Travel to London with a small laptop and other E toys

I bought an old PDA for some games, and we have a few MP3 type players,
but I am going round and round with my wife about bringing a small,
like 12" screen, laptop with us. She is worried about travel bulk,
theft, and time sink, but I need my network access and Holiday Inn
Express says they have Wifi. Any opinions?

"Danglerb" <mikefordz@> wrote in message
news:1151405758.264827.141830@y41g2000cwy. o...
>I bought an old PDA for some games, and we have a few MP3 type players,
> but I am going round and round with my wife about bringing a small,
> like 12" screen, laptop with us. She is worried about travel bulk,
> theft, and time sink, but I need my network access and Holiday Inn
> Express says they have Wifi. Any opinions?

In addition to a video camera and a digital still camera, I always travel
with a laptop, mp3 player and PDA. I've never had a problem anywhere in the
world, including London.


>

"Jim Ley" <jim@jibbering.com> wrote in message
news:44a19d70.290807281@news....

>I do the
> Leave lieing around and trusting people approach to security, and I've
> travelled through all sorts of hotels and hostels and B&B's all over
> the world, and have never had my laptop nicked.
>
> Jim.

You are lucky, and you are also more trusting than I am. "Keep honest
people honest" is the phrase I like to use. Like leaving the iPod on the
passenger seat of your car -- don't give anyone any ideas. It's not that
the (even unlocked) glove compartment provides any additional REAL
security --- but keeping it out of view alone improves your odds.

I can leave my car running with the keys in the ignition in a bad part of
town for an hour, and it might not be stolen. Does this mean it's a safe
way to park my car?

My father recently had a laptop stolen(1 month old birthday present) from a
locked job trailer where there were under a half a dozen people total with
access to it. It was stolen because it was fast and easy to take. Put a
motion detector alarm on it with a cable attached to a heavy desk, and the
odds of that staying put just went up.

Why not lock it up? What's the real DISADVANTAGE of doing so? $30 cable.
30 seconds of your time? A $55 version from Kensington buys you $1500.00 of
insurance if the laptop is stolen.

Keith
Pittsburgh

Wife likes us early to bed, early to rise, and son and I tend to fiddle
on the net til dawn. I am sure we will get some ground rules before we
leave. ;)

Something like an old Dell C400 or even a newer 610, maybe an IBM X41,
but small enough to take with us in a pack all the time.

I made a calculated choice to get a M515 palm, wife is still using
hers, and it seemed to hit a magic price/performance point, not to
mention if it gets lost etc. few tears. So far I read a lot of books on
it and play bejeweled.

Most of the time plenty to do and see, but its amazing how much a PDA
with books etc can make those little 15 min waits more tolerable.

I have a tiny headset to do voip with the laptop if we go that way, but
right now we plan to buy a triband GSM phone and a UK Tmobile sim card
before we leave.

The trouble with theft is that its such a joy killer. I had a $125 tool
stolen from my car 30 years ago and it still annoys me. The sheer waste
of the event so offended me.

Hoping to get by with just ONE adapter, charge the PDA off the laptop
USB etc. Wall transformer are HEAVY. ;)

Thanks

Patrick Wallace wrote:
> Depends what you want it for. If you just want to check emails and
> surf the net occasionally, why not use Internet cafés (they're all
> over the place) and leave your own machine at home?

I don't feel comfortable getting email etc on a machine I don't own. I
have half a dozen different accounts, belong to half a dozen high
volume lists so if I don't check the email its going to get a box full
and bounce after a week or so.

But mostly I want to be able to use the internet like I do now, check
on dinner, look at what is close to what, post here, download pics to
my home server, check a camera at home, leave a message for the cat
sitter, maybe play some laptopable game, etc.

Maybe some voip, stuff I can't think of in advance, but really want
after I get there etc.