Tuesday, August 05, 2008
I may never travel to the U.S.A. with my laptop again
After reading the Reuters news item about how the U.S. has decided that any travelers’ laptop is fair game to be seized, I figure that it’s not worth it to travel into the U.S. with a laptop. I may not be in the group that gets racially profiled, or even in the peripheral group, but I have that weird experience of being that person who falls within the “other 5%”. That can be where 95% of people show symptoms of a disease, and I’m in the 5% that doesn’t show the regular symptoms, so I get really sick before the doctor properly diagnoses. I’m in the 5% of people whose technology acts up and no one can figure out how to fix it - I have spent hours with various HTC, Telus, and Geek Squad members over the past month, and still can’t get my phone to sync with my computer, and now my computer won’t recognize my CD drive, either. If there’s a defective 1-in-a-thousand of a particular product, I’ll end up buying that one off the shelf. I cannot think what type of business hell I’d sink into if my laptop were to be snatched by our Big Brother south of the 49th parallel. My contacts, my email, my work ... never mind that I have an online backup and so on - they’d have all my passwords, my configurations, all those things that are so painful when you have to set up a new computer.
The only problem would be conference presentations. I’ve been waiting for the day when I could travel across the border, stick my USB drive into the projector, and present - without the need to drag my laptop along with me. (Yes, I know the arguments against using PowerPoint for everything, but last time I didn’t have slides, the audience became confused and gave me bad reviews for that very reason.) I hope that day comes very soon. Meanwhile, this is yet another incentive to make sure that any flights to Europe make connections through a Canadian airport. Too bad, because I just found a great Cathay-Pacific flight that goes direct from Vancouver to New York. But is the risk of losing all my business data worth the few hours of lovely comfort if I’m stressed about losing my data upon arrival? Nah, not so much.