Connect on the Fly: Airport Wi-Fi Guide

Now that you know where to find airport Wi-Fi, check your travel bag for the best accessories. The right choices can help you get connected even to a weak signal, lower your back pain, and keep your personal data secure.

Hawking High-Gain Card

Use a long-range Wi-Fi card. If the built-in Wi-Fi chip in your laptop doesn't give you a good connection at most hotspots, there are plenty of alternatives. Three good ones are: Hawking's High-Gain Wireless card, Belkin's Pre-N card, and SMC's EliteConnect Universal High Power card. These should let you camp outside most airport lounges and connect without being a member (although you'll still need to pay the daily pass fee).

Use a rolling suitcase. Weve found that most of our back and shoulder troubles begin with carrying a heavy computer bag. Try eBags.com for a good selection of wheeled laptop bags that can fit under airplane seats (navigate Business & Laptop, and then click Wheeled Cases and read reviews).

Bring a Wi-Fi detector. Several companies make Wi-Fi sniffers that can detect the presence of a Wi-Fi network. Some are more elaborate than others; the best of the bunch (and the most expensive) is the Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter. At $59.95, its steep, but it contains a small LCD display that shows the name of all nearby networks along with their technical settings, such as channel, signal strength, and whether the network is unencrypted or not.

Replace bricks with USB cables. Several companies sell universal USB cables that connect almost all cell phone models -- with the right accessory charger tip -- to a USB port on a laptop. This lets you leave the ungainly AC adapter bricks at home and focus your efforts on keeping your laptop charged.

ZipLinq's retractable charging cables for mobile phones and handheld devices are favorites of road warriors. The company also sells a variety of self-retracting data cables for USB, Ethernet, telephone, and other purposes.

ZipLinq and other manufacturers also offer USB-to-AC and USB-to-auto adapter converters so you can avoid carrying dedicated bricks and use a universal one instead.

iGo Juice Adapter

Finally, another good option is the Mobility iGo Juice Universal Power Adapter, a universal power adapter with charging tips for most popular laptops, handhelds, cell phones, digital cameras and MP3 players.

Extend yourself. Everyone loves the man or woman with a power strip and extension cord. Its the surest way to make friends on the road. Weve noticed in recent travels that an informal siblinghood forms up around the rare power outlets at airports. One person always seems to have a multi-outlet adapter or strip that they encourage others to use.

CyberGuys.com has an interesting assortment of UL-approved Liberator power extenders, which are short extension cords that make it easier to plug in one or two power cords into a hard-to-reach or recessed outlet. Theyre especially vital for power bricks.

Some companies sell compact or travelers power strips, too, such as Tripp-Lite, which offers the Traveler Two-Outlet Surge Suppressor with surge protection, two outlets, and a phone line splitter.

Secure yourself. Too many business users forget the basics of business: keeping it to him- or herself. With the exception of T-Mobile HotSpot, which offers an encrypted network option, all of your data in an airport hotspot passes in the clear in an easily interceptable format.

If you work for a corporation that requires virtual private network (VPN) connections to access corporate email and data, youre safe. But for the rest of us, an email service with secure Webmail, secure email client access, or a personal VPN service will work.

Secure Webmail allows you to use a Web browser with a secure connection to read email. Some popular email services and many Internet service providers offer this, such as Google's GMail.

Secure email client access lets your email program create an encryption connection to send and receive email, including allowing outgoing email through a login from any location. Fastmail.fm is an email service that offers free and inexpensive accounts with full secure connections for the three popular email connection formats.

Finally, personal VPN service provides a rented VPN connection: one operated by a third party that encrypts all of the data entering and leaving your computer over a wired or wireless network. Several services are available for $5 to $15 per month, including JiWires own SpotLock, which includes VPN, SMTP and offline directory service.