Servers while you are on the road
While I live in Israel the availability of good network bandwith on the away/upstream side is very expensive above dialup speeds even with a decent download speed DSL line. Fortunately in the USA you can connect onto a friends DSL, cable, or fiber optic line and provide yourself with an always connected system to do work for you while you are offline. I was lucky enough to get offered a connection to a fiber line of 2m upload and 15M download making this virtualy unlimited against what is available in Israel.
Dynamic DNS services such as dyndns.org allow you to keep even a changing IP address fixed to a domain name so it is always findable on the net.
A server can be a generic computer loaded with Linux or other server operating system and is designed to be administered from network only, my server is connected only to network and power. Think longevity as you will want this machine running for years without shutdown. Quality disks and power supply are essential to prevent failure, two large disks running hardware or software RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) you might even consider a flash based (use a CF to IDE converter) / directory in linux and make it read only.
Screen is a program that lets you login and leave a console running even if you disconnect so it can complete its task. You could connect, and run screen, start a torrent download, then disconnect letting you do this task even if you only have a GPRS or cellular connection. Once you have your file find a wifi hotspot and order a coffee while you grab your file. Often The file is too large for your Z mencoder if run on your server will let you squeeze your downloads to a size and bitrate usable on your Z.
You are the server
If you are fortunate enough to stay in a place where you know the owner of a wireless access point in the area you can set yourself up as a server!! That Z is an amazing mini server if you set a root password and then make a seperate public account (don't let root be their login!!) running thttp and proftp. Now log onto their router which should be properly password protected, if they are non techies try default passwords http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html and set your IP address to DMZ. DMZ means that your machine is now exposed naked to the Internet and it can be contacted by any other machine on the net. Again a dynamic DNS service can be set to help your friends find your server.
