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General: What's in your bag?

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      CommentAuthorbrokentry
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2010
     
    I thought John and the boys did a nice job on a "What's in you bag" show. I thought we might could add what unique things we carry here. Nothing major, but what I like to have is a binder clip for receipts so they don't pile up in my wallet.


    Also, I posted these comments in his show notes:
    Enjoyed the show. I thought it might be even too nerdy for me, but sadly I actually liked it.
    What's the difference between your belkin and this belkin besides about $5.
    Also, are you always going to carry your laptop and your ipad? If not will you use the same bag. I'm in a nerdy dilemma as I will just be using my ipad in front of customers but will need my laptop as I bounce between my home, office, and coffee shop. Not sure what bag or method to use for this.
    • CommentAuthorjas
    • CommentTimeMay 2nd 2010
     
    I don't carry a bag or a wallet. I have a card sleeve in which I carry a debit card, credit card, driver's license and student ID. Made it myself: http://www.instructables.com/id/Super-Thin-Tyvek-Card-Sleeve-Wallet!/ />
    That's all I carry on me. Oh, and my iPhone and a pen.
  3.  
    good questions.

    the Belkin vs Belkin answer is they appear to be the zact same thing. and in fact they are with one exception. the part numbers are different.

    binder clips are a good idea. having 1 or 2 could be used to solve a few problems. including keeping paper together.

    we're pretty sure that your reliance on your laptop is going to diminish over time. I was talking about this last night with somebody that was considering a new MacBook Pro. I was telling him how my next Mac is going to be either iMac instead of a MacBook. the MacBook Pro)totype that I have is going to be able to do work for a long time in the roll of notebook. but I need a more powerful CPU to make my render times lower. but I don't want to spend the $$ for a Mac Pro which is now 9 months in need of an update (those stupid expensive Xeons do have that much more power compared to a regular old QuadCore). what I'd really like to buy is the the missing Mac.

    but back to your question. I think I would go with 2 bags instead of just one. your iPad bag could have all your presentation cables and benders, that spiffy Belkin power strip, etc. the reason would be to impress the kids you are presenting to. mostly because it will be light, minimalist and they haven't seen it done yet. a year from now it will be less impressive. leave the laptop bag in the trunk. I haven't done a survey of bags to support this meme but there will be lots of them. here's a good start.

    the tyvek wallet looks useful. too bad I don't have floppy disk sleeves any more. had a bunch of them last year until I closed Virtual Fry's.
    • CommentAuthorrider
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010
     
    johnfoster:we're pretty sure that your reliance on your laptop is going to diminish over time. I was talking about this last night with somebody that was considering a new MacBook Pro. I was telling him how my next Mac is going to be either iMac instead of a MacBook. the MacBook Pro)totype that I have is going to be able to do work for a long time in the roll of notebook. but I need a more powerful CPU to make my render times lower. but I don't want to spend the $$ for a Mac Pro which is now 9 months in need of an update (those stupid expensive Xeons do have that much more power compared to a regular old QuadCore). what I'd really like to buy is the the missing Mac.


    Need more speed but don't want to waste a ton of money on a mac. hmmm there is an obvious answer to this but I won't say it.
    • CommentAuthorjohnfoster
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010 edited
     
    okay, I will. I've been looking at integrating more Windows 7 into my life primarily because I've grown completely frustrated by the lack of options that Apple offers for hardware.

    the "missing Mac" that I keep referring to is the QuadCore i5 or i7 that has 4 SATA ports. I'm not interested in paying for a shiny over designed case and I'm totally behind replaceable graphics card options none of which include that $1500 nVidia card. and it's not like that Mac doesn't already exist as we've seen made by the hackintosh crowd.

    I'm not opposed to building a Mac up from a box of parts. and I'd do it except for that one problem of support. you've heard my <rant>about OSS, getting it to work, finding doc, solving problems</rant> so imagine having an unsolvable Mac problem based on weird hardware or some unseeable .plist hack. no thanks.

    that new AMD 6 core chip is cheap and really zippy. so maybe that's my next box.
    • CommentAuthorrider
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010
     
    johnfoster:okay, I will. I've been looking at integrating more Windows 7 into my life primarily because I've grown completely frustrated by the lack of options that Apple offers for hardware.

    the "missing Mac" that I keep referring to is the QuadCore i5 or i7 that has 4 SATA ports. I'm not interested in paying for a shiny over designed case and I'm totally behind replaceable graphics card options none of which include that $1500 nVidia card. and it's not like that Mac doesn't already exist as we've seen made by the hackintosh crowd.

    I'm not opposed to building a Mac up from a box of parts. and I'd do it except for that one problem of support. you've heard my <rant>about OSS, getting it to work, finding doc, solving problems</rant> so imagine having an unsolvable Mac problem based on weird hardware or some unseeable .plist hack. no thanks.

    that new AMD 6 core chip is cheap and really zippy. so maybe that's my next box.


    Yeah I'm shocked at how cheap the new AMD chips are. It's tempting to drop 200$ on an upgrade even though I don't need it. Personally if you can do it I think you would love the switch. Ever year or 2 for a few hundred dollars at the most you can upgrade to pretty much whatever you want. Particularly if you are doing a large amount of rendering which lets face that's one of the few jobs that you would still see benefits from upgrading.
  7.  
    exactly. it's really hard to justify buying new hardware based on clock speed alone. I know that CPUs have greatly improved making the GHz numbers nearly meaningless for comparison. the 2.5GHz PPC doesn't hold up well compared to the same speed Core2Duo.

    the other problem is that I'm typing on a 4 year old MacBook Pro. that experience would be exactly the same on a new Mac. there's no way to improve the typing experience. and using it with something like Final Cut doesn't feel any faster or slower compared to using it on say an old G5. the UI was made for to be fast in 1998.

    one that that wouldn't change at all is the USB problem that I constantly have. two ports is the suck. I would love to see a hack to get power to a keyboard so I can plug other stuff into it without the Mac complaining about power.
    • CommentAuthorrider
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010 edited
     
    johnfoster:exactly. it's really hard to justify buying new hardware based on clock speed alone. I know that CPUs have greatly improved making the GHz numbers nearly meaningless for comparison. the 2.5GHz PPC doesn't hold up well compared to the same speed Core2Duo.

    the other problem is that I'm typing on a 4 year old MacBook Pro. that experience would be exactly the same on a new Mac. there's no way to improve the typing experience. and using it with something like Final Cut doesn't feel any faster or slower compared to using it on say an old G5. the UI was made for to be fast in 1998.

    one that that wouldn't change at all is the USB problem that I constantly have. two ports is the suck. I would love to see a hack to get power to a keyboard so I can plug other stuff into it without the Mac complaining about power.


    I love trying to explain this crap to people when I"m building systems for them. My new major problem people who go out and buy a new system with the mentality that bigger number equal better system and end up buying with something windows 7 64 bit on it. Then they get it home and try to hook up there 10 year old printer to it and want me to come in and work a miracle.
  9.  
    the good news is that new printers are so much better then the old ones.
  10.  
    One thing that will be interesting to see is how much specialty hardware starts becoming a key part of computers. There is only so much a CPU is going to be able to do, whereas specialized hardware like video decoder chips can allow for big performance gains relatively easily. Unfortunately expansion slots have gone out of style (especially at Apple), but being able to use specialized cards to make a notebook easily decode massive video or run USB 3.0 devices or what have you can be a big win. Devices like the RedRocket and the BlackMagic cards and the video decoding chips in the iPad are examples of what can be done in this area. It will be interesting to see if this sort of hardware can be leveraged more fully in consumer systems to boost performance without having to funnel everything through the CPU and GPU.
    • CommentAuthorrider
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010
     
    johnfoster:the good news is that new printers are so much better then the old ones.


    When it's a giant 1200$ Sharp MFP they get kind of upset.
  12.  
    ahh... could that be "printer shared" using an XP machine to allow other stuff to print it that share? seems like that would work.
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      CommentAuthorbrokentry
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010
     
    I have thought about two bags but that seems like a little overkill. Unless maybe I could find a "bag within bag" solution and could just pull the smaller one out when going on calls. We use Lotus Notes (gag), so I will have to use the laptop for quotes, orders and the like.
    I see your dilemma, John. Apple is going for the broad home market and obviously that doesn't help when it comes to being able to upgrade your own machine. My home iMac has a 250 gb he'd and I am using an external but would love to (easily) be able to through a TB in there.
    I have liked the experience so much more on the mac though, it would be hard to go back. But maybe in your case it makes sense.
    • CommentAuthorjohnfoster
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010 edited
     
    the bag in a bag can work but it has to be the right bag. one problem is it has to be a bigger bag to accommodate it. so automatically it starts collecting more stuff. another problem is having something so heavy that it hurts to carry it. that "Logitech" (not made anymore it appears) bag that Kenji had seemed to be a balance of that. although it seemed too heavy to me.

    replacing a hard drive in an iMac is easy or really difficult depending on the model. the G5 models had a very clever case. while the latest are built almost ship-in-a-bottle like. the only thing more complicated is the iBook G4. I think if you were confident and moved methodically it wouldn't be a big deal to do this job.

    a very temporary edition to my bag is a bottle of "champagne" from Schramsberg. I got it for helping fix somebody's borked laptop. which means I really should stop pre-production on the Champagne show and record it. you're all invited just so you know.
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      CommentAuthorbrokentry
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010
     
    johnfoster:the bag in a bag can work but it has to be the right bag. one problem is it has to be a bigger bag to accommodate it. so automatically it starts collecting more stuff. another problem is having something so heavy that it hurts to carry it. that "Logitech" (not made anymore it appears) bag that Kenji had seemed to be a balance of that. although it seemed too heavy to me.
    Yeah, that's a good point. I have a huge backpack now by Swiss, which I will pass onto one of my kids going to high school next year. I have the "zip top" style, and might just get a sleeve for my laptop and put it in there and then take out the laptop when I don't need it. That will still be "too much bag" at times. I went on that website you linked to and it looks nice, but I hate the thought of ordering a $100+ bag, without getting my grubby little hands on it first.
    I have the 20" Aluminum imac, I did read ifixit's instructions but am still somewhat nervous. I'll keep my fw hdd for now I guess, but may replace the internal later this year.
  16.  
    just so you know, every time I open anything for the first time I'm nervous. doesn't matter if it's a iPod, iPhone, MacBook or Dell. there's so much I don't know going in. you have to go slow, you can't force anything, and you have to be prepared stop when it feels wrong. posdef RTFM is key.
  17.  
    that bag has a really good return policy.
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      CommentAuthorbrokentry
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010
     
    Do you like the Pogo Sketch that (I think it's) Craig uses? Does it make the writing with Penultimate any finer? (i.e., less thick)
    • CommentAuthorjohnfoster
    • CommentTimeMay 3rd 2010 edited
     
    I liked using the Pogo Sketch. but I don't think I would use a Pogo full time like Craig does. he's really a tablet driven person. I'm still very much in like with paper when it comes to sketching. maybe because I'm old. or that paper was were my training was based. I've carried sketch books around since I was a kid.

    I'm pretty sure that if I spent a few hours with a Pogo I'd be right at home with it. at least the price is right so if I decide I just don't like it I'm only out about 10 bucks.
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      CommentAuthorbrokentry
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2010
     
    brokentry:
    What's the difference between your belkin and this belkin besides about $5.
    Have you been able to charge your ipad with this? I get the "not charging" message. Bummer.
  21.  
    I'll ask Kenji.... please stand by.
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      CommentAuthorbrokentry
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2010
     
    Thanks, John. Another strange thing was that through the usb charger it didn't charge my Palm Pro, although it held the current state-it was about dead, not sure if that had anything to do with it or note.
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    we were hanging out last night doing show planning. he said, "I hadn't tried it with my iPad. I will have to do that."

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