What’s In My Gadget Bag, 2005 edition
As I was unpacking my bags from the USA November Mega Trip, I was looking at the amount of stuff that goes into the small “carry-on” bag I use during flights and that I carry round the conference. And then remembering all the ‘equipment’ pictures I’m familiar with from the multitude of aeronautical books. So in that tradition, meet the contents of my gadget bags.
Click for full size on Flickr
The bag itself is a Roadwarrior PodZilla, available in the UK from Proporta. It’s about the size of a normal camera bag, but with three zipped wings, mesh to hold small devices, elasticated pockets, a nice big central section and a ‘hidden’ pocket for some emergency cash it’s a lovely size. generally slides under the seat in an aircraft (Or a Bus. Or Train) without getting in the way of my feet, and holds all the entertainment for travelling.
The games machine of choice is a Nokia N-Gage QD, with 16 of the Nokia branded MMC titles. With about 15 hours of gameplay time on the battery, and sharing the same charger as my ‘active’ mobile phones, I think it’s a sensible pick, doesn’t get too big in the airplane cattle seat, and hey, I like it! That phone is the Nokia 9500 Communicator, with both camera, qwerty keyboard, wi-fi and full email and web browsing clients it’s priobably the best all-round small machine when out and about. Both run from the same charger (carried in my light rucksack) and both will work with the N-Gage branded Jabra Bluetooth hands-free… which also charges from the standard Nokia A/C.
Two other PDA’s are carried. The first is the Palm Tungsten T5. I find that the Palm Desktop client is still teh msot straightforward organiser for contacts, diary and to-do list management, so the Palm is used literally as an extension of this. The eBook functionality (using the Palm Reader application) is a perfect eBook application, and the 320z480 colour screen makes reading easy. There’s a double up of functionality as the MMC card and stored files (which include the eBook’s) can also be read by the 9500 and N-Gage.
Second place goes to the Psion Series 5mx. It’s an old warhorse of a machine, and while the others might be flash, new, shiny and exciting, having a full office suite of applications, the best portable keyboard of any PDA, coupled with 25 hours of battery life from two easily replacable AA batteries makes it not only a great chocice for writing long articles while travelling, but a perfect ‘backup’ machine for everything else. If batteries run flat, or resets occur, I know the CF and the 5mx is always going to be there. On trips that can last up to two weeks, that’s a great comfort.
Music next, and in the far left corner you can catch site of two pairs of headphones. The first is a cheap disposable pair of American Airlines Headphones which I picked up on the 777 flying over to the Portable Media Expo. The second pair is a set of Super.Fi 5 Pro in the earphones from Ultimate Ears. I got this pair from Ultiamte Ears at the Portable Media Expo, and they are fantastic. They’re noise reducing, but not active noise reducing – working with a number of silicone sleeves that mould to the shape of the outer ear canal and drastically reducing the ambient noise levels you hear. The earphones themselves have two speakers in each side, a treble and a bass speaker. My minidisc volume normally sits at 17/30 when lsitening to music. With the Super.Fi 5 Pro’s, the volume is 3/30. The phrase “and I wept” pretty much sums up the experience.
Two microphones are also in the bag. They’re both condenser microphones, one plugs directly into the Minidisc Recorder (not shown) and the other is on a tie clip and two feet of cable. With these mics, the MiniDisc and a blank minidisc, I can switch to ‘interview’ mode in about 20 seconds if needed. One example here was capturing Brian Ibbot (from Coverville) to record an intro for a TPN Rock show.
In terms of musical content, I carry five discs with me now. One disc is made up of every single track that has ever spun on TPN Rock (http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/rock). Two discs carry 2 seasons of Paul McGann ‘Doctor Who’ from Big Finish Audio. The other two are tailored discs. One is my generic day to day Rock and Pop disc, the other is labelled In-Flight and Relaxing.
Next up is something you’ve never seen me do, or have sat open-jawed as I work some magic with nothing more than a pack of Bicycle cards. To make a good show (and I strive to have as few a “pick a card- was it this one” sets as possible) I have two packs (one red and one blue) and a bundle of spare cards which are used for tricks that invovle ripping, deforming, fire and brimstone. The leather flip case is one I accquired from my Dad when I was about 6 or 7, I don’t know the rest of the history behind it.
Ahh, the trusty maglite. Useful for so many things, such as hunting under seats, looking for the lights in drive-by motels, and illuminating an impromptu babecue at the Expo. It has some spare hair bands wrapped round the barrell as well, and as it runs on AA batteries, it’s compatible with the set of spare AA’s I carry.
The box of drugs includes a sheet of Ibuprofen, a sheet of Pro-Plus, and a sheet of Paracetamol. On my first USA trip I got a blinding headache after the first five days and headed straight to a chemists to get some paracetamol. Hunted high and low, before asking at the counter. Oh the looks I got. It’s not available over the counter, and even on prescription it’s regarded as evil by the sounds of it. So I got handed some Tylynol instead.Lesson was learned. Bring your own pills (although comments now point out it’s the same active drug – which is weird).
The two packs of chewing gum should be pretty self explanatory. Only thing to point out is that I use the ‘pieces’ of gums rather than stips of gum. The tin of mints is, of course, the legendary UIQ mints. No conference can be without them, and just half a tin will get you through 3 days of floor work, seminars and exhibitions. The Symbian Top Trumps is a little pocket guide to Symbian phones. I have this idea of creating an Open Source ‘Top Trumps’ engine for Symbian, so this is here for the moents when I can do some programming in OPL.
The All About Symbian Business Cards are pretty standard, although I’m going to have to invest in some cards that coverall threee of my main sites (AAS, TPN and the blog here), probably with my Lego avatar on the card. It’s amazing just how many people recognise me from that avatar. A collection of pens, again pretty standard, as are some flyers that I’ve picked up. Plus a Readers Digest for the flight back from the USA – because the other magazines in the Airport Rack were a bit word-light. Honestly.
And that’s the Gadget Bag. Now there’s a few things mentioned in the text but not on show. That’s because they get carried on ‘my person’ in a four pocket waistcoat and belt. I’ll start on a write up of those next, but for now… any thoughts?
December 1, 2005; Mobile Computing, Personal Posts;
Possibly Related posts:
- Proporta Gadget Bag reviewed on AAS
- Symbian Dev Expo Follow Up
- What’s in My Gadget Bag?
- Engaging the User
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2 Responses to “What’s In My Gadget Bag, 2005 edition”
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[...] Well, have a look here. [...]
Wow, that’s a lot of stuff :-)
I know you’re the last MiniDisc user on Earth, and I can appreciate the convenience of using blank disks as backup instead of using a DAP with line-in.
It strikes me that you’re soo much more mobile than someone with a lappy. The Psion and 9500 means you can write quite a lot without using a bulky PC/Mac.
/g.