU - Uses your MacBook / MacBook Pro's built in sudden motion sensor to detect any movement, which then triggers an audio and visual alarm to alert you and scare off a thief. A must have application for road warriors!
  6. iPodRip - If you are out on the road you can expect to meet new people who have differing musical tastes. I'd highly recommend iPodRip for your new music fix.
  7. Adium - The best IM client out there, what more can I say? It's only available for OS X though, Windows users could try Gaim or Trillian.
  8. HandBrake - You're going to need a few movies to keep you entertained on the road, but playing them back off a drive will reduce your laptop life considerably. You can get round that problem by ripping them to your hard drive, which in theory should save some battery life.
  9. VLC - This cross-platform media player beats them all hands down in terms of format support. So once you have ripped than copy of a copy you got down some back street market to your hard drive, VLC should be able to play it.
  10. jUploadr - You'll probably build up quite a collection of photos while on your travels. Use jUploadr, a Java-based application, to quickly upload your images to your Flickr account from your desktop.
  11. Disco - Ultra slick disc burning application for OS X that makes backups easy.
  12. Ecto - This best-of-breed desktop blog editor is available for OS X and Windows, allowing you to post on your progress with ease. If Ecto isn't for you, try Performancing or Qumana.
  13. Podcast Creator - Maybe you aren't satisfied with just publishing your photos or blogging on your progress. If so, check out Podcast Maker or Garageband and get your podcast groove on!
  14. Awaken - Turn your laptop into the most expensive alarm clock ever! Seriously though, what better way to wake up than to your favourite tunes?
  15. Pod City Guides - Study up on where you're going on the way with a city guide on your iPod. Cities covered include London, Barcelona, Dublin, Sydney, Tokyo, Bangkok, New York, Las Vegas and many more.

Bookmarks

There are certain websites and various online services that I just could not go without when I'm on the road. Here are the best bookmarks that you should have in your collection.

  1. Google Docs - I have been gradually moving away from desktop-bound applications and taking advantage of Google's word processor and spreadsheet applications. They aren't as feature-packed as the MS equivalents, but the collaboration capability is great.
  2. Google Calendar - There are plenty of calendar services online, I had tried Apple's iCal sharing but settled on Google Calendar in the end. It's a great way to let your friends and family know where you are and what you're doing.
  3. Google Maps - Find everything from hotels and restaurants to dentists and cinemas. However, it isn't available in every country.
  4. Pandora - Imagine a road trip through the US southern states with nothing but 24 hours of solid country music to listen to. The player might not be as good as iTunes, but at least you are finding new music.
  5. Jugma - I've used this desktop sharing and collaboration service in the past, it's especially good when you need to talk someone through how to do something. Fortunately, Yugma is free and being Java-based it is capable of running on OS X and Windows.
  6. Box - If you need a centralized storage solution where you can throw up your images, videos and files then Box is for you. Alternatives include .Mac and Xdrive among others.
  7. StumbleUpon - Subscribe to a theme that interests you and keep hitting Stumble for more new websites. For example, you could subscribe to travel and get ideas on where to go and what to do.
  8. SeatGuru - This site is just unreal, especially when you're 6ft. tall and getting a good seat really matters. Hit them up before booking / check-in so you can see what seat to get.
  9. FlightAware - This service tracks just about every flight within the USA. You can browse by airport, airline and even aircraft type. I use it frequently when flying (as long as your flight has onboard WiFi) to see if my connecting flight is on schedule.
  10. TripHub - Great for group trips, allows you to share plans, discuss your trip, blog about your experiences and more. It's also free!
  11. RealTravel - Find and share travel advice and experiences. Includes a range of destination blogs and reviews that are useful if you don't know much about where you are going.
  12. 43 Places - Share your stories and experiences about places you have been to and where you want to go. Great sense of community. Sister site of 43 Things.
  13. Lonely Planet Guides - If you can't download a city guide for your destination, then hit the Lonely Planet. Clear, concise and trusted, Lonely Planet will break you into a new culture and maybe even teach you something you didn't know!
  14. Farecast - Excellent service that aims to predict airfares for flights leaving over 75 US cities. Not available outside the US at this time.
  15. Babel Fish - Provides free translation services of text and web pages. Just about capable of translating Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. In other words, it could come in handy when you want to order a latte in Beijing. Google also offer a free language translation tool similar to Babel Fish and OS X has a competent translation widget.
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