Credit Card Mini Toolkit
Survalist gear for the light traveller?
BCB mainly manufactures survivalist accessories like food, clothing, flashlights, shelter and tools. While most of the gear are for handling harsh environments or helping you stay alive one thing in their catalog stood out for portable travellers.
The BCB Mini Work Tool is a credit card sized stainless steel plate with cutouts and sharp edges to it that allow it to handle many chores.
It contains a:
Knife
Wood saw blade
Bottle-Can opener
Flat edge screwdriver
Various size wrenches and a butterfly opener
Bearing plate for a button compass
Ruler and lanyard hole
It’s small size allows it to be stored anywhere, always a bonus for one bag travellers. Perfect for when you need a sharp edge or wrench in an foreign location.
Buy the tool at the BCB store.
Portable Travel Wallet for Coins, ID, Bills
Wallet 2 travel wallet is a case like silicon rubber holder for your valuables. Available in five colors, this may be a bit bulkier than your average wallet but it does keep everything in one place making it easier to find everything (or lose everything). You can also wear the thing around your neck; a bit nerdy but safe.
Just about the size of your normal leather wallet, it holds as much stuffs as you could put in with our patent pending wallet system: different refill sheets of credit cards, bills, I.D., coins, notes, card holder, memory card, etc… that you could choose from. Everyday life, traveling, snowboarding, cycling, hiking, night clubbing, dancing, etc… Whether you are going to do, Wallet 2.0 could be your best buddy. With the soft materials, you could put it in your front or back pocket, wear it around your neck, put it in your bags.
Size: approx 92 x 115 x 22.5 mm
Weight: approx 32 g
-Strong & durable protection for your money & cards.
-Water resistant finish with rich feels on the surface.
-Two strap holes on the side for chain or lanyard.
-Made from silicone, the environmentally friendly material.
-Wallet 2.0 comes with refill sheets for 3 cards, some bills, lots coins, 3 I.D.
Wallet 2.0 can be transformed into a mobile phone, MP3 or key chain cases, and the two strap holes on the side allows you attach it to a cell phone strap or lanyard. Using our patent pending wallet system, you could put many different refill sheets into the wallet, to give it different usages.
What Computer Cables Should a Portable Traveller Carry?
Preparedness. One of the major quandaries for anyone doing any sort of travelling with laptops and gadgets is “what cables should I bring?” You want to be prepared for any hookup situation but you don’t want to lug around any extra cables, connectors and other doo dahs than you absolutely need.
So what is a gadget monger to bring? Of course it depends on the gear you will be bringing along, some may be proprietary but the following are some considerations and at the end I will list a bundle of cables that covers me on practically any trip. My “grab n’ go” kit.
Here are some things to consider when deciding what cables to take.
Internet connection
While wifi is becoming more and more prevalent even in developing countries. A wired connection is still used in most places around the world. Pay by the hour internet cafes are practically everywhere you may travel. If you want to hook up with your laptop, best to bring your own network cable and throw in a modem cable just in case.
Digital Cameras
You’re on vacation. You want to take pictures. You want to use your digital camera(s). Who uses film these days? Even National Geographic shooters are going digital. A USB to camera cable for downloading images are a must. Proprietary connectors are rare. The most popular USB connector I’ve seen from Canon, Olympus and others are the USB mini-B connector. These connectors were developed for smaller devices where the larger type A (the big end you see on all cables) could not fit such as ultra portable digital cameras, cell phones and PDAs.
Portable Hard Drives
External hard drives using 2.5” laptop drives typically all use the USB mini-B connector as well. Some use Firewire only or include both interfaces. Firewire is actually better since most 2.5” drives draw more power than the standard laptop USB port can provide and will require and additional power adapter or extra USB cable to give it more juice. A portable Firewire drive which includes the 6 pin outlet will be able to get enough power and transfer data on just one cable.
However newer 1.8” USB drives from companies like Toshiba and Apricorn can get enough power from just the USB cable but these newer drives trade off their smaller footprint for lower capacity and are more expensive. I’ll cover these in a future article.
So in short, you need a 6 pin Firewire cable along with the aforementioned USB mini-B depending on your drive.
Video Cameras
Four pin Firewire or USB mini-B from my limited experience with digital vidcams.
Portable Entertainment Devices
You can jettison your extra power adapters if you are smart about the portable entertainment gadgets you buy. Several manufacturers have chosen to use the USB mini-B connector to both transfer data and charge their devices.
Portable Music
Some MP3 players can both charge and data transfer off the USB mini-B port.
Portable Gaming
The PSP has a mini-B connector and I believe it uses just a standard USB A to mini-B for both data and recharging. Charging takes approximately 3 hours.
The Nintendo DS Lite also can be charged from a mini-B USB cable connected to your laptop.
So finally, you say impatiently how many cables should I bring?
Here is my recommendation.
1 Cat-5 network cable at least 5 feet.
1 USB A (the usual flat rectangular end you find which fits on the laptop) to mini-B. This is arguably the most important cable other than the Cat-5 network cable because so many devices can fit onto it for both data and recharging if you buy the right components.
1 Firewire 6 pin to 6 pin cable.
1 Firewire 6 pin to 4 pin cable
1 modem cable
All these cables take quite a bit of space but I have a solution. See my recommended travel cable.