Road warriors often resemble pack animals when they're on a trip. Because I don't have the stamina of your average llama, I work on ways to lighten my load. One method is to leave the spare battery home and try to borrow power wherever I am. Of course, I run the risk of running down my batteries midsentence. To avoid that possibility, I've become adept at finding power when I need it. Here are some tips that might help you.

Top Up When You Can
An airport is full of potential power sources. If you're somewhat bold, you may be able to grab a free charge from one of these areas:

• Airport bar. Check if the café or pub has table lamps. If so, buy yourself a drink, unplug the lamp, and power up.
• Rest room. Use one of the bathroom plugs allocated for hairdryers and shavers. Be prepared to unplug, if and when others need it for its original purpose.
• Service area. Follow that airport employee pushing a vacuum cleaner. This should eventually lead you to a power source.
• Shoeshine booth. Most shoeshiners have power outlets. Ask if you can plug in for a while (and be sure to leave a nice tip).

Pay for Power

• Use the airline club. If you're stuck in the airport for quite a while, it may make sense to buy a single-day airline club pass. Fees range between $25 to $50 for all-day privileges.
• Hire an office. Many airports have business service areas where you can rent a small cubicle and get some work done while recharging your batteries. Laptop Lane, for example, charges $8.95/half hour in Seattle. For that, you get a Pentium desktop computer, laptop connection, access to a laser printer, fax machine and a T1 Internet connection.

Conserve Energy
You can prolong the run time of your battery by changing the way you use your computer.

• Reduce contrast. Turn the backlight-brightness and contrast-control down as far as you can stand it. This can significantly increase the life of the battery.
• Remove unneeded components. You can improve your battery's performance by removing PC cards, CD-ROM cartridges and extra disks. Leaving your PC card modem plugged in can reduce effective battery time by up to 25%. They use power even when they're not in use.
• Turn off autosave. This is somewhat risky, but if you're careful to monitor your battery's power level, you can avoid unnecessary disk accesses.
• Disable helpers, wizards and other automatic features. Software functions that automatically format text, check spelling, fix up your grammar, and recalculate your spreadsheet all suck lots of power.

Find the Perfect Seat on Board
Have you ever wondered why so many airline personnel make a beeline to the seats next to the service areas? It's not just because they're close to the bathrooms and refreshment area. There's often a 115-volt electrical outlet there. If your laptop contains a power converter, you can plug in, borrow some power, and get work done even after your batteries give out. Another secret spot are the exit rows on 747s. You'll find a 110-volt/AC outlet at the door in the outside wall.

Related Articles » Ibiza Travel Guide » Cook Islands: Ready, Steady, Cook » Syria: Road to Damascus » Emotional Escapes » Guyana: Spears of Destiny » Genoa, the Italian Riviera port » Checking in with High-Tech Hotels » Plugging in to power » Buying currency before you leave the U.S » How to use phrases in the local language?