29palms imagine the earth as a big puzzle your goal is to go from point A to point B. The important is to know all the pieces or at least as much as you can.
The majors one are the airports, the carriers, the weather forecast. The knowledge of the routes helpsyou to link the pieces together. This great site helps me a lot:
http://www.airlineroutemaps.com/
Checking the weather can help you a lot because if your international flight is full the the hub you will take it from but if the weather is bad from one region which is known to be a feeder to this hub chance will become good to make it due to misconnects.
From any place I go to I will find out which ZED carrier fly and to and where in case I get stuck with my own airline (which is most of the time my preferred choice because I'd rather be in the front, I have more priority and I know the exact loads).
Yes it is useful to have a laptop and being able to get connected.
By the way forget that I said about STN our system was updated regarding the charges.