So, this geek is currently travelling in South East Asia. I’m writing this from Hakone National Park about 100km west of Tokyo.
The question this article is concerned with is: What does a fastidious geek and Mac user do, and take with him when travelling in remote parts of the world? Lugging a laptop around really isn’t practical, given the size of the backpack already. I’d also get in huge trouble with my better half. Quite right too.
Well, first up, as a Mac user, I do have an our itinerary up and visible for the curious friend or family member. I found and used iCal FTP which enabled this without a WebDav server of anysort. More detail on the backend software here.
Next up, with a decent digital camera, and about 500Mb of Compact Flash, I’m paranoid about loosing photos through an over zealous x-ray machine or a stray splash of water. So, I splashed out on the Belkin Media Reader which enables pictures to be pulled onto my iPod. I’ve not tested the import facility, but it appears to present as iPhoto rolls which can easily be imported on return. Only thing I’ve been unable to do yet is put any of the pictures up, but it’s mainly just cherry blossoms so far!
I also splashed out on the Belkin Voice Recorder to keep track of notes and such like, but haven’t really used it in anger yet, preferring to keep a bleeding-edge paper diary of what we get up to.
Needless to say, the travel adaptor kit comes in handy, as do the general socket adaptors. So many transformers these days support different power ranges (110v vs 220v etc), it’s nice not having to lug about a transformer too.
All in all, I think I’m well geeked up for this trip, without being too attached to unnecessary items. After all, half the fun of travelling is getting away from it all. Internet access is proving good so far (Y100 for 30mins is good value, but steep enough to not want to use for ages.
Entries (RSS)
April 4th, 2004 at 1:14 pm
Shame we can’t see the cherry blossoms till you get back though.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:37 pm
[...] Such sounds are really not supposed to come from an iPod, they’re really not. But yesterday I was worried to discover my trusty little iPod, that’s been with me to the other side of the planet, all around the place in our car, and in my bag for the last few weeks at work, started to make just such noises when I plugged it into my iMac to sync up and get a good charge. [...]