Geek to Live: Laptop tips

You just got a shiny new laptop to use on your commute to the office, on business trips, vacations and at the coffee shop down the street. Congratulations! You'll be a productivity powerhouse! But hold your horses for a minute there, bucko.
Any road warrior will tell you life with a lappie isn't always easy. As a freelancer with a keyboard permanently propped up on my thighs (like right now on an airplane bound for Seattle), I've got a few hints and tips for extending the life of your laptop and easing the pain of the never-ending outlet and hotspot hunt.

Extend your battery life.

Laptop productivity on the cold, cruel and often electrical outletless road often depends entirely on how much juice you've got left. The screen draws the most power from your battery. When you don't have access to an outlet, dim your screen to the lowest setting to make your battery last as long as possible.
Also, disable unnecessary CPU-cycle-eating processes - like auto Bluetooth device and wifi network detection - to save juice and make your battery last longer.

Save your keyboard and screen.

At the beach house there is sand, at the coffee shop there are crumbs, and right now your fingers are covered in Dorito dust. Protect your keyboard from stray crumbage getting into the cracks with a protective cover. At a reader's recommendation, I invested in the iSkin which does double duty: it keeps crumbs out from between the keys and also protects the screen from keyboard scratches.
Another way to prevent screen scrapes is a piece of rubberized shelf liner cut to fit inside your lappie like the bologna in a sandwich when you shut it. I've also seen people use a thin piece of cloth.

Keep it cool.

After an hour or so, a computer can burn one's thighs and wrists (like my super-heat conducting titanium Powerbook). If this is a problem for you, get material that doesn't conduct heat well between your skin and your lappie, like a lap desk or your laptop sleeve. Long-sleeved shirts with big cuffs help on wrists when the top of your keyboard gets hot to the touch.

Work offline.

Web-based email's great, but the dream of always-on Internet connectivity hasn't yet come true. Get yourself set up to work offline on your laptop on the plane and other wifi-less locations.
For example, Mozilla Thunderbird is a must-have install on your laptop. In addition to downloading all your mail locally for working with offline, Thunderbird 1.5 has excellent SMTP management so you can switch which server you send your mail through when you get online very quickly. Using a NetZero dialup account that requires you use smtp.netzero.net? Need to use the secure SMTP server at the office for work mail? No problem. You can set up multiple SMTP servers and associate them with different email accounts with Thunderbird.

Secure your data.

While you're out and about and on open wireless networks, make sure you've got a secure firewall installed on your laptop and that its settings are extremely restrictive. Turn off folder sharing and any local servers you have running (like a web, FTP or VNC) to keep others from peeking in on your data. Make sure your laptop's logins have strong passwords assigned.
Also, consider encrypting the data on your disk in case of theft, using a utility like Mac OS X's FileVault. If you're really concerned about someone grabbing your laptop and running, check out "Lojack for Laptops" software which helps you trace and recover your stolen computer.

Carry it well.

Your laptop spends a lot of time swinging over your shoulder, banging around on your back, bumping into the guy next to you on the subway, and sliding around on your car's back seat. Wrapping it up in that spare Linux tee-shirt and shoving it into your messenger bag full of gadgets probably isn't a good idea. Make sure that sucker's snug as a bug in a rug. Invest in a padded sleeve or bag made to carry laptops that'll protect it when your bag falls over or gets kicked. I really dig the spendy but stylish Booq bags and sleeves; a little research will turn up the right one for your budget and style.

Back up when you get home.

Portable computers deal with a lot more wear and tear than desktops, and this increases the risk of hard drive failure. So most importantly, make sure you back up the data on your laptop.
A few months ago, a panicked Lifehacker reader wrote in saying the laptop from which she runs her business was stolen and that she had no recent backup. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. Create a lappie docking station space at home where you can plug in to recharge the battery and hook up an external drive to backup your data. See more on how to automatically back up your Windows data here.

Pack some helpful extras.

If you've got a CD-R or DVD-R drive in your lappie, keep a few spare blanks or a USB drive for easy backup on the road. A 2 to 3 prong electrical plug adaptor might help in places where your 3 prong plug needs to go into a 2 prong outlet. And of course, an extra charged-up battery, an ethernet cable or phone cord or an extra mouse might be a helpful addition to your portable arsenal.