#studyhackers

The Verge has an awesome series called “What’s in your bag?” where they “ask people to tell us a bit more about their everyday gadgets by opening their bags and hearts to us”. The idea of doing something similar has been circling in my head for quite some time now, so I figured I’d give it a shot as well!

I’ll have to preface this by saying that I’m an IT bachelor student and I make all of my notes digitally. I am also deep into the whole Microsoft ecosystem.

The bag itself: Condor E&E bag

I have a lot of bags, but this one has made it to become my daily driver for a good few years now. It’s spacious, durable, has handles, is comfortable and gives some contrast and unformal-iness to my style in general -- goes well with my Mechanix gloves, too.

Laptop: Surface Pro

While not exactly a laptop, it has well replaced the need for one for me. While I don’t usually need the horsepower of the i5, it is nice to have that peace of mind knowing it can and will run anything you want to throw at it. Studying IT, every now and then I run into situations where I just need that legacy support and compatibility with older systems. VPN to school network? Easy peasy. Support for all possible file extensions? It’s there. Could go on for a lot longer. The only downside of the old Pro for me is the weight, it isn’t exactly the lightest of machines. Then again, compare it to any laptop from the time, we’re quite alright. One great thing about the pro charger is that it also has a USB port for charging the phone!

Tablet: Lenovo Miix 2

I have admit I don’t have this daily with me, but when going anywhere further, it has a crazy-long battery life that just makes it awesome. Also, that full x86 legacy support here too! (lacks the full size usb’s due to thinness though).

Phone: Lumia 925

I’m currently rocking the Nokia Lumia 925 and it’s been by far the best phone I’ve had so far. Two-day battery life, fantastic camera, great navigation and a sturdy build quality. It does lack wireless charging, but then again that is redeemed in thinness.

Headphones: Koss PortaPro & AKG earbuds 

I listen to music all the time. Everywhere. I love the PortaPro’s for their openness in that I can wear them while cycling and not get run over. Another great pro is the “I can take anything” -build quality. The AKG’s are there for when headphones can’t be worn or wouldn’t be appropriate.

Battery bank

I have no idea of the brand, since it was given to me as a gift, but it is great for keeping you charged when sharing 3G to WiFi. It can also give around two and a half full charges to the 925, so it keeps me going through a weekend easily.

Microfiber towel/cloth

While it sounds odd to have that with you at all times… It doesn’t really weigh anything and considering this is Finland, there’s always the chance someone asks if you’re up for Sauna. It’s proven itself useful enough times already to deserve its place. Throw in a fresh set of clothes and I can go for a whole weekend!

Pocket Pouch

Now this thing has everything and anything from painkillers to zip ties in it. It’s not there? It’s not needed.

Condor pocket pouch

Painkillers

Comb

Lighter

USB stick

Toothbrush & toothpaste

Shower gel

Minigrip bags

Zip ties

Earplugs (proper ones)

Climbing hooks

Microfiber cloth

Touchscreen pen

Backup earbuds

The Universe

Also there is miscalleneous stuff in the bag that don’t need a headline, those inclunde, flashlight (LedLenser P7), few folders and a 0.33 bottle of water.

I built my current computer in 2012 and I think it’s time to do a check up on what has changed and whether everything is still relevant. The current spec is as follows:

ASRock z77 Extreme 4-M

Intel Ivy Bridge i5-3570K, 3,4GHz

2x ASUS DirectCU HD7770 (1GB) in CrossfireX

2x 4GB of Kingston HyperX DDR3 RAM (8GB total, two slots free for future upgrade)

Noctua NH-U9B SE2 CPU cooler

Silverstone 850W Strider Gold Evolution v2.0 modular PSU

Crucial MX100  128GB SSD

Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB hard drive for storage and rest of the applications

Fractal Design Define R3 ATX case

ASUS DVD drive 

Two years have passed, with the only change so far being a hard drive swap from the original Kingston 60GB SSD to the 128GB Crucial one.

Here are some of the things I think I did right and what I could’ve taken into account from the get go.

Few remarks that could prove useful.

Get enough RAM from the get go. While you can always upgrade this later, you most definitely never want to be maxing on RAM usage. I’ve had to deal with computers sporting too little and it is pain. I’d say 4GB is an absolute minimum these days – while you can get away with less right now, it’s only a matter of time the tabs start piling up and you notice your performance suffering. 8GB is still enough, and to my experience, probably will be for quite some time.

SSD’s, oh the SSD’s. The difference they make is humongous. Even the low-end SSD’s that are dirt cheap nowdays (120GB run for 0,50€ a GB) beat out most if not all mechanical hard drives by a big margin. Considering they’ve become so cheap, get 120GB. 60GB is enough if you are willing to always pay mind what you are installing a where --  120 gives much more headroom while not braking the bank. With SSD’s more capacity seems to correlate with speed too, so if you are building a more high-end rig, that is definitely something to pay mind to. There are benchmark comparison sites in the web, use them.

Do your research regarding CPU and GPU. It was amusing to notice the HD7770’s still get recommended for the mid-tier builds in late-2014, two years(!) later of the release. By this time, the retail price had dropped by mere 10€. That’s less than 10% of the original price (these being ~120€ cards). Read the reviews, invest the TIME and you might just save quite a bit of money.

Buy a USB optical disk drive, should you ever need one. Honestly. Internal disk drives are dirt cheap, I know, but there’s still no point in buying one if you’re never going to use it. USB one you may still use with your other devices, borrow and keep with you even should you entirely dump the computer at some point. You’ll get your games through Steam sales (praise Gaben) or Humble Bundle anyways.

That’s it for now. I’m planning on doing some upgrades, but lets save those for a later time. Peace out!