I want to really encourage you to check out The Hypomanic American Manifesto over at ChangeThis.
Psychologist John Gartner theorizes that America is a little crazy and that this is driven by our immigrant history (you have to be a little crazy to leave everything behind for the hope something better). He goes on to say that this has a positive effect on the country. The strong streak of entrepreneurism we have in America is one result of all of this.
I had a short lived Typepad blog called The Switch. It’s purpose was to talk about all the challenges associated with going from PC to Apple.
I am shutting down my Typepad account, because I do everything in Movable Type and I haven’t updated any of the Typepad blogs I had in about six months.
One of the posts that generated alot of dicussion was around the best bag for your Powerbook. I wanted to capture here for posterity.
P.S. I went with the Tom Bihn Empire Builder and Brain Cell. Worth every penny.
******
This might seem like a trivial question, but I am going to be lugging the Powerbook around a lot.
I am not looking for a portable office, but rather something that can protect the Powerbook and have room for needed wires, a couple of files, and a notebook.
I was looking through the eBags website. I spent a lot of time reading the comments, but there weren’t a lot specific to Powerbooks.
Remember, I have the 15″ Powerbook G4.
What bags do you like?
Comments
ok todd, here’s a list I culled for you from MacWorld, Dec. 2003 of some very cool bags:
http://www.goincase.com
http://www.kensington.com
http://www.macally.com – they have some nice ones at a good price.
http://www.willow-design.com
http://www.timbuk2.com – ultra-customizable, very cool
http://www.brenthaven.com
http://www.tombihn.comPersonally,I had a guy make me a custom sleeve, padded, with plastic inserts for rigidity, and surrounded in cordura. Closes with a big-ass piece of velcro. I throw it into a courier bag or back pack and it’s good to go. This way if I change bags I am not losing the protection – I have a 15″ powerbook, I think it cost me about $40cdn to have made. Hope this helps.
cheers – d.
Posted by: David | March 4, 2004 10:59 AM
All good choiceshttp://www.jrhillandcompany.com/ca06.asp
http://www.casauri.com/
http://www.acmemade.com/
http://www.crumplernyc.com/public/home.ehtmlNot necessarily for Mac but cool fashion: http://www.clivebags.com/
You will definitely want a wrap or pad that goes around the PB – the screens cost about 90% of cost of original to replace – no way to repair if it cracks.
Posted by: jbelkin | March 4, 2004 11:41 AM
http://www.tombihn.com would be my choice.Posted by: Mike Strock | March 4, 2004 12:14 PM
Take a look at Waterfield Designs:I’ve got one of his cargo bags and it’s really nice, although it’s probably larger than what you’re looking for.
Posted by: Mark | March 4, 2004 02:35 PM
My two favorites are the Laptrap and the Moya by Incase–their site is being reworked, so you may have to use a search engine to look it over. Or try and look at the selection there.Posted by: Bruce E. Durocher II | March 4, 2004 04:33 PM
For my $$$ Brenthaven.Posted by: Jeffsters | March 4, 2004 06:57 PM
Zero Halliburton. There’s nothing better. I’ve had the same attache sized Zero for about 6 years now from my Wallstreet to Pismo to TiBook and it’s taken an incredible beating whithout transferring so much as a scratch to the PB within. They can be a bit on the pricey side, but they’re well worth it.http://www.zerohallidburton.com
The Z and DZ lines seem to be the current computer offerings.
Posted by: deraven | March 4, 2004 06:59 PM
I use a sleeve (in my case, the extremely silly and stylish Crumpler School Hymn in silver leather) around the Powerbook, after which I toss it into a canvas briefcase that looks nothing like a laptop bag (mine is a Lands End square rigger). There’s plenty of room for all my other stuff as well and cables. I really do recommend choosing a bag that people don’t expect to have a laptop in it, but you must protect the Powerbook as well.Posted by: Alison Scott | March 5, 2004 07:42 AM
Tom Bihn.
I’ve been through several others.
The Tom Bihn bags have a rigid padded shell that cradles the powerbook inside the bag. It appears to offer much more protection that padding alone. Construction is good, cost not out of line.Posted by: Ian Lind | March 5, 2004 08:09 AM
Big vote for the incase bags. They’re sold at the Apple stores and online at http://www.goincase.com. They use this incredible fabric I’ve never seen anywhere else, and are sleeker than any other designs. I’ve been using one for my iBook for nearly three years, and it still looks and feels great. Good luck!Posted by: Adam Bezark | March 5, 2004 08:41 AM
Try booq for good designs in the backpack/sling arena. Their sleeve cases are also quite good.Waterfield makes good sleevecases; I’m not a fan of their designs.
If you want fashion, check out Jack Spade.
If you want pure functionality, go with Timbuk2 and their sleeves. Totally customizable.
For coolness, I’d check out Freitag:
freitag.chThe others seem hokey, and have no style.
-art director-with-bag-fetish
Posted by: reason | March 5, 2004 06:05 PM
just got a bag at willow…the best bag ever..shame they’re closing up shop…clearance prices are very good….this is highly recommended
Posted by: dixon | March 5, 2004 07:21 PM
I use an InCase sleeve inside a California Pak bag. Total cost was less than $50 (bought the InCase used and CalPak new).Posted by: e. | March 6, 2004 06:44 AM
I’ve been very pleased with the STM sport laptop backback. Its rugged but attractive, and has protected my 15″ PB through a few hard knocks. The Australian manufacturer is user-friendly and replaced for free a plastic buckle that was cracked by a slammed car door.See picture: http://www.etravelergear.com/sporlapbac.html
Posted by: Paul Fox | March 7, 2004 07:45 AM
Trager have some great bags. Their Seattle Messenger started it all. They have a hard sleeve Transpod which fits a 15″ Powerbook and slips inside a satchell. They are well made and will go the distance.Posted by: Mark Daley | May 10, 2004 01:51 AM
Check out http://www.bagreview.comThey have many, many reviews of laptop bags from more cos. than you can imagine. They also sell some of their samples.
Posted by: Chris Edwards | May 12, 2004 02:53 PM
Well, I like this one.
http://www.humanbeans.net/powerpizza/index.htmlPosted by: anonymous | June 24, 2004 08:43 AM
Technorati Tags: apple, tombihn
Zane deliver me a wonderful new tool this morning.
It is called Pandora. All you have to do is tell it an artist or song and will start playing other songs that matches the musical DNA of your choice. It creates your own personal radio stations.
Once decision.
Simple interface.
Great marketing by using product sampling: you get to listen for 10 hours for free.
Compelling pricing: It is $36 per year.
Long live the Long Tail!
The only sport I watch religiously is professional football. I have been a life long Packers fan and Sunday the Green and Gold return to the field. There are playing the Detriot Lions at Ford Field.
The easy pick for the media right now seems to be that the Packers are going to have a disappointing season. WSJ had something on that. The local media is all over it. Brett is over the hill. They have had too many losses on the offensive line. The secondary is just as bad as they were last year. Whatever.
Like no other player in the NFL, when Brett Favre is on the field, you always have a chance to win the game. Sometimes, he pushes it and starts throwing INTs, but you take the good with the bad. It is the risks that he takes that make him who he is. Consider these stats from the Wisconsin State Journal:
Of his 225 consecutive starts (including playoffs), the Packers are 73-8 (a .901 winning percentage) when he doesn’t throw an interception; 48-31 (.608) when he throws one; 18-16 (.529) when he throws two; and 7-18 (.280) when he throws three. They’ve never won when he’s thrown four or more in a game (0-6).
GO PACK GO!
This was suppose to go up on Tuesday, but new babies can make free time scare.
I have been married to Amy for seven years today.
We have one of those stories that is hard to believe. Let’s just say we were meant to be together.
Amy and I both attended Michigan universities (UofM and Michigan Tech, respectively) and both studied mechanical engineering.
We both got co-op positions with Dow Chemical. I spent a summer in Fresno, CA making Ziploc bags. She spent the next summer there. She even found stuff in the desk that I left. It was a little odd because it was a set of photos from the Winter Carnival at Tech. All the pictures were of snow sculptures. She asked where they came from and somebody said, “Oh, those must have been from Todd Sattersten.” She put the pictures back and didn’t think much more of it.
Upon graduation, we both took jobs with General Electric and both got positions in their Manufacturing Management Program. She spent her first year in Louisville and I spent mine in Roanoke. With only about 100 people on the program, we heard each other’s names in passing, but that was about it.
The program was set-up so that people rotated after 12 months to a new location. The timing was never perfect, so you sometimes you had a chance to met others who were rotating in. Darla showed up in Roanoke about two weeks before I was off to Columbus. At the last minute, I needed someone to help drive my car while I drove my truck of belongings. Darla was best friend’s with Amy in Louisville.
Amy had taken a job in Peterbrough, Ontario. In a call to catch up, she asked what Darla was doing for the coming weekend. “Oh, I am helping this guy, Todd Sattersten get moved up to Columbus.”
That was the final straw for Amy. “Darla, I need this guy’s number. I have to call him.”
I came home one night and found a message on the machine – “Hello. My name is Amy Buckley. You don’t know me, but we need to talk. Call me.”
For whatever reason, I called her back. We talked for about an half hour.
That led to email (remember this is 1995, so it is mainframe email).
And that led to more calls (international long distance calls, before the rates got cheap).
And that led her driving down to meet up with a bunch of GE folks in Columbus.
And that led to me driving to see her.
And that led to more international telephone calls.
And that led to plane trips back and forth.
Fast forward a year – we moved in together.
Fast two forward two more years – we got married.
Happy Anniversary, Honey!
(We’ll tell you about the wedding some time. It was pretty cool.)
If you are a Mac user, I want to strongly recommend Notational Velocity.
It is just an outstanding program for taking notes.
Cool parts of NV:
It is another example of a simple elegant app designed to do a simple set of things.
As the football season approaches again, we undoubtedly see the rise in really bad advertising. JaffeJuice was talking about ads companies shouldn’t run and got me thinking more about this.
Yesterday, I saw my first Coors ad of the new season. It was playing off the famous Seinfeld episode “The Implant” (Terri Hatcher ends it with the line–“They’re real and they are spectacular”). It is amazing the difference context makes. I think the Coors ad is a bunch of sexist crap. What is sad is the ad is for a somewhat cool innovation – your 18 plastic bottles come in a plastic box, in which you can just throw ice and be ready to go.
My wife always telling me that I am not the target for those advertisements. She is right, but I think fewer people are willing to listen to messages like the one Coors to playing.
I finally shut down the BizLinkBlog and got everything moved over to my del.icio.us account. Here is the RSS feed.
There is alot of good stuff over there and I thought I would highlight a few.
I honestly don’t know what to say.
We have seen the destruction of a major American city. There are miles of coastal towns have been wiped away. We have hundreds of thousands of our own citizens who are refugees and having to move to other states to find food and shelter.
I am tired of the finger pointing. It doesn’t do any good. Let’s just do everything we can to help everyone down there.
I am sure there is some local effort you can get involved in. If you are in Milwaukee, WKTI is organizing an event in conjunction with Pick N Save. Details will be released on Tuesday.
Consider giving to AmeriCares. They are an amazing organization that helps out people around the world. For every $100 they receive in cash donations, they deliver $3000 in emergency relief. They have already sent antibiotics into Baton Rogue.
I turned 34 on Monday.
I told my wife I didn’t need anything big for my birthday.
This morning at 3:45am, she delivered a 7 lb. 14 oz. baby boy.
Everyone is doing great.
We are all going to sleep now. We’ll get some pictures up soon.
As a child of the 80’s, I have always loved Roxette. They had an amazing ability to write great pop music. I always appreciated being able to buy one of their albums and enjoying the whole thing.
Belgian band D.H.T. has gone and redone Listen To Your Heart. There are club mixes, but the one getting radio play is an acoustic version. I rarely like remakes, but this one is really good.
“Whenever Merck was up there, it was like wah, wah, wah, ” said juror John Ostrom, imitating the sounds of Charlie Brown’s teacher makes in the television cartoon. “We didn’t know what the heck they were talking about.”
–Merck Loss Jolts Drug Giant, WSJ, 8/22/05
This quote really concerns me. The cornerstone of Merck’s case was that the death of Robert Ernst was caused from arrhythmia, not a heart attack. Vioxx has been shown to cause problems with blood clotting, but there is not been any association with irregular hearbeats. Instead, the jury chose to focus on a potential coverup of concerns about the drug.
I know that communication requires two parties – one transmitting and one receiving. It is clearly possible that the lawyers did not structure message for the audience (the jury). What I am more concerned about is a jury ignoring scientific evidence, because they don’t understand it. They deliberated on the case for a total of one hour.
I scheduled a call today with someone who I thought was doing some cool stuff. I told him I had read about his company recently and wanted to find out more.
“Are you writing a story?”
“No, I am just interested.”
I told him I had a similar idea for publishing.
“We work with authors too.”
I said that it wasn’t really the same thing. I explained a bit and said I just wanted to know what sort of things he had learned through starting the company.
“Before we go any further, are you looking to partner with me or set-up some kind of consulting.”
I said again that I wanted to know more about his business.
“It would be great to sit here and throw around ideas with you, but my time is really limited.”
[Pause]
And I thanked him for his time.
I guess I have gotten use to talking about ideas freely and openly. It is such a natural part of the blogsphere.
Ideas that are shared, flourish and prosper.
Not everyone shares that view.
This is just a great post from Mike at rohdesign.
It involves kids, zoos, and everyone’s early fascination with the world.