This Modern Age

I'm still banging the same ol' drum: preparing myself for long term travel and working from the road....

While sluffing off all the unnecessary detritus I've accumulated over the years, I am replacing it with newer, better detritus for working and communicating while on the road. The basic idea is to move as much as I can online so I can access it from anywhere, and then add a dash of portable James Bond-esque digital gadgets to fill in the gaps. Here are the weapons of choice for the modern digital road warrior.

The Basics
GMail for email, Picasa for photos, Google Docs for collaborative office applications.

Phone and Fax
Skype / VoIP for cheap phone calls from anywhere to anywhere. MyFax for sending and receiving faxes via email. An iPhone, just 'cause.

Data Storage
SOS for online data backups. A portable external USB hard drive will also come in handy for storing large media files. Look for a so-called passport drive that is small and shock-resistant.

Social Networking
Facebook for keeping up with my peeps, Blogger for sharing my thoughts with y'all, Bootsnall and CouchSurfing for connecting with fellow travellers and finding sublets abroad.

Hardware
Power adaptors and portable surge protectors ... just do it. A portable printer would be nice (a Google search turns up plenty), but I don't have one to recommend, and a good e-reader would eliminate much of the need. Unfortunately, I haven't been wowed by the current crop of e-readers. Maybe the 2nd gen of the Kindle will set my heart aflame.

Also, a GPS navigator makes getting around unfamiliar environs a whole lot easier. Plug it into your 'puter and download the maps for wherever you happen to be. I absolutely <3 mine. I can ask it where the nearst coffee shop is. How did I ever live without it?

This stuff makes working from the road so easy, it's almost too easy.

Update:
Remember, I signed up for Earth Class Mail as my mail forwarding solution? Well, I'm currently in Oregon reading mail that was delivered to me in Seattle. They scanned it, turned it into a pdf and emailed it to me. What a great service! I'm really excited to see my systems are up and running smoothly.