San Francisco (CA) - Living in the fast lane these days usually means toting a laptop through TSA screening lines and into hotels.  But how do you keep those important computers clean and cool?  We review a few inexpensive products that promise to keep your laptop and your lap in top condition.

Notebooks are fairly fragile things and you know that three things will happen. First of all, it will collect dust and dirt, just like every computer component out there. Secondly, there is a really good chance of keyboard leaving a horrific imprint on LCD screen and thirdly, many notebooks will heat up like there's no tomorrow, so keeping them in laps becomes quite uncomfortable. My former office was using PowerBook G4 laptops and we were calling them “manpill” (for explanation of this, research what happens with male reproductive organs once thermal threshold is exceeded).

So, instead of reviewing a single part, we opted for a short review of a cheap, but efficient travel kit. We're happily using these components on a 12-inch HP Pavilion tx1001, 15.4-inch Toshiba Satellite A200 and a 17-inch
MacBook Pro. The kit contains LappyMats (PC121,
PC154 or PC17) and Thermaltake iXoft thermal pad. This is a one time expense of around 40 USD (per laptop), and only need to be changed if you change a notebook to something significantly different.

Personally, for travelling I prefer to carry a 12-inch wide-screen notebook due to the fact that I catch around 200.000 miles in air on annual basis.