I need help with the repair of a Fujifilm digital camera. I fixed crook On/Off switch but stuffed the functions of the little "L" shaped board around the LCD screen at the bck of the camera.

My symptoms are that only the "Back" button on the rear of the camera works, all else have failed. The ribbon cable connecting the rear board to the main board appears okay and all the switches seem to be functioning (multimeter test) but no response from the camera. If you have any idea what it may be, please email me at keith@cashmasters.com.au Thanks in anticipation.

I was on vacation, so I'm arriving late at this party. I've listed my items here but in short I've found my everyday load is fairly light: wallet, keys, pill case, eyewear, and analog watch. Sometimes I add: ID/transit pass case, a book, my wonderful iPod, digicam, and my cell phone. Thanks for a really great thread!

jleader asks me "Why a pin from a fire extinguisher?"

Well, I found it handy for a while as a hard thing to poke and
prod with, but small enough to fit in my pocket. Many years
ago -- to tie into another bb subject -- I used to keep a
model rocket engine clip in my wallet for similar reasons.

Off hand I can think of two things I did with the pin.

 1) Put the chain back on the sprocket of my bike without
    getting my fingers greasy.

 2) Insert it into a hole in a metal panel and use as a
    pry bar to pull the panel out.

After the panel was out I rewired some buttons to make it
easier to get to the basement of that building, but that's
a different story.

Casio data bank watch for appointments/phone numbers.
Keys and wallet. I like technology to get down to watch size
before I carry it.

I may regret asking this, but, why a pin from a fire extinguisher, Eli?

A personal pocket computer is something I've found useful for
a long time. My original was purchased in 1991: a Sharp Wizard
Organizer, OZ-7000. A big hulking thing that was, with a full
keyboard, but not QWERTY (later models were), 32kB of RAM, an
expansion card that was PCMIA sized, but before that standard
came out. Powered by three lithium batteries (and sometimes
a fourth inside an expansion card), it still works when I
replace the batteries. As of 2001 it still had data I'd
entered into it seven years earlier. No Y2K problem, either.

These days is is a Palm VIIx, which is smaller, but still a
bit bulky.

I also carry a pen, a sharpie, a Leatherman (the original
configuration, which I find to be the best match of compact
and full-function), my keys (nothing fancy on the chain
these days, I used to keep a pin from a fire-extinguisher),
something to keep track of time (presently the pager my job
provides me), my wallet, and a hankerchief.

I'm never without my HP 200LX - a real PC that fits in my pocket. It's got my phone directory, calendar, games, e-texts and many notes and databases.

On my belt I carry a Kershaw lock-back knife (but not when flying), Canon PowerShot S100 digital camera, and Motorola phone - I couldn't tell you the model but it's meant for use on the T-Mobile network. (And it's totally stupid that it gets dust inside the screen. I have had to pull the cover off it every week or two to clean it out.)

Pockets have the following:
ChapStick
spare pair of AA NiMH cells (for the 200LX)
keys to two cars
house and office keys
tiny LED flashlight
comb
Sakura pen (blue Micron 005 - .20 mm line width)
wallet full of credit cards, driver's license, bank cards
tiny Swiss Army knife (scissors, tweezer, nail file,...)
pocket money

Just for comparison's sake, the current king is Crazy Eric of Lyon. He carries 26 lbs of stuff daily, including a blow-up mattress, water-filtering unit and soldering iron. 1300 items integrated in what Guinness describes as the world's most practical suit.

(how the hell do you put up a fight with a metal pen?)

Please see #6 under 12 Areas of Kali

Also, I have a hand-cuff key on my key ring since they are universal. Might be something to consider if you use cuffs to secure your laptop...

moleskine notebook - totally rules. because I got fed up with the batteries dying in my old Visor, and I like writing with a pen on paper, and it is very hi-res, and I can doodle on it, and the cover is nice and stiff, and lots of brainy people like bruce chatwin used them, so maybe some magic will rub off, and of course, all the cool kids are using moleskines these days...

ipod (too heavy?) gah. with excellent sony fontopia headphones, which are way better than the supplied behemoths. because i love it.

bog-standard nokia phone (don't know what model, but everyone in UK seems to have one). because you have to, don't you?

In left front pants pocket: Uniball pen, mechanical pencil, checkbook, business card case.

In right front pants pocket: keyring, Palm VII. (I usually wear pants with big cargo pockets...)

In right rear pants pocket: wallet.

On belt, right: Nokia 5160 phone, in belt-clip case. (I don't need a fancier phone, with the Palm VII to handle wireless-Internet needs.)

On belt, left: Leatherman Wave and Mini Mag-Lite, in combination belt holster. (Though I wouldn't wear that if I were going to be flying, of course.)

In shirt pocket: sunglasses (except at night...if I'm wearing a shirt without pockets, the glasses will often go in my inside jacket pocket)

And, of course, on my wrist, my ancient Casio Databank watch. Not that I need the Databank or calculator, with the power of a Palm VII at my disposal, but old habits die hard, and it has other useful things like a countdown timer, stopwatch, and multiple timezones. (I used to go through watchbands like nobody's business, until I replaced those cheap rubber/plastic watchbands with a Speidel expanding watchband. The paint's rubbing off it in places, but it's lasted far longer than any other watchband I've ever had and is still mechanically sound.)

Edited by author 03-11-2003 01:02 AM
A small notepad (paper, 3" x 4"). A pen.

Why is because it's what I need.

(Except, given our economy and government: a credit card and my driver's license, tucked into the same pocket as the notepad; some folding money, tucked into the same pocket as the pen.)

Currently in my pockets, I have a Sony Ericsson t68i. When I bought this phone, they were going to send me a free camera that supposedly I could take pictures of my three children in the Swiss Alps with. It never arrived, otherwise I could include it with my list of gadgets. I bought this phone because of its bluetooth capabilities.. oh and the camera that apparently takes photo realistic pictures .. or at least the poster seems to indicate that. ;-)

I have one Uniball pen. .03 milimeter fine point - black ink. Dan Moniz just told me that, because I actually didn't know.

Chapstick - Carmex.

One "currency unit" wallet. I actually only bought this wallet because it was called a currency unit. It's actually poorly designed. I make wallets out of duct tape that are better than this.

One Tampax, six spoons, workout pants, a book of some sort, cds, and my Visor.

here's my gear list...

In my pockets, i usually carry a variety of things, house keys, smallish wallet, hanky, some gum, coins, a sony ericsson t68i, which is alow, but bluetooth syncing is great. I used to carry my penknife, but i recently lost it.
In my backpack, I carry book to read, usually a photography or climbing magazine and my TiBook. A variety of cables, a palmIIIc, bluetooth adaptor and my iPod, securid token and a ragtag of different bits of paper. Finally I often carry my 35mm canon slr to take photos of London, though I do want a decent point and shoot digital camera

I find reading through these lists quite interesting, it reminds me of the
futureculture thread on
what are you wearing from 1993. Somewhat patchy archive, search in the link for "wearing" and you see people added it to their .sig file.

times have moved forward from then, many more gadgets in peoples pockets to add to the usual key money wallet. People comment on the amount of disposable items that we carry, I have nothing really that isn't disposable, but my knife had a longevity to it that made it more part of me that the mobile / cellphone I'll replace every year or so.

I've got a Leatherman Super Tool, but I've opted recently to carry the Swiss Army Knife. The Leatherman is useful, but I found it too hard to pocket, and I don't always wear belts where it's convenient or fashionable to clip it on in its nylon holster.

Yes, an article, with pictures of Boingers standing in front of tables full of their pocket stuff, would be cool.

* * *

Leathermen are great. I got out of the habit of carrying mine, because I got sick of people asking me if it was an insulin pump. Or, knowing what it was, *why* I carried it.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 04:43 PM
On the belt, a Motorola V101. Sure, it's ugly as sin, bulky as hell, and sucks for actual voice calls. But it has a screen that you can actually read some text on and it's beautiful for sending SMSes and using the ICQMobile integration just kicks ass. I think this phone is only available in Canada.

In my bag:

• Apple Newton MessagePad 2100. Still the most usable PDA ever created. I organize my life and my work tasks on this puppy, and wouldn't change that for the world. Of course, I'm a little biased since I happen to also run a very large Newton mailing list... This is actually kept in a BurroPak padded sleeve inside the bag. If you were a Newton user and you remember the BurroPak from Landware, you get a gold star.
• Game Boy Advance with a 128 megabit flash cartridge. Real games on the go, and even Classic Nintendo games to boot.
• AVC Soul Player CD/MP3 player. Coupled with some Sony MDR-V150 headphones. I don't need an iPod; CDRs are still cheap. If I scratch one, I just re-burn it from my hard disk at home.
• Canon PowerShot S230 camera. Man, I love this camera. It's tiny, it's 3.1MP, it uses CompactFlash, it shoots movie clips with sound, it has great low-light performance, and digital zoom that actually looks good. It has a Lexar 128MB CF card in it.
• AComData USB CompactFlash reader. It's also nice and small. It's mostly for using a 16MB CF card that I use to ferry files back and forth from work without exposing data to the wilds of the net. Also for showing photos from the camera on any PC, of course. For $20 minus $20 rebate, I wish I had bought two.
• Leatherman PST II multitool. For everything from a quick nail file to cutting wire. Also has a decent phillips-head screwdriver and three sizes of slot drivers, well suited for the inside of a PC case.
• Sanford PhD Multi. Stylus, Pen, Pencil, and only $15.
  

(shameless blog promotion: www.chuma.org)

> Someone will write an article about this soon--probably Mark.

I was thinking the same thing myself!

What I've learned from this blog:

bQ had the best stuff in the cutest purse--I want.

Sakusha has perfect stuff zen. I keep promising myself that I will simplify, then I clean out the backpack and find another power cord.

There are a number of boingers I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley (how the hell do you put up a fight with a metal pen?)

I'm going to start looking at Leatherman multitools. A thousand boingers can't be wrong.

People love to talk about their stuff and I love to read about it.

Someone will write an article about this soon--probably Mark.

Wow, I feel so low-tech and under-equipped.

Thinking about the contents of my pockets, I realized that I'm carrying things that are probably older than some of the posters here! Some of these things I've been carrying in the same pocket (in different pants) for over 2 decades now.

Wallet - paper money, plastic money (credit & debit), miscellaneous membership cards, a few family pictures, bits of paper and receipts.

Change purse - suede, flat with a zipper, sewn for me by my mother when I was a teenager in the late 70s. Too much change in it. That's one non-mass-produced item (though of course the zipper was mass-produced).

Victorinox Swiss Army knife - smaller version of the "climber" model, you never know when someone will ask for a corkscrew. My Swiss grandfather brought this over for me as a high-school graduation present. Ever since, I've carried it in my left-front pants pocket except in facism zones (airplanes, court houses, nightclubs, anyplace where it's likely to be confiscated because of its deadly 3-inch non-locking blade). It's got a sort of fob I made out of nylon cord while playing with wall-and-crown based knots from the Ashley Book of Knots back in the mid-80s. I guess that could count as another 1/2 non-mass-produced item.

House & car keys, on a silver Navajo keyring given to me by my wife the first Christmas we were dating. Hey, the keyring is non-mass-produced, too, though some of the components are mass-produced. Actually, the decorative silver part may have been hand cast in a mold carved out of a block of charcoal; what's the dividing line for "mass" production?

My house key and a Princeton Tek LED light are on a removable clip (actually an old ID-badge clip), so I don't have to take the rest of the keys when I go jogging. The light is the newest thing in my pockets, I like it because it has both a momentary push-switch and a latching switch.

I often carry my PalmIIIc in a RipOff case clipped to my belt or a pocket. I store phone numbers & addresses, my appointments (not many, but I tend to forget them otherwise), and a few games and e-books (currently reading Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom a little at a time). I also keep track of things I want to do, books or authors I'm interested in looking for, and notes about things I want or need to buy.

I wear a watch when I'm out of the house, usually my Suunto Advizor. I use the heartrate monitor when running, I haven't had much need for the altimeter or compass lately. When dressed up, I replace it with a fairly generic stainless analog ("diver's") watch.

I sometimes carry my wife's old Nokia 5100 phone, someday I'll probably break down and get my own.

At work I wear a cubicle-dweller's fetish bundle around my neck, with a picture ID, 2 RF (I think) access cards, and a SecurID. If I'm formally attired, the bundle goes in my shirt pocket; if I'm in a t-shirt, I just cope with the annoyance of having it bang into anything I bend over.

I have a bunch of little odds and ends in my laptop bag, but that pretty much just goes house to car to office, living under my desk at either end, I don't really keep it with me.

In my pockets: Nothing, when I can help it. I like to wear tight jeans to show off my cute butt.

In my backpack:

• Visor Edge, mostly used for phonebook and notes. Contains the very occasional e-book.
• GPS module for the Visor. Half the Visor's capacity is well-spent on a street map of all of LA County.
• Wallet, keys.
• Sketchbook. 9x12, black hardbound, something painted quickly on the front to give it handedness.
• Tin pencil-case with 'Pochacco' from the Sanrio stable on it. At the moment, it's got a Ticonderoga #2 pencil, a Ti. #2 5/10, a red Col-Erase pencil, a Pentel .5mm side-advance mechanical pencil, a white Staedler pencil, a white gel pen, a black Prismacolor marker, a white plastic eraser, and a Rotring ArtPen (cartridge fountain pen that rules mightily).
• Battery-powered pencil sharpener.
• Whatever I'm reading at the moment. Sometimes no book to give me extra impetus to draw.
• Aging Discman; cheap Aiwa noise-cancelling headphones; some CDs. I don't have several hundred spare bucks for an iPod, though I'd love to have one.
  

Since other folks mentioned their pistols, sometimes I carry a Russian Makarov 9 mm. I like it because it is double action on the first shot, so I can carry it with a round in the chamber, hammer down and safety off. It also only cost me $200. I load it with a mix of hollow points and Soviet steel core (armor peircing more or less).

I used to get death threats on the job, so I started carrying this all the time when off duty. In NM it was only a misdemeanor to carry a concealed pistol -- a knife was a felony!

I wrote up my manifest with notes on my blog, rather than post the whole thing here in QT (it's a bit long).

On carrying film cameras:

I've got a professional-photographer uncle, Lee Friedlander, who always has a camera with him. I don't recall a huge bag, just something big enough for a 35mm and a spare roll.

Unguarded moments at family get-togethers occasionally turn up in his books . . .

In thinking about how I could be better 'equiped' after the 9-11 attacks, I try to always carry:

1. Spydeco serrated pocket knife (I'm trained to fight with a knife, but it is more of a tool. The serrates are good for stripping CAT-5 UTP cable.)

2. Small Red Cross CPR mask on my key chain. Besides protecting me during rescue breathing, if a person has face injuries it is a big help in getting breathes into their lungs.

3. Nokia cell phone. I love it: stores dates and numbers, sends email, tells me time with an alarm, and even plays games I like. I can also IR link it to my laptop for backups. I decided I didn't need a PDA with all these features. Communication is the most important thing for counter-terrorism.

When I fly on planes or go to secure areas, I substitute a metal ballpoint pen for the knife. (Besides writing, I can fight with it -- but not strip cable!)

-A notepad and pen in my back pocket.
-The world's coolest swiss army knife. It's 3 1/2 inch blade, locks in place, and the first useful scredriver I've seen on a swiss army knife. Also, the handle is this snazzy black pistol grip. It's like the sort of thing the clumsy, hamfisted, geek boy youngest child in a family of ninjas would be trusted with.
-My wallet and change purse. The latter contains any number of trick coins I can use to fail at impressing cute girls on the bus with, and the former important currency and Monopoly money in various denominations.
-My harmonica. A Hohner Bluesband in the key of C.
-A deck of Bicycle Rider Backs
-A notebook
-Disposable cameras.
-Polaroid Digital Organizer. With handy international currency translator.
-Whatever book I happen to be reading. Right now, that's "Don Quixote".

a hewlett packard 48 GX calculator- not only does it crunch numbers but it doubles as my personal organizer

motorola v90 cellular phone
memorex CD/Mp3 player- super cheap way to listen to my music that can get banged around with out me feeling too bad

Ericsson T39M mobile -- it's tiny. A bunch of house keys with a blue LED torch and a Swiss Army Cyberchamp knife as a key fob. The iPod goes even if I don't take headphones along -- it's the offsite backup drive for my Mac, so as long as it's with me I've got my work safe (even if the house burns down). If I'm going to use it as a music machine, along comes a pair of headphones -- currently a pair of Koss portapro ones. There's my wallet, which often has a spare CDROM business card in it, and then there's the palmtop -- a Psion 5MX (I've decided PalmOS is a dead end; I need a keyboard). If I'm going to be out of the house for any length of time, the 5MX will be replaced by a Psion Netbook, which has a screen and keyboard good enough for serious text mangling. Oh, and a folding umbrella that packs down into a 5 x 2 x 10 centimetre rectangle, and my glasses, and a pen.

What I want is to compress this lot into three items -- a pocket Swiss Army bush robot, a spray-can of utility fog, and a gigabit per second of bandwidth straight into my cranial firewall.

Great. I have a t28. Hope my relatives get a lot of money from Sony when I'm dead.

I love my Handsrping Visor, because it is so cheap, $50 in the sale bin at Target. If I lose it or trash it it is a backed up on my computer. I have it in a small booklike wallet with my credit cards and cash. I have it loaded with classic books as well and the Bible. I am reading Saint Francis Of Assisi.
I also hall around my cell an ancient nokia 6150 (4 years old, dropped in the toliet but revived with 30 days of electrical current to burn crystalization off the circuits.)
I also sometimes carry my $50 Aiptek mini video camera for video captures and video clips. (see Flashed sample of family here. But the camera is usually perched on my computer for video confrencing.
I don't like carrying all those devices though. I want them to converge into one. Along with my MP3 player. I also almost never take my Mac G3 laptop anywhere other than from the countertop to the couch while I watch Seinfeld reruns and surf boingboing.net (okay sometimes linkfilter.org).

a pen
a notebook, folded up into my back pocket - though only if i plan on writing something, working on something. otherwise, no paper - as usually i can find something to write on if i need to.
pocket watch
house key
wallet with cash and train card and calling card
i used to wear glasses, but gave those up. only for distance. and i stopped driving.
oh - and the ubiquitous appointment/address/phone book. that fits in the back pocket.

1314-A Portable Railroad Telephone Set
Seattle Computer Gazelle
Honda EU2000 Super Quiet inverter generator
Custom Radio Flyer wagon

Edited by author 03-10-2003 01:16 PM
When walking around the office or to work, I carry:

Nokia 8265 -- for talking and text messaging
Benchmade Osborne 940S -- for um, cutting stuff. and poking stuff too.
Wallet -- cash, ID, ccard, biz card
Keys -- for doors

When I'm traveling, I add:

Blackberry -- beats lugging the iBook
Palm 515 -- Itenerary info, phone numbers, ebooks and games
iPod -- 5 gig. Sometimes it hurts to be an early adopter.
Canon PowerShot 100 -- see prior comment.

When I'm riding my motorcycle, I throw all of this stuff in the pockets of my Aerostich, the best garment ever. I put the iPod in an upper pocket, put in Koss earbuds, and I can listen to music while I ride.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 12:38 PM
Kyocera 2345 cell phone
black space pen with stylus nib
Spyderco Ladybug knife (gay name, nice little knife)
keys with a round metal fob thingy with 4 screwdriver tips on it
wallet with too many cards in it
Citizen Wingman watch with a compass in the watchband. The watchband/compass is new. I haven't decided if I like it or not. The watch is nice because it has all of the time zones in it, but it doesn't glow very well.

Palm IIIx if I am wearing cargo pants. If I'm not wearing cargo pants, I might keep it in my front pocket of my jeans if I know I will need it.

Good question.

Samsung Cell Phone - Rule number 1 is never leave home without the cell phone. If you dont your car will break down and that's just the start of the bad things..

I also carry at least 5 credit cards (2 are debit cards).
Amex with rewards for meals etc.
Amex business card with rewards for business expenses.
2 regular visas.
2 visa debit cards.

Way more cash then I need. Comes from years of not having cash in pocket. I almost never use it see credit cards above.

I've actually gotten away from taking my watch. Cell phone provides the time. Also I dont take my house keys with the firm conviction that the garage door opener will function when I get home.

This response may be tainted by the fact that I'm boingboing.net generation + 1.

I'm really seriously thinking about adding a Casio Exilim really skinny digital camera but I'm waiting on the 3.2 megapixel.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 11:52 AM
Sketchbook
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S30
Lomo LC-A
TRG Pro (Palm clone)

This topic makes me think of the book The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. It is a series of connected short stories with the theme of talking bout what each soldier character was carrying in Viet Nam. Great book.

-DH.
http://www.enchantedceiling.com/

Edited by author 03-10-2003 02:33 PM
Generally I max out with the following

* Wallet/Money Clip. Fear of pickpockets and disorganization have finally caused me to make a conscious effort to only carry essential wallet clutter AND organize the loose bills.

* Loose bills and change. I never said I was successful with organizing the money...

* House keys with MOMA ball-bearing thing.

* Cross Ion Pen - I've had it for nearly two years now. Great pocket pen.

* Leatherman Juice CS4 - except when I fly of course.

* Duncan Freehand yoyo... what? Doesn't everyone have a yoyo?

* Squared Moleskin notebook - I try to make sure never to carry both my Moleskin and my Lomo at the same time, for fear that I'll reach critical 'Net-geek' mass and explode.

.... and the good stuff:

* Motorola T720 - I hate the damn thing, but it'll do until something better comes along.

* Casio Exilim EX-S2 - I take pictures the way other obsessives take notes... constantly.

* 128mb Sandisk Cruizer - for sneakernetting and picture uploading.
 
* iRiver SlimX 350 CD/MP3 player. It'll do until FlashTrax is released with proper video playing capabilities.


Of course there's the additional work bag with computer, books, magazines, DVDs, small sharp pointing things that annoy the TSA at airports... that sort of thing.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 11:30 AM
It is interesting that more and more of us are beginning to resemble the "Gargoyles" in Stephenson's _SnowCrash_, capturing every moment of our lives.


Also, a $20 Casio watch from Walmart. I had a calculator watch, but got tired of people laughing, and decided I could relearn to do the math in my head.

I really like my compact flash card (only 32m) and reader.

I have a Palm, but it hurts to realize I don't use it for much more than phone numbers. I do most of my work on a $300 thinkpad.

I just lost my leatherman micra. I had taken it off the keychain temporarily to trim my nose hair at a red light, and it slipped out of my pocket. I will definitely replace it, but I'm not sure with what.

If I could find a cheap wallet sized leather notebook with cheap refills I'd probably buy it and a fountain pen.

I do like the Palm for one thing--odd appointments that I forget about--it reminds me.

I wish I had an email-palm interface, so I could email myself appointments and notes.

What I'd like:

An Ipod, with a built-in phone and pda, and a jack for vr goggles and a good wordprocessor. With wireless. Basically, a really simple, good GUI wearable that I could write with in spare moments. Actually, I'd be more productive without the wireless connection.

and an inflatable soundproof cocoon I could crawl into and work.

David Mercer:

 Sorry to get your hopes up; the MathPad I was talking about is not the one you're thinking of. See http://www.radiks.net/~rhuebner/index.html

Parens and MathPad have been discontinued...I had better be careful with my copies. Cool that you have an iButton; I'm a Java dev but haven't done any J2ME stuff yet.

[rummages purse] Oh yes: A Linux Bootable Business Card. And then there's the purse itself: An Ameribag "Healthy Back Bag"

Interesting how many people carry digital cameras with them. Before digital cameras, I'll bet not many people brought film cameras with them.

20 gig iPod
Sony-Ericsson t68i with camera, Jabra bluetooth headest
Canon Powershot G2
Nalgene bottle
Occasionally, G3 Lombard Powerbook with Orinoco card
All in my green Spire bag (http://www.spireusa.com)

I'm coming to this forum fairly late, but as I find it so interesting, I thought I'd add a comment of my own.

I carry the follwoing just about every day:

A slim wallet/money clip thing in which the most important item is my CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) card.

Gerber multi tool (leatherman clone)

Nokia 8260

Canon S110 Digital elph

PowerBook Titanium

PCMCIA laptop cards (wireless & CF adapter)

Some kind of book to read on the bus, etc.

And of course, keys, watch, work id card, etc. go without saying.

I carry a Visor Deluxe and a crappy motorola cell phone. I sometimes carry a Rio MP3 player, smaller than a pack of cigs.

I'll soon be trading in the Visor and cell for a brand new Kyocera 6035.

This is a great discussion.

I always carry:

Sony Clie PEG-NR70 (big clamshell, no camera)
Nokia 3360
T-Mobile Sidekick (most of the time; it doesn't really do enough to replace either of the other two, but it does enough on its own to earn a spot in my pockets).
Fat Victorinox SAK that includes a multibit screwdriver.
Fountain pen
Cross Fountain/ballpoint/stylus combo
Omega Seamaster
Carmex
Erin
Two keys (one car, one house)

Sometimes, I also carry:

Original 5 gig iPod
Antihistamines
1ghz TiG4

c

I *always* carry these around Brooklyn and Manhattan:

-- Treo 90 - because Vindigo comes in handy about once every fifteen minutes when my wife and I are out to dinner, a movie, museums (and looking for a public bathroom...) But also for the lists of books, movies, etc. I keep in ThoughMill (formerly ThoughtMill by HandsHigh).

-- My digital camera - formerly a Coolpix 800 which died when hit by an ocean wave, but starting next week, a Coolpix 4500

-- Namiki Vanishing Point fountain pen - the only fountain pen made that clicks open like a ballpoint, eliminating the main reason to use other pens.

-- 1920s-era Elgin pocket watch - not inherited but bought for a reasonable $60 sometime during the 1980s.

If I'm out and about without any of these things, I feel like a piece of me is missing.

Things I don't carry: a cel phone. I've got a home office. I just can't justify $40 a month so I can call my wife from the video store and ask if she wants to see something scary.

-=-Joe

Since last September I carry a T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone (from HTC) with
--all the PIM stuff
--Pocket Excel and MS Word
--email and Web browsing (Pocket IE plus Bitstream's Thunderhawk browser)
--SMS and AOL Instant Messenger
--dozens of my favorite MP3s
--a photo albun
--my Powerpoint slides
--RealOne, Windows Media and Pocket TV players to watch...
--viral videos from the Web and myt own home movies
--PDF and MS Reader ebooks
--AvantGo for newpapers and magazines
--the great Vindigo
--games like Tetris and Age of Empires

T-Mobile coverage and their GPRS access is only OK, but I get way more email than phone calls and it's great for that.

I used to use a Visor Prism with a Visorphone and don't understand why people want two gizmos. Phone keypads are useless for real data entry. I learned way back when to write in Graffiti (I bought a comfy Cross pen/stylus) so I've got years of meeting and conference notes in my pocket.

I also don't understand why everyone doesn't use color. Those nasty black on green screens are just no good. For a couple of hundred bucks, treat yourself -- you're worth it.

Of course, power management becomes an issue, and because it's Windows you have to re-boot your phone a few times a week. But look at all those apps!

1. A Samsung/Sprint cellphone that I don't use very often...
2. An Archos 20GB Jukebox Recorder...doesn't look as cool as the iPod but works just as well and costs far less...

And an old school watch that does nothing but tell time...

Camera's too big, don't have the need for a Palm...

Couldn't survive school without:
Palm m100
Keyboard for Palm m100
Nomad II MP3 player
TI-83 Plus Calculator
A funky tape Recorder bought at a grocery store...

Edited by author 03-10-2003 09:42 AM
I carry too much, and it varies too much to go into... I use a shoulder pouch for commuting which contains some emergency gear...

but for ELECTRONICS ON MY PERSON, I just cary my mobile phone and the Palm Tungsten T, which contains maps and MP3 player, among other things.

For those seriously disgusted with their phones (like Mark), check out the LG vx4400. Everyone I know who's tried it has fallen in love with this little phone. It's tiny, it has a gorgeous color display (and an outer monochrome time/caller id display, both with LARGE numbers so you can see them without your glasses), great sound, great battery life, downloadable polyphonic rings that are assignable to individuals in your phone book, games and mini-apps, mini-browser, illuminated keypad, jog dial, voice actuated dialing, GPS locator that you can enable all the time, only for 911 calls, or disable, and on and on- the only thing it doesn't have is bluetooth.

Always:
1 $20 Wal-Mart Casio watch
1 Pager (basic model, numbers only)
1 Swiss Army Knife ('Camping' model--no frills like a magnifying glass or scissors)
1 Ink Pen (various makes and models, no real pref., always black ink)
1 bulky set of keys
1 wallet with 2 debit cards, DL, and library card, usu. less than $5 cash

At work:
1 Black Carry-All Bag whose primary work-related contents are an address book, a Phillips-head screwdriver, and a few spare black ink pens. (I never run out of ink, I always lose the little bastards.) I am a generic computer tech at a non-tech firm, I do everything from help-desk to server administration. I've never needed much more than a screwdriver for most hardware problems, and most of the answers I need to solve day-to-day problems are somewheres on the net.

Nothing.

I don't have a cell phone because I don't want to be contacted anywhere, any time.

I don't have a PDA because they are too small. I once had a newton, and that was almost what I wanted. Maybe if the Tablet PC's come down in price, and maybe not.

I don't even carry a watch with me (there are computers at both ends of my trip and a clock in my car)

I'm not a luddite, in fact I love technology, I just don't need these things, so I don't have them.

iPaq 3835 (256 Meg SD)
GBA
MuVo (128 Meg)
T720
Nextel
Linux BBC
Casio EX-S2
Smokes


All this stuff revolves between pockets and my laptop case, and usually makes it with me to work and back - invariably the thing that gets left behind is the thing I really wanted for that day.

Little detail on each. I recently realized I could DiVX encode cartoon episodes down to 24 Megs each (about 2 megs per minute) and still maintain acceptable quality. So the iPaq hauls around animation ranging from Tex Avery to Invader Zim.

The MuVo rocks... and sucks at the same time. The portability and comfort and sound can't be denied - but it glitches during transfers more than it should.

T720/Nextel - One for personal, one for work - and I fucking hate that it has to be that way.

The Casio and GBA both usually stay in my bag till I want them for some reason. I'm a goob for carrying around all this stuff - but I generally feel lost without any of it anymore - or at least bored.

credit card, ID card, cash, keys, watch. everything else seems just fine in my head.

I carry with me:

- iPod
- Minolta DiMAGE X camera
- Gameboy Advance
- AU mobile phone

Nokia 3360
Canon S110 Elph - optional
Cybertool - in bag
CRKT K.I.S.S pocket knife, soon to be replaced by a Gerber Air Ranger
Keys
Wallet
Mini Bic
Smokes

Used to carry a Handspring Visor, but the 3360 has phonebook and reminders. It's more durable, and has WAP. No Cybertool on the weekends.

my usb stick, 256 mb, hanging round my neck.

I carry virtually nothing. Even in work mode, I carry nothing but a pad of Post-it notes and a pencil, I call it "the Naked Consultant Game." If I can't fix a problem with my bare hands and the contents of my mind, it can't be fixed. Of course, I only do software.
I've always been fascinated with an idea I first saw on James Burke's amazing TV series "Connections." He asked his viewers to empty their pockets or purse and look at every single item, and see if they carried anything that was not mass-produced. Everything we handle is mass produced: money, keys, bits of paper, etc. I've done this test to hundreds of people, and I've only found ONE person that carried even ONE item that was not touched by technology in some way, my sister carried a fossilized shark's tooth as a good luck charm.

You asked! In my tiny, perfectly-formed handbag (10"x7"x2.5") I always have:

palm 505 in up-market tan leather case (with sd card and bluetooth card) which contains
- 7 or 8 daily/weekly newspapers/magazines (avantGo)
- several books (palmreader, project guthenberg, dropbook)
- pictures of the children
- numerous games
- all the other usual diary/address/e-mail stuff

ericsson t39m in girly ice blue colour (bluetooth)

iPod 20 gigs (i really want something to wind up the headphone cable on though, like someone mentioned they had, haven't found anything)

Sony Cyber-shot U (blue) - this camera has changed my life

spare batteries and memory stick for above camera

sole mio folding sunglasses

mini a-z of london

spangly powder-pink pencil case containing:
- 4 pens (pink and aquamarine)
- ruler (pink)
- leatherman micra (in leather pouch)
- leatherman squirt P4 (same blue as camera)
- maglite solitaire (same blue as camera)
- jeweller's screwdriver (for sunglasses screws)

wallet and keypouch which match handbag, handcream, small notebook, tampons, packet of tissues.

The downside? the weight of the gadgetry stretches the handbag strap and I have to shift shoulders frequently.

What do I lack? An SD card FM radio.

House Keys (why can't these be like car keys)
LOMO Kompakt Automat (if it's sunny)
Kodak DX4330 (if not sunny)
Pen & Paper
Baby
Hip Seat
Bag-o-baby stuff
Nokia402 (also acts as a baby chew-thing/teether)

Thanks Stefan, I was starting to feel like a freak.

Wallet. Keys with pocket knife. errr.... digital watch?

Edited by author 03-10-2003 04:40 AM
Wallet, Keys (attached to bottle opener), Siemens C55 mobile, Freecom Beatman II MP3 player, Paper, Pen, Diesel Watch, spare batteries, book (now: 'How to be good' by Nick Hornby).

ls -l pockets.*
Keys- house, bike lock
Ipaq CF expansion jacket with 1gB microdrive (mp3 player, digi photo storage etc), 802.11b extension jacket.
Phone- Nokia 6310i (folks, avoid the T68, the firmware stinks)- functions as GPRS/CSD modem for the ipaq when no 802.11b coverage is available.
Wallet/change.
Obligatory securid dongle and access card.
Spoke key
Couple of leeches (self adhesive puncture repair patches)

Edited by author 03-10-2003 03:52 AM
I have several different "manifests" depending on the situation/"mission".

Bare minimum
Wallet
Keys with photon light, metal schwag bottle opener
Victorinox Cybertool knife.
Palm M505
Pager
Hiptop(Currently locked in a battle with my Palm for my affections. It has my connectivity, the Palm has my data. To sync the two would mean rebooting into Windows)

Average/Daily:
All the above plus:
BOBLEB-E hardshell backpack containing:
Laptop, power brick, extra battery,PCMCIA Ethernet, 802.11,
Bluetooth card for Palm AND laptop. Portable CDR/W, Linux BBCs, travel charger/cables for Palm/cellphone/hiptop.
Various Music & OS CDs.
RJ-11 spool
RJ-45 spool

The Con/Conference/"Loaded for Bear" manifest includes all of the above plus:
802.11b AP, hub/switch, and enough tools to put together and run a small-mid sized email access center.

In previous years these or similar items were carried around in a photographer's vest.

If I had to choose just one or two, it'd have to be the Palm and the Cybertool.

I carry my bag with nearly everywhere, which usually has in it:

laptop, wireless card, cord
steno pad, pens
assorted paperwork
whatever book I'm reading
penknife, tiny flashlight, handiwipe, paperclip-thingy, floss, smokes, lighter, checkbook, stamps, b-cards (when I'm using 'em), cellphone (ditto), good luck charm
random crap I pick up walking around, like weekly newspapers and flyers for shows
crappy little walkman I bought in El Paso

But I think I need to pare down. I think the weight of the damn thing is starting to mess my shoulder up.

Other than that, wallet and keys in the pockets. Don't wear a watch, never have.

- wallet (slim type - only Amex, Debit card, DL - sometimes money)
- Car Key and house key
- SecurID card (dont ask)
- SecurID dongle (again dont ask)
- Nextel 95cl (work phone)
- Motorola v60i (private line)
- SonyEricsson T68i (new - potential replacement for v60)
- Jabra bluetooth headset
- CardKey (for work)
- Notebook (Ti 667 OSX)
- Notebook (Toshiba, RH 8)
- Notebook (Dell 4150, FreeBSD)
- 4 different pagers (one too many maybe)
---------
Jim
www.jamesmcmurry.com

Edited by author 03-10-2003 02:53 AM
-wallet
-car keys
-Swiss Army Knife
-10GB iPod (bulky, yes, but indespensible IMHO)
-Verizon V-111 cell phone (several years old, but still works fine for my purposes)
-Canon Powershot S200 (I get at least one good picture everyday for www.weareacamera.com)
-Casio Protrek watch

- wallet
- two car keys (my car and my wife's)
- house keys
- a little leather pouch to hold loose change
- a pen (I have a hard time finding a pen small enough to fit in my pocket with rounded tips on both ends so it doesn't poke holes - I only know of only one store that sells the kind I have now)
- my trusty swiss army knife (which I wear on my belt in a leatherman holster)
- my iPod

I used to carry a palm pilot in a little flip-open leather case. But I couldn't carry both it and the iPod without constantly listing to starboard, and I'm not *quite* nerdy enough for a batman utility belt, so something had to go. I don't really listen to music that much on the road, but I like having my iPod with me (and all the data it holds - it's a nice off-site backup). I have addresses on my iPod, but don't use them that much anymore. I do use the text notes in the iPod address cards to store a list of all 19 psudeonyms of Henry Kuttner (a marvelous sci fi writer who died in the 50s) in case I ever stumble into a used book store.

Right pocket: Pen, key chain, money.

Left: Wallet, security badge if I don't have shirt with a pocket.

I don't have a cell, PDA, or (non-toy) digital camera. My laptop is an old one with a bad battery, hardly worth carrying around.

I WOULD like a pocket digital camera.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 01:33 AM
The essentials:
Hiptop: phone, email, IM, web. Calendar is at work, setup to email reminders. Yahoo, Spammotel and work email forward to the hiptop, which is rigged with a clip and screen protector, so it's literally on my hip.
Wallet

Computer bag with laptop, pockets for folders and paperwork.

Being winter, I keep keys + pens (always have pens!) in a long black coat. I'm jonesing for a small digcam + mp3 player.

In the car: Garmin GPS V, A/C inverter for powering laptops and such.

Swiss army knife
T-Mobile Sidekick

Usually on my person:
Handspring Visor Platinum: the spare brain
Kyocera 2255 cell phone
Three rollerball pens: One black, one red, one blue
Wallet with skull-and-crossbones logo
Keys on Mandylion userID/password-tracking key fob

In my knapsack, when I'm in work mode:
Apple iBook dual USB 500
Logitech optical mouse
Mead five-star binder
USB-powered gooeneck light
At least one book (currently O'Reilly's Java Network programming, second edition)

In my gym knapsack
T-shirt of defunct computer-related company (usually OpenCola or Mojo Nation)
Shorts
Pyramid DJ headphones
Empty Gatorade bottle for water
Usually an Atkins bar (most often "cookies and cream"

When going out on the town:
Titano student accordion
Small notebook containing chords and lyrics of popular songs

Buck 181FX folding knife
Plastic butane lighter

...that's it. :-)

I perpetually wear a black leather non-biker jacket that's about ten years old. The pockets are pretty deep, and nobody's ever voluntarily picked it up twice.

Frequently, it's found loaded with:
Palm IIIc complete with cradle and power brick,
usb to serial dongle.
e-Trex venture GPS & cable
Nokia 8290 cellphone
sunglasses
CDR/CDRW discs, sometimes intact.
Motorola FRS radio.
Stray paintballs
cheap Mitsubishi dj-1000 digital camera
keys: car, wife's car, house, five work-related
stray cans of Coke (1 to 3 depending on time of day)
change for the Coke machine (once the jacket runs out)
brazil nuts in the lining (my brother-in law has this sense of humor...)

Aside from the jacket contents, I have my wallet and a Timex Datalink watch (with nylon/velcro wristband. I tend to destroy the metal or leather bands somehow.)

It's a universal truth that Everything Fits In The Jacket. If I run out of room, I just rearrange the contents until Everything Fits In The Jacket.

Pants:

SOG Paratool on belt

Knife (Benchmade Mel Pardue. I wanna Axis.)

M4 Sebertool (tiny, has everything the SOG doesn't)

Sundry keyrings (house, motorcycles, work)

Tiny Zebra pen (4" long, 1/4" wide brushed stainless. writes like a dream, no idea where to get 'em besides Trick & Murray in Seattle or some shop at a Japanese mall in San Diego.)

LED light

Tiny tape measure (36"/100cm, I always know if it'll fit.)

Imco Triplex lighter (shiny 'n' purty)

M/C jacket:

2x3 wirebound notebook (lists and notes)

Moleskine pocket calendar (everyone wants to fondle the leather)

Passport

Checkbook

Perennially overstuffed wallet

Pouch of rolling tobacco (Peter Stokkebye Stockholm Blend if I can get it)

Nokia 3360 (cheaper than a landline and not a bad design)

Cardkey (awaiting keychain fobs from the supplier)

The only things I don't use at least 4 times a week are the checkbook and passport. More's the shame.

Acquaintances encourage me to get a PDA, but I can't imagine being able to whip one out to jot a quick note, like I can with the notepad or calendar. Friends know I don't entrust anything important to digital electronics.

Digicam and a rotating collection of toys and reading material goes in a Dickies mini messenger-bag.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 12:18 AM
Things that are every day carry around gizzmos.....

(note bene..since early kidhood I have been a wearer of big pockets, of many pockets, of pockets in pockets. I am a pocket person. I love the winter in part because it allows me to wear big coats with even more pockets. Moving to Oregon was like moving to PocketCentral. Many of these devices will nto fit in your mundane sized pockets so before you try to stuff with the big boys take full measure of your holdings)


--A Palm M500 with a 128meg card---Basicaly I am a walking library. The amount of PDB style books readable by CSpot Run and Weasle are amazing, then add to that Pluckering anything thats htmled. I use a series of pages called the ZED News Service to get my daily haunts off the web and on the Palm.
Other apps used with frequency, Frotz, FileZ, Chess, and some GPS goodies.

--Little Yellow Etrex--Oh the joys of geocaching. The whole fmaily digs it. I have a set of cable to hook up with the palm.


--The 1.3 gigapixle Fujifilm digicam--Yea its an oldie moldy but it still is exactly what we need. With a newborn, and 8 year old and the family sprewn across the globe its more than paid for itself.

--The Rio Volt -- This is the original Volt. The upgradable roms are a plus but the big deal is the size of my mp3 cd collection. I collect old time radio shows and other such stuff. The mp3s and oggs are all on CD to begin with so moving stuff around to memory would just be another step that would interupt the flow form wanting to hear to hearing. As it is now I want to hear somethign, I grab the cd, slap it in and I am there.

Also, at 700meg per cd its hard to consider doing a single use memory card based gizmo. with cds priced what they are now its a tough price point to break.

I used to carry this last one around a lot more, nowadays though it has become my 7 month old son's music center. We have one of the Rio Volt shelf systems in the master bedroom and I am near a computer everywhere else. Someday I may get a new PDA that can do mp3/ogg, but for now if I need a mobile player its the Volt.


--Smart ID card for the office

--Keyring with keys--changes by whim..last few were a leather Church of The SubG, a bottle opener, and old 256k memory chip and the gps.

--The current issue of Countermoves

--Various handouts of protest, bargin and poltical leanings.

--Half done origami designs.

--Wallet with the usualy suspects but never any money. Gorwin up in NYC gives you a sense of what is replaceable and what is not. Prized pieces...An Eisenbergs deli biz card , pics of my family, until recently a SUCK condom.

--Pedimeter. In the quest ot shed pounds my wife got me one of these doodads that keeps track of how many steps I take in a day/week/month. Knowing I am a sucker for datamangling she figures , rightly, it will help me focus on fitness.

--A Little Blue Book...One of the things I love to collect, these are pocket sized bits of knowing published back int he 20's thru 50's by E Julius Halderman. His goal waws to make it so every one could have a colege level education by breaking as much of the worlds knowing into these nickle and dime priced bookletes. Think of them as Pocket Project Guttenberg. I have ebayed togther about 200 of them so far. The oddest thing is each book just slightly larger than my palm m500 area wise.

--One or more Sharpies, various colors.

--One or more Binkies, various colors.

--Sometimes I even have cash moeny in a pocket or two, but thats not often.

Edited by author 03-11-2003 05:19 PM
Always on my person:
- Nokia 3360: crappy, but I'm waiting for better service here so I can get a T68i (so I can use Clicker to control my bluetooth Macs) or a Danger Hiptop (since I need but don't carry a PDA)
- keychain: 5 keys, mini Swiss Army Knife, Photon LED light, Dagger kayak beer opener, little aluminum tube-thingy (not sure what it's for, but it looks cool).
- Leatherman PST II and Tool Adapter (w/bits)
- 20GB iPod (12GB of music, personal file backups, OS X bootable rescue volume; various Mac tools: Cocktail, Norton Utilities, Disk Warrior, etc.)
- Canon PowerShot S230 in small case w/ 128 MB CF card and spare 128MB CF card)
- Sunglasses (prescription black RayBan Wayfarers I've had since 1986, though the lenses have changed several times)
- Benchmade Osborne Axis 942 knife

This load wears fine in the fall/winter since I'm usually wearing a coat, but it gets a bit unwieldy in warmer weather, in which case all gets put in a "Man Bag" (also known as a "European Man Bag") from Eagle Creek except for the knife and the cellphone.

Christ, I forgot the most techno-snobish thing on my person...
the iButton on my keychain! Complete JavaCard (JVM in your
pocket) crypto engine with private keys on it.

Used to have a cell phone in one pocket and my Visor Deluxe in another, but then Handspring started giving away the Sprint Digital Links (VisorPhone) for free. So now I have everything all in one dangling from my beltloop in an ActiveArmor case. It was a bit bulky holding it up to talk on the phone at first, but I figure it's all in one, so I'm still saving space. I can use it as a wireless modem so updating my blogs and websurfing can be done anywhere. And it's CHEAP too...

Here's what I carry around, along with an explanation of the sociocultural signifigance of pockets.

The sysadmin where I work has a great pictorial explanation:
"What the hell is in JB's vest?"
http://primates.ximian.com/~jbz/vest.html

An awful lot, it turns out.

- Motorola Timeport 270C as if anybody in the room has a phone signal, I do. I use the text messaging to receive weather and other items.
- HandSpring Visor Platnum for addressbook, calendar, and strip (to store user names and passwords)
- Hiptop: I don't use the phone, but I use the e-mail like nobody's business for work and just to keep info with me, I have an e-mail account just for the device that I send info from Entourage the day before an event to have the address and other info I always need, but never seem to have. As it begins to get synch capability I may use it over my Handspring. The lowres camera is a nice add-on.
- Keys in a case w/ light. My car key separate and my wife's truck key.
- Wallet, which is a taxi endloading for cards.
- A little cash separate
- A book in the game pouch of the coat
- sunglasses
- hat
- Burts lip balm

This setup will work until it gets warmer and I don't have my Barbour coat to carry all these devices, then I may lose the HandSpring.

- My work/travel bag has an Olympus D490 digital camera to capture the wonderful sights of life.
- Extra memory cards for the camera
- Springboard module for backup
- Springboard eyemodule (low res camera)
- Three or four books as reference
- Cat5 cable
- Graph paper
- Note book
- Occasionally TiBook (often just in its own padded case (velcro pouch with Sony in-ear fotopia, iMic, smart card reader, RJ11 cable, kensington retractable cord USB mouse,

Edited by author 03-09-2003 09:41 PM
1. keys
2. tiny tiny wallet
3. billfold with a cool alessi money clip
4. nokia 3090 phone with a kickin' japanese dragon cover design
5. leatherman micra - i think i could almost strip a car with this thing :-)
6. spyderco knife for the bigger cutting jobs
7. microlite in blue
That's pretty much it

I used to carry a PDA, but it became technology for the sake of technology.

As far as electronic devices go - the only must have for me is my Treo 300. I used to carry around the evil cellphone/PDA combo, but upgraded to this and haven't looked back (or at a hiptop) since. Small enough to fit in any pants pocket, functional enough to browse any website and run every Palm application, and does a much better job as a phone then I had thought it would. It's not perfect, but nothing in this category is yet, and it's already made my life much simpler. I have Sprint's $10/mo for unlimited data, and let me tell you, nothing beats checking your mail or the news while waiting in line at the bank/post office/wherever you may be. (I'm sure the hiptop owners are with me on this. :)

I also have my keys (nifty Apple key fob, car key, home key, shopper's club card, and a set of keys for our local users' group meeting place just in case), my inhaler (I'm an asthmatic - need I say more), and my wallet (which I keep as slimmed down as possible - cash, coins, the membership cards I use most, my driver's license, my PayPal and checking account debit card). If I feel I might need some tuneage on the go, I'll bring my 10GB iPod, but that's not a requirement as we have a great college radio station in town (90.5 WBER). I also have a Gerber multitool that I'll bring with me if I remember, and I'll bring my earpiece if I expect calls (the handset in my Treo is great, but I prefer hands-free for any conversation over 5 minutes). I used to have a watch (a digital Timex with the i-Control ring), but the band broke and I haven't picked up a new one yet. I also have a GBA, but I never bring that with me unless I know I'm going to have a lot of time to kill.

That's what usually covers me, but as of late I've been hungering after a 12" Powerbook. I don't really need one that much, but it would really come in handy - I usually work at home, but lately I've been wanting to get out of the house and into some different environments. With Starbucks' $6/day pass, maybe I'll be able to work in some different scenery.

Edited by author 03-09-2003 09:32 PM
Not that I carry it in my pocket, but my TiBook is always where I am. I'm wireless at work, home and friend's houses. My whole life is in this thing.

One indispensible piece of software is Sim Express from www.kagi.com. I can back up my phone's sim card via the irda port, so if (when) I lose my phone, I have backup of all my numbers. You can also type number in via your keyboard.

This reminds me -- whatever you carry around, remember to keep it backed up!
-phil

I carry nothing on my person except my glasses.

In my backpack which goes everywhere I go:
many pens
paper
booklet-sized calendar/dayplanner free from my union
sterile whipes/bandades
asthma inhaler
antihistimines
backbreaking load of work papers
somebody's ms. they asked me to read (I still make hard copies)
cool little leather Coach shoulder bag that holds:
--lipstick
--mascara - hardly use them
--Nokia which I almost never use
--wallet
--checkbook (why? I don't know)
--keys--lots 'o keys

What I used to carry but don't any more:
- Swiss Army Knife. I forgot it was in the backpack and the federales took it. Haven't replaced it yet
- Palm IIx Never could make the leap from paper to digital so when I dropped it and it stopped working I never replaced it

I'm thinking I should add six feet of rope.

1 tiny wallet.
1 StarTac.
1 handkerchief.
4 keys.

After my third Treo died, I figured it was time to move on from Palm / Handspring. I couldn't take moving to WinCE, so I bought a Diamond Mako off eBay. I absolutly love it. I don't leave home without it. I bought a Motorola L7089 phone with an IR port just so I can send/receive email on the thing.

For me: EPOC based Diamond Mako, Motorola phone with IR port and phenomonally crappy UI, Space Pen I bought at Onizuka Space Museum at Kona Airport, three or four sheets of letter sized paper folded up on which to take notes.

Almost forgot to mention: wallet with Metro pass and more Smart Cards than Mag Stripe cards...

Victorinox MiniChamp Swiss Army Knife, MagLite Solitaire flashlight, 20GB iPod (if I'm alone), Canon Digital Elph S200, Nokia 2160 (which I transfer to my wife's phone and leave behind when we're together), Visor Deluxe, Generic USB pen drive (64 MB), Oakley sunglasses. Man, I carry a ton of stuff!

Handspring Visor Deluxe, for addresses and phone numbers, ebooks (currently Lawrence Block's "Enough Rope"), appointments, shopping list, checkbook register, journal. It has a modem module, so I can hook it up to a phone line and get my email if I need to. If I'm actually traveling, I take a Targas Stowaway fold-up keyboard, but I don't bother to carry it around every day.

Motorola StarTac. I guess it's old technology now, but I remember when it was like science fiction. I like that it closes into a little compact package that I can put in my pocket and not worry about pushing buttons (or turning it off) accidentally.

Keys, with a mini Swiss Army Knife and a little LED flashlight attached. No watch--I got out of the habit except, again, when I'm traveling--but with the cell phone and PDA, I can always find out what time it is.

My knitting--not gadgety, I guess, but I almost always have it with me in case I get stuck waiting somewhere. Currently knitting: a pair of purple stripey socks.

Star-Tac - it's taken a brutal beating over the years and still has yet to be replaced by anything I've seen on the market. Has worked pretty flawlessly. Waiting patiently for the Motorola fall line. Maybe...

Star-Tac Clip On - The best thing going in 1998, attaches to the cell phone to create a single unit from which one may make calls from the clip on phone book, and shuttle numbers back and forth. Tiny, easy to use, syncs with Outlook, Eudora et al, only drawback- not backlit. Again, waiting to get a single unit which does what the phone and clip on do... (And not have to spend a cool g...)

The perfect cell phone: (flip style) as tough and useful as the Star-Tac, with full phone book capability. Until Voice recog becomes reliable, doubt there will be such capable data entry anytime soon, so with decent data entry via text buttons. Should include a digital camera. There are a few models on the market that have these specs, but they are so fragile, they'd last a week in my life... or they are too large...

Jabra ear piece for Star Tac - much less noisy to callers than the conventional earpeices, since it utilizes the inner ear accoustics, but if you are walking in a windy area... useless. The ear acts as a fantasitic wind catch, creating stunning noise... useless. But, most conventional earpieces are limited in the wind as well.
Wallet and keys.
Business cards.
Pen.
Money.
Altoids
Carmex

Sidekick. It, at least to some extent, covers all the functions your other devices do. Not as good a camera, not as good a PDA, not a particularly wonderful phone.

No MP3 functionality, though. Still got the old Rio, somewhere, though.

Hmm. Sensa AMX Carbon Nickel Fiber pen... my old Qualcom PCS wireless web phone (I have a newer, smaller one with all the nifty features including PCS Vision, but the browser doesnt support cookies so I can't check my email on it and without that, what's the point?)... occasionally my Newton Messagepad 2100... occasionally my ibook...
Sometimes my sony digital voice recorder for when I get ideas I need to save and not have to worry about them being deleted (because I've never figured out how to delete a memo from the thing)... and occasionally a little stun gun if I'm going anywhere questionable. Never had to use it, but you never know. Much better than pepper spray.

I leave my gadgets at home. I have 100 Mbps fiber-to-the-home, some hot computers and awesome audio, but don't even carry a cellphone when I go out.

Handspring Visor Platinum with a Visorphone module in it, which turns it into my mobile phone and wireless modem. (In my end of south-east England, wi-fi is something you might have read about if you buy an expensive broadsheet newspaper.)

If I'm wearing a coat, I've stuffed the Targus Stowaway fold-out keyboard for the Visor in one pocket and the Archos 20gig mp3 player in the other.

-- Warren Ellis
http://www.diepunyhumans.com

I forgot, a source of fire and cigs. (American Spirit Organics...you might get emphasema, but you're less likely to get cancer! No radioactive phosphate fertilizer used!)

Maggie: Yes, MathPad is nice for different things than Forth, is it on the Palm or other pda's yet?

Now, Pocket Mathematica would be NICE. And of course Scheme and Squeak (smalltalk) run on Palm too, so there is no dearth of various directly hosted development environments on it, for various and sundry problem domains.

yes, i love my cybershot u.

and frankly, i would be lost without my iPod. Lost.
i listen to it in the car, at work, at home.

then, i have the nextel phone. a big lug of a crappy phone that i need to carry with me everywhere.

until some genius figures out a way to combine all these things, i'm using my winter coat to hold everything. i have no idea what is going to happen in the summer.

i was thinking about a utility belt.

Noel

- Leatherman (was my wedding gift from my wife - how damn cool is that!)
- Cellphone (some crappy Audiovox that was free with my cell plan)
- Handspring Visor Deluxe (I used to read my news on it every morning with AvantGo, but since I now drive it's effectively useless)

That's it...I don't even wear a watch.

KS

>>Hey Dutch, Have you used the fire poker handle yet?

I have never hurt anyone with it, but I have brandished it. It's much more effective than just picking up the nearest beer bottle or brick. I feel almost like a superhero, having my own personalized weapon, and I think this image carries over pretty well. It's not like a lot of geek things that just end up looking pathetic when viewed by members of the larger society.

Almost forgot my most important piece of gear: a one-hitter shaped like a cigarette. Has a wooden carrying case to go with it, which has a spring in it so the pipe comes shooting out when you open it. It's like a wooden Pez dispenser for smoking weed with.

Most important:
-Sony Ericsson T68i. I use this as my primary home phone/phone list/organizer. Bluetooth sync with my PowerBook rules.

Not on my person, but lugged around in my bag/in my car/etc.
-20GB iPod
-mini mag lite
-Visor Platnium (used mostly for reading these days)
-PowerBook G4/867
-Extra battery for laptop
-mini-tool
-pen/paper
-FireWire cable for connecting laptop to iPod, other computer, etc.

Edited by author 03-10-2003 12:57 PM
On my person:

Wallet (actually the credit-card holder part of a wallet).
My motto with stuff: "Thin is in."

Carabiner with various keyrings, plus an
Inova microlight white-LED flashlight (has a
lockable on/off switch as well as a momentary).
(Also has a velcro cable strap as a hand-hold
and indexer.)

Casio "Forester" digital watch with custom strap
(the stock one was a cumbersome leather and velro
affair; the new one is *much* thinner.)

Leatherman Mini-Tool (with belt holster).
Inobtrusive. Handy.

Butane lighter (torch-style; Jonato; about the
size of a plastic Bic lighter). Used mostly to
sear the ends of freshly-cut nylon rope and strapping.

Cross Ion pen (aurora blue with black cartridge).
Money clip. (Part of my "distributed wallet" system.)
Change holder (holds up to $16 in Canadian funds).
Change wallet ("MadAddict"-style) for small change.
Car insurance and registration wallet.


Stuff lugged-around:

Nokia Cellphone (6185) with neoprene case
and Jabra earphone. Relatively big and heavy
by today's standards, but it *is* a tri-mode
cellular.

Visor Handspring Neo (in blue) in neoprene case.
Has a Springboard memory module, but used basically
for contact names and numbers.

Gerber Multi-Tool, in Blackie Collins holster.
(The holster may be worn horizontally.)

Sunglasses in carrying case.
Car stereo faceplate (in hardshell case).

Blue Sharpie marker and 1 AAA-cell Solitaire
Maglite (in nylon case).

Assorted writing instruments.
Spare change of socks.
2003 Scheduler (by Pierre Belvedere).

On a good day, I'll have a bottle of water,
as well.

(My G3/400 "Pismo" laptop rarely goes out,
it being used a desktop replacement.)


tom
-=W=-

Hiptop. You can translate your Guttenberg texts to HTML, drop them on a web server, and read them via the hiptop, which could potentially knock out your need to carry the Handspring, the Blackberry AND the cellphone (if you can live with the "sidekick"'s minutes-plan).

I carry my T68i Sony/Ericsson, my Canon PowerShot S230, my PowerBook, my 5GB iPod, my keys (with Photon Light).

Never know when you need to make/take a call, snap a shot, send some email, listen to some groovacious tunage, or start your car.

Best be prepared for it all! :D

My wallet. My crappy Nokia 3360. My mini-Leatherman tool. My Ichiro keychain.

Danger Hiptop - got this a few weeks ago to replace my StarTac cellphone and my Palm IIIxe, and I am in love, love, love. The wireless web has changed my life. I'm writing this on the Hiptop right now, and I'm sitting in my house!
Wallet
Keyring - 11 keys, Leatherman Micra minitool, and Badtz-Maru keychain
Chapstick - been addicted for 30+ years now
Whatever change I have
Hair-tie - I keep the long hair tied back most of the time.

Mahlen

"You people are stupid on purpose!" - Berkeley Bob

Edited by author 03-09-2003 07:38 PM
1. Wallet - as small as possible. Credit cards, ID, money clip, business cards.

2. Keys

3. Spiderco Delica

4. Leatherman wave.

5. Storm proof lighter.

6. Wilson Combat CQB with 9 rnds of Hydro-shock.

7. Another magazine with 8 more rounds of Hydro-shock.

8. Surefire 6Z flashlight.

9. 10 gig Ipod

10. Crappy hand hand-me-down phone, as my wife gets the latest/greatest.

Treasure Island Spoiler: Guy with the pegleg dunnit.

Edited by author 03-09-2003 07:35 PM
"What for?"

Because some things are bigger and/or nastier than pit bulls.

I suspect one might not know what 6' of cord is really good for until after it is used.

But remeber..."A really hoopie frood always knows where his towel is at." I've seen vacuum-packed, highly compressed towels, too...

FORTH YOU LOVE IF HONK THEN

But Parens and MathPad are really great; I'll likely use them in preference to Forth.

-My hiptop. I don't have to carry little slips of paper with to-do lists and a separate calendar anymore. Fabulous for waiting in lines/on the bus/anywhere I need to pass time.
-Motorola Timeport P8767 phone. Because I haven't made the transition to the hiptop phone yet.
-My LED bicycle taillight. I don't drive, so I use this at night to *try* to make drivers see me when I'm either in the crosswalk or waiting to enter the crosswalk if they would ever quit turning in front of me. It has a clip, so I just clip it on my backpack when I'm on foot. If need be, I take it off and wave it around.

Although I just got a Skyliner LED toy, so that might be my new must-carry gadget when I'm on foot at night. (I haven't tried it outside yet.) I added STOP! as one of the message options.
 
What I really need is an entire huge shield made of red LEDs for all those inattentive drivers.

Edited by author 03-09-2003 07:28 PM
i believe mike d from the beastie boys sang "i can't go outside without my walkman on." i don't leave the house without:
ipod (10 gig)
msft smartphone (tanager) + camera attachment

i often bring:
pocket pc
sony srx series lappy
analog reading material

i used to have an exilim s-1 which i always carried in my wallet. since i always had it on me, i took lots of pictures, but none of them came out very nice. then i replaced it with a sony u-20, which took great pictures, but i wasn't in love with it, so i gave it away to someone who really needed a memory stick based camera. i'm surrently looking for my next small camera and i'm thinking video w/ a still option this time. any recommendations out there in boing boing land?

Edited by author 03-09-2003 07:27 PM
At all times, I carry:
- My mobile phone, a Motorola v60.
- My DUO-DX MP3 player (for moozics in the car and at play!)
- A pen.
- Two types of Sun keys.

If I'm going-to or at work, the list includes:
- Olympia racheting reversable multibit screwdriver (for, like, screwing things)
- Mini-maglite (for working in the dark, and in the vault)
- Leatherman Super Tool (for various destructive purposes)
- Wenger-Delemont Swiss Army knife (because sometimes you need to cut things that are corrosive, and you don't want to damage the Leatherman)
- Fluke RJ45 cable tester (to test cables)
- DeWalt cordless drill (for assembling things with lots of screws)
- 8ft CAT-5 Ethernet patch (as an emergency, known-good swap out)
- 5ft RJ45 serial (as an emergency, gotta-get-onto-the-console contingency)
- 5ft power extension (just in case)
- Dell Latitude CPi/A (again, just in case; it has all my source and tools on it)

(edited, because Mark had also asked "Why?")

Oh, I forgot to give a shout out to those who mentioned packing Quartus Forth on their PDAs...rock on!

The Forth Underground lives :-)

Edited by author 03-09-2003 07:44 PM
all the time (usually in my backpack when I'm on my bike):

-LG 520 cell phone, recently geeked up with Totoro keitai strap
-Handspring Visor Deluxe: which I use for Avantgo, books, and occasional organizing. I also used it with a foldup keyboard when I was in Asia last year
-Sony MP3/CD player: this sweet little unit plays regular CDs and burned mp3 compilation CDs, giving me about 150 songs per disc. It'd be nice to have an iPod, but I can't really justify it for the price.
-I also never go without at least one old fashioned paper book. When the batteries run out, I can always turn to the ol skool goodness of a dead tree.

I always forget to bring my minidisc recorder and my digital camera, and toting my Digital8 camera around is a a serious pain in the ass. If I end up going overseas and pursuing a journalistic career, I'll eventually pick up a Canon GL2 and get my Cronkite on. :)

I just carry my Nokia 5170i (cheap flatrate local calls with cricket), my keys, cash and maybe my wallet, if booze or financial transactions are contemplated.

I used to carry a Visor back in the day, but have found that I don't use it enough...I'm waiting for that convergence thing to get to the level of the Globals in Earth Final Conflict before I burden myself with a pda type device again (I won't carry more than one electronic gadget anymore).

Mark: I can see plenty of reasons to carry 6 feet of cord or a 9mm pistol!

> 6 feet of cord bound up

What's that for?

Ericsson T-68i; One word: bluetooth
iPod: big? you must have small pockets. I have an attatchment that coils the earbuds, but I hope they make some wireless ones eventually. When I get home from work I plug it into the JBL Creature and that's my bedroom stereo.
My Fisher Price 35 millimeter camera, It's big, but it fits in my backpack. Plus I can kick it down the street and it'll still take a great picture. I can't justify buying a digital still camera because I have my sony dv camera, which is pretty capable at stills or video.

Not much on board, wallet (with car and house key), keychain with tweezers and 6 feet of cord bound up, pen, small pad and a Sharpie. The cell stays in the car. It's old with a dead bat, but good enough for emergencies.

Hey Dutch, Have you used the fire poker handle yet?

I bought pepper spray for when I go running, because a lot of the people let their pit bulls run free in the hills where I run. Before I had it, a dog saw me running with my baby daughter in a stroller and mad an angry barking beeline for her. I didn't have the spray, so I shielded her with my body. The dog was snarling and slobbering, and didn't listen to its owner when its owner called it to come back. Of course the owner got mad at me when I yelled at him.

But I always forget to bring the spray with me.

You don't need a Clie to get remote-control features. Check out
http://www.pacificneotek.com/
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA005810/remocon/premocce.htm
http://www.connected.tv/
http://www.pronto.philips.com/index.cfm?id=420

I carry a cellphone (which also serves as my watch and alarm clock, to the extent I ever need an alarm clock, which is little, what with me being a work-at-home type and all). And I recently got one of those little LED keychain fob flashlights. That's it. I'd like a cameraphone

I don't carry much in the way of gadgets around, my Danger Hiptop (aka T-Mobile Sidekick) is pretty much all I need, what with being a phone and an internet connection and a PDA all in one. I also keep a pedometer clipped to my waist (I'm obsessed with getting in more exercise each day) and a Canon PowerShot S-20 in my bag.

> And a Kel-Tec 9mm pistol.

Really?! What for?

Edited by author 03-09-2003 06:32 PM
I always carry a cast iron fire poker handle that just fits the shape of my palm, in my left pants pocket. This is useful as a fist pack, a blunt smashing weapon, or a tool for controlling a person after they are subdued. It also serves as a phallic symbol that catches the eyes of passersby when I wear tight pants.

I also carry a can of pepper spray, in my coat pocket on the righthand side. Can reach both weapons at once, when faced with double trouble.

Attached to my shirt collar or the flap hanging over the chest pocket, I wear my magnetic security badge. It is a generic white plastic, of the kind used in parking garage passkeys. On one face, below plastic, is the computer printout of my employee photo and identifying information.

I also carry not just one key, but two keys. One on my keychain, and the other inside my wallet in case I lock the keychain in the car.

Currently:

Nokia 8810, 20Gig iPod, VictoriaNox "Swisscard", UV keychain torch.

The iPod doesn't move around much on the weekend, but it goes in to work and back home every day of the week.

My TRGpro is currently off-line since I just don't use it enough. My other phone is the T28, for which I have the original Bluetooth kit and the MP3-player headset.

I'm a bad geek, as my day to day gadgets are totally analog.

I carry my leatherman micra on my keychain. Absolutely essential.

I also always carry a totally gear bottle opener that I scored in my SXSW swag bag one year. It's made of aluminum, making it far superior to the average plastic top poppers that always deform and/or break.

Edited by author 03-09-2003 06:24 PM
Palm IIIx, for same reasons as Daen\m 10. Quartus is nice, and a number of things-to-read in are good time fillers. An STS-model Swiss Army Knife (same model as is issued to Shuttle crew--not available anymore to public AFAIK) Also a Leatherman Wave, sinec the SAK can't do every job. Maglight Solitaire on the SAK lanyard. A military-model space pen. A Yaesu VX-5R VHF/UHF FM transciever..can be used for local comms, phone patch, to receive broadcast radio (AM and FM) and TV, police and fire, aviation VHF AM, even some shortwave broadcasts if you add a wire antenna; it's weatherproof and very sturdy cast aluminum case. 58x87x28mm 255g. And a Kel-Tec 9mm pistol.

I carry a cell phone that I rarely answer, and a Leatherman Wave. And there's a tiny LED flashlight on my keychain. That's it.

Depending where I am going I always have the following:

10GB iPod - just the right size (storage and dimensions). Carries all the music I need as well as a OS X/OS 9 system and my essential files, including some Simpsons episodes. A life saver!!!

Newton eMate 300
As someone who has four books due this year, I have to write whenever I find the time (I write, I sketch, I sync - wireless). Whenever I leave the house I can just throw this in the car or carry it in a small shoulder bag. A remarkable device with a nice keyboard, large screen, and fantastic bettery life (compared to my laptop). Also extremely durable. My wife recently started carrying around a Newton 2000...great for journaling. No wasted brain power on Grafitti.

For a year I carried around a Visor Prism...now it just serves as a GPS.

Use to have a bunch of different cell phones, but I found it a distraction...however if Danger releases a HipTop with Bluetooth...I may just consider getting one.

However I do see the value of an Apple iPod/Phone...I'd be there in a heartbeat. Perfect mix of all my needs in a package.

Edited by author 03-09-2003 06:03 PM
I used to carry a bulky Psion 3C that I won from PC Magazine in the UK. That's long since gone ... now the "bat belt" holds ...

a Sony Ixus camera which is nearly 3 years old. I take approximately one photo per day.

an IBM Workpad c3 nearly 2 years old, but it works. Pocket C and Quartus Forth keep me amused on trains ...

a Nokia 3310 not cool, but it works too.

a Black Maglight AA. I don't like them newfangled LED torches.

a Garmin eTrex Venture A Christmas present. And I still get lost.

and finally

a LEO Pharma bottle opener Hey - this is Denmark, and you never know when you'll need to open a bottle of Tuborg Classic in a hurry ...

I'm a seriously over the top tinkertoy gadgeteer, with a nasty habit of bringing along all manner of trinkets and gew gaws for any excuse I can think of. My base triamviete is pda/camera/phone, but I'm always tweaking the arrangement...

Today while wandering the City, I had on cargo pants style shorts, loaded down with an iPaq 3635 on my belt that I nabbed off of Craig's list for a song a while back. Said unit had a battery/pcmcia sleeve with a five gig hard drive slotted, loaded with tunes- after some months use, the drive has occasianal clicks, but with headphones it's not a bother. But in my knee pockets I had a Nexian camera sleeve for the iPaq, and a Targus keyboard, as I thought I might try prepping a journal entry. Plus, I had a Prolink CFII FM radio card, with adaptor.. just in case. At the hardware store, buying a new key chain fob, I couldn't pass on a collapseable leatherman tool, keychain sized- screwdriver, phillips, pliers, and cutter- nifty, but it's a bit tricky to fold open.

Depending on the intent, I'll supplement/replace pieces with things like my Nikon 995 camera, a full sized leatherman/flashlight combo, and other bits. What i have, well, works, but it's not optimized- a better, smaller camera is somwething I would get if I could. Bluetooth isn't ready for my Prime Time, and Danger's Hiptops make me drool, but I'm not willing to change phone service, and the convergance isn't quite there yet...

I got a digital camera a few weeks ago and am now carrying it most of the time. It takes me back to my picture taking 40+ years ago (I started at about 7 or 8) when I'd take pictures of the less important, more compelling things.

Things I don't carry:

Cellphone: I don't need to be gotten hold of.
Watch: I don't need to know what time it is. It's today.

Blackberry - my primary means of communication is e-mail.

Palm Tungsten T - datebook, todo's, phone numbers, and *lots* of reading material on the 256MB SD card

Nokia 3390 - only about half the time do I take this with me, not big on voice communication.

Apart from the usual suspects (wallet, keys) I more often than not pack my cellphone (the new Siemens S55, which I find to be a neat toy in itself), my trusted old Palm IIIxe (I'm often to tempted to buy a replacement, but don't want to lose all the equipment I have for it, and there are only so few machines that have the same connector), my swiss army knife (handy, always handy!) and my Casio Exilim camera. I've also documented my life better than ever before since I have it, I'm afraid of all the hard disk space I'll be filling with pointless photos. In analog technology, I always wear a mechanical watch and have a good fountain pen on my in case something needs to be caligraphed instead of typed.

And don't even get me started on what's in my briefcase.

Nokia 8390, Blackberry 950 if I'm on call, Lamy Safari fountain pen, Moleskine address book (has to last years), generic weekly planner (doesn't), good 8x5 notebook, kodak disposable camera. I've found I organize my life SO much better on paper than in my Palm (which now sits unused except to hold the addressbook entries I haven't transferred) or my Blackberry (whose PDA apps suck really hard).

a penknife(never know when you need to open a bottle of red), credit card and a couple of metro tickets in my pocket, my mobile phone, keys (helps) and a groovy little princeton tech pulsar for when the lights go out all on a string around my neck, and a lipstick in my bra (keeps it warm)... that's all folks...

RCA K@zoo MP3 player

And for long trips:

my GBA

I used to carry a cell phone, but other people used it more than I did.

Pretty similar to what the article lists:
*Palm IIIc (color workhorse)
*Tiny Samsung Phone (heh, it doesn't even have a model # on it...terrible reception at home, but it is tiny)
*Canon S110 digital elph
*clip on sunglasses (even when it's dark, it's easier to always put them in my pocket then risk forgetting)
*wallet
*keys

So I always count up to six and then I know I have all my critical gear. Though I've had to learn to almost put stuff in the right pocket, so one side doesn't get too too lumpy...

Edited by author 03-09-2003 07:18 PM
Apart from my cell phone, which stores every phone number I ever need, I don't use any gadgets.

Generally all of my notes are kept on tiny pieces of paper I keep in my pocket. I will tear a corner off of a piece of paper, write whatever, and at the end of the day, put the piece of paper on my desk with little pieces of paper from past days. At the end of the week, I go through them all to make sure what's done is done. But generally, I think that if you can't remember something, it's probably not as important as you think it is. This is my civilian side, as a college student. I also never take notes in class, because I know I'll never read them.

I'm also in the military (National Guard, not currently activated), and when the situation calls for bringing anti-boredom items, I will always bring a book. Printouts of classics are also great to always bring along. God bless Project Gutenberg. It doesn't matter if they're ruined, so I can fold them up, put them in my pocket, and take them into the woods or sand without worry. The last thing I read that way was Milton's Areopagitica. Photocopies work too, as well as torn up, 50 cent used books. Similarly, cassette dubs are the best for music in the woods, because it doesn't matter if they're ruined, they're cheaper, more durable (somewhat), and hold more than a CD-R. And you play them on a $5 portable radio.