Plane makes a crappy landing in Washington state

by Scott Carmichael on

Apologies for the attempt at humor in the title of this story. Yesterday, a pilot took off from Thun Field in Washington state in his Cessna 182 when his engine failed. He made it about 150 feet into the air, tried to turn around for a “normal” emergency landing, but didn’t quite make it.

Instead, he hit a fence, then bounced off a storage yard filled with portable toilets.

The plane did not make it through the ordeal undamaged, but the pilot was able to get out of his plane and walk away, all thanks to the cushioning effect of the portapotty.

Daily deal – Toshiba 250GB portable hard drive for $65

by Scott Carmichael on

My daily deal for this afternoon is for a Toshiba portable external hard drive.

Besides being a really good deal, there are several other reasons why I think everyone who travels with their computer should invest in a portable drive.

For starters – the 250GB storage space should be enough to hold a backup of most of your important files. In addition to this, it can also make a safe place to store photos and videos you make on your trip, I know several people who made over 1000 photos, and lost every single one of them when their laptop hard drive crashed before arriving back home.

The best part about these portable drives is that they can be powered off the USB port of your laptop or desktop computer, which means you don’t have to drag an additional power supply along with you.

Another great thing a large external drive can do, is add more storage space for music or video files – especially since many small laptop computers only come with limited space. You’ll find this Toshiba 250GB portable hard drive on sale at Amazon for $65.85, which includes free shipping.

Daily deal – Slacker 4GB Wi-Fi Internet Radio for $79.99

by Scott Carmichael on

My daily deal for today is for the Slacker 4GB Wi-Fi Internet Radio. I’ve reviewed Slacker here before, and their portable player was selected as one of the best travel products of 2008.

The player on sale today is their previous generation unit, and while it may look nothing like the version I reviewed, it does offer the same functionality and of course, it uses the fantastic Slacker.com online music service.

This player normally retails for about $150, but buy.com has it on sale today for just $79.99 with free shipping.

Included with the player is a charger, USB cable and a pair of headphones. The basic Slacker music service is free to use, but for the best experience, you’ll want to upgrade to Slacker Premium.

If you are ordering this as a Christmas gift, then I suggest upgrading to 2-day shipping, you’ll find the buy.com Holiday shipping schedule here.

Daily deal: Duracell portable USB battery pack

by Scott Carmichael on

Today’s daily deal is for the Duracell DR7000LI portable USB battery pack. If you read my review yesterday of the Kensington ultra portable battery pack, you’ll understand the convenience of carrying backup power on your trip.

The Duracell DR7000LI has an internal Lithium-Ion battery pack with a 1000mAh capacity. This is slightly lower than the Kensington I reviewed, but still perfectly sufficient for charging an iPod or your mobile phone several times.

The DR7000LI does not include an AC adapter, so in order to charge it, you’ll need to hook it up to your PC, or purchase a separate AC charger with a USB port.

Included in the package is a USB to mini-USB cable for connecting the battery pack to your Blackberry or other device with a mini-USB connector. For charging your iPod, iPhone or other product, you’ll need to bring the appropriate USB cable which is usually included with your device. There are no buttons on the battery pack, so it’s simply a matter of plug and charge.

Next time you find yourself stuck at the airport with a dead mobile phone, or halfway over the ocean with an empty iPod battery, simply grab your portable power pack and you’ll be making phone calls or watching a movie before you know it.

It’s on sale today for just $19.99 over at Amazon.com which is a $10 savings over the normal price. Add an additional $5.01 to reach the threshold Amazon free super saver shipping.

Kindle: the latest e-book reader on the market

by Abha Malpani on

When I travel, the weight of my books and magazines is more than the weight of all the rest of my stuff put together. I’ve stopped carrying guidebooks (why do they make them so fat and heavy!?), I just photocopy the relevant pages; but what about my books?

I’m currently reading Shantaram. It’s an A5, 1140 page book, so heavy that I refuse to lug it around on the metro, let alone a trip. If not for the size, I would have finished it by now.

The solution to that? Maybe Kindle — the latest wireless e-reader on the market. Produced by Amazon, although bigger and more expensive than the Sony e-reader, on it you can buy from a choice of 90,000 books (Sony allows 20,000) — without the need of a computer or Internet connection; you can read national and international newspapers, and can subscribe to 250 of the top blogs for $1 a month per blog. It holds up to 200 titles, the battery lasts 3-weeks and is recharged in 2-hours.

I’m not very tech savvy, but if it will help me not compromise on my reading material when I travel, I’m willing to invest. Reading a book with it physically in your hands has it’s own glory, but that’s what I said about newspapers too — now I only read them online, it’s just a matter of getting used to I suppose.

But, I still have a problem: Kindle was sold out in 5 1/2 hours of its release (November 2007). Now there is a waiting list but they will not ship outside the US. Darn!