Stout Beaver

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Ed. note: On Tuesday, Google responded to cyber attacks aimed at Chinese human-rights activists by ending search-result censorship in China. An anonymous reader with experience living where privacy isn't respected writes in with tips for keeping your data safe in these situations.

The author asked to remain anonymous and preferred to skip mentioning any countries by name—again, for privacy reasons. What follows is how the author keeps a tight leash on privacy when traveling in a country where the government actively monitors online communication.

The above image is a composite of photos by hemmob and nolifebeforecofee

Two things have really changed the face of independent backpacker travel in the last decade: digital cameras and—even more so—the internet. While some people can afford the luxury of traveling with a laptop or even a netbook, a real backpacker doesn't want to have to carry the extra weight nor the responsibility of carrying expensive equipment that would be difficult to lug around, relatively easy to steal, and expensive to replace.

Internet cafes proliferate all throughout Asia and other remote countries, which makes getting online very easy and cheap. That said, as much as I love "the cloud," keeping data online comes with security concerns, especially in places where internet restrictions and heavy government monitoring are commonplace.

Here are a list of items from my arsenal—many from Lifehacker—which made my own backpacker travels much easier when in remote places:

Gmail / Google Apps

Lifehacker has already sung the praises of Gmail, and it's impossible to understate it. With Google's recent announcement that accounts will connect using the more secure https by default, Gmail reigns supreme as the best possible email app for travelers logging in on dicey computers in strange places. On top of that, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and now Google Wave are a wonderful and secure set of cloud based apps to really allow you to do what you need to do from practically anywhere.

Two USB Sticks

Online options are getting better every day, but we can't quite always access everything we need on a computer straight from the cloud. Choosing the right USB stick to accompany you on your travels is in itself a chore. The secure Ironykey thumb drive is certainly very impressive, but it is also quite costly. It's definitely out of range for most backpackers, myself included. Corsair makes a padlock drive which is far from completely secure, but it has a more reasonable price and assures you that if you lose it, someone can't simply just plug it in and start using it immediately.

I keep one USB stick around my neck, the other in a zipped pouch under my pants next to my passport, emergency cash, etc. Both sticks have exactly the same files on them, and core files can easily be synced using DropboxPortable.

PortableApps

On your USB drives, you want to carry software that you need, and for that the PortableApps Suite really is outstanding. It's almost like carrying your own computer with you, without the hassle of actually doing so. Login to any strange machine, and you are armed and ready with all of your favorite software available to you.

Keepass

If I had to choose one single PortableApp that was most important to me, it would be KeePass. Lifehacker has already gone over the tremendous security advantages to using KeePass, and protecting your passwords in general. This is even more true and relevant when traveling in remote places.

I keep two KeePass databases with me at all times: my primary database with all of my passwords which I use constantly, and another that only contains scanned PDFs of all of my most important travel documents, including:

• Passport
• Birth Certificate
  
• Travel Visas (if I have them),
• Health/Travel Insurance info
• A list of vaccinations I've had and when I had them
• Medical Records
• My U.S. Driver's License

In that they are in a KeePass database, they are all stored encrypted while on the USB. Truth be told, no digital copies of those documents will stand up legally in place of hard copies, but sometimes the information on them is all you need and enough to cover you while a hard copy replacement is sent overnight from home.

Skype

With the possible exception of Google Wave (which I'm excited for but not quite ready to switch to), Skype is still the best way to chat and talk securely (but of course don't let the app permanently store your login and password or history).

Travelers in China should beware of "Tom-Skype", a legitimate Chinese version of Skype which was developed in conjunction with one of China's phone companies. That version is not secure, but other versions, such as the one you can get from PortableApps, are.

If you have a Google Voice Account, you can even mashup Skype (or Gizmo5) with Google Voice to place and receive free calls back home and or receive incoming phone calls on a local cell phone wherever you are.

uTorrent

Hardcore backpacking is a wonderful adventure, but it isn't always restful. Sometimes you want to kick back and relax and catch up with the latest TV shows and movies. uTorrent now also exists as a PortableApp, so depending on the friendliness of the staff of the internet cafe where you are logging in, you could—in theory—download things for your listening or viewing pleasure to watch the next day on your Portable version of VLC.

TrueCrypt

As Lifehacker has covered, when it comes to encrypting your files, there is nothing better than TrueCrypt. It is possible to bring along with you a Portable version of TrueCrypt, but you can't mount TrueCrypt encrypted drives without admin privileges on the computer you are using. Ideally, I would love to use TrueCrypt to encrypt my USB drives in their entirety, but since having admin privileges is always hit or miss when traveling, it's a risk I can't afford to take. Any documents on my drive that I feel need to be encrypted, I can just store in a KeePass database. But I still carry TrueCrypt with me and it has come in very handy on occasion.

PortableTOR

Lifehacker has done an excellent job of explaining the anonymous internet tool, TOR, including what it is and how it works. Some people use TOR in the U.S., for example, to do things like access Facebook from work—which really should be strongly discouraged. As events of recent days have proven, some governments around the world censor websites from their citizens. You may be curious to see your friend's latest updates at work, but there are people in places whose lives—without exaggeration—might truly depend on TOR.  TOR, and especially the Portable version, provides a way for travelers to those locations (and citizens who face privacy invasions every day) to be able to access whatever web sites they need to.

However, take note: It's very important to realize that TOR does not encrypt your data for you—it only allows you to access blocked sites anonymously.

MozyHome Backup

Lifehacker has covered a variety of great cloud based backup services. Mozy is the one which has served this traveler well. While my backpack and I are running around the world, my hard drive is still safely at home, turned off and under lock and key. Fortunately, I backed up my entire system (well over a 1TB these days), and if in a pinch I need a file that I don't have with me on my USB, in my Google Apps, nor even in my Dropbox, I can "restore" that file from my MozyHome account to whatever machine I'm on at the time. Mozy stores my data encrypted and downloads it encrypted as well.

Xubuntu Live CD

But what if you've covered all of the above and the only computers you have access to are all malware, spyware, and virus infected, but you need to get online as quickly, safely, and securely as possible?

Then there's the Xubuntu Live CD. I always carry a few Linux live CDs with me. In a durable plastic case, they fit well in the pockets of cargo pants. Ubuntu itself is great, but Xubuntu is even more streamlined, and runs smoothly and well even on computers with a minimum of memory and hardware. Go into the internet cafe, put your CD in the drive, and restart it. More often than not, the computer will then boot from the CD and automatically connect to the internet. You're running your own, safe Linux system on a compromised Windows PC.

Of course on the USB stick I also have Linux versions of my favorite Apps: KeePassX, Skype, and TrueCrypt. I don't carry a Linux version of TOR with me, but it downloads and installs just fine on Xubuntu. Flash doesn't come installed on Xubuntu either, but I carry Flash with me and wrote a little script to install it with one click off of the USB drive.

Truth be told, someone could probably compile a great "Traveler's Xubuntu" CD that would come with all of the necessary open source apps already installed, but I'll leave that to another forward thinking Lifehacker reader.

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Traveler's should always be aware: no security system is ever going to be foolproof and 100% secure. Hardware and software keyloggers are great threats which are very difficult to avoid. Still, by taking proper precautions and arming yourself with the right tools, you can turn the odds in your favor and still accomplish whatever you set out to online, no matter where you are.

Netbooks are a great compromise between pecking away a smartphone keyboard or hauling a tank-size laptop around—but they aren't without shortcomings. Make the most of your netbook with these netbook-friendly tips, tricks, and applications.

Although often derided for being under-powered and a poor substitute for a full laptop, netbooks fill a nice niche. They're tough to beat for portable browsing, note taking, and mobile computing when a laptop is over kill, the battery life is too short, and using your phone is impractical or uncomfortable. Still, you can do a lot to make life with a netbook easier.

Accept the Hardware Limitations and Tweak When Possible

Netbooks are limited and you can't be happy using one unless you accept that. Watching video on it won't be like watching video on a 24" widescreen monitor. It won't run Crysis. You're not going to be single-handedly solving complex protein-folding operations on it and curing cancer. Nearly every netbook has a fairly standard cookie-cutter spec sheet of a 1024x600 pixel screen, a 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and a modest mobile processor.

If you already own a netbook, the best thing you can do is shell out $30-60 and upgrade the 1GB of RAM to 2GB of RAM. It's a cheap enough upgrade and it provides a significant performance boost. If you're shopping for a netbook, the best advice we can give is to focus on two things: battery life and the physical inputs, like the spacing of the keyboard and arrangement of secondary buttons—physical design is about the only thing distinguishing one netbook from another these days.

Strip Your Netbook of Bloat and Crapware

Computer manufacturers love to stockpile their pristine machines with all sorts of crapware. Fortunately, for the most part, netbook manufacturers aren't too extreme with this practice. Given the already underpowered nature of the machines they sell, we'd imagine they're paranoid about bogging it down with too much crapware. Nonetheless, it's still worth your time to give your netbook a solid run through the decrapification-gauntlet. Photo by Fabio Bruna.

You can dig through the bloatware and delete it manually, but some bloatware—we're looking at you Norton Anti-Virus trial!—is a huge pain to remove by hand. Fortunately applications have been created that are specifically tailored to giving bloatware the boot, like PC Decrapifier—seen in the screenshot above. PC Decrapifier is great for any new computer including netbooks and will help you get rid of applications like Norton Anti-Virus, Microsoft Office Trial Edition, and other annoyances.

One caveat regarding gutting the crapware from your new netbook: Although 90 percent of the junk that is installed is in fact junk, be careful not to delete software that actually does something useful. For example, on my Asus Eee netbook there were two very similar programs with similar Eee branded names. One was a useful aggressive battery monitoring application designed to squeeze even more life out of my 6-cell battery and the other was a fairly useless application dock only for Eee netbook apps. Had I blanket nuked all the installed apps, I'd have kicked out the useful battery tool with the rest of the junk.

Once you've booted the factory-fresh crapware off your netbook, it's really important to keep things clean for optimal future performance. If a little bit of crapware and software creep slows down your beefy desktop a tiny bit, a little on your netbook will definitely gum up the works. Make sure to install an application like CCleaner—a favorite among Lifehacker readers—and run it on a schedule to keep things clean.

Learn to Love Full-Screen Mode and Keyboard Shortcuts

You might have a nice spacious monitor at home and never even think to switch to full screen mode, but on a netbook using full screen mode is an absolute must. The screenshot above shows a comparison between running Firefox in regular mode and running Firefox in fullscreen mode, displaying the Lifehacker homepage. Between the title bar, menu bar, tabbed sites, and the Windows start bar, around 40% of the screen gets chewed up. The same kind of situation exists when you load popular word processors like Microsoft Word and other office applications. Most software designers are simply not designing for small screens anymore; netbooks generally have a 1024x600 resolution, which is nearly 200 pixels shorter than the already quite small 1024x768 standard monitor size that most designers keep in mind when creating toolbar and site layouts.

Unfortunately no standard exists for which a keyboard shortcut will switch an application to full screen mode. Check the menu bar in your application or hit up Google with a "myapplication fullscreen shortcut" query to find it. The full-screen shortcuts for a few common applications are: Firefox/IE/Opera/Chrome - F11 (press again to return to normal view) and Microsoft Office - ALT+V+U (press ESC to return to normal view).

In addition to searching for individual and specific keyboard shortcuts to help with things like full-screen mode, it's worthwhile to extend your knowledge of shortcuts even further—typing on a reduced size keyboard and mousing on a small trackpad can be rough on your hands. If you extend the range of your Google queries from just the keyboard shortcut to something like "myapplication without a mouse" or "myapplication keyboard shortcut guide" you'll find gems like this guide to using the Opera web browser completely sans-mouse—or our own guide to mouse-less Firefox. Photo by Declan TM.

The best thing about improving your keyboard chops with the netbook is that all the new shortcuts you learn are transferable to your main workstation. For more information on handy keyboard shortcuts, application tricks involving keyboard shortcuts, and how to make them if your application lacks for them, take a stroll through the archives of the keyboard shortcuts tag here at Lifehacker.

Select Applications with a Netbook-Centric Attitude

Selecting applications for a netbook is a lot like packing for a camping trip. When you pack for a camping trip you select things for your pack that are efficient and lightweight versions of things you use every day at home, and you also pack things that are distinctly related to camping that you'd never use at home. Photo by 玩具王 the Nictoyking.

For example, you may use Firefox loaded down with 1,001 extensions on your quad-core home computer but opt to run Firefox with only one or two critical extensions or Google Chrome on your netbook. Also, just like with camping, selecting lightweight tools that are multifunction is valuable. Why use a bloated media application when something snappy and light like open-source VLC can take care of all your movie and music needs? In the same vein, look for ways to ditch software that is known for being bloated and resource hungry, like swapping out Adobe-gonna-eat-all-y'RAMs-Reader with FoxIt Reader. If you're unsure where to start when it comes to selecting lightweight software, you might want to check out past Lifehacker Hive Five topics. Lifehacker readers tend to gravitate towards the fastest and lightest-weight solutions even when constraints like using a netbook aren't brought into the equation.

Aside from searching out lightweight versions of applications your normally use, the netbook also benefits from applications you'd likely never use on a desktop computer.

Netbooks, for example, make pretty handy ebooks. They're full color, they have no annoying DRM or restrictions, and they're lightweight with a long battery life. I've been experimenting with using my netbook as an ebook reader and don't have any complaints to log. If your netbook doesn't already support screen rotation, you can easily remedy that situation by downloading EeeRotate—in use in the screenshot above. The tiny application allows you to rotate your screen using CTRL+ALT+RIGHT (you can rotate it so that you hold the netbook with the screen on your right or left hand side) and it reverses the axis of the mouse so you can still use your mouse without hassle. Pressing CTRL+ALT+UP will return the screen to normal.

If you're a Gmail user, you'll definitely want to enable Offline Gmail to allow you to compose emails in Gmail when you're between wireless hotspots and unable to access the net. If you're not a Gmail user it's worth downloading an full-fledged email client like Thunderbird and configuring it to use your web-based email so you can enjoy the same functionality.

Even if your keyboard chops are up to par, it's still a pain to launch applications on a netbook. Although I've yet to install Launchy—as much as I love it!—on my main Windows 7 desktop, most netbooks run Windows XP and Launchy can go a long way towards making application launching pleasant on the tiny keyboard and touchpad. Check out our guide to doing more with Launchy here.

Being able to shuttle files between your main workstation and your netbook, as well as keeping them backed up, is a must. Dropbox is a valuable addition to your netbook for this task. It's lightweight, it's fast, and for most users the free account is more than adequate. While writing this article I used Dropbox multiple times to easily toss screenshots and installation files between my netbook and desktop and as I took notes about the netbook—on the netbook!—I saved the .TXT file to Dropbox. Check out how to use Dropbox for more than just file syncing here.

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Netbooks serve as an excellent go-between tool for lightweight and portable notetaking and web browsing, especially with the proper tweaking and software selection. While our list of tweaks and software suggestions is long, it's certainly not exhaustive. If you have a netbook of your own, it's time to sound off in the comments with your tips, tricks, and favorite applications for maximizing your netbook's capabilities.