Confessions of a flying tech commuter

The fact that Steve Marra flies from one meeting to the next isn’t that unusual. Like many business travelers, taking a plane is the most efficient way of getting from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ for the Santa Clara, Calif., marketing executive.

It’s the length of the trips that are atypical. Marra, who works for a new company called Liquidprice.com, makes short hops between regional airports in the Bay Area. He pilots the aircraft himself.

“It makes sense for me,” he says. “I mean, to drive to Monterrey takes 2 1/2 hours; I can do it by air in 33 minutes. Same thing for traveling to the East Bay: if you get stuck in traffic, it could take well over an hour. I can do it in a fraction of the time by plane.”

Marra won’t tell you that he’s also equipped with a thoughtful technology complement. Then again, with a Silicon Valley startup and pilot’s license on his resume, you could have probably guessed that.

So, in our occasional series about the gadgets travelers carry, I asked Marra to show us his tech arsenal:

THE PRIMARY LAPTOP: A Sony VAIO. Marra likes the unit’s 7.5-pound weight, which makes it easy to tote around. A top-of-the line VAIO, the PCGF690 P3, runs at 850 MHz and comes loaded with a 30GB hard drive, which is more than adequate for the flight-planning software he uses. At a list price of about $3,500, it isn’t exactly cheap – but then, what kind of technology is?

“The thing I like best about the Sony are the other things I can use it for,” he says. Such as? Marra takes advantage of the VAIOs bright 15-inch active-matrix LCD display to entertain his 3 1/2 year-old daughter on long commercial flights. “I just pop in a DVD of Winnie the Pooh, and she watches it,” he says. Downside: he wishes the batteries lasted longer.

THE PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT: A Palm VII. With a price tag of $399, the latest edition Palm VII comes with a variety of features, some of which Marra actually uses. First and foremost: the ability to send and receive wireless e-mail. He only gives the Palm e-mail address to his family and closest friends, so that when something arrives in his “in” box, he knows it’s important. Here’s a secret about Palm e-mail you might not know, but that Marra shared with me: the wireless e-mail feature works on commercial flights. On a transcontinental trip, he has no problem sending and receiving electronic dispatches starting over Colorado as he flies eastbound.

“I’ve never used the graffiti feature,” he admits. “I think it’s kind of tedious. The clipping service is kind of so-so.” (The clipping service, for those of you who don’t own a Palm, is an application that lets you access stock quotes, sports scores, news, and weather reports.) Despite its promise of wireless Internet, Marra doesn’t think the Palm VII is quite “net-ready” in the same sense as a PC with a land-line phone connection – or even a laptop with a wireless modem – is. If he wants to surf the Web, he still prefers doing so from a full-size computer.

THE CELLULAR PHONE: A Nokia 5190. (Cost: about $50 with a calling plan). This is Nokia’s garden variety, base model cell phone, featuring three to five hours of talk time with standard battery, enough memory to store 250 names and phone numbers, and the ability to send and receive text messages. But there’s one other feature Marra likes: it’s virtually indestructible. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped it. My daughter has dropped it, and the dog has kicked it, but it’s still there, and it keeps working,” he says.

The biggest downside: again, battery life. Marra says there’s never enough. Indeed, few cell phone batteries actually give you the amount of talk time they promise, to such an extent that cell phone battery life is something of a joke among frequent travelers.

Peripherals and software: For flight planning, Marra uses a Garmin 195 Global Positioning System. It offers a moving map display that shows the aircraft’s position over land, altitude, airspeed, and time to destination. “At times this is the most important system. I didn’t get a GPS until I had been flying for a while. I didn’t want to be seduced by the technology – I wanted to be able to navigate in the pre-GPS area,” he says. Add to that the usual suspects on the laptop computer – Word, Excel and Outlook – and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what Marra carries with him.

But what Marra brings on the road isn’t as important as what he doesn’t. He threw his pager out long ago and he takes “technology free” weekends, where he doesn’t check e-mail or spend time in front of a laptop. “I think it’s important to not get so enamored of these gadgets that you become a slave to them,” he says. “Besides, you should try checking e-mail with a 3 ½-year-old on your lap.”

Marra’s recommendation to others who are trying to get the perfect technology setup: “Make sure your batteries are charged.”

That’s always good advice.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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