Travellers Tech what to take?

As some of you maybe aware I am a bit of a geek and love technology, so this begs the question, what am I going to take to help me on my way and also help me update this blog on the road.

At first I was considering taking my laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1525, but its far to bulky and heavy to carry around for over a year so that idea got scrapped and I managed to flog it to my sister, thanks Vic!

The next option was to buy a netbook, the smallest I could find, I looked at a few and thought by the time I've added a charger it'll just be as heavy and plus its a bit of an easy target for thieves. Not to mention the extra premium on the travel insurance that I'd have to pay.

The next idea is to use my phone, I have a HTC Touch Pro 2 with fold out keyboard which is a bit small but once your used to it you can type like hell on it. Since roaming charges are ridiculous I will be leaving my sim card at home which means no phone, so if you've got my number now, its going be no use in the next few months! The best bit is the phone has WI-Fi so I can connect when needed and use the internet as freely as I would a normal laptop at a ¼ of the size, plus it has games, an e-book reader, google maps with GPS, Skype for making calls home to my friends and family and an mp3 player.

The question now is where can I get WI-Fi well, there's the usual places, McDonald's through Europe, Internet cafes and hotels. Hopefully there should be some places on route that I can take advantage of this apart from remote places that probably have little or no power, especially on the Trans-Mongolia railway, that is if I manage to get a visa into Russia.

I have a backup plan in case my phone gets stolen, I have bought two USB pen drives that are water proof and shock resistant, Super Talent Pico-C 8GB Chrome USB Drive, the basic idea here is to load Ceedo onto them. Ceedo basically allows you to turn your USB pen drive into your own personal computer, you load any program you want on it and plug the USB pen into any computer and hey presto you have your own PC in the palm of your hand , these things are tiny too so I can just hook them onto my backpack or have one tied round my neck. These also give better security at internet cafes as all cookies and internet history is kept on your USB drive rather than the host computer, instant bonus there too!

I'm planning on taking my Panasonic Lumix camera with me too so I have bought a pack of 3, 4G SD cards from play.com to keep my photos on and also mail them back home when they are full so I have the original photos. The ones I'm going to put on here will be compressed so will be lower quality, thus saving time uploading them. I've also bought a USB card reader so I can transfer the photos directly off the camera quickly without the need of a cable :), the less wires I have the better. And Carway just because I'm not taking any cable doesn't mean I wont be laying any, in fact I need some more lessons in the art of cabling, when are you free?

Sorry back to the subject, now that I've got all my gadgets how am I going to keep them charged up without bringing every single charger in town.

After a lot of searching I've managed to find a nifty device that holds a charge for up to a year. It allows you to charge up nearly every device under the sun then when the device is empty plug it In and charge ready for use next time. Its called a Power Traveller PowerMonkey Portable Charger, great name don't you think? What's that in your pocket, well its my PowerMonkey, want to look? Lol , For £18 I think this is going to be my lifesaver especially when I'm stuck in some remote places for a few days.

Hopefully with all the above I'll be able to keep this blog active and up to date where access to the internet permits! I've summarised the items below for quick reference if anyone wants to look at buying them for themselves and ill let people know whether the items were any use too, I guess time will tell.

Travelling Tech:

HTC Touch Pro 2 -sim free - Still on monthly contract

Super Talent Pico-C 8GB Chrome USB Drive x2 - £13.99 each

Kingston USB 9-in-1 Mobile Lite Card Reader - £ 4.40

3 x 4GB SD Cards -£14.99

Power Traveller PowerMonkey Portable Charger - £17.99

Panasonic Lumix FX12 with 2 batteries, - £115.00 (bought a few years ago)

Travellers Software:

Skype its a must for cheap calls home.

Ceedo Professional

Open office - Freeware MS office copy great for free!

GIMP Portable - Free photo editing software

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition for use on USB Sticks

Other great portable software for your memory sticks are available here: http://portableapps.com/