Traveling Abroad with a Laptop

[ira_black]

I am traveling abroad (Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe) and will be taking my

Powerbook G4 to be able to burn disks while on the road and shipping them back home as

a backup. Can anyone provide any advise on the following questions:

 

1) I will have a backpack and the laptop will be in there with a pretty well padded case.

This backpack will not be checked in luggage, but carry on. Are there any other ways to

keep a laptop safe and not subjected to much impact.

 

2) Any tips for minimizing its potential for theft while traversing through multiple

countries. I am looking for general practices or any other creative ideas for making it less

obvious that it is a laptop and that it is something worth stealing. Hoping these do not

include putting duct tape on the laptop as it is fairly new.

 

3) Any thoughts on ways to keep it from getting soaked or other element factors that will

render it useless. I have tried to find one of the boaters bags that they use for whitewater

rafing, but it seems that most of these only come in a cylinder, not a flat square.

 

Appreciate any help you can provide.

 

thanks,

 

Ira

[godfrey]

It should be fine the way you've packed it (in a padded case inside your backpack). In a

pinch for additional weather protection, just wrap the padded case in a plastic garbage

bag. Easy enough.

 

The best way to keep others from stealing a laptop is to not let them know you have one.

Take it out when you're in a private place, like your hotel room, and keep it near you at all

times. As soon as you take a laptop out of a case, it is a target of interest.

 

Be sure you set up the OS to require a login from sleep or on startup too.

 

Godfrey

[ron_goodenow]

Having been robbed on foreign travels over the years, despite the best of protection, I would think seriously about alternatives to taking the G4 to those particular countries. Certainly, make sure that you insure it and, as suggested, keep it completely out of sight, even being sure that in your hotel room it is under a mattress or locked in a safe. Presumably, you need it for more than backing up photos. If that's all you're doing I'd urge thinking about lighter and less risky strategies.

[peufeu]

Backup any confidential data you have on it and delete it from the drive, so a thieve doesn't have all your personal banking information and stored passwords...

 

For water tightness, the ziploc bags for freezing food are quite good.

[k. patel]

Ira,

 

I just find out that you can burn CD's on this drive without Laptop.

 

Kanguru FC-RW / 36x12x48x CD-RW / Flash Card Reader / USB 2.0 / CD Burner

 

You can find it over here

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=172687&CatId=478

 

Good Luck.

 

K. patel

[vandit]

Nothing changes with overseas travel: the usual precautions apply with keeping the laptop safe and impact-free: dont drop it, always hold on to it.

 

As for safety, South East Asia is probably as safe, if not safer, than the US or Europe, in terms of safety. Don't leave it lying around unattended in restaurants and cafes. Keep your hotel room locked.

 

If you are worried about getting it soaked in rain, then there are plenty of waterproof camera+laptop bags around (Lowepro and Tamrac both make them). These have a rain cover that slips over the case and would do the job.

 

However, if you are like me, the only time the laptop is outside the hotel room is when you are moving locations - in which case you're probably in a vehicle anyway, so rain isnt an issue.

 

Cheers,

Vandit

[Jochen_S]

Pribe some grafitty artist to make it look really ugly. Can you switch your screen to look monochrom?

 

Ortlieb the manufacturer of waterproof bags also offers bycycle bags which should be square. Throw some bagged rice into the plastic bag to soak in humidity.

[wayne_ruffner]

My take on this problem is to accept theft but minimize its effects; sort of a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" approach. I'd do two things:

 

1) Get an alternative laptop - one that you won't mind losing - that does the minimum CD-R burning. I recently got an old PIII Windows laptop off eBay for US$300 (we're really happy with it; clean & set up fine). You can always resell it on eBay when done with your trip.

 

2) Pick up an external HD kit. Some will let you mirror your drive (for fast restoration) or just copy your data to it. Keep either the laptop or the drive in the hotel safe, so long as they're separate from each other.

 

This way, your expensive G4 will stay safe, hopefully, at home, and you can keep three copies of your data; one on the laptop, one on the separate drive, and another on mailed-home CDs.

 

As for moisture, a Pelican case will certainly keep it dry (and take most impacts), but that adds a lot of weight. Maybe buy an old Toughbook? They can be water- & impact-resistant.

 

Or just get one of those card-to-HD/burner boxes if you don't otherwise need a laptop. And put that in an Otterbox or Pelican case.

[aaron_w.]

Unless you are looking to use your laptop for other purposes, such as browsing the internet and email, I second K. Patel's recommendation for a Kanguru FC-RW burner... I have one and it works great... While thieves will take anything they can get away with, at least your risk is only $100 (so you might even buy and take 2 of them, just in case)!

[ira_black]

Thanks for the messages. I apologize for the confusion, I will be burning to DVDs not CDs

and I am photographing in RAW mode and the files are large.

 

In this case a CD burner is probably not very practical. I have looked, but do not seem to

be able to find any portable DVD burners. I have found many portable CD burners that

play DVD, but not burn them.

 

Ira=

[chepas_nigs]

Your Mac PB G4 is very attractive to anyone - so there is a great potential for theft. Can you bring a sub-notebook/laptop that doesn't cost that much? You prevent it from getting wet with a ZIPLOCK bag then tape a silica gel pack inside the plastic bag. It would also be very useful if you can mark your laptop (and your camera) with your name (very obvious and hard to remove). if you can have it "stenciled" it would be better :-). There is also an external HDD that can go as large as 120Gb, physical imensions are as large as the laptop's internal HDD. you can connect it via firewire or usb for back-up. its also good to bring an dc-ac plug in converter - the one you put in a car's cigarette lighter. Good luck on your travels!

[ron_goodenow]

Anyone know anything about the Delkin bridge? Would it permit connection between camera or flash card and a USB hard drive? IF it does that might be a good solution. And, one can buy very small enclosures that will hold a laptop hard drive. A complete package could probably be put together for less than $200-250. Lots of portability, huge capacity and probably far less attractive to a thief than a gorgeous Apple.

[wayne_ruffner]

MicroSolutions RoadStor Pro burns DVDs.

 

http://www.micro-solutions.com/products/index.asp#RSP

[ron_goodenow]

I have one of the original Microsolutions parallel port portable cd burners (they make an adapter so I can now connect via USB) and I must say it is one of the best products I have ever purchased. Just built like a brick. And, should you need it, they have excellent customer support. This new portable dvd burner might be the ideal replacement for the Apple.