Laptop users, what essential items are in YOUR bag?

I am just interested in what you tend to carry with you everywhere. As we all know, laptops can be heavy buggers at time, especially when you overload your bag with your kit! Not forgetting your money, train and bus tickets, keys, paper, pens, disks and whatonots that you have to carry! (And extras that you don't! )


Anyway, when I start college, I might have 2 laptops up and running (after overloards short-out!). So therefore, its pic 'n' mix to see what ones will be in use!

Lord-Wide........... (LWA)
Ok, heres the clevo, lord-wide-butt (Referencing the Widescreen):

Inventory:
Logitec USB optical mouse, Maunal, 3 recovery disks (Win XP home, Intel Wireless card and built in drivers), 256mb USB stick and lead, 2 pens, bluetooth PC Card, microphone, Jabra headset, IEEE 1394 firewire cable, AC cable and power supply and small stereo headphones.
Case: Dell OEM(?) case, 1 compartment, front pocket and file section.

Overloard
And here is overlord, (I don't know whether to call it a he or a she! Overloard was an operation, but trains tend to be feminine, that includes North Wales's Narrow Gauge locomotive, otherwise knwon as Russell. Funny that my first name is also Russell, but I am male! ).

Inventory:
Dexxa PS/2 Standard mouse (with red LED), spare 4000mAh battery, AC plug and power supply, Belkin USB2 hub, D-Link DWL-G650+ wireless card, 10/100Base-T Crossover RJ-45 cable and the user manual (thick!). Not pictured is the headphones, which I don't generally put in anyway, because I don't anticipate in using the audio on Overlord! (overloard usually has its audio off to save battery power, so does LWA. LWA's audio also is nowhere near as powerful on output than overlords!).
Case:Case logic laptop case, virtually identical to the Dell case, except a few cosmetic changes, esp. the material used

Anyway, despite I don't have any firewire devices or any other computer (I generally carry one), why do I have a firewire cable or RJ-45 cable? Well, those pesky iBooks at the college I study at are a pain for computer to computer file transfer other than pen drive! (This includes external hard disks which cannot be powered by the iBooks for some strange reason. They don't seem to have enough power!). I know the iBooks have a 6-pin firewire port and lord-wide-butt has a 4-pin firewire port and gigabit ethernet. But overloard has 100mb/s ethernet and USB1.1 at the very best!

Things that transfer between both:
256mb stick, NEC mobile pro, the assortment of PC card (not shown) and my college work. Organised for college in September? I hope so!

Case Comparasion
Just thrown in for good measure! Yes, when the cases are OOU, they are usually stored here. No, the hard drives aren't next to the speakers. I am using one of them now!




Going off subject, is there anyway of tweaking the Realtek AC'97 chip to deliver louder audio? The 2 headphones I use seem to be too quiet!




Lastly, I am right it hasn't be covered before?

you are right ... its not exactly covered before.

Side note, the notebook sure looks the MP790 (or 780) look dainty! ... size is relative!

When I was still carrying around my 15.4" beast, here's what was dragging down my shoulder.


Dell Leather Bag (that was a NICE bag!)
15.4" Beast of a Laptop
Power Adapter (of course)
Microsoft Optical Trackball (nice for when you have limited space)
PCMCIA 802.11b Card
RJ-11 Cabling (for when hiking in the Himalayas and other places without wifi)


I think that was about it. Nothing I accessorized it with could have made it any heavier

Hmmmm, is there a Dell theme going on with the bags? Mine is a dell, yours is a dell, my mothers is a dell bag (yes, she has a laptop, an insparation 4100 IIRC, with a 1.1ghz PIII processor!).

Anyway, that laptop is also a beast! In fact, it is that big, it is the same screensize as yours is/was. Except for me, it fits none of my backpacks properly, nor some other bags! (Ahhh ****!)

For the bags, in the dell one, occupied by the MP, if you put in the laptop, it'll occupy the entire bag, just with a bout 2.5cm gaps all around the perimiter of the computer. Not bad is it?
As for the bag, picked up as I mentioned before in a charity shop where I worked, for £4.50 with staff discount!

Dell makes (or picks a good manufacturer to rebadge) good bags, they do. The laptop itself was actually an HP and rather decent for the price... But I could barely fit it in my backpack and it was a real pain to lug around.



I've toyed with the idea of buying a 12" lightweight notebook, but the price is rather out of my range so it's never more than just toying around

Yeah, I actually have a 12" iBook and I got it under a grand. I must say, very nice machine for the price. Just drop in a 512mb stick of RAM and you're good to go. Of course, they just upped the specs on those too...

I've owned a Toshiba 5005-S507, iBook 12" G4 1.25ghz, iPaq 3135, Axim X3i and now a MP790. The one I carry most often as of yet has been my iBook, as it is light enough to bring with you, but powerful enough to do just about anything on. Granted, it isn't a Windows machine in that I can't run everything, but I can run most essential apps just fine. Ettercap, EtherPeg, Snort and of course your browsing/iming are a few of my favourites. As for what's in the bag, well...

Just the iBook.

I get 6hrs of battery, 5.5 with the wifi on. No need for an AC adapter.

Hopefully I can get my MP790 to that point!

Essential Items in my bag are

HP Pavilion 5040 Notebook
Compaq 2010c H/PC
Palm IIIxe (sometimes)
Power adapter
Sync cables for H/PC and sometimes Palm
AC Power Inverter (for the car to power notebook)
Maybe a DVD on trips
H/PC Power Adapter
The Bag Itself (of course)



Edited by tenjeangosi 2005-08-08 7:30 PM

I still want that 900mhz 7.2lb toshiba... or the lighter 5lb 400mhz one! I forgot the model numbers already, too much time with my 720.

What's with lappies when our trusty hpcs are smaller, better, lighter, better, cheaper, better....
aw, you get the idea

I 'd want payment in cash to lug a laptop anywhere. I've had a *lot* of offers to trade for laptops when people see my 6651 in action. Then I tablet it , use calligrapher, and they totally flip out and want it.

Anyway, my lappie bag is a Roots backpack, $10 at RS, I keep my Libretto gear and parts in it.

My 6651 travel bag is a Caselogic closed cell foam padded mp3 player case. It's perfect sizewise for a 6651 or Libretto with NICS, chargers, mouse, hub, 20gb jukebox, and various doodads. Total weight =3lbs all loaded to go. I love it.

I can't source another Caselogic bag from anywhere I'm sad to say. I could use at least 2 more, 1 for my other 6651 and one devoted to Librettos.

Lappy bag (only used when really in the need for it):
-Dell Latitude D600 (P-M 1.4, 512DDR, 40GB DD, DVD/CDRW)
-Usb floppy
-120GB usb harddisk w/driver CD (3 inch type)
-Kyocera KX2 data cable
-USB Mouse
also, when traveling for gaming purposes, i also have with me
-IBM USB multiport hub
-2 USB dragon gamepads
-1 Saitek USB gamepad

HPC Bag (used most of the time):
-J728, J720, J680 (the former is for personal use, while the other two are demonstration products)
-Margi Presenter-to-go or Prolink PK201 vga card, with dongle and remote
-3 meters of UTP-CAT5 crossover cable (~10 ft)
-Socketcom LPE with dongle
-SMC-2642 (wifi)
-USB 18 in 1 memory card reader with driver CD (3 inch type)
-Torx T5 Screwdriver
-Philips #1 screwdriver
-Spare CR2025 (VGA remote control spare)
-Spare CR2032 (we all know what's this used for)
-Jornada sync cable
-Jornada extra battery
-256 mb flash card
-32 mb flash card
-Earphones
-CF type 1 to PCMCIA adapter
-CF type 2 to PCMCIA adapter
-Spare Jornada carry case (in case i lend a demo product to someone)
-Activesync CD (3 inch type)
-Jornada 680 apps CD (3 inch type)
-Jornada 7xx apps CD (3 inch type)