Episode: 1543
Title: HPR1543: What's in my bag
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1543/hpr1543.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 04:50:23

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Had a lot of fun.
Hi everybody, my name is Ken Thalon and you're listening to another exciting episode
of the fact of public radio.
Seeing as everybody else is doing one of these whats in my bags and I thought I might as
well do one because I'm preparing for OHM 2013 and so I was going through my bag as you
do. So I have a Targus laptop bag which actually I had a cheapo laptop bag
part to this is kind of a rucksack thing and this is you know you think Targus
is a better brand but actually I prefer the other one you know a cheapof
the shelf one it was more stable. The thing about this one is it tends to topple
over if you leave it down but anyway what we have on the right hand side drying at
the moment because I used it yesterday is normally kept a very tightly rolled up
poncho and the reason for that is that I use public transport to go to and
from work and then would normally wear my coat and stuff but sometimes you just
get caught by the weather and the poncho is really really handy to use also
for the kids. If you're on a wet bench or something you can take out the
poncho and put it down there and the other side I usually keep a bottle of
water that I fill up either in work here at home or at the airport which is
the train station that I tend to go past. So in the laptop compartment itself
there's kind of a divider for space for two laptops and I usually have my
work laptop in there which is a Dell, what's it called, a Dell, something rather.
And then on the other side I have at the moment got my pearl pocket reference
book. I'm adding this is like a B5 you know which is if you take a A4
cut it in half and cut it in half again then it would be that sort of size it
kind of fits in your back pocket really thin. Two of these I've got pearl pocket
reference which I beginning to understand now thanks to Dave Morse help with
pearl and the other is essential system administration pocket reference book
and I'm just looking up at my bookshelf and I have the full volume of that
essential system administration from Arali as well and that is a very good book
it gives you the Linux commands AIX, FreeBSD, HPUX and Solaris variants of a
particular thing so I just picked a random display amount of physical memory on
AIX is LS attribute minus capital H, capital E minus 1, S0, Sys0, dash A
space real mem, freeBSD is grip memory far run boot message dot boot HPUX is
D message grip physical Linux is E type 3 and Solaris E type D message grip
man so that's kind of useful doesn't take too much space I happen to have two
three Raspberry Pi magazines which I print off in booklet form I have a
little script that does that most printers will allow you to do that so say a
you know 35 page gets cut down you don't have to waste and that much that much
stuff the reason I keep them around is I give them to people or I just read them
so the other laptop that's in there at the moment sometimes I don't have a
laptop I only carry one laptop sometimes I carry two depending on what I'm
doing I have a 14 inch HP that I probably shouldn't have bought because shortly
after that this laptop here which is an Acer Chrome and came on to the market
I got this one it was 270 ended up being about 270 euros and it's the C7 model
and then currently working on trying to get Linux on there I was able to get
Linux on there but what I'm actually aiming for is to get Chrome Sonar Linux
on there because yeah but more I'll give you more reasons about that later so what
I'll be putting in there as well is the power supplies for those two as well I
usually carry with me a full wired mouse optical wired mouse as well I always
carry that because it's just more convenient than Trek pads so if you're in
a meeting or something you just take out your mouse and then you have I'm more
productive with a proper mouse just put it that way so that's pretty much is for
the front one thing I do carry with me at all times is my Sansa clip MP3
player or while it's running Rockbox so it's a it's an old player it's an old
player anyway but so call it a music player and I use it pretty much
exclusively for listening to podcasts music podcasts or Linux podcasts or in
the case of the chaps from Scotland over there a mixture of Tuxjam and the
like a mixture of Linux and music podcasts I also use it as a backup for
my true crypt encrypted drive which I synchronize with some scripts to various
different devices so that I have you know my password that text file is kept
in that encrypted drive and that's really also I carry around a mobile form
with me up until recently that has been a HTC desire or regional version but
in one of these websites I bought or I bought or whatever you call it there
was a highway a send 500 for a reasonable price I think 150 smacks with 20
euro rebate and I'm running pretty much the base I rounded from Ransai
on the Jamada and it was very very very unstable because it was a very unstable
version so I went back to the original firmware with some mods and I was
able to remove all the crudware from it and I'm just mostly running applications
from f droid at the moment so that's that I also have a podcasting box which
is which contains my zoom h2 which has got two stands on it one is like a small
little tripod stand that's goes into the back of it it's a nice little
player actually it allows you to record front back multiple mono channels
together so that you can bring them so you can do stereo at the back mic
stereo at the front mic and it splits that up into two different mob files
which stereo or whatever but it's pretty good for recording interviews and you
can also use it as a external microphone for the laptop if I'm using
mumble I'll tend to use that as well I've hacked up one of those almost
famous IKEA desk lamps to hold that the stand that's in it now is a regular
microphone stand so that screws into the back into the bottom of it and I've
got a fluffy cover on that to protect it one thing I also have is the power
supply for that and I've got two additional Sansa clips and because my regular
train station is the airport I was able to get some two removed before flight
red stickers red kind of keyring holders which I've attached to those they're
running I haven't had a chance to put rockbox on them so they're running the
standard OS the reason for those two is cause the as a backup for when I'm
recording shows the other evening I was recording it to our interview and it
went down the drain because I didn't and I also forgot to have a backups when I
was recording in the field at Ogcamp and whatever I normally just will clip
these onto somebody's lapel and continue to record so that's pretty much the
podcasting box and then in the front top pouch I will have my passport
moment which is just normally there I can tell you that and I have two small
USB cables and at the moment I've added a USB AC adapter in there and they're
only about you know half a foot long 30 30 centimeters long both of them one of
them has got this the fixed micro USB the other one has got a micro USB a mini USB
and a micro USB adapter so that allows me to charge two things from my laptop
and my Sansa clip is one of the old models that uses the micro USB although the
other two ones are use my one the two new ones uses the micro and the one I'm
currently using uses a normal USB and so what else have we got here that little
adapter is kind of handy because the microphone that the Zoom H2 also uses the
micro sorry not the micro but the mini USB so I can use that to use as a
microphone on to the PC and to be honest the next section of my laptop bag I
rarely use and let's say the pouch but the center pouch at the front and so I've
got some pens in there which I've completely forgotten that I had I got one two
three at the minute raspberry pies on my desk I've got two more and the reason I
have so many raspberry pies is because when they came out originally I ordered
two and then I forgot that in order to and then I also ordered two on another
side so then I when I was waiting so long I ordered some more and I basically
forgot how many raspberry pies I ordered which is actually great to be so
solvent I'm not that solvent anymore but so but what has happened is I tend to
give these you know it'll come up into a discussion about raspberry pie or a
lab one around and I'll give them to people and say oh I'll give you how much
is that and I'll say yeah you go to bond my pie dot com and you can buy it and
you can get a case and whenever I just recommend that site because I've had
very quick response from them they usually have them in stock and then I just
give them to them and go oh it's sunny you know oh this is only for like 40 40
euros all that and I hear I can give you 40 euros and I say no I don't want
40 euros what you do is you take that one you use it for a while and then you order
one and then you give me you can give me the old one back so that was that's fine
and what usually end up happening is the person will go and order the one for
me and when they're on the site they go all just get another one for for myself
like it's only whatever I'll keep it under the the 100 euros whatever and since
then I've got about 10 if not 12 different people to try Raspberry Pis this
includes husbands of my co-workers and and vendors who have come in and taking
them run Raspberry Pi on them around XBMC on them and stuff so yeah it's
pretty so I always keep a few Raspberry Pis around for that purpose and you
know I have a various different selection of cases now as well as a result of
that so then that actually will probably go to explain
what's in the other bag and it's a Ziploc bag
and in there I've got a HDMI to VGA adapter which I got on
what do you call it? DelicStream or DX.com which is a Chinese site that sends
stuff that sells stuff quite quickly big warning if you are going to that site you will lose
four or five hours of your life so just be careful about that and also yeah you'll probably
end up spending a lot more than you wished the quality of the stuff varies randomly but the
one thing that they do do is they even have video video slots and you know video excerpts of
the unboxing of the stuff and they tend to have lots of actual photos so you you do get a feel
for what the product is going to be like whether it's crappy or not and usually the difference
in price is only a few dollars between you know the the good one that's got lots of recommendations
and they the other one that might not be so that's a very handy adapter you do need to modify your
settings.text for the Raspberry Pi but I keep that text file handy on my on my laptop so you
I might post that in but if you look in the settings.text there's the very first line will give you
hitching my something or other and it's commented out if you enable that to one then it'll send it
out via the VGA port so that's that's very handy little thing the other thing I have is A to A
USB adapter so that's the typical you know original type USB adapter mail to mail and I use
that to power the Raspberry Pi from a USB hub then I have another micro USB cable don't know why
um then I have a uh oh yes a VGA or sorry a USB 2 serial connector which I have never used
in the old the time that I have it in my bag but I've given it to about 20 different people who
have used it for connecting into servers and stuff so always nice to be a good citizen there oh and
I have a HDMI to DVI connector for again connecting in Raspberry Pi and I have given away a small little
HDMI cable it's another one I got on Delix Stream a small 30 centimeters HDMI cable which is
kind of handy for connecting up that so I need to put HDMI cable in there as well I've got a short
one and a half meter net or cable just in case and I've got and this is something I've been carrying
with me for years not necessarily this cable but a in my laptop bag has always had this and that
is a crossover cable I have needed to use one in a while but they are super super super handy when
you do need them to set up just a very quick ad hoc network you can connect in one ethernet cable on
one PC directly to another PC so very very handy very easy to make as well if you want them and the
last thing which is kind of cool is a small little rubber keyboard which is about the same size as
half an enforce sheet in landscape and that's just super handy to have a little keyboard if
however you want to mess with your Raspberry Pi and somebody who got a TV around and it's really
nice and just fits in so with the Raspberry Pi with all the Raspberry Pi's that I have in there
I've got a keyboard Raspberry Pi VGA or HDMI connector and Bob's your uncle when I'm actually
traveling somewhere else you know if I'm going for longer distance that I'm not going to be using my
own laptop I'll have a little USB hub which I then connect all this stuff to and then I can charge
my phone my wife's phone this Raspberry Pi then can power a TV or whatever so I haven't really
had a call to use that but it's nice to know that it is there but the vast majority of time I
just have my work laptop in my bag and the poncho and that's basically it so work laptop and
the poncho is basically what I would consider required and my phone of course and my MP3 player
and my wallet which contains my public transport card and my driver's license which I need to carry
even though I don't have a car it's a national identity card otherwise it's you're going to get
fined and of course my bank pass but that's about it well that's it folks that's what's in my bag
so tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio
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