For those of us with jobs that require travel, packing all the gear we need can mean bulging luggage that earns us some extra quality time with TSA personnel at airport security checkpoints – what with all those wires and electronics in our bags.  Long time business traveler and uber-geek Brian Chee has a detailed a couple of tips and products that can help us minimize the items in our luggage and time spent with TSA personnel fingering our precious electronic goodies.

At the Inside Interop Blog, Brian lays out two ways to speed up your travel time.  First, he looks at the iGo line of power adapters.  The iGo system uses a universal power converter with several different adapter tips to fit a variety of electronics such as laptops, mobile phones, bluetooth headsets, iPods and more.  And if you combine a laptop charger with iGo’s Dualpower Accessory, you charge your laptop and a small portable device, such as a phone or iPod, simultaneously – with only one charger and two cables.

As Brian points out, having four or five power chargers in your luggage for your various electronics can raise a red flag for TSA screening personnel when your bags go through the scanners.  That big mess of wires probably looks likes the workings of a bomb!  So save your self some weight in your luggage and some time spent in the clutches of the TSA at airport security checkpoints by getting a multi-use power adapter from a company like iGo.

Brian’s second article talks about the recent cooperative efforts of the TSA and luggage manufacturers to develop “checkpoint friendly” laptop bags.  These new bags are designed to open up in such a way that the section containing the laptop can lay flat on the checkpoint screening conveyor belt, thus allowing TSA screening machines to examine the laptop without having to actually remove the laptop from the bag.  Several luggage manufacturers (see below) have already brought their “checkpoint friendly” laptop bags to market.  And although these bags are NOT officially endorsed by the TSA, they were developed with assistance from the TSA, using the TSA’s own laptop bag guidelines.  There has even been some anecdotal evidence that these new bags are working as advertised, with their owners getting through security without having to remove the laptop from the bags.

Checkpoint friendly laptop bag manufacturers:

eBags (www.ebags.com)

CODi (www.codidirect.com)

Aerovation (www.aerovation.com)

Skooba (www.skoobadesign.com)

MobileEdge (www.mobileedge.com)

Pathfinder (www.pathfinderluggage.com)

Briggs & Riley (www.briggs-riley.com)

Targus (www.targus.com)