Posts Tagged ‘travel’

We talk a lot about travel and laptop security here on the blog, but one thing we’ve never discussed is safe in-flight laptop practices. And by “safe” I refer to not just data security, but to keeping your laptop from being damaged in any way during flight.

Mary Jo Manzanares, a flight attendant and travel writer, has put together a list of in-flight laptop precautions that will make you think twice about when – and how – you use your laptop on the airplane. The tips include:

• Don’t store your laptop in an overhead bin if it’s in a soft case
• Don’t angle your laptop into the aisle
• Close and put away your laptop during service periods, so there’s no risk of a beverage tipping onto it (yours or anyone elses)
• Keep your laptop within your own seat space
• If you leave your seat, close your laptop and put it away or leave it on the seat, not the tray

Other blog posts on travel & laptop security you may wish to read include:

• Tips for Laptops and International Travel
• Airport Laptop Security Tips
• Airport Security-Friendly Laptop Bags
• Airports a threat to laptop security
• Absolute Recovers Laptop After Flight Attendant Loses It En Route

Image: clipart

PC World has put together a series of tips about traveling abroad with your laptop. The tips are more targeted to regular travelers than business travelers and are quite useful.

Tips for your Laptop and International Travel:

• If your hotel doesn’t have ethernet or Wi-Fi, a local cafe will. Internet connections won’t be an issue!
• Customs may search your laptop as you bring it into this other country – be sure your hard drive doesn’t have anything that it shouldn’t (this includes private information as well as information that could be considered espionage and pornography)
• You may be required to decrypt any encrypted files for customs. Be prepared to do this.
• Make a back-up of all your data before you leave the country
• If you expect you’ll need any ‘private’ data while abroad, you can store it online in a secure location accessible by FTP or other secure means. You can thus download it once you’ve passed customs.
• If your laptop is new, take receipts – you don’t want your local customs charging you when you return, thinking you bought it abroad!
• Don’t forget to take a voltage adapter on your laptop, as well as preparing a power plug adapter

Don’t forget to check our past blog posts about Laptops in Airports here, here and here. And be sure to beef up the security of your laptop before you go with LoJack for Laptops or Computrace.

Image: clipart