GENWiki

1. —————————————————————

TRAVELLING WITH A LAPTOP COMPUTER

1. —————————————————————

Laptops are made to travel. Their small size and potent features

     make computing on the road a snap. Consider using this 
     assortment of tips which seasoned laptop owners have come to 
     rely on.... 

     Airports are a frequent transit point for laptop owners. Be sure 
     to be prepared for a SPEEDY passage through airport security by 
     being aware that in most cases you MUST boot up the laptop so 
     that a DOS prompt, menu or other sign of visible activity is 
     displayed on the screen. Security officials do this for a 
     reason: if a laptop computer has been tampered with or hollowed 
     out to serve as an empty shell for explosives or weapons, the 
     machine will not boot up or operate. By forcing the laptop owner 
     to activate the machine, airport security is effectively 
     screening for tampered machines. 

     Once you know this, several important tips are quite useful. 
     Always carry a BOTH a fully charged battery and AC adapter with 
     the laptop. No power means no possibility of booting the machine 
     and your laptop might be forced to remain behind! 

     To speed the process on laptops equipped with hard drives try an 
     experiment. Prepare a bootable floppy disk with DOS system files 
     and a short AUTOEXEC.BAT program which boots the machine rapidly 
     since DOS usually tries to boot from a floppy first and then the 
     hard drive second. Now time how long it takes to boot from the 
     floppy as well as the hard drive. Whichever is faster is the one 
     you want to use to speed your trip through airport security. But 
     ALWAYS take the bootable floppy as well. Why? If your laptop 
     hard drive becomes damaged in transit - a possibility in today's 
     airport environments - then you have a floppy backup which will 
     also get you through airport security. 

     Cursor size and blink rate on many laptops are atrocious. Third 
     party software utilities are available which can alter both size 
     and shape of the cursor - we will discuss these in more detail 
     in the software section of the Laptop tutorial. However the 
     point to be made is that you might find one ideal cursor size 
     and blink rate for airplane use and a DIFFERENT cursor size and 
     blink rate better at the office or in the airport. Try various 
     combinations in various lighting. Several different cursor 
     configurations are quite handy when travelling under varying 
     lighting conditions. By the way in a pinch, The WordPerfect word 
     processing package has just such a utility you might want to dig 
     out if you own WordPerfect but have never used software cursor 
     control utility! 

     Did your portable printer malfunction and crash while you are on 
     the road? Or maybe you just don't want to carry your printer at 
     all. Here's an obvious idea: use your laptop and modem/faxboard 
     to fax your file to the hotel front desk fax machine and pick it 
     up there! If your modem lacks fax transmit capability, send the 
     file via modem to CompuServe and let them re-send it to your 
     hotel fax machine using their fax transmission capability. 
     Worried that the fax image might fade or curl with heat or 
     handling? Then xerox copy it onto standard paper which is a more 
     permanent material than fax paper. 

     Speaking of modems, the smallest and most "laptop useful" modems 
     are available from U.S. Robotics (call 708/982-5010.) Their 
     World Port modem is truly tiny, fully-featured and ruggedly 
     designed for travellers. Hayes has also produced the Pocket 
     Modem (call 404/449-8791.) Some of the most clever portable 
     modems do not even need battery power - they draw current from 
     the computer or telephone line.

     Hotels and airlines always have carpeting. And carpeting is 
     productive of electrical static. Shuffle across the floor in 
     most travel facilities on a dry or cool day and you get a spark 
     when you touch the doorknob. This same static electricity 
     buildup can ruin the EPROM chip in your laptop keyboard when you 
     sit down to use the laptop. Be sure to first touch a bathroom 
     faucet with a coin. To eliminate static in your hotel room, 
     just take off your shoes and socks! 

     Carry extra charged batteries on long flights or international 
     flights. Seems like a simple tip, but that battery pack you 
     bought two years ago may finally decide it has a one hour life 
     somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Rechargeable batteries cannot 
     be recharged forever - after two to five years they begin to die.

     Be sure you know how to turn off the speaker beep facility in 
     your laptop. Crowded airplanes indicate courtesy. Third party 
     software utilities exist which will provide this capability if 
     you own an older laptop without this software or hardware 
     feature. More about this in our software tutorial. 

     Conserve power on long flights. Turn down the screen brightness 
     to save power. Use the auto-resume feature if your laptop 
     contains the capability. Switch to slow mode or lower the 
     processing speed of your CPU chip. Your instruction book may 
     mention some or all of these features. 

     Some laptops have a variation of the auto resume feature that 
     even allows you to change batteries right in the middle of a 
     program. Check your manual. Might be a lifesaver on a plane 
     trip. 

     Save still more power when travelling by investigating software 
     ram disks or virtual disks which, unlike a spinning hard drive 
     or floppy, use far less power on long airline flights. DOS 
     itself comes with a reasonable although rudimentary ram drive 
     called VDISK which all laptop owners should check out. You can 
     also obtain third party shareware, commercial and public domain 
     ram disk software. Of course be sure to save your work to a 
     floppy or hard disk before you turn the machine off since a ram 
     disk operates purely in memory and MUST have power to maintain 
     your data. 
     
     If you travel out of the country, be sure to register your 
     foreign made laptop with U.S. Customs when you depart - so that 
     upon return you are not forced to pay duty on a machine you 
     bought in the U.S. but which customs officials will suspect was 
     purchased overseas. This can be a sticky subject. Contact a 
     local customs office for instructions on registering your 
     machine prior to departure.
            
     Travellers should also consider etching your name, address, 
     telephone and social security number onto the machine in several 
     places. Although this may decrease the resale value of the 
     laptop, it also increases chances of recovery in case of theft. 
     Don't make the mistake of etching ONLY your social security 
     number onto your laptop. Federal privacy laws prevent release of 
     your social security records even to some law enforcement 
     agencies and in that respect having only your social security 
     number on valuable items is probably next to worthless as a 
     security item.

     Hotels are getting better about providing modular plug in 
     telephone jacks for laptop users who need to hook up a modem. 
     But it seems the telephone jack on the wall is always ten feet 
     from the nearest table where you laptop sits. Solution? Always 
     bring a modem extension cord with in-line connector. Makes 
     laptop modem work a joy! Another tip: use the hotel's toll free 
     800 number to call ahead and doublecheck that your room is wired 
     with modular plug-in telephone jacks. Takes a moment and costs 
     you nothing! Speaking of plugs, investigate the new breed of 
     miniature surge supressing AC adapters if you travel to foreign 
     countries whose voltage can be less reliable than that in the 
     U.S. 
            
     You can obtain special anchor plates or straps which attach to 
     the bottom or side of a laptop with permanent glue. A flexible 
     steel cable and lock lets you secure your laptop to a hotel 
     radiator or piece of furniture and defeats all but the most 
     determined thief.
            
     For those who absolutely need telephone links when travelling, 
     consider purchasing an acoustic modem coupler which works with 
     all telephones when you cannot plug your modem into the wall. 
     Acoustic couplers work by attaching directly to the mouthpiece 
     and earpiece of any standard phone and transfer data directly by 
     sound transmission. By the way, in overseas areas you will soon 
     find that you need a maddening array of special adapters to hook 
     your modem to the telephone line directly. An acoustic modem 
     coupler is the only truly "universal" adapter which will connect 
     to all telephones throughout the world. 

     Another modem tip when using hotel telephone lines: arrange with 
     the front desk or operator to ALWAYS put your call DIRECTLY 
     through without intervention. Many hotel system route your call 
     through a switchboard which prevents your modem from getting a 
     dial tone!

     Diehard laptop users who communicate with the head office via 
     modem should also investigate remote computing software which we 
     will discuss later. Remote computing software allows you in your 
     hotel in New York to call San Francisco by modem and then 
     connect directly with your desktop computer or office LAN 
     network. Once connected, you can run your word processor, obtain 
     files, check figures on the office spreadsheet and more. In 
     essence your laptop functions as a remote keyboard for a 
     computer which is thousands of miles away. Shareware, public 
     domain and commercial software packages of this type are 
     available. But if you do this, here is one important tip many 
     travellers learn the hard way: ALWAYS leave a note for the 
     maintenance person or janitor which tells them not to turn off 
     what appears to be your idle office desktop computer. Oh, and 
     while you are gone, turn off the desktop monitor but leave on 
     the pc if you plan to compute remotely. This saves power and 
     prevents screen burnout! 

     Need to test if two files are slightly different as you check 
     newer document files against older ones? Or maybe just backup 
     all NEWER revisions of your files to a floppy or transmit them 
     by modem to the head office? Use the DOS XCOPY command to track 
     down differences between two files such as word processing 
     documents. DOS also previously had an older File Compare command 
     called FC which accomplishes the same thing. Sidekick version 2 
     has a reconcile feature and Lap-Link can transfer files between 
     to computers and check dates and times to make sure you are 
     obtaining the newest version of a file or to ensure that both 
     computers indeed have the latest file. 

     By the way, here is an example of how to use the DOS XCOPY 
     command to copy all files from ALL subdirectories on a laptop 
     hard drive named C: onto a backup floppy in the A: drive which 
     have been updated on or later than March 15, 1992. Very handy 
     when you are on the road and want to copy or prepare for modem 
     transmission all of your updated files for the head 
     office. At the DOS prompt type: 

     XCOPY C:\*.* A:/S/D:03/15/92 

     Consider travel insurance for replacement of your laptop in case 
     of theft. Contact Safeware at 800/848-3469.

     Business travellers often have to present VERY important 
     presentations with their laptops. Essential job proposals, 
     contracts, crucial price schedules. If it is important to your 
     business, always make a backup copy on floppy disk. Seems 
     simple, but many business users discover that their hard drive 
     equipped laptop has crashed due to airport handling in transit. 
     A floppy can save the day and in a pinch you can rent a computer 
     or borrow one from your client. If data matters, put it on a 
     floppy. 

     Make sure you ALWAYS carry a null modem cable and file transfer 
     software with your laptop when travelling. You can probably 
     patch into another desktop computer to transfer files in 
     emergency, but without the null modem cable and software you are 
     stuck. Practice transferring files between several computers 
     before you travel so you have the process comfortably memorized.

     For the truly worried traveller, also carry a pair of gender 
     changer plugs which allow hookup of male to male and female to 
     female cable connections. Also a 25 to 9 pin plug adapter.

     Laptop computer die in transit? Carry a set of jewelers 
     screwdrivers and floppy disk cleaning kit. If a few simple 
     things such as this won't fix it, then grab the yellow pages and 
     look under computer rentals. By the way, many hotels maintain 
     rental laptops for business travellers. But the secret is that 
     the rate is far cheaper by renting from a local vendor than the 
     hotel. Make a few phone calls and get a laptop delivered to your 
     hotel suite in case of emergency. The smartest travellers call 
     ahead to their destination and reserve a backup laptop in case 
     of problems at a local vendor. If the laptop is not checked out 
     a small retainer fee is kept by the vendor. This can be done by 
     a charge card and a long distance phone call. Same goes for 
     renting LCD projection panels for business meetings. 

     Consider obtaining a CompuServe account for modem use if you 
     travel frequently. You can obtain online support for laptop 
     computer problems directly from the manufacturer, download 
     special software utility files, transmit important files to the 
     home office, send faxes when all you have is a modem which lacks 
     fax transmit capabilities (CompuServe converts your modem 
     transmission and sends it on via their fax equipment.) Lots of 
     good ideas and special laptop discussion forums for business 
     travelers. You can even book hotel and airline reservations 
     directly by modem using CompuServe, too. Laptops, travel and 
     CompuServe go together handsomely.

     Did your ribbon die in your portable printer? Just not black 
     enough? Stick some fax paper in the printer. It is heat 
     sensitive and will frequently pick up an image without a printer 
     ribbon. Amazing but true. This works with dot matrix printers. 
     Do not try it with laser printers.

     Check ahead for special regulations. Example: in Germany modems 
     are regulated under certain security laws - presumably spies 
     could use them to transmit data. You must have a "modem permit" 
     in that country or your equipment can be confiscated. In other 
     countries and some developing nations such as Africa and India 
     confiscation of computer equipment is common - even if all of 
     your registration and travel documents are in order! In those 
     cases you might be better off leaving your computer at home and 
     bringing a tape recorder or notepad. Just because you own a 
     computer does not mean you can use it in an unrestricted 
     fashion while you travel!

     Tempted to use one of those inexpensive overseas power 
     convertors to adapt your AC plug in convertor to European 
     current? DON'T DO IT without first checking with the 
     manufacturer. Those inexpensive current convertors work fine 
     when changing high voltage overseas current to lower voltage US 
     current for things like shavers because they reduce the voltage. 
     The problem is that most of the world uses 50 cycle AC current 
     versus the normal 60 cycle AC current in the U.S. Computers CANNOT 
     run from these inexpensive convertors and damage may occur. 
     Find out what device the manufacturer supplies or recommends for 
     travel outside of your country of residence.

     Tutorial finished. Be sure to order your FOUR BONUS DISKS which 
     expand this software package with vital tools, updates and 
     additional tutorial material for laptop users! Send $20.00 to 
     Seattle Scientific Photography, Department LAP, PO Box 1506, 
     Mercer Island, WA 98040. Bonus disks shipped promptly! Some 
     portions of this software package use sections from the larger 
     PC-Learn tutorial system which you will also receive with your 
     order. Modifications, custom program versions, site and LAN 
     licenses of this package for business or corporate use are 
     possible, contact the author. This software is shareware - an 
     honor system which means TRY BEFORE YOU BUY. Press escape key to 
     return to menu.