Improved Mobility
My experiment at reducing my travel gear worked. I went from 18 pounds of gear in my backpack to about 8 pounds in that REI bag without suffering any loss in productivity. The Fujitsu Lifebook P1510D worked like a champ, providing me with productivity and connectivity via the standard Windows XP features; entertainment as a movie player; and education as a solution for reading ebooks and my feeds. Somehow along the way I managed to get rid of most of my power cords, charging everything via USB. I'm starting to wonder if my real motivation for taking all the stuff I travel with is because the space in my backpack was there. The next step is to attempt the same test with a smaller suitcase.
As I mentioned previously, one of my complaints about the Lifebook P1510D was Bluetooth support without the Bluetooth software. This was an oversight on the part of whoever packed the shipping box for Fujitsu because the missing CD is en route. I'm still not sure why this is a CD and not a download or SD card, since there's no CD tray drive in the P1510D, but I can easily work around that. My Kensington USB Bluetooth adapter worked like a champ in providing connectivity over the Cingular EDGE network using my cell phone during the New York trip.
For me the big surprise of the trip was image quality from the camera on my cell phone. I opted to try going camera phone only for the trip to conserve space, with the camera on my Cingular 2125 working like a champ. Cell phone cameras have finally reached the "good enough" level of acceptability where I'm comfortable in leaving a digital camera behind. No the tiny little image receptors in the cell phone aren't going to replace the need for digital still cameras anytime soon, but for casual photography, a phone is now a viable option. Several examples are available in my Flickr stream.