TooMuchGreen

As you know I’m presently a big fan of the mobile lifestyle, partly through need and related ease of transportation but also partly due to the mental clarity and lack of conscious clutter it brings, it’s quick, compact and cathartic being able to pack all my worldly possessions into a Caterpillar travel case and a Crumpler backpack – clothes, toiletries, books and tech, it’s all in there.

Admittedly I could do it all with even less as I hang on to a few nice to haves. I have two cameras for example, the little robust W60 is the one for travel proofing and the E-410, although a DSLR, in it’s defence (and mine) is the smallest of it’s kind, I also only have the kit lens so it’s no real hardship to lug about for higher end photo-projects such as KONEKTION:KOMUTE. As for computing, my needs are a notch above a regular traveler due to the nature of my work with JINGSOFTWARE but even so are trimmed to the bone by the wonderfully lightweight and inversely powerful MacBook Air, however for anyone without the need for full blown development I.T resources en-route there are some superb options available for basic e-mail, web & SKYPE/Twitter-ing, it depends how low you want to go and how much you’ve refined your addiction/need for compulsive on line activity (I struggle with that, I know it and admit it).

Across the modern connected world of today there’s an abundance of internet cafes which negate completely the need to carry any personal tech at all, coupled with the increasing use of cloud computing it’s logical and  easy to keep copies of important documents online with photographs uploaded into the likes of Flickr or Picasa, everything’s accessible but you are of course tied to the cafes with their hourly surfing costs, so, what are the options?

Let’s pass over netbooks for a start, although portable (and fashionable) they’re still no more than a small laptop, we can get much more compact and a great place to start is the iPod Touch.

Basically the Touch is a Wi-Fi enabled mini AppleMac computer running OSX, as such it runs the Safari browser for 640×480 web surfing, will connect to Twitter & Faceache and will allow you to check your e-mail, it’ll even play MP3′s (remember it IS an iPod..!), with the addition of an inline headset mic the 2nd gen units will also function as a verbal comms device using apps such as TruPhone, if SKYPE got their act together and brought out a native client for the Touch’s we’d really be motoring.
The Touch’s are a great little device but as WYGIWYH units (what you get is what you have) the lack of any data manipulation can be restrictive, you’re also limited to the availability of Wi-Fi and although it’s getting better free hotspots are still substantially in the minority…….plus…….we can go even smaller, not only that but smaller with more options, how about a computer on your keyring? If you need data manipulation & local file access coupled with uber portability in the extreme you could always consider a PenDrive computer.

A PenDrive computer isn’t exactly as it sounds, of course not, a USB stick sized computer would obviously be too small to use. What a PenDrive computer does is to hold the operating system and your data files only, you have your own personal configuration and information all ready to roll, all you need is a host to plug it into and boot from, it’s much easier to ask someone for a loan of their computer if you’re not going to be touching their installed operating system (and reading their emails). Data on the host computer isn’t accessed or modified in anyway and once done the files you were working on are saved, the stick goes back on your keyring and the host grinds itself away booting it’s virus riddled instance of Windows XP from it’s rattly old IDE hard disk (ha ha).

All operating systems these days have configurable options for creation of a USB PenDrive computer however to keep things cheap, robust, cross platform and fun I’d recommend a flavour of Linux from the world of open source, specifically Linux Mint, or the even cooler cat in the club – Dreamlinux, the swish OSX-ey style desktop release from Brazil (yep, Brazil…!). Both are freely available distributions based on the Debian>Ubuntu version of Linux but with an even more desktop orientated experience and comprehensive range of ready to roll applications, they both look superb and PenDrive creation is a breeze.

PenDrive computing is an embryonically exciting area with huge potential due to the increasingly mobile human demographic and our related computing requirements, admittedly it doesn’t offer the flexibility of personal web access from your room in the hotel like the iPod Touch but hey – use both, that’s the beauty of the whole solution. A USB PenDrive computer needs a footprint of around 2GB max, add an extra couple more for extremes of data storage and you still won’t break the bank, I use a 16GB USB stick from Play.Com which cost me under £20, it doesn’t break the bank, or my back.