Back in January we told you about a group of celebrities who were climbing Kilimanjaro to raise awareness of the growing global clean drinking water crisis. The expedition was dubbed the Summit on the Summit, and it included musicians Kenna and Lupe Fiasco, as well as actors Jessica Biel, Emile Hirsch, and Isabel Lucas, amongst others. The team was quite successful in their efforts, with everyone reaching the top of the 19,340-foot mountain, the tallest in Africa.

The entire expedition was captured on film, and has now been edited down to a 90 minute television program that will air tomorrow night on MTV. Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro is scheduled to begin at 9 PM Eastern/8 PM Central. The show will follow the team from the foot of the mountain all the way to the top, and should prove to be interesting viewing for anyone who is considering making the trek themselves.

For a preview of the show, check out the trailer below, then set your DVR's accordingly.

I'm in love with Paris - ever since my first visit, it has been my absolute favorite destination. Even after close to 60 visits, I never get bored of the atmosphere. Right now, I'm sitting behind my desk enjoying the city in all its splendor, thanks to a 26 Gigapixel panoramic photo.

The panorama was created by Martin Loyer and Arnaud Frich, and involved shooting 2346 individual photos, and combining them into a single image 354159x75570 pixels large. Their site lets you browse around the panorama and zoom in on any portion.

Helpful pointers describe some of the various landmarks, along with their history. On the right hand side, you'll find a handy set of links to the most popular Parisian monuments.

And finally, in the top right hand corner is a small "HD" button - after installing a Microsoft plugin, you'll be able to view the panorama in "real" HD quality.

The amount of detail is amazing - it obviously isn't as nice as actually being there, but it sure is a fun way to spend my morning.

Here are the hottest gear deals for today, Saturday March 13th 2010. Remember, these deals are often valid for just one day, so act fast before they are gone.

Today's first deal is for the stylish Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth headset. This headset comes complete with a small leather charging case with built in backup battery charger. On sale for $39 over at Directron. Click here for this deal.

Next up is a (refurbished) pink Microsoft mobile mouse. The mouse features a compact wireless receiver that can be stored inside the mouse when not in use. On sale for $8.95. Click here for this deal.

Today's third deal is for the Belkin mini surge protector with USB charger. We mentioned this neat gadget in our guide on how to find an outlet at the airport. This product normally retails for about $20, but you can pick one up for under $13 with shipping. On the product page, check out the third party sellers on the right, and pick the lowest price option. Click here for this deal.

And finally in today's lineup, add 320GB of storage space to your computer with this external Toshiba drive. The drive is USB powered, so no need for a power adapter. Use the drive for backups, or as a way to carry more movies and music. On sale for just $60! Be sure to select the 320GB drive in white for the low price. Click here for this deal.

The list just seems to go on and on – there is no shortage of activities and amenities waiting for you at Sandestin Golf & Beach Resort. If you're into biking, kayaking, tennis or sweating it out in the fitness center, you'll have plenty of choices available to you. And there's even a Wednesday concert series. Simply put: you won't get bored at this destination on Florida's northwest Gulf Coast. Fleeing cold weather? The seven miles of beaches are the cure or the cold that's been hounding you for months. Well, if you book a three-night stay by May 26, 2010, you'll get free access to Sandestin's many amenities – which is reason enough to plan the trip you've been putting off.

The resort offers accommodations from studio condos to villas and cottages of up to five bedrooms. They come with fully equipped kitchens, whirlpool spa baths, laundry facilities and views of the beach, bay or golf course – with 1,500 units in all, spanning 30 neighborhoods.

The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has uncovered a massive scam/scheme in which 1.8 million riders were overcharged.

The scheme netted 36,000 drivers an extra $8.3 million in cab fares, charging passengers about $5 too much for each ride.

The overcharging wasn't even that hard for them to pull off - the cabbies would simply change their meter to a higher per-mile fare, reserved for rides in the Nassau and Westchester area.

When activated, the meter would show the new fare code, but I doubt anyone sitting in the back would actually notice. Sadly for the cabbies, the taxi commission did notice - and thanks to recording equipment and GPS tracking, they have been able to determine exactly which drivers were involved.

One driver - Wasim Khalid Cheema overcharged his passengers 574 times in one month, and has now lost his taxi license.

Of course, the cabbies are fighting back, claiming it could all just be one big misunderstanding. According to Bhairavi Desai of the Taxi Workers Alliance, the meters are to blame. Other cabbies join her - mentioning how easy it is to press the wrong button, complaining how small the buttons are on the meter.

Soon, New York taxi's will be outfitted with updated fare warning systems, which will alert riders to the higher fare, and make them acknowledge the fare change on the rear displays mounted in New York Taxi cabs.

Spring sunset skiing sessions kick off in only a few weeks at Keystone Resort. Starting March 28, 2010, you can get some great late-season skiing out in Colorado. Most resorts in the Rockies don't force skiers and snowboarders to call it quits until April 11 or 18, so there's still plenty of time to hop a plane and get a few runs in. at Keystone, you can pick up the "Game On" package for $99, which includes free NASTAR ski racing (for the family) and Nordic skiing.

Need some late-season skiing ideas? Here are three in Colorado:

1. Keystone Resort
Book by March 31, 2010 and you'll pick up a free night with the "Spring Break on Us" package (must stay three nights). While you're there, take the kids to the new Kidtopia Festival, with the Mountaintop Ultimate Snow Fort featuring 12-foot walls, a snow throne and a draw bridge, parades, disco tubing and more.

2. Vail
Take 33 percent off your stay at The Arrabelle at Vail Square and your lift ticket. While you're in town, check out the April 17 Wyclef Jean concert, as well as the World Pond Skimming Championships.

3. Arapahoe Basin
You can ski here through early June and even enjoy a ski "beach" scene, with barbecues, snow beach volleyball and hot tubs. If you need to feed your skiing addiction, A-Basin is the place to do it.

A mere 24 hours after American Airlines announced the expansion of their paperless boarding passes, United Airlines becomes more mobile with their own services. The United Airlines announcement involves two new technologies - mobile check-in and paperless boarding passes.

With mobile check-in, you simply point your mobile browser to mobile.united.com, and enter your flight information. If you are flying out of Chicago O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York La Guardia, San Francisco or Washington Dulles, you can have your boarding pass emailed to your device.

For other airports, you'll need to pay Mr Easy Check-In a visit to have a paper boarding pass printed. Of course, if you have baggage to check, you'll still need to stop at a desk or use a Skycap.

With the paperless option, you save a bar code image to your device, ready for the checkpoint and boarding gate staff to scan.

United expects to expand the paperless option to other airports as soon as possible. Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland and Seattle are next on the list to receive the service.

At the United Airlines mobile site, you can also check flight status, flight availability, Mileage Plus statements, Red Carpet Club locations and airport codes. I'm happy to see airlines invest in these technologies - anything that can speed up the process of getting from the front door of the airport to the plane is great.

Have you used mobile boarding passes yet? How was your experience with them?

Last week we kicked off our new feature, the 'Video of the Week' with a wonderful scene taken from the nose gear of a 747 that was flying freight in Africa. This week, the pilot and videographer uploaded a "How-To" video that shows just how those exceptional scenes were captured, and just how they managed to lower the nose gear without dropping the main landing gear at the same time.

While that's not this week's video of the week, we just couldn't get away from Balleka's YouTube channel just yet. I wanted to share a video he did from the perspective of the Flight Engineer or "FE." The FE is in charge of that rather large panel that sits behind the pilots on older aircraft like the 727 and, in this case the 747-200. In this rather amusing video, the "FE" laments that he's working with "Clowns to the left of him and Jokers to the right."

Full disclosure: I was an FE for over 4 years and I can certainly relate. It's a thankless job that doesn't even offer the chance to hand-fly a landing at the end of the day-which is the best part of the trip.

So here's Balleka's tribute to the FE, called the FE's Lament 2010.


Do you have a great travel related suggestion for our Video of the Week? Fill out this form or just include my twitter handle @veryjr in your tweet about it. Maybe we'll use it as next week's Video.

It's the weekend-- time to pour yourself a stiff drink and kick back with some Gadlinks. Here are our favorite stories from today...

• New York lawmaker demands bland food in New York restaurants.
• Brief, inspiring dispatch from Vagablogging writer Ted Beatie who is volunteering in Haiti.
• The Arctic: The harshest work environment in the world.
• Our favorite web comic Toothpaste for Dinner on backpacking across Indonesia.
• Ever wanted to quit your job to travel the world? "Every day," you answer. Bootsnall tells why it's not as crazy an idea as you think.

Want more Gadlinks? Here they are.