Eight tech travel tips

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October 3, 2009

By Greg Bott / guest columnist The Meridian Star Sat Oct 03, 2009, 11:32 PM CDT

Nothing widens the mind like traveling to distant places and meeting people who speak other languages and live completely differently than you do. I love to travel. I've been all over the world--Singapore, China, England, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Costa Rica, Amsterdam, South Korea, Belgium, France, Germany, etc., and being the geek I am, my laptop almost always made the trip, too. I learned a little about how to travel well with a laptop and I want to share eight tech travel tips.

1. Leave your laptop at home. On a basketball mission trip to Jamaica, I left my laptop at home. It wasn't essential, and it would have been difficult to protect where we were going and frankly worrying about the laptop would have distracted me from the purpose of the trip. On business trips, consider borrowing a laptop on arrival and bringing your data with you or sending it ahead. The best way to ensure your laptops safety while traveling is to leave it at home.

2. When you have a choice, ALWAYS carry your laptop on the plane. If you must check it, purchase highly protective cases designed to withstand airline baggage handling.

3. Purchase a laptop security cable. On nearly every laptop in existence, there is a small hole about the size and shape of a candy Tic Tac (or tick tock if you're my four year-old) into which goes the end of a lockable metal cable. You can use this cable to lock your laptop to a desk, table, or airport chair. It's especially useful for locking it in your hotel room, too.

4. Take a cordless multi-plug with you. This device turns one A/C outlet into two or three. It's indispensable for laptop travel. With this device, when both A/C outlets are already taken, you can politely ask to use the multi-plug and free up 2 additional outlets. Genius.

5. Encrypt sensitive data and use application passwords. If your laptop is stolen, the financial loss of the computer itself is painful, but the real loss is your data. Operating system (your login) password protection on your laptop is easy to bypass. A would-be thief only needs to install Windows on your laptop again and make himself an Administrator and he has access to all your files. Protect against this scenario by encrypting your files and by using application passwords such as the ones available in Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. Of course, use a password other than your child's name or birth date.

6. Consider a privacy screen. It's human nature to be nosey and when you're shoulder-to-shoulder in coach on the airplane, it's difficult to maintain your privacy. A privacy screen is easily installed and prevents would-be onlookers from getting information and potentially stealing your identity or just plain irritating you.

7. Store your urgent documents on a USB drive you can take with you. If you're traveling to make a presentation, make a copy of all the important documents (including the presentation) on a USB drive so if it's stolen, lost, damaged, or delayed you can still make your presentation.

8. For very sensitive data, consider remote wipe capabilities. Windows Mobile devices have the ability to be erased remotely in case of theft and there are applications (for example, LoJack for Laptops, www.absolute.com) that enable laptops to be located, erased, and recovered once they connect to the Internet.

Maybe the biggest tip is to not miss the world around you for what's contained in your fifteen to seventeen inch screen. Turn it off awhile and enjoy God's creation. Technically yours.

Bott Technology Solutions solves computer and network problems and helps small to midsize businesses turn technology into a strategic advantage instead of an expense. Reach Greg Bott via

e-mail at gregbott@bottinc.com or by cell, 601-616-8509. Greg’s

professional experience includes consulting for Price Waterhouse’s Strategic Consulting Group, working as a Program Manager for Microsoft Corporation, and serving as Chief Technology Officer for several companies. He has a Master of Science in Software Engineering degree from the University of Texas and has presented at technical conferences across the world. He has published more than a dozen works including the Microsoft Press Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure textbook, Customizing SharePoint, and the Microsoft ASP.Net Security Operations Guide.

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