In the Northern Hemisphere many people are getting ready for their summer holiday, and some people in the Southern Hemisphere are thinking on getting away from the cold. It always seems like a mad rush to get things together and with all the gadgets we now have there seems to be more and more stuff to pack and more and more cables.

So what are some of the things to remember? Well I always check to make sure I have data roaming switched off as data roaming charges can get completely out of hand, I know of one person who had over $1,000 of charges, they thought they weren’t using much and I had warned them. So the thing to do is make sure your phone is unlocked (if you are in the UK O2 will unlock your phone for free just give them a call, this includes the iPhone, you can do on their website but gets done faster with a phone call and you may be running out of time). This will allow you to get a sim card at your destination, this means you can make calls within that country for a reasonable price and also if you get a data bundle you won’t get the ridiculous data roaming charges. If your thinking all you want to do is use maps to get around you might be surprised to know that maps use a lot of data and this really catches people out. So make sure your phone is unlocked and get a sim card when you get to your destination.

Also check out where there are some free wifi hotspots at your destination, many town centres, shopping malls and coffee shops have free or cheap wifi. You can often get wifi free with a cup of coffee. Do check you’ve connected to wifi and not using your mobile broadband.

For more check out this video about data roaming click here to watch

We used to make sure we had enough rolls of film when we went away now we need to check that we have enough space on on memory card. Before you go make sure you’ve backed up everything on your cards so you can start afresh on holiday, maybe even get a spare card or two, they have become very reasonably priced. Make sure you have enough and that you don’t get caught out better to have too much space than run out when you want to capture that magnificent sunset.

Batteries are next, do you have enough and for the rechargeable are they all charged up, make sure you take any necessary chargers with you too.

Speaking of chargers we end up with loads of chargers for different gadgets, check to see if there are any gadgets that can use the same charger, don’t guess, check, you don’t want to damage anything.

Now all we need is for hotels to give us enough plug points, they never seem to have any and certainly not anywhere convenient. How often have you had to move the bed to plug in your phone charger and in the meantime unplug the alarm clock. Get a double adaptor or a power board with a few sockets to take away with you.

You think you’re all done now on the technology side and you may be correct but there are a few more things.

Have you done a backup up of your computer, you should be doing this anyway, check out this video to see what to do http://click here to watch

If you have an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or other media playing device have you copied some video from your DVDs so that you have something to watch on the plane. Check out this video to find out more click here to watch There are also these tutorials for software that does this Handbrake is good for the Mac and…. is good for Windows. Handbrake is available for Windows but I found it slow, it did work but slow.

I think that’s about it.

Have a safe trip and happy computing.

Gary