The Malcolm Owen Portable Office Kit

Mr John Chow Owner of The Tech Zone, posted a list of things that he carries around as a mobile office on his blog. It’s a good list, which in itself is a good guide to those that have never owned a laptop before as to what they might possibly need to take their work on the road. Taking this to heart, I’ve accumulated my own collection of stuff that I use when I’m not at home. Granted, I’m not as good or as rich as the mogul Mr Chow when it comes to building a collection of tech delights to carry around, but it’s still useful if I go to a Starbucks or home.

Beware – There Be Large Photos in this “Homage” after the jump.

The Bag is a Targus “Essential Notebook Backpac” (Their spelling, not mine). I chose it because it fulfilled the main criteria I want from a laptop bag:

1. It’s basic. I don’t want a laptop bag that has twenty pockets, a camo-netting storage and it’s own trailer park. I want a bag that is simple, with only a few pockets. This one has the main compartment in 2 sections (laptop bit and large stuff bit), the front pocket has 2 sections (the main pocket itself and a zipped netting bit inside for things that I want kept seperate from everything else in there), and 2 side pockets (A normal pocket and a netting pocket). It did come with a mobile phone holder that you could attach to the shoulder straps, but I took that off since it’s easily stolen.
2. It’s comfortable. Carrying it for long periods is possible, thanks to the straps being so large compared to other bags. My size (I’m a lardy guy) makes carrying a bag properly on both shoulders fairly prohibitive, and it’s nice to use a bag that actually allows for that. The shoulder straps aren’t the under-padded and cheap sewn on as an afterthought type that some bags have. Both straps are made from the same bit of material, so a large amount of it is sewn to the bag, making it much stronger. This makes me feel better, that it’s not going to suddenly hit the floor in the middle of a busy area, damaging whatever is inside it.
3. It’s cheap. It was sold in a Tesco. I didn’t have to send off for it specifically. I’ll take it!
4. It doesn’t look like a laptop bag. The only real clues that it isn’t carrying dirty laundry or books are the zip pulls (with the not so recognizable Targus logo adorning them), the word “Targus” on the smaller grey pocket, and the headphone gap on the side of the smaller pocket (and even then that’s not so uncommon with backpacks today). Only people that know the name Targus or their product range will know it’s a laptop bag, and the fairly normal colour scheme helps it blend in with the rest of the world’s bags. I don’t want my laptop stolen, damn it.

The workhorse itself is my Apple Mac. It’s a white Macbook (Defiled, thanks to a Ducti sticker on the top of it), which is pretty much the cheapest one they had of the Intel variety. I bumped the ram up to 1GB, but that’s about it. Wifi, Bluetooth, CD-RW and DVD, World of Warcraft, the fact that it makes people long for one when they’re in it’s presence, make it a fantastic buy.
What is even better than those reasons alone is the fact that if I want to do some work, I just open it up and start working on it. It sounds pretty normal, except that friends with laptops have to boot their’s up before they can use it, which wastes a lot of time, compared to the seconds (single digits, think around 3, maybe more depending on the circumstances) to take the Macbook out of hibernation. Yes, I know it can take ages to boot up the Mac from completely off, but the getting out of hibernation time spanks most PC based laptops.
A not too important but still good facet is that it’s fairly safe to leave the Macbook on at my mother’s house when I’m visiting, because I know full well that most people in my family have lived on Windows and so they don’t quite know how the programs work on OSX, so they stay away from it. Brilliant.
Not in photo – The charging unit that’s plugged in. I do take it with me when I leave the house, but I’m starting to think it would be a better idea to buy another charger to have permanently hooked up at home, and another in the bag for when I need an extra charge somewhere. The extra charger is about £60, though…

It’s a Logitech cordless mouse for notebooks. There are times where the trackpad is not enough (Such as an impromptu WoW session), and that’s where this little baby comes in. Since I prefer to use my fingers to control the mouse instead of the entire hand, it’s not too big a deal for me to use a notebook mouse. My main priority is that the mouse still be cordless (I have learned to hate the cord), and this one fits the bill. The USB dongle plugs into the side of the Mac, and the mouse works pretty much straight away, including it’s horizontal scrolling capability. It runs off a single AA battery, and when you aren’t using it, the dongle can clip to the bottom of the mouse to keep them together.
My only reservation with it is that the dongle is a bit wide and makes fitting other cables into the neighboring USB port a bit of a pain, but other than that it does the job admirably.
And yes, I know, I should have gone for a Bluetooth mouse, because that would work with my Mac without needing a dongle, but at the same time if I want to go to the local gaming center I really want to use my own mouse instead of any of the heavily used ones already in use. If you are used to using a specific bit of hardware, using another will feel alien and will take time getting used to it, so being able to plug in my own mouse is a good thing in cases like this.

Belkin has a kit of retractable cables. Although slightly expensive for my likes (£19.99 from Argos!), the zip-lock bag contains 3 cables and other things, consisting of:

1. Modem Cable (With converter so it will work with the UK phone system)
2. Network Cable (Patch)
3. USB Extension Cable (With converters so that it can be a proper USB cable as well as 2 more to connect to non-standard USB connection devices, like my digital camera.

All of these cables are retractable, and aren’t really that long. They’re long enough to do a few things with, especially in an emergency, but thanks to this Mac’s lack of a modem, I won’t really be needing the modem cable. I’m keeping them, because otherwise there’d be a gap in the kit, but then again I don’t quite know when I might need it.

The phone I’m using is a Vodafone UK Pay As You Talk Sagem my401V. It does quite a lot of what I want, such as the Bluetooth, the talking, the texting, but also the camera on it isn’t that bad. If I need to take an impromptu photo, it’s great. Sure, it’s not David Bailey quality, but it’s good enough for some photos. If it were any better, I’d definitely replace my current digital camera with it, but for quick shots it’s fine. Transfering to the Mac is fairly easy to do, and the fact it’s Tri-band means I can use it in he US or Canada if I ever make it over there.

Not pictured above but deserve comment anyway:

• Adaptor cable that allows the Mac to be used on a proper monitor whenever I get into a situation that requires it.
• The Cheap Torch, which is like a slim Maglite but cheaper. Fairly sturdy too.
• A pair of foldable pliers. Also has the standard Swiss Army Knife functionality, but I’m not going to take it abroad. Airport security would have a fit.
• The Camera – an old Jenoptik camera that doesn’t have optical zoom, not that high range in terms of resolution, and is a pain to take photos with. I feel the need to retire this workhorse with the family as soon as I have got a replacement.
• Spare Batteries for camera
• USB thumb drive (For data transfers where networking is not easy or possible)
• Chewing Gum

Related posts:

1. USBCell – Batteries That Charge From USB
2. John Chow’s Cable Folding Evilness