As summer approaches, more and more of you will be replacing the notebook bag for a backpack, and your suit for shorts. Which can only mean that it’s vacation time!

But one question I see pop up a lot is; will my electronics work abroad?

The only way to tell, is to check the back, bottom or side of your power adapter/charger. It’ll clearly state what input voltages it is rated for. The voltage you need, depends on the country you are traveling to. North America uses 120 Volts, Mexico 127 Volts and most of Europe is on 230 Volts. I’ve taken photos of some adapters I found here to show you what to look for:

This Canon battery charger is fine with anything from 100-240 Volts, which means it’ll work anywhere.

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In just a few short years we’ve seen HTC grow from a tiny unknown Taiwanese phone designer into one of the worlds largest developers of smartphones.

HTC design and produce phones like the T-mobile Dash and Wing, the AT&T Tilt and the Sprint Mogul. Almost every major operator in the world has at least one HTC phone in their lineup.

So, when HTC announced that they’d be revealing their newest products on May 6th in London the rumor machine went into full swing.

The top 5 (semi) confirmed rumors at the moment are:

• A phone code named "Diamond" with a VGA screen, multi-touch interface and 3MP camera. Possibly destined for…SPRINT!
• A new lineup of VGA resolution Touch enabled phones
• The presentation of their new "Manila" touch interface
• An update on the "Dream" smartphone running the Google Android OS
• A new version of the HTC TyTN (TyTN III).

The one thing all these new phones seem to have in common is a flush screen, no longer recessed (think iPhone). They may also have orientation sensors (one again, from the iPhone).

Naturally I’ll post more about these new phones when more has been officially revealed.

Last week I took a quick look at 3 products to make traveling with kids easier. One of those products was the iFrogz Tadpole case/headphone kit, and I promised I’d give you a review of it. The Tadpole case is a silicone rubber case for the iPod; it’ll fit the 30, 60, 80 and 160Gb video/Classic iPod versions.

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One of the comments in my "Proporta Gadget Bag" article asked how much all that stuff weighs…

Remember; that includes the gadget bag, 3 phones, a VOIP adapter, 2 headsets, sim cards, an iPod, all the chargers I could ever need, battery backup power, a camera, flashlight, a laser pointer, 2 mice, memory cards, a WiFi adapter and loads of cords.

Back when every one of my gadgets required its own charger I was probably carrying close to twice that much. Under 2 kilos for everything I need on a trip (not including whichever laptop I use that week) is really not that bad.

It has taken almost a year, but our neighbors of the north are finally going to be able to get their hands on iPhones later this year.

Rogers is the lucky one, but from what little I know of Canadian GSM operators, they are both equally bad.

It’s fairly safe to assume that the iPhone they’ll be getting will not be the current (non 3G) model.

Source: PRNewswire Rogers press release.

I’m sure this one will come as a surprise to the folks in Waterloo, but the first real photos of a Blackberry 9000 have shown up… in an Ebay auction. The auction is currently listed as "closed because of an error in the listing", which is probably code for "I got a really nasty C&D".

Click on the read more link for more photos from the auction, as I’m sure RIM is working quite hard to get them removed from the web as we speak. In any event, it’s a really sexy device, with what looks to be a higher resolution display, a card slot on the side, a full size headset jack and of course WiFi/3G.

There is even a Youtube video showing off the new user interface.

(Via Engadget)

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Fry’s currently has a 2Gb MicroSD card on sale for just $4.99. You’ll be charged around $6 shipping, and tax in states where they have a store (as well as OH, where they have their warehouse).

MicroSD cards fit in loads of gadgets nowadays, including most recent Blackberry phones and many PDA’s.

Even with shipping this card is just $11, which is a sweet bargain. Shipping does not appear to go up when you order more than one, so save some money and order a couple of them!

Purchase link

Last year PDA software developer PDAmill decided to stop developing for the Palm OS.

Instead of continuing to sell games they no longer support, they made the generous move of releasing all the games for free!

These 7 games used to sell for around $20 each and are really good quality programs.

You can get them here.

Microsoft has a bit of a problem with Vista. Even though it is selling quite well, there are still some people that simply don’t want it. Those folks claim that XP is just fine for their needs.

Joining that rank is Dell, who simply refuse to tell their customers that XP is no longer an option.

Microsoft already gave in to demands from UMPC manufacturers allowing them to deliver XP on machines like the Asus Eee PC till 2012, but anyone else is out of luck in 2 months. Thankfully, Dell have decided to take advantage of a licensing loophole in Vista that allows them to continue delivering their machines with XP. They’ll still need to include a Vista CD and license, but they will pre-install XP for "select product lines".

As much as Microsoft would love to get rid of XP for good, it only makes sense that they listen to their largest customers and give them what they want.

Source: PCWorld

On an average trip, I carry along an obscene amount of stuff. Here are the contents of my current gadget bag:

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