Author: Steve

Man Bag..

OK it’s a very French thing I realise, but I also don’t like carrying ‘stuff’ in my pockets, fine in winter when you are wearing a jacket, but in summer I find my shorts are weighed down with ‘stuff’

Well what sort of ‘stuff’ are we talking about….

Car keys, house keys, magnifier (my close in eyesight is terrible these days), mobile phone, Filofax – which is also my wallet, a pen and a torch (for night time!)

I also carry a small compact camera a lot of the time too.

So I found I already had a bag that I wasn’t using, it was used for my portable CD player…. infact this one…

I now use an iPod… ah add that to the list of ‘stuff’, the above fitted in to the bag like this:

It has a nice soft lining for both compartments and it’s quite discreet and compact. So I gathered all my ‘stuff’ together and tried it in the bag:

Wonderful, except the Filofax is a little too tall… ah but I have a Pocket Filofax, a quick try and that converted ok to my Wallet/Filofax, gather my ‘stuff’ together again:

And this looked more promising…. and in the bag it all fits including the compact camera:

Sorted…. it’s also fairly shower proof as I discovered the other day in Niort!!

Never get rid of anything…

I know we all hang on to things when we get something new. I’m just as guilty as everyone else in this department. But tonight I thought I would try an experiment to see if it would help solve a problem when we travel.

When ever we travel across to France on the boat I never like to leave anything portable and valuable in the car, so I take my camera gear, netbook, iPod, etc in various cases up to the cabin. With the addition of the netbook to my ‘load’ I’ve been carrying an awful lot of stuff up 4-5 decks to the cabin.

My favoured camera bag the Orion AW is full of camera gear and the rucksack part has no dividers or structure to it. So anything hard in that part makes it quite uncomfortable to carry. So I’ve been carrying the netbook in another bag.

Tonight I had a brainwave and got out my previous camera bag a Lowepro Mini Trekker. I had stopped using it a while back because I didn’t find it that comfortable when carrying it for several hours. Also it can carry a lot of camera gear, and thus it can be quite heavy!  But for travelling it might be the ideal solution. The outer pocket on the front takes my netbook with plenty of room to spare at the top of the pocket. Inside I can get all of my camera gear slotted in with no difficulties at all.

So tonight I tried fully packing it as I would to go away to France and it all slots in neatly. The main advantage now is I will have everything in one bag not two or three, sure it’s heavyish, but I will not be carrying it far fully loaded. I can take some gear out once we get to the house.

Oh and before you ask, no I won’t be getting rid of the Lowepro Orion AW, it’s great for photowalks!

Mac it is….

So after weeks of deliberation… well not quite. I’ve made a decision and ordered a new iMac. I had looked at Windows PC’s but by the time you added in the extra software I would need to purchase and a similar size monitor I would have exceeded the price of the iMac.

So I’ve ordered a new iMac quad core machine with a 27 inch monitor… yes it’s big! But in terms of screen resolution it’s only slightly bigger than what I’m using at present but by combining two monitors. Having it all on one screen will be a lot more useful, and I will spend less time glancing left and right all the time!

Delivery date is as yet to be confirmed but some time this month. I will still be retaining my netbook PC for XP and portable use, it works well and it’s very compact. My two existing monitors will find use on other PC’s and at last I think I will be getting rid of the last two CRT monitors we own.

I’m looking forward to the iMac it will be a new challenge although I’m familiar with the Apple OS, using it full time will be different.

Watch this space…..

PC or Mac…. Mac or PC

The PC I use is now over 5 years old. Today one of the graphics cards decided to play up, so I’ve had to revert to the internal card and go from two displays to one, which is a bit of a shame. I liked the dual 1280×1024 display set up a lot. Mail in one screen, browser in another etc.

So the obvious quick fix may be is a wide screen single display… but sadly the internal graphics card won’t support more than 1280 x 1024.

So do I just get another graphics card… my machine is quite old so it’s AGP only… although you can still get those cards.

So may be a new graphics card and a wide screen display.

I’ve been thinking about upgrading to a new machine anyway… but what… another PC, with Windows 7 may be… or may be a Mac Mini.

I need to sit down and look at my real requirements and compare the two to see what I actually need.

At first sight Windows machines look cheap and Mac’s expensive… but specifying them up to similar performance, there’s not much difference in them really.

Anyway my spare display can now be used on my notebook, or on my old G4 Mac over in France!

Filofax Focus Group



Are any of you a member of the Filofax Focus Group? See: http://www.filofax.co.uk/signup/ although the same page appears on the US site.

Get the Filofax products YOU want – Join our Focus Group The views and opinions of our customers are extremely important and the Filofax Focus Group allows you to directly influence future products/advertising. You will be asked to complete occasional questionnaires via the web which are simple to complete and you can unsubscribe at any time. In return for your time we offer discounts on website purchases and the chance to win £100 worth of vouchers! To join the Filofax Focus Group, please complete the information requested below and click the Submit button.

I’ve tried to sign-up but on submitting, the page is not found. I’ve reported this and I got a response from Filofax HQ in UK (bows his head in honour!) to say thank you for making them aware of the fault and it is being looked in to.

I will go back to the lady who emailed me to let her know it’s not fixed yet. I’m sure there will be a few people that would appreciate contributing ideas to ‘the maker’!!