Hardware for East/West Living Sony DVD Digitally remastered movies. Letterboxed images. Digital 6 channel surround-sound. Switchable subtitles and audio tracks. Scene selection. Room for a movie, trailers, featurettes, and other bonus materials on a cd-sized media. It's an amazing format. If you haven't seen it, you need to... HP PhotoSmart Scanner I'm using this to digitize all the slides that appear on this site. PDA's A truly portable, digital notebook/scheduler/sketchpad. How did I ever live without it? I was a PalmPilot addict, till mine broke. I replaced it with a Philips Nino. The Nino is a little bigger, but does everything a little better. JVC DVM1 Digital video. Digital sound. I never go to an Asian dance or music performance without it. Bali in my living room! Minolta 9xi My 35mm camera of choice. I shoot Fujichrome 100 and Ilford XP2 Film, and put my best shots to Kodak PhotoCD. Digital Cameras I have a Casio, but you should buy an Olympus. I don't use this much, now that I have my HP Photosmart scanner. Sony MiniDisc DVD? Duh! Recordable digital has been around for over two years. Iomega Zip Drive Live without one at your own risk. Mobile Phones / Beepers Who ever thought we'd be stupid enough to pay for our own tracking devices? I won't waste space to write negative words very often, but I HATE these things!! People carry them for status, but to me, status comes with saying, "I'll choose when and where you can reach me". Software for East/West Living The Complete National Geographic This is what CD-ROM was invented for!  Every issue in the history of National Geographic, searchable, on CD.  A bargain at US$150. My only complaint is that you can't print text only (or at least I haven't figured out how yet).  Now I'm waiting for Outside Magazine on CD-ROM. Passage to Vietnam Simply the very best CD-ROM I have ever seen.  It captures Vietnam brilliantly, with photos, text, video, music, and narration. Power Japanese An excellent tool for learning Japanese. (Though I never did!).