Recommend a Tech Toys Bag?

SuperMallen asks: "With the recent purchase of an iPod and iPod-capable car radio, I am realizing that I have reached maximum capacity in terms of what can go in my pants pockets. Given that I want to take both the iPod and my radio face with me wherever I go (along with my cellphone, Bluetooth headset, wallet, keys, and possibly a laptop with mouse, power supply, and whatever reading material I'm carting around), I'm thinking that what I need is a medium sized bag or backpack with pockets dedicated for this sort thing. What does the Slashdot community do for things like this? Any brands or models you have found work for you?"

Comments

Hmmm

[billyhoward]

Find someone with a vagina. It won't hold your geek crap, but suddenly you will notice you won't have such geek-ass problems. Short of that, try a big paper sack.

Re:Hmmm

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Find someone with a vagina.

Yeah, but then you'll just have one more thing to carry around, don't ya! Where you going to store a battery powered vagina anyways? You'd need a special hidden pocket in your tech-no-bag so that the other people on the train won't scream every time you reach for your iPod.

Re:Hmmm

[kotj.mf]

Seriously. My wife would probably agree with you, too.

I used to carry around a bag with a USB hard drive, a USB thumb drive, a Cybertool, a cell phone (provided and required by work), a note pad, pens, pencils, and a Zaurus. Of course, I also needed the wifi card for the Zaurus, and the ethernet card with a cable, and a modem with a phone cord, just in case I needed to get in to work and there wasn't an access point handy.

Plus an umbrella. And a pack of Imitrex.

Then I realized I was basically carrying a purse.

I swapped the Cybertool for a nifty little knife that lives on my keychain with the pill case for my migraine meds and my Ritalin, ditched the hard drive, and bought a pocket-sized weekly calendar for ten bucks to replace the Zaurus. A selection of my mp3 collection lives is on my hard drive at work. I just listen to NPR when I'm in the car, which is where I keep the umbrella.

If/when I leave my current job, and my new employer doesn't require that I have a cell, I won't be replacing it.

In case you haven't figured it out, I've got some pretty harsh ADD. I've found that minimizing the ton of crap that I used to cart around with me has made life a helluva lot easier to handle.

Oh, and when I'm bored and I need something to do while waiting for a bus or eating at a restaurant, I buy a newspaper. It's amazing, really.

Here's what I got

[jessecurry]

I picked up one of these so I could take my laptop to school and with me on my sports bike.
It works great. I think that mine is a little larger though.

Flickr tags

[Anonymous Cowdog]

Check out the whatsinmybag tag on Flickr. Lots of ideas for different bags there. Even though the focus is more on the contents, people do talk about and show their bags there as well.

Also there's the whatsinyourbag tag, but it's pretty much the same thing.

wear a jacket, research backpacks later :P

[elint]

Winter's fast approaching. Wear a jacket with a few pockets for the next few months (not as much of a gadget geek here, but I carry darts, cigarettes, wallet, cell phone, etc without issue between my pants and jacket pockets), and do some research on good laptop bags in the meantime.

Timbuk2 and Targus both have bags that have satisfied my needs in the past and currently (laptop messenger and sport deluxe bags, respectively). I still currently use the Targus backpack, as I tend to carry more books around, and it has plenty of pockets and elastic straps to carry all of my random junk, but I'm sure there are fancier models out nowadays.

Personal Problem?

[nes11]

"I am realizing that I have reached maximum capacity in terms of what can go in my pants pockets."

sound like a personal problem to me.

Reassess your kit

[Bastian]

Does that car stereo faceplate really need to go everywhere with you? Why not keep it in your glove compartment or your trunk?

Same for the iPod - do you _really_ need to take it everywhere? It's a music player, not a binkie.

The Bluetooth headset can definitely stay in the car. That or just leave it on your ear rather than trying to find pocket space. If you're going to try to walk around like a wannabe Borg, you might as well look the part.

You do _not_ need to bring the mouse everywhere. $5 says your computer has a touchpad or one of those nipple things.

Not saying you have to get rid of all of this stuff, just saying it sounds like you're carrying around more crap than you actually need.

Anyway, if you are going to carry that much weight, I would strongly push you toward getting a small padded case for your laptop and then throw it into a backpack designed for backpacking. Most of the laptop and courier bags out there weren't designed with your body in mind. I switched to an innerframe day pack from REI for days when I'm schlepping myself around the city on my feet or my bike, and my back and shoulders have thanked me a thousand times over.

ScottEVest

[Somegeek]

I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet.

http://www.scottevest.com/

Up to 52 hidden pockets and allowances for a personal area network!

It may not be the most stylish coat in the world, but well, it's geeky and it will keep you warm in the winter.

LIGHTEN YOUR LOAD Brothers and Sisters!!!

[mildness]

I am a 46 year old Alpha Geek/Yoga teacher. So, I've given some thought to the physiology of a gear bag.

My first recommendation is to only carry small and where possibile, hybrid gear.

Secondly purge your bag weekly.

Thirdly, a small bag with a well padded single shoulder strap seems to put less pressure on joints, nerves, etc. The older you get the more you will appreciate this. It is counter-intuitive but backpacks easily cause me more discomfort, even with a good belt.

I am currently carrying an Eagle Creek Travel Gear shoulder bag. In it I carry:
Sony Clie UX40 in an aluminum case
crap Cell phone (if work didn't pay for this it would be a Treo 650)
Bandana (almost as good as a towel)
2 pens
business cards
Mini flash light
usb ROM stick
mini tape measure
Leatherman Squirt mini-multi-tool
spare stylus
A small Moleskin notebook
earplugs
Sony noise reducing earbuds(passive)
Motorola HS820 BT headset (crap)
2.5 lb convertible Fujitsu Lappy w/extended battery(I fuckin dig this thing!)
Caselogic neoprene DVD Player Case for the laptop.

On the laptop there is easily 500 ebooks including textbooks for school, reference books for work and fiction for downtime. The whole enchilada weighs only 5.5 lbs!

And as soon as I figure out how to get Outlook to wake my laptop out of standby I'll ebay the PDA.

My sister carries a "healthy back bag" from LL Bean that is even more comfortable. I'll try that next.

Take care of your body before it turns on you!

BillyBob

Re:LIGHTEN YOUR LOAD Brothers and Sisters!!!

[Osty]

Rather than purge your bag, why not really lighten your load by not carrying around so much crap? What I carry on my person on a normal day:

• Wallet with cash, ID cards, and credit cards. I'm partial to smaller tri-fold style wallets. Sits in my back pocket, and I feel naked without it.
• Keys and pocket change. And by "keys", I mean "three keys", not some big huge ring of 50 different keys you'll never use. One for my car, one for my truck, and one for my house. Nothing more.
• Work badge. Because I constantly break the little zip thingies you use to hang it from a belt, I've taken to carrying it in a pocket instead. Usually wrapped by a couple hair bands (because I have longer hair).
• Cell phone that doesn't have a color screen, doesn't take pictures, and doesn't send or receive email. If you can't call me, I don't want to hear from you.
• Sunglasses.
• Wristwatch. Analog, preferably without any special features at all, and with simple tick marks instead of numbers. My current watch is analog with tick marks and has a day/month display that I could live without. Lives on my wrist, not taking up valuable pocket space. Another one of those, "I feel naked without it," items.
• A good book.

I wear a leather jacket year-round (a heavier one during colder months, a lighter one during warmer months), which has enough pockets to hold my cell and sunglasses. Depending on the size of the book I'm currently reading, it will also usually fit into a coat pocket. Wallet, keys, badge, and change go into various pant pockets. Every other month or so work will saddle me with a pager for a week, but that fits into a coat pocket as well. I refuse to carry around anything else. I do have a laptop bag to take my laptop to and from work, but that's house to car to office and back.

At the very minimum, I can safely leave the house with nothing more than my wallet, wristwatch, and keys, and be completely happy and productive.

I see no need to carry around everything you listed. You don't need a flashlight, earplugs, headphones, etc. Maybe the life of a Yoga instructor is much more hectic than that of a software developer, but having not been a Yoga instructor I couldn't really say. I'd suspect not ...