I am in the middle of getting ready to go to Gen Con.  And, for me at least, coming up with the right collection of technology to take with me is going to be pretty important. 

I love Gen Con -- it's days and days of a complete celebration of things I love.  For our group of gamers, the centerpiece is, or has been, the D&D CHampionship.  And this year, we are entering a second tournament (goodman games) and we're actually going to have a full team of 5 from our home game, and won't be picking up other guys in Indy.  

Which is not to say that we haven't had some great guys join us in the past.  But good practice time makes a big difference for us, and we will finally have a fully group of players who have been running practice adventures with these guys.

But that's the prep that the group is making.  Me, personally, I've actually gone so far around the bend that I actually bought a new computer to take on the road with me, rather than taking my Macbook Pro along for the con. 

The machine of choice is an ASUS netbook.  Super small, super light, crazy long battery life, and just enough processor power to run the applications I need to have on the road.  

1. Acrobat reader - I have almost all of the D&D Books in PDF form (all purchased legally, thank you very much!). Obviously, with the new policy, the more recent books are not available in PDF format.  But in a lot of cases these PDFs are only necessary as a rules reference, not as a reference for character abilities or items, because . . . .
2. Character Builder - from the Wizards of the Coast DDI, this is the best thing since sliced bread.  Since this has the characters, powers, feats, skills, and magic items in it, this is the reference I'll need for most character related stuff. 
3. And, just in case things have improved at the con and we can get wireless access, a web browser will get me onto the compendium for an even more complete list of what's available. 
4. Evernote, for any notes I might want to make.

Obviously, the Macbook was waaaaay to much power for those sorts of needs.  The netbook also comes in many, many pounds lighter and takes up a whole lot less space in a bag -- and, by replacing all of the books I might need, it's also making it possible to enjoy the Con without carrying a 40 pound backpack on my back.  

Damn, I can't wait.  This year is going to be AWESOME.