PowerBook Central: International travel with your PowerBook

PowerBooks are made for travel. The main reason for purchasing a laptop is for its mobility, or at least for its perception of mobility. For many people, this means carrying a PowerBook back and forth from home to the office or school. But for others, those who travel internationally, traveling with a PowerBook means dealing with varying power plugs, phone systems, and power requirements.

The first thing you have to deal with in countries other than your own are power plugs. Apple's AC adapters for PowerBooks work on all standard AC power outlets around the world - you don't need a transformer or voltage converter like you would for other electronic devices. What you will need, however, is a suitable power-plug adapter. Many electronics and travel stores carry power plug kits which contain plugs that work in 150+ countries and on all seven continents. If you'd prefer to buy adapters online, check out Magellan - perhaps the largest travel retailer. These kits range in price but should cost less than $25 without a transformer. Simply insert your AC adapter into one of these plugs, insert the adapter into the wall-plug, and you're good to go. If you think you'll need an extension cord, consider purchasing one in the country after you arrive.

Many outlets in older buildings are two-pronged polarized (one prong is wider than the other) or two-pronged unpolarized. 1xx-Series PowerBooks use two-prong unpolarized plugs, but for the rest of the models, you'll need a three-prong-to-two-prong adapter. Beware, however, that many of these adapters have polarized plugs that won't fit into an older unpolarized outlet. Again, you may want to hunt for an unpolarized three-to-two adapter in the country after you arrive.

If you'll be traveling by car, consider purchasing a car-battery adapter. Since car batteries are commonly 12V-13.8V, you simply need a cigarette-lighter connector which can handle 11V to 14V, as many of the PowerBook-specific ones do. Cigarette-lighter connectors can vary somewhat in size, so you may want to run down to Radio Shack and pick up an adapter to slip over the plug so it fits tightly in the cigarette-lighter connector.

Batteries in some larger boats, private aircraft, industrial vehicles, etc. use 24V-28V batteries. For these uses, look for a car-battery adapter rated to 30V.

In North America, the RJ-11 telephone jack is standard. This is true for much of Central and South America, Asia, and some of the Middle East too. However, the rest of the world uses many different types of plugs. For these situations, you need an adapter that converts an RJ-11 equipped modem cord to the local phone plug. Your best resource for one of these plugs is either a local hardware store in a particular country, or an online vendor like Magellan which carries dozens of different types.

Apple Remote Access software installs a control panel called 'Dial Assist" which can be configured with credit card numbers, country codes, long distance prefixes, and other information to make it easier to dial into a local or long distance ISP. Just remember to insert commas into the dialing string to force the modem into 2 second pauses as it dials - useful for when you have to wait for that ubiquitous 'beep' which lets you know when to enter your calling card number.

Some countries have different dial tones that not every modem can detect. If this is the case, you can configure the modem to ignore a dial tone by issuing an ATX1 command in the modem initialization string of your communications software. This causes the modem to dial no matter what it detects over the phone line.

Read our previous editorial, "Protect Your PowerBook!", for some basic tips on protecting your PowerBook from being stolen while traveling. At the very least, do a complete backup before you leave so you'll have your data intact in case of disaster. Ideally, you want two or three copies, each in a different location, to ensure that you don't lose data. You may also want to email ongoing work to yourself during the trip, or upload it via FTP to a server where you have space.

Having a copy of the original sales receipt can get you out of tight situations if customs people question the ownership of your PowerBook. Reader Peter Adams suggests registering your computer's serial number for easy tracking by law enforcement with STOP (Security Tracking of Office Property). STOP discourages theft by prominently displaying a non-removable metal tag with barcode, 800 number, and a warning that the computer is trackable by law enforcement.

Finally, consider buying laptop insurance. Companies like Safeware offer coverage against theft or breakage anywhere in the world, giving you peace of mind in case your PowerBook disappears on that trip to Ghana (assuming you did that complete backup before you left...).

Stephen Hildreth has been the Editor-in-Chief of PowerBook Central since its inception in 1996. When not working on his Mac, he shares his love of the outdoors with his family and can be found biking, snow skiing, or educating students on the internal & external processes of our planet.