26/07/2008-The Weekly Round Up : Long Haul Sanity : Flying With Fish 'The Book' : More Mountainsmith Bags : Cancelled Flight Rebooking Strategies

Web: www.fishfotoworldwide.com -- E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com

26/07/2008-The Weekly Round Up : Long Haul Sanity : Flying With Fish 'The Book' : More Mountainsmith Bags : Cancelled Flight Rebooking Strategies

This week Flying With Fish has been busy planning new ways to better inform both novice travelers and experienced road warriors. From signing a contract to write a book to quietly partnering up to plan a series of intensive one-day workshops to make the process of travel less stressful and more productive.

Flying With Fish kicked off the week by revisiting a lightweight, low cost, pocket sized source of entertainment to keep you sane during your travels. Since I started traveling with my Sony PSP I have found myself more relaxed on long flights, less cramped due to the size and hauling less weight to supply auxiliary power a laptop or portable DVD player. You can read up on simple ways to maximize your PSP here:
21/07/2008 - Long Haul Flight Sanity Revisited : 'Pimp Your PSP'

Tuesday was an exciting day for Flying With Fish! Well in all honesty the actual day its self was a drag and not one to write home about, but on Tuesday Flying With Fish signed a contract with an international publishing firm to be commissioned to write "The Traveling Photographer's Essential Pocket Guide." With any luck this will be the first of multiple books from Flying With Fish (well let's see how this one goes first): You can check out more on this book here: 22/07/2008 - Flying With Fish Signs Contract To Write "The Traveling Photographer's Essential Pocket Guide."

With a lot of recent discussion about the Mountainsmith line of bags, and how they can be used by photographers I decided to answer some reader mail asking if I used these bags prior to the Mountainsmith Bag Giveaway. The answer is certainly YES! I have used these bags for many years. Although I have written up my bags in the past, I threw my collection of bags in the back of my Volvo 240 Wagon (minus my Pink Mountainsmith Tour pack which was being used at the time) to show you all my current collection of Mountainsmith Bags. Looking for a bag? Take a look here : 22/07/2008 - What Mountainsmith bags does Flying With Fish personally travel with? Lets find out!

For the photography tech-geeks Flying With Fish introduced a new segment on Inside Digital Photo Radio. Michael McNamara, the former Executive Technology Editor at Popular Photography, will now be joining Scott Sheppard to bring listeners 'The McNamara Report.' When you're planning your gear purchases for your next trip you may want to tune in! Fine out more about this new segment on Inside Digital Photo Radio here: 24/07/2008 - Inside Digital Photo Radio Gets A Fantastic New Segment!

Everyone hates cancelled flights. Find out some tips for beating your fellow stranded passengers to a rebooked seat in this must read entry : 25-July-2008 - Getting Rebooked From A Cancelled Flight : A Simple Way To Reduce Stress & Increase Results

...........And I'm coming close to closing off the 'No Jet Lag Photo Workshops" Just a few more people are needed to gets the minimum seats filled to get these workshops off the ground! These two workshops, one Around-The-World and the other Sprinting-Through-Europe, will push your photography and your travel abilities to the edge. The pace will be relentless, but if you like to travel and enjoy photography you'll have the experience of a lifetime! To find out more about the No Jet Lag Workshops visit : www.comeflywithfish.com


On an unrelated travel or photography subject, I'd like to end this week's Weekly Round Up with my 'Quote of the Week.' I know many people experience various problems with PayPal at times. PayPal happens to be the credit-card processing service I use (although not for long), on Thursday we were given incorrect information regarding a transaction, while simultaneously performing the transaction and speaking with PayPal customer service to ensure what we were doing was correct. As you can guess, the transaction did not go as planned. So after some frustration we stopped for the night and I called PayPal in the morning. In the morning, I eventually got a supervisor and after explaining the situation in detail and getting nowhere I asked that PayPal review the taped conversation, which they readily admit they have. Upon requesting the tape be reviewed, this is the answer I was given by a customer service supervisor .......ready for it?......here it is ......"PayPal accepts no liability for the incorrect information given it it's customers by it's customer service representatives."

That's it for this week

Happy Flying!

Long Haul Flight Sanity Revisited : 'Pimp Your PSP'

Web: www.fishfotoworldwide.com -- E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com

21/07/2008 - Long Haul Flight Sanity Revisited : 'Pimp Your PSP'

Having traveled extensively with my Sony Play Station Portable (PSP) over the last few months I have become very fond of this pocket sized source of entertainment.

I have discussed the Sony PSP in previous posts, such as this post 15/04/2008 - Long Haul Flight Sanity : Hand Held Movies. As I have integrated my Sony PSP into my 'travel sanity' it has become my entertainment device of choice. Compared to using my laptop or portable DVD player the Sony PSP offers far more advantages than disadvantages. Obviously the PSP's screen is far smaller than that of a laptop or portable DVD, but it's ability to keep someone entertained for hours and hours and hours while in-transit more than makes up for screen size.

On a recent 70-hour journey that took me from New York to Beijing to Hong Kong to Beijing to New York I was able to use my PSP to watch movies for an astonishing 13 hours on two batteries. Once I arrived in Hong Kong I charged both batteries and watched movies on the entire return leg as well, try that with a laptop or portable DVD player.

How did I get such incredible battery life? Simple, I moved away from the 'UMD' disk movies and ripped movies from DVD directly to Memory-Stick Duo flash media. A single 4gb Memory Stick Duo can hold 8 movies! By using a Memory Stick Duo rather than a UMD disk the PSP draws no power for spinning the disk or reading the disk. Playing a movie on the PSP with these memory devices draws almost no power from the PSP when compared to other options. Solid-state memory increases battery life while also cutting down on significant space taken up by UMD disks. It is a win-win way to store your movies.

Since handling the PSP in you hands to watch a movie can be tiresome I travel with PSP Swing-Grip from Naki. For US$15 I can place my PSP in the Swing-Case, which doubles as a stand. The case can be used for transporting your PSP, or keeping it clan while playing games on your PSP. I personally transport my PSP in another case, but use the Swing-Grip to prop up the PSP to watch movies on the tray table to while away the hours.

So what now travels in my ultra-compact PSP-Kit?
- Newswear Small Press Pouch (everythink fits in the Newswear Pouch)
- Naki Swing-Case
- Skull Candy 'Low Rider' headsets
- Sony PSP (Limited Edition Star Wars model)
- Two 2gb Memory-Stick Duos / Two 4gb Memory-Stick Duos
- Spare PSP extended life 2200mah battery
- Sony PSP power supply
- Manhattan Portage 1004 Accessory Case (sleeve for PSP)

This kit fits neatly in even the tightest of packing situations (for ultra-tight packing situations I don't pack the Skull Candy headsets). The space taken up by this set up is far smaller than that of the most compact portable DVD player.


Elsewhere in my gear I pack an addition external PSP battery charger and second 'spare' 2200mah battery for the PSP. I also pack a set of Sony MDR-NC22 noise canceling headsets.

Below is a photo of my 'PSP Sanity Kit' on the bumper of my 1990 Volvo 245. Why is it on the bumper of my Volvo wagon at the beach? No idea, I just felt like playing around (a similar style shoot may show up again later this week :0))

Happy Flying!
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