Here’s a quick battery review for you. We got the Energizer XP20001PD Ultimate power delivery battery pack on sale at Fry’s Electronics last week. With the 20Ah power in a convenient form factor, it looked tempting.
The packaging is very enthusiastic, referring to the pack as ULTIMATE and calling it a “PD RocketHub.” As far as we can tell, there’s no USB hub functionality to be found. There are a pair of short charging cables included though: One USB-A to Micro-USB B and one USB-C to USB-C. There’s also a tiny instruction sheet.
Specifications:
The XP20001PD has a 74Wh/20000mAh battery with four USB-A ports (5V, max 4.2A over 4 ports) as well as a Micro USB input for charging (5V/2A). The distinction for this pack is a bi-directional USB-C port, supporting 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/2.4A both ways, as well as charging at 36W with 20V/1.8A and outputting 45W at a 20V/2.25A profile.
Two years ago, on December 31, 2016, we launched rsts11travel. For a couple of days the posts were a category on rsts11.com, before the new domain and blog were set up.
Two years and almost 50 posts later, the blog is chugging along and drawing pretty good readership. Some posts strike more of an immediate chord, but others keep drawing your eyes two years later. We definitely appreciate you sharing our posts and tweets wherever they show up, whether you follow us here, on Twitter, on Facebook, or by following our primary writer Robert.
Note that sometimes we throw quick notes up on Twitter or Facebook that never turn into posts here. Sometimes there’s a quick social media promotion from a travel provider, or a blog post from one of the bigger travel bloggers that we want to point you at. So it’s not just post updates, and we try to keep those channels high value/low noise.
Since this is an entirely self-funded blog (except for the occasional work trip that inspires a post), we use affiliate programs to help with the costs of items and events we review. Using the links in our posts and sidebars, like this generic travel search or a more specific like the Anker Powerstrip Pad for travel power extension (including USB-C Power Delivery!) that we just got in this past weekend, brings us a few bucks a month without costing you any more.
Speaking of affiliate programs and shameless plugs, we kept acquiring new carry-on style luggage this year. You may find the Solo Duane 15.6 hybrid bag useful, even though we haven’t reviewed it on the site yet.
Solo Duane 15.6 Inch Laptop Hybrid Briefcase, Converts to Backpack
It holds a chunky 15.6″ laptop (like the Lenovo Thinkpad P50) and an iPad Pro plus the chargers and accessories. Of course you can put a smaller laptop in, like an XPS 13 or XPS 15, or a Macbook of any size made in the last 9 years. Additionally, it works as a messenger/crossbody style bag, a standard laptop “briefcase” bag with handles, or even–get this–a backpack.
Buy it through our Amazon link and we get a little bit of a commission to help with the next item to review. And at $30, or $25 with a current Solo holiday coupon on Amazon, it’s an impressive value.
A couple of weeks ago, we reviewed 2018’s most viewed posts on Twitter. Not surprisingly, three of the top five were from our first week. Somewhat surprisingly, the most viewed post in 2018 was a “quick” update on Caesars Entertainment changes to their Total Rewards program.
(Follow @rsts11travel on Twitter or rsts11 travel on Facebook to get the latest updates, or just follow this blog on WordPress.com.)
Some of our goals for this year are to try out the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas (which replaced the Mandarin Oriental through a management change in late August 2018), cover some more local travel (parks and beaches in California, for example), provide some more newbie help on credit card and travel rewards optimization, and of course keep up with the latest changes in loyalty programs and benefits.
[See disclosure/disclaimer at the end if you’re into those things.]
Many of our readers will be headed to Las Vegas over the next couple of months. Whether it’s InteropITX, Cisco Live, VMworld, or something else, you may be curious about the quickest way to optimize your rewards and your stay while you’re there.
While reading all the other posts on rsts11travel would be the most thorough way to learn your way around Vegas, we figured we’d put together a unified list of things to do and think about as you head to what will be Tech City for much of the summer.
When you travel, you probably have a number of devices that demand connectivity. However, a lot of venues limit your allowed devices, and maybe you don’t want your devices out on the open network. Additionally, you may want to use streaming devices or shared storage in your room, and that may not work with typical public network setups.
Today on rsts11travel we’ll look at a couple of options for aggregating, optimizing, and even protecting your connectivity on a public hotspot, hotel network, or even on your own cellular connection.
There are three schemes we’ll consider in this series.
Connecting multiple devices to wifi
Connecting multiple devices to a wired network
Connecting multiple devices through a mobile hotspot/cellular modem
A caveat up front with regard to security and obfuscation: Not all of these options offer the same level of security for your devices, and most will not limit visibility of your connectivity as far as the facility staff, the ISP, or others on your network is concerned. Nothing in this series should be taken as replacing your OS and application updates, antivirus and anti-malware/anti-spyware software, and of course realization that security is subjective. Continue reading “Internet on the Road part 1 – how to optimize your travel connectivity”→
Here’s a quick battery review for you. We got the Energizer XP20001PD Ultimate power delivery battery pack on sale at Fry’s Electronics last week. With the 20Ah power in a convenient form factor, it looked tempting.
rsts11travel 