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I have to disagree with Joe here. His method is absolutely the worst way to
get your laptop checked.  I have been travelling with a laptop since 1990,
and I have gone through more security checkpoints than I could count, in
more cities than I can ever remember.  I have never had a laptop disk drive
go bad on me, and I always put my laptop through the X-ray machine.  One
thing I never, ever do is walk the laptop through the magnetic anomaly
detector (MAD) or even hand it to a security guard near those portals.  The
MADs will do damage to your equipment, but the X-ray will not!

I hate having the security personnel hand check my laptop case, or do
power-up tests.  I pack my case very carefully, and it is set for travel,
not messing around with.  Now in Houston after it goes through the X-ray
machine, the bag is further tested with a sniffer to detect trace elements
that may indicate bomb material.  I have had that procedure done to my bag
in several European countries also. That is the proper way to do it.

Here are a tips about travelling with a laptop:

1- Make a backup before you leave the office.  Copy your presentation(s)
onto floppy disks.
2- Make sure you have your power cords.  A checklist of the bag's contents
is an excellent idea.
3- Use the power-on password feature.
4- When you get in line at the security checkpoint, make sure you have
absolutely no metal on you, strip if you must.  Put your bag on the X-ray
machine belt at the same time as you are ready to enter the MAD portal.  Do
not let anyone cut in front of you after you have put your bag on the belt
and it goes into the machine.  This last is a favorite ploy of thieves.
 Someone will cut in front of you with lots of metal and delay you getting
through while someone else lifts your bag on the other side.  If you need
to, be rude.  Go right through and get your laptop bag.  If you travel with
someone else, one of you should go through first and wait for the laptop
 case(s) on the other side, then the other one can go through.  If your
laptop case is stolen at the security checkpoint, you have no recourse
against the airport, the airlines and the security company.  They are
irresponsible!
5- Do not let the laptop case near those MAD portals, your hard disk will
develop problems.  Keep the bag well clear of them.
6- Do not let your laptop case be hand-searched or scanned with those
portable detector things.  Your hard drive will suffer.
7- Do not put your laptop through the X-ray machine by itself, that belt
bounces the laptop around and you should see how it comes out on the other
side, right down a chute sometimes.  Keep it in the case.
8- Never, ever leave your laptop case unattended.  They have legs and they
will walk away.  I recently got a new gadget, a Defcon-1 with a cable and a
motion detector.  If my bag walks, it shrieks.
9- Make sure your batteries are fully charged, if you need to fire up the
computer at the checkpoint and your batteries are dead, you will need to
plug in, further delaying you.  (It happened to me 6 years ago in
Frankfurt, not fun as they did not have an outlet nearby.)
10- If you are waiting for an airplane and you are using your laptop, plug
it into the wall.  There are lots of outlets, you just need to look for
them.  Hey, they have to plug in those vacuum cleaners somewhere!
11- Once on the airplane, store your laptop case near you.  It is probably
better if you store in underneath the seat in front of you, but if you are
tall, it's probably better to store it above you.  Keep track of it.
12- If you absolutely must use your laptop on the plane, be aware that you
are exposing it to great dangers.  The idiot in the seat in front of you,
the airplane bouncing all over the sky, the idiot beside you, the FA
pushing the carts, the idiot in the aisle, they are all conspiring with a
single goal in mind, destroy your laptop.  Are you sure you need to do
this?  If the flight is relatively empty and long, I may bring it out.  If
I get upgraded to first class chances are greater that it will come out.
 Put it away during the food service.
13- If you are using your laptop during the flight, resist the urge to
recharge it in the lavatory.  That outlet puts out rather dirty power.
 Travel with an extra fully charged battery.  You might be able to use your
laptop during the entire coast-to-coast flight, if you are flying from Palm
Beach to Tampa.
14- Pop out those PC-cards, they sap power.  Take out the CD-ROM, (in
Europe, you cannot use your laptop on the plane if it has a CD-ROM in it,)
it uses a lot of power, if you cannot remove it, at least make sure there
is no CD in it and disable CD insertion notification in Windows.
15- Put the laptop away about a half hour before arrival time.  Do not wait
to be told to do so, because at that time, you will be rushed and all sorts
of people are walking up and down the aisle.  Also, the person sitting
beside you will invariably develop a bladder urgency and further aggravate
the situation.  You know the flight is coming to an end, act accordingly.
16- While collecting your luggage and getting the rental car, keep your
laptop case with you at all times.
17- Really try not to drop the laptop case.

There are lots more tips that I could mention, but I won't bore you with
them.  Suffice it to say, that laptops are little electronic marvels that
are worth a lot of money and are very fragile.  Keep them safe.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com



-----Original Message-----
From:   Joe Geiser [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, 21 January, 1999 8:52 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Off topic: travelling with laptops

Travelling with my laptop... a joy and a pain in the rearend!

Having just lost a 3G drive on my laptop due to the many (and increasing)
airports who demand that laptops be put through the scanner instead of
hand-inspected, the bad spots on the disk start showing up.

On my last trip, I tried taking out the hard drive and having them hand
inspect it (it fits in the palm of your hand for cryin' out loud).  No
dice.. can't open and inspect the insides.  Of COURSE you can't inspect the
insides - who would WANT them to!

So, insist on hand inspection (which should require that you power it on,
then power it off), and if that dosen't do the trick, ask for a supervisor
and tell them that you will hold the security firm and airport responsible
for any lost data if forced to put it through the scanner.  It usually
works
because they want to get you through, so they'll ask you to turn it on,
watch for the POST display, then you can turn it off.  It's faster that
way.

(Oh, and you might want to leave for the airport earlier, you'll need the
extra time at the security checkpoint).  I always leave myself one hour at
airports in large cities, and at least 30 minutes in smaller cities and
towns -- and this is AFTER check-in) and it hasn't failed me yet.

Sp, even if they tell you it's safe (and they will) - 'JUST SAY NO'

Joe (still restorin' stuff from his last trip onto the new disk drive)