Travelling can be a real toil on your computer.  Plus most computers generally tend to slow down with age.  But here’s a really good 1 minute tip I use to speed up my laptopn. It also keeps the computer quieter and increases your battery life!  It’s not quite as good as a new computer, but it can make a huge difference:

But with insane dust in Cambodia and India it’s getting really slow now, probably just all bunged up with muck inside, and although I’ve upgraded the hard drive to 320 Gig that’s about as far as it will go.  I really want something faster, and that means an SSD hard drive.

Now I would love to upgrade this to the latest version, but the new version is the Panasonic F series, which is horrible!  It’s got this handle thing on the front, which doesn’t look cool, but the main problem is the screen resolution has gone down, which is a dealbreaker.

So I’ve spent far too much time reading reviews and trying to find the best new laptop to buy.  I need something super powerful that’s also easy to carry around.  The two that I’m thinking of..

Sony Vaio Z

This is super fast!  With an i7 and best of all it’s available with a 500 GB SSD!  It is so fast.  The screen has huge resolution but only 13.3 inch size which is a bit small.  But it blows all the other machines out of the water with the specs.  The only problem?  It’s sold out till November – and then I’m on my European tour!

So….

MacBook Pro 15 inch

I’ve been looking at macs for ages, all that hype does get to you, but don’t believe a word of it. Macs do not simple “just work”.  They crash like crazy!  Twice this year I’ve walked into a Mac store cash in hand and played around on Logic and it’s crashed.   I guess I was building the Macs up to be as good as the iphone, which is amazing.  But they’re just normal PCs with all the same hassles and problems.

The thing is that they might be the best PC out there.  Having Logic and Final Cut at such bargain prices also takes any competition away from Windows machines.  It is much cheaper to buy a mac at the moment.  But there are still hassles, especially with moving old emails across and some older fonts.   The main thing is the hard disks, no 512Gig SSD means I’ll be stuck with a slow hard drive again!

Anyway, I’m still deciding, if you find an amazing notebook out there for me, let me know…

UPDATE: I bought a Mac!!  But… it kept crashing and was horrible. : (    So I took it back and just bought the new Panasonic F9.  It’s not very fast (terrible for video editing, but still better than the Mac for AVCHD) but it is great still having a toughbook that I can throw around and not worry about.  Plus it is so light, even though it feels like a tank!

Yesterday I tried to pull some money out using my UK high street bank’s debit card.   But because of the low value of the pound at the moment, I tried to pull out more than my “daily limit”.   Apparently these are automatically set for every customer and the default is a very low 300 pounds per day.  No problem I thought, I’ll just try and withdraw something less.  But oh no, thanks to wonderful “anti-fraud” measures they have once you go over the limit it flags your card and you can’t use it!

Local solution

Luckily I had Skype back at the hotel so could ring them, going round and round automated call centres for ages before they let me use my card again.  Another tip is to always have the phone number of your local bank branch or bank manager handy, they have a lot more discretion and power to sort things out quickly compared with often very badly trained call centre staff.  Oh, and make sure you complain if they give you wrong advice, last month I got 100 pounds compensation back because a Halifax staff member had given the wrong advice and had me running round in circles!

Just in case

Anyway, back to where we were…  oh yes,  this time it wasn’t too much hassle for me as I only had a hotel bill to pay and they let me pay it the day after.  But the main reason I, and you should too, carry lots of cards is for emergencies.   Strikes, bombings, earthquakes, airport closures and military actions can happen wherever you are from the UK to France to Bali (I’ve been caught up in 4 of those 5!)    In those cases you need to be able to get out as quickly as you can and if your bank lovingly decides to cancel your cards because of their under researched anti-fraud measures (they can’t be that sophisticated if something like today tripped them off!) then you need to make sure you have plenty of backups just in case.

Risky? The other way is!

You might also want to ring your branch and ask them to increase your daily allowance, mine is now set at 500 pounds which is the maximum they allow.  Also always carry cash around in your different bags, money belts, pockets etc. in case the electronic systems don’t work.  Carrying $400 or $500 dollars in various places may sound reckless, as may increasing the daily limit on your card, but I’d prefer to have that stolen than be held up in some risky place with no money.

All safe now

One other tip is to apply for lots of cards before you start your location free life.  If you wait till you are non resident or don’t have an address it is much harder to get them approved.

Luckily bad  things don’t happen that often, and can often be amazing beer stories later (Oh yeah, I haven’t told you yet about the plane I was in over Hong Kong that caught on fire!),  but be prepared with lots of spare credit and debit cards just in case!

Luckily it was just a screw that came out.  But could I find anyone who had a screwdriver?  Nope, so that’ s something I think I’m going to have to start packing.

What if your computer dies on the road?

I once read that Martha Stewart travelled with two laptops, and I think I remember hearing that Gary Vayenrchuk carried two Macbook Airs.  I usually make sure I’m never more than a day away from somewhere that sells computers.  Then if yours breaks then you can pop out and buy a new one (keep some emergency funds on hand!)  Even if it’s just a cheap netbook,  if you buy a hard drive case you can usually pop the hard drive out of your broken machine and connect it just like an external USB drive to the new machine.

I also carry a hard disk with all the installation files of the software I use most often along with a list of the serial codes to re-activate them.  This works fine, except for some ridiculous music applications that insist on only being installed from the original CDs!

Here are my top tips to keep it heavenly.

- Feel fresh – Hand cream!

Yeah, it sounds all Beckhammy but hand cream, or even moisturiser makes a huge difference .  Instead of walking off the plane in need of a shower you really do feel refreshed!  Make sure it’s under 100 mil to get through security though.

- Reduce the thunder – In -ear headphones

The thing that drags you down on planes isn’t the lack of space or lack of clean air, it’s the constant noise.     I have a pair of  Shure SE530 Sound Isolating Earphones for music work, but they perform miracles on a flight.  When you’ve got them in it cuts out all the background noise, it’ s like you’re not even on a plane, like you are sa t on a beach.  Although when you do take them out the plane noise really deafens you!  Even if you can’t afford the top of the range E530s,  the Shure E2c Earphones are also highly recommend, they’re what I used to use until I accidentally sat on them!

- Get past security – empty bottle

Some airports like Bangkok and Amsterdam now have security screening right before you board the plane.  So even if you bought a bottle of water just inside the airport you still can’t take it with you.  The trick is to take an empty plastic bottle through with you, they can’t take it off you.  Then fill it up from a water fountain on the other side, there usually is one just in case the plane is delayed.   Some of airbusses also have a water dispenser outside the toilets where you can fill your bottle so you can keep hydrated without having to pester the attendants every 5 minutes.

- Get leg room – ask for an emergency exit seat

I don’t know if I’m just really, really lucky but over the past year everytime I ask for the emergency exit seat I’ve been lucky enough to get it!  I guess people just don’t ask?   If you have this seat then economy really isn’t a problem as you have all the leg room in the world.

So those are my top trips to survive long flights.  What are yours?