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Computer Travel Accessories

The need for computer accessories on the road is slowly disappearing as technology improves. Not so long ago, the first portable computers needed a bunch of floppy disks to boot up and run different programs, while connectivity was virtually zero. Even if you had a dial-up modem and a telephone line nearby there wasn’t much you could do with it.

Today there are only two important things you need to have beside the laptop when traveling: a universal power adapter and a high quality (laser) optical mouse. There are universal power adapters available for the majority of laptop brands and models:

This Targus adapter is compatible with can transform 12V DC, 110V AC or 220V AC into the required DC voltage for IBM and Lenovo laptops that consume up to 70Watts of power. It costs $100 at buy.com, but expect even higher prices for more powerful adapters (beyond 120Watts).

The cheapest laser-based optical mouse available on newegg.com is made by Rosewill:

Although it doesn’t do much, special features end with the 5 buttons, the sensor’s resolution is quite good, 1600DPI (automatically switches to 800 DPI when allowed). For $10 it’s worth buying, if functionality is your biggest concern and not optional and useless features like cordless connectivity and weird shapes. If you already these two computer accessories for travel you may want a national or international Internet service so you can stay in touch with co-workers, family and friends all the time.

To sum it up, you have one of the latest notebooks that has integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity, built-in webcam and microphone. The universal power adapter lets you charge your notebook on a plane, train, us or automobile and the optical mouse ensures productivity, superior to any multi-touch capable touch pad.

USB flash drives are not ideal for travel, because you may lose or damage them on long trips that bring you in unexpected situations. The best solution is to work with on-line documents like Google docs or MS Office On-line. These free services are very secure, not exactly 100%, but much more secure than any small storage device that has to face many dangers on the road. Other useful computer accessories for travel could be some backup disks or even a spare hard drive, because that’s the most sensitive component of the laptop. If you drop it in the right angle all your data may be gone forever, but more importantly the laptop wouldn’t boot up anymore. There’s a very useful tool, mostly used with alternative operating system like UBUNTU and other linuxes. Startup disc creator can take any CD, DVD or Hard Disk image and put it on a USB flash drive:

It’s also available for use under Windows, but it’s more complicated to install, while in UBUNTU it’s installed by default and can be started by a single click in the right place. If you have a big enough USB flash drive you may create a copy of your boot partition, so whenever you have any problems with the internal hard drive you can simply boot from the USB flash drive. Another good idea would be to copy the Windows installation disk onto a high-speed flash drive, so you can reinstall anytime much quicker than from a slow notebook optical drive.