Here is a tip from Chris Breen’s Mac 911 column.....
Having recently spent several weeks on the road talking up Macs and the voodoo they do, I thought I’d cover the troubleshooting tools and utilities I pack when traveling. When my bags pass through
airport security, here’s what shows up on the X-ray machine:
iPod
My iPod pulls double-duty when I travel—it not only holds enough music to get me through a couple of long flights, but also carries a bootable version of OS X, any applications and files I need for my trip, and the troubleshooting utilities required to fix my PowerBook if things go
wrong. Creating a bootable iPod is no big deal. Your iPod should be 10GB or larger in order to hold a full installation of OS X and the files you need. To install OS X on the iPod, just treat it like any FireWire drive and follow the usual OS X installation procedure.
Bootable Utility and OS Discs
I always travel with bootable Disk Warrior and Drive Genius discs, as well as a Tiger installation DVD. But since I don’t dare risk damaging those discs while on the road, I bring copies. My original Disk Warrior disc isn’t compatible with Tiger anyway, so I’ve downloaded the free DiskWarrior 3.0.3 CD Update, which allows me to create a Tiger-compatible bootable copy of the Disk Warrior CD. As for the Drive Genius and OS X discs, I use Apple’s Disk Utility to burn bootable copies. To do so, insert the disc you want to copy, launch Disk Utility (/Applications/ Utilities), select the disc in the left side of the Disk Utility window, and choose “File: New: Disk Image From” name of disc, substituting the name of the disc you’ve selected. In the “Convert Image” dialog box that appears, choose “DVD/CD Master” from the Image Format pop- up menu and “None” from the Encryption pop-up menu,
and then click on “Save.” Once you’ve created the image, select it in the left side of the Disk Utility window, insert a blank disc of the appropriate type (a CD-R if the original disc was a CD, for example), and click on the “Burn” button at the top of the window. In the sheet that appears, click on “Burn” again. When the disc is complete, it should contain an exact copy of the original, one that’s capable of booting your Mac.
Cables
The beautiful freedom of wireless networks hasn’t yet reached much of the world, so my gear bag includes cables. Specifically, I carry a 6-foot Ethernet cable, a phone cable, two USB cables (one for standard peripherals and another with the kind of mini USB connector routinely found on digital cameras), and a 6-foot FireWire cable (helpful when I need to link my PowerBook and another Mac via FireWire Target Disk mode).
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