Peripherals
You need some peripherals to connect your gadgets and keep them fully charged. It would be utterly shameful if you would spend a small fortune to gadgets that cannot be interoperable. So, check these suggestions to keep machine-to-machine communication fluent.
USB Memory
USB memory is a small dongle that can be used as a small hard disk when attached to an USB port of your laptop. The drive is plug-n-play, just connect and the operating system finds required drivers to use it. The drive is very handy when you need to transfer files from one computer to another, especially if the computers cannot be networked. For example, use the drive to copy some files to a computer in an Internet cafe and send them as an e-mail.
External Hard Drive
It is time to expand when your laptop’s poor hard disk is stuffed up to its capacity. Buy an USB or FireWire external hard drive to store not so frequently used files or as a backup storage. Remember that your MP3 player could be used as an external hard drive, too.
Universal Charger
If you do not want to carry separate adapter for every single gadget, purchase a universal charger. The best chargers are equipped with gadget specific plugs that automatically set the correct voltage. Just buy the plugs needed, mark them properly — instead of the tiny numbers used by the manufacturer — and store them in a zip-lock bag. Remember to check that the charger can use both 240V and 110V. It is a big plus, if the charger can be used with airplane electricity sockets and car cigarette lighters.
Battery Charger
If any of your gadgets do not have chargeable batteries, check if it can be used with normal rechargeable batteries. You will save a big penny and conserve nature if you can recharge batteries instead of buying new ones. Especially digital cameras are fond of draining batteries quickly.
Most of the smaller gadgets can be recharged with separately sold travel chargers that take the voltage from USB socket of the laptop. This is convenient, as you do not have to carry bulky and heavy adapters with you.
Extra Batteries
Some laptops have sockets for two batteries, thus allowing you to expand the usage span with several hours. Even if the laptop does not have an extra socket, another battery is quite handful in long-haul flights. The small pause in working or movie watching is better than pausing everything for the rest of the flight.
Noise Cancelling Earphones
The background noise level can be quite high when travelling, especially in trains and buses. Noise cancelling earphones measure the background noise and cancel it by feeding inversed sound to the earphones, thus cancelling the noise. The difference is great; you can hear the nuances in the music even if the plane engines are roaring in the background. And if the earphones insulate you properly, you will not even notice any crying babies nearby.
Soundbug
If you are tired of listening music with headphones or want to share your sound delights, purchase a Soundbug or two. Soundbug is a small device that is attached to any smooth surface, such as table, window or minibar door to transform it to a loudspeaker. Of course, the sound quality depends on the surface, but you can get quite good results and enough volume to fill hotel room with music. If you are satisfied with mono sound, one Soundbug is enough. But they can be paired to achieve stereophonic output.