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Getting through airports can be a hassle at the best of times. But for those of us who have the gaul to take a laptop with us, an airport can be a real pain in the ass when traveling. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to ease the pain.

For starters, when you go through the check-in, the security goons are going to want to look at your laptop. It’s not that they think it could be a security risk, it’s just that the combined IQ of the three apes looking at your laptop doesn’t quite reach triple figures and… well… your laptop is shiny. If you are unlucky it will hold their attention for hours like a kitten playing with twine. It’s therefore best to make sure your laptop is in an easily accessible part of your hand-luggage so you can get it out and put it back quickly. This will save you a lot of time.

Remember also, that the security apes might ask you to turn on your laptop. They can’t really do it themselves because the buttons are usually too small for their stubbie fingers that look more like small tree trunks. It’s best to plan for this as turning your machine on and off can take up time that you usually need to be using running for your plane. It’s best to leave your laptop on ’suspend’ mode so it boots up quickly. This usually doesn’t take up too much juice. (more…)

Oooh, ahhh!

Our friends over at Apple have finally decided to step up to the 17 inch screen for mobile computing with the announcement of theMacBook Pro.

This bad boy is built on the Intel Core Duo, which is kind of like two processors in one - at least according to the hype.

Of course, if you have come to love computing on the Mac then you’re probably going to love this.

It has all the bells and whistles and can easily handle 3D graphics, music encoding and video editing (with 2,16 GHz processor and 667 MHz memory)- making it a pretty good choice for anyone who likes to create digital media from the road.

I mean this thing is going to be great for blogging and vlogging or podcasting from your favourite destinations. Creating your vids and podcasts is going to be pretty quick and easy.

Oh, and that 17 inch screen… drool.

Technorati Tags: apple, MacBook Pro, Apple Mac

We travelers tend to be pretty picky about what we like - especially when it comes to our laptops. But what are the characteristics of a laptop that actually seperate what we like from what we hate. When you are traveling and using your laptop daily, it actually becomes pretty obvious.

Weight - For anyone who does a lot of traveling and needs to carry their laptop everywhere, this is a BIG consideration. Lugging around an extra couple of kilos can really detract from your enjoyment of a place so laptop weight can be a fairly major decision when deciding which one to buy. The lighter the better in EVERY circumstance is how we think about this.

Toughness - This one is pretty difficult to judge for new laptops that are the latest thing. At the moment Sony and Toshiba seem to have the best reputations for building laptops that can take a pounding so many travelers just trust in that reputation to continue. That is a pretty important thing when your laptop lives with you in your backpack. It needs to be able to stand up to dropping and getting sat on. Sure, you can protect it with covers etc, but they only do so much.

Performance - OK, this might seem like an obvious one - everyone wants a good, fast computer. But having a slow computer when you are traveling seems to compound problems and is much worse than having a slow computer when you are at home. If you are trying to log onto a paid wireless network, you may have limited time so you need things to be speedy. If you are sitting around waiting for you computer to catch up to you when trying to edit photos, it takes away from time you could be out in the field actually taking those photos. Slow computers suck when you travel!

Peripherals - Sure you can buy a bunch of things to stick into you computer. USB Wireless, USB this and that. Wireless cards. You name it, there are literally thousands of litttle contraptions that you can plug into your computer. One problem though, when you are travelling and moving your laptop around the place, all of these thing get caught on things or tied around other things and end up breaking. Some guys walks past and his pocket get’s snagged on your USB Wireless device at some cafe - it breaks, coffee goes everywhere, you punhch the guy and end up in jail - you know the story! It can be extremely frustrating, especially if you were relying on whatever it was that broke. It is much better to get as much as you can built into the computer.

Battery life - This one should be pretty obvious. You’re travelling - you usually have no idea how long it will be before you can hook up to some power and charge up again! Long battery life is good.

These are pretty much the first things anyone should consider when they are buying a laptop for the purposes of travel. Anything else you want with your laptop is just a bonus.

Technorati Tags: laptops, travel, Toshiba, Sony

Is it just me or is this whole “USB Powered” craze starting to get a little out of hand?

I mean, for most people what exactly is wrong with powering something from a conventional power socket?

But, I will admit there is the *occasional* device that could be helpful being powered by USB - especially for those who use laptops on the go and don’t have access to a wall socket for power.

Unfortunately I don’t think this is one of those useful devices, unless you are a hardcore USB powered gadget fan.

USB powered slippers are the latest thing from, you guessed it… Japan.

They will of course keep you feet warm for those times in front of your computer when you want your feet tied to it.

Really the only reason we are including this one is that, as we said, some hardcore travel fans *might* get some comfort out of taking a pair of these bad boys along on their travels.

Thanks to the developers at Thanko for this one.

Via Akihabara News.

Technorati Tags: USB, laptops, slippers

This is a very nifty little device for transferring data between computers when you are on the go and need to quickly get stuff from one machine to the next.

This little USB Data Transfer Cable allows you to connect two machines together via the USB hubs and transfer data by your usual drag and drop method at about 25 Mb per second.

This would come in very handy when you can’t find a wireless connection and need to go to an internet cafe to send off some douments or digital photographs from your laptop - very easy and painless.

It even comes with the funky little retractable set so you don’t get your wires crossed! (… sorry).

Check it out at Coolest Gadgets.