Well, we're about 5 days from our departure date to Europe and making last minute preparations. As you already know (I think), we've decided to go sans laptop for this trip. What? No computer at your every beck and call? Preposterous you must be shouting by now. I think so too, but we decided against it since a laptop would comprise about 20-25% of our total gear weight limit of 40lbs. I still think we're a tiny bit over without the beastly machine, but at least we're not lugging a whole computer and what not around.

This presents a few problems in and of itself. First is that we will need internet access. Sure there will be Internet cafes just about everywhere, but we know those are about as safe as carrying your money around in a clear plastic bag floated by helium balloons behind you. I'm sure most are perfectly fine, but I'm not really in the mood to take a chance with my private info.

So what to do? Well, in this day and age, plenty. We're bringing a USB thumb-drive-ama-key-fob-ama-flash-amajig that contains a bevy of widgets:

1. Portable Apps - a nice suite of apps ready to go for your USB thing
2. KL-Detector - a free keylogger detector.
3. KeyPass - a password keeper app (yes, you should put your passwords into this app BEFORE you leave home)
4. LockNote - a notepad that uses AES256 encryption to lock up text...we're going to keep backup copies of our info on here...just in case.
5. TrueCrypt - a drive encryption mechanism that will keep data safe in case it gets lost.
6. Mouse Only Keyboard - a tool that will allow you to construct passwords by choosing letters and symbols on screen instead of using a keyboard. Sure it's slow, but it is much safer.
7. Neo's SafeKeys - a variation on the on-screen keyboard theme.

I'm also thinking of bringing my PPC-6700. Eventhough I won't have EVDO access, it still has built-in wifi that should work with public wifi connections. The cool part comes when I login to my home PC via logmein from the phone. Since there are no keyloggers on my personal phone and the logmein traffic with my home computer is encrypted, we should be pretty safe. A little paranoid you say? Yeah, but at least my data will be safer for the most part. A little geeky elbow grease goes a long way.

Big Ups to The Great Geek Manual for point the way for us paranoid geekswho want to roam the earth.