Calculating the amount of carbon you need to offset for a flight can be complicated if your airline doesn't already offer a built-in facility to pay for this when you buy the ticket. Carbon Planet's Flight Emissions Calculator can help out, calculating the emissions involved in any sequence of flights and optionally letting you purchase a carbon credit for them. The airport entry system is a bit fiddly, but seems to cover most Australian cities with airports. The calculated impact in dollar terms also seems a tad high -- it's about ten times more than Qantas charges on its site for similar flights -- but it's still an interesting investigative tool. Thanks Martin!

Mark Gladding (who created previously mentioned Text2Go as his day job) blogs about the ways in which you can use an iPod for in-car entertainment, covering all the options from the extremely low-tech (listening through the supplied earbuds) Like Mark, I'd concur that it's a waste of money to buy an in-car FM transmitter; you're better off getting a replacement car stereo that supports audio input. If you want to keep your iPod in place, check out this DIY car iPod dock. Got any other tricks to get your iPod rockin' roadside? Share them in the comments. [8 Ways to iPod your Car]

Blogger Mediamum shares the experience of planning and executing a family move from Sydney to Colorado in just eight weeks, including how to get rid of your excess possessions and choose what to ship, store and take in your luggage. One particularly notable point that often catches out travellers to the US:

We had three different estimates of how much we could take on board our flight to the USA. Syd-LA with Qantas said 32kg each bag was fine. What most of the Qantas people didn't tell us was that for our connecting domestic flight from LA to Denver, the limit is just 23kg. It sucked to find that out two days before leaving.

When people contemplate Internet and telephone access on planes, the normal issues that get raised are the cost, and whether this will lead to an increase in noise levels as everyone makes "I'm on the plane" calls. An article at AVN (a very NSFW link) raises another issue which comes up less often but is equally hard to solve: should airline staff also be responsible for ensuring that passengers don't access wildly inappropriate content such as porn movies while flying? While it might be hard to imagine someone paying a fee for Internet access and then using that time to view some adult action, the near-universal recognition of the "mile high club" concept suggests it's not totally out of the question. In fact, the problem already exists insofar as people can watch DVDs on their laptops when on board. Is it OK to watch Snakes On A Plane (in either version) during a flight? In the absence of an industrial relations ruling, we'll throw this one over to readers as a weekend contemplation issue. Should airline staff be authorised to tell people what sites they visit, or can we rely on the social contract? Share your thoughts in the comments.

A recent survey by airfarewatchdog found that 85% of people would like to see a separate section on planes for people travelling with their kids. While that's both unrealistic and a little selfish, screaming young 'uns can add to what's already a stressful experience for many people. Here's some suggestions for how to survive the experience, drawing on some ideas from airfarewatchdog.

Read More »

Setting up an ergonomic workspace at home or at your office where you have the most control over your environment is a lot easier than when you're travelling with your laptop and don't know where you'll wind up hunkering down for a work marathon. You already know how to set up a healthy work station with an ergonomic calculator, arrange your workspace for computing that's easy on your body, and even replace your office chair with an exercise ball to help with good posture. But what about when you're away from your home or office workstation? Mobile computing site Wi-Fi Planet offers a few tips.

Read More »

Jetstar is currently running its 30 cent fuel discount offer, which provides a one-time voucher offering 30 cents a litre off if you book a flight before August 28. While this might represent a useful bonus if you booked a flight you were planning to take anyway, there's a danger that people will buy tickets they didn't otherwise plan to get, thus eliminating any real savings. A similar logic applies to the extra 2 cents off you can get in many servos if you purchase $2 of goods -- if that's not stuff you needed to buy, I figure the saving is illusory. But what do Lifehacker readers think? Are fuel cost saving initiatives worth pursuing, or are you better off trying to cut the amount of car travel you undertake? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Sites that let you book cheap local hotel rooms online are hardly a new commodity -- in the local market, there's Wotif, Hotelclub, Quickbeds and Check-In (and they're just the ones I can think off without prompting). Apparently that hasn't dissuaded eBay and Webjet from entering the fray with a new and similar offering, lotsofhotels.com.au. On an initial test, there's not much to differentiate the site (other than a scandalously slow search feature), and it doesn't take advantage of two obvious options for this partnership -- signing in via your eBay details or making payments via PayPal. As well, the inventory seems much smaller than most of the aforementioned competitors, but for budget-minded travellers, it never hurts to have another comparison option in your bookmarks. [lotsofhotels.com.au]

Vodafone has expanded its wireless broadband range with a new USB Internet Stick, which lets you access 3G broadband without the hassle of an external modem hanging from your notebook PC. (Rival 3 launched a similar offering back in May.) Vodafone says that the stick (available in black or white) will self-install using software stored on its 4GB of resident memory, which is a claim I'll be interested in testing, having just spent the better part of a fortnight trying to get an existing Vodafone USB modem working on a Vista machine. (It also suggests that the unit might not work on a Linux box such as the Eee PC, unlike its predecessor.) Standalone pricing starts from $29.95 a month on a 24-month contract with a 1GB monthly download limit; given Vodafone's famously elastic approach to contracts, make sure that you get any conditions that are important to you specifically noted in writing before signing up. [Vodafone Mobile Broadband]

I encountered a minor nuisance while at Delhi airport on my way back from a quick trip to India: the Wi-Fi network you have to pay for. I stumped up for the connectivity, but a colleague had less luck -- not because he wasn't willing to pay, but because the service in question would only accept Visa, and not MasterCard. When I first began travelling the world, it was accepted wisdom that you needed both Visa and MasterCard to be sure of credit cards being accepted, with the former predominant in Europe and the latter a necessity for the US. These days, I find that pretty much anywhere that takes credit cards accepts both -- but as the Wi-Fi example shows, the experience isn't universal. Having a backup card certainly avoids that kind of problem, and also gives you an emergency option if one card is damaged or stolen (especially if you don't store them together). But is that a sensible strategy? Is carrying two cards just in case one doesn't work fiscal prudence gone mad? What other strategies do you use to avoid being caught out when it comes to paying for goods on the road? Share your thoughts in the comments.