Introduction

I recently purchased the Bomber Jacket Laptop Messenger bag from Levenger. I have been eyeing this bag for quite a while and when Levenger gave me a 20% off coupon with a recent order, I finally pulled the trigger. But I have some fairly exacting standards when it comes to bags. Can the Levenger Bomber Jacket Laptop Messenger measure up?

Background

Before beginning with the review, it’ll probably be helpful if I give some background about myself and my use case. I am a nomadic programmer. I work a full-time day job; I run a freelance web design and technical consulting business; I am starting out in independent Mac software development; and I switch contexts frequently among the day job, home, school, and assorted mobile locations like Starbucks. So, I have to be able to carry with me a pretty significant amount of kit in order to be ready to work wherever I find myself with a spare half hour. As a result, I have an ongoing, near-obsessive quest for a great bag. For the past year or so, I have been carrying a Wenger backpack that I liked well enough. But something feels just a little bit out of sorts showing up to work or client meetings with a backpack. This is the color of my crystal when evaluating any bag.

Appearance and Aesthetics

Holy cow does this bag look great! The folks from Levenger certainly know how to use quality materials. The leather is soft and supple and smells great. The twill lining is soft as well. The zippers and other hardware are sturdy and made with high quality materials. The magnetic closure is cleanly hidden and keeps the flap from flying all over while I am walking. The strap is gorgeous as well. Whereas many bag makers treat the strap as an afterthought, Levenger has given the strap quality leather accents. The strap material is also found on the side ends of the bag to give the strap a sense of connectedness to the rest of the bag. As an accessory, this bag is near perfect.

Design and Functionality

For my money, I find the design and functionality of the Laptop Messenger to be the place where Levenger cut the corners. This is most unfortunate for a product as beautiful as this one.

The first thing I noticed was that the laptop pocket is the outermost pocket. This is the exact opposite of what a functional bag should do. The laptop will be one of the least frequently accessed items in the bag, particularly when on the move. The laptop pocket should have been placed next to the body instead. This would allow for faster, easier access to files or smaller items in the accessory pockets. Strike one.

The second thing I notice is that the accessory pockets are placed on the far side of the interior pocket. Again, this should be nearer to the body and ideally in the outermost pocket. Simply standing up with the bag over my shoulder reveals this clear design flaw. My accessory pockets contain a 3 X 5 Leather Rope Case (also from Levenger) that is pretty full of index cards, a Moleskine ruled pocket notebook, a brush, a pen, a pencil, a highlighter, and an eraser. When I stand with the bag over my shoulder and move the flap to get access to my items, the weight of them on the outside of the pocket makes the pocket collapse on itself. This means it is near impossible to interact with this bag without looking at it. My litmus test for a bag is how fast I can get to whatever it is I need at any given time. (My Wenger bag fails this test miserably.) For a messenger bag in particular, this is crucial, and this bag returns blue instead of pink.

Laptop-y-ness

I am giving special attention to this particular aspect of the bag since it bills itself specifically as a laptop messenger. For me and many others, laptop does not mean just the computer. If you are anything like me, then you need a variety of plugs, accessories, adapters, and other kit to work effectively with your laptop. The bare minimum requirement is to carry a power cable. There is no good place to store anything other than the computer itself with this bag. If I decide to keep this bag, I will end up purchasing a gear bag (likely of the WaterField variety) to lug around my kit. Not the kind of solution I expect to land on with Levenger.

Conclusion

In the end, the issue of reviewing this bag becomes whether you value form or function. If it’s the form and style that you are after, then save yourself $50 and buy the regular messenger bag. If you value function, then skip the Bomber Jacket Laptop Messenger. The gorgeous materials and craftsmanship save this bag a 2/5 rating. From my perspective, this bag should be sold as a messenger bag with a note that it is large enough to hold a laptop computer. But a Laptop Messenger it is definitely not.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might know I injured my knee almost a month ago. I was playing basketball (with kids two thirds my age) and stepped out to pick up the ball handler off a pick and when I planted my left leg, I heard a loud pop. My knee oscillated laterally maybe four times. Then, I think I blacked out for a moment because the next thing I remember is being on the floor screaming and weaving a tapestry of profanity. (Bonus points if you name the movie reference there.)

I knew this was serious. I couldn’t walk. I went to the health center at school the next day (because my insurance sucks and if you go anywhere else first they won’t pay) and they wrote me a prescription for hydrocodone and a referral to Dr. James Bothwell. I saw him two days later, and he poked at me a little bit and confirmed what I already suspected: I tore my ACL. He ordered an MRI to see what else I had done.

I had the MRI that evening. The results revealed the torn ACL and a slight tear to the lateral meniscus.

That brings us up to date. I have been doing rehab exercises to strengthen my left leg in preparation for surgery, which is scheduled for May 22. I scheduled it for then so I’ll only miss two days of work. I’ll miss the day of the surgery and the next day. Then, I have the weekend and then a paid holiday on Monday for Memorial Day. Then, I’ll be working from home. Depending on whether he has to stitch my meniscus, that could be another ten days or three weeks.

I’m looking forward to getting back on my feet. Dr. Bothwell says I can play golf in about three months and can start getting back into basketball in nine months to a year.

Thanks for all your warm thoughts and well wishes.

When I first transferred into this B.S. degree from my Th.M. program in 2006, there was some question about my transfer credits. Almost everything counted and I ended up with about 108 credited hours toward my new program. There were a few general ed courses I had to take because my first program did not require as many courses in the particular area.

I had to take a social science course. Miguel Leatham, a professor of anthropology, had given a talk to one of my graduate classes on ritual, so when I saw that his Anthropology of Religion was on offer, I thought it would be a great class for my social science credit. But, according to the university powers, Anthropology of Religion is not a social science, just a religious studies course. I’ll repeat that: Anthropology of Religion is not a social science course. I ended up taking Health, Illness, and Medicine that semester.

But today, I was registering for Software Engineering for the fall, and I notice that it is listed as being a writing emphasis class. If Anthropology of Religion is not social science, then there’s no way in hell that Software Engineering is a writing emphasis course. Sure, we’re going to do a fair amount of writing (design documents, user manuals, etc.) but that’s not what writing emphasis is for—it’s to get people comfortable and proficient at communicating in written form, preferably in English, so they don’t look like idiots when they venture out into the real world. (I’ll gloss over the fact that most of the real world wouldn’t know proper usage or sentence construction either bit them in the ass.)

This is all a matter of common sense versus bureaucracy. When I petitioned for Anthropology of Religion as a social science credit, some rule monkey looked at the UCR listing and said, “No, because the rules say…” But no one had the commons sense to know that Software Engineering is not a writing emphasis course.

If you’re reading this, please learn to use whatever God was gracious enough to stick between your ears. Don’t be a bureaucratic rule monkey.

Frustrated, I turned to Twitter for help. Robert Marini (@wisequark) was Johnny-on-the-spot with the solution. Here’s the Twitter discussion in a thread for your easy following: http://quotably.com/jxpx777/statuses/794527269 So, it turns out that Adobe not only hijacks my PDF viewing, but any time I update any of my Adobe software (I have CS3 Master Collection.) They’re going to reinstall the thing. “Bullshit,” says I, so I fired up Hazel to fix it for good.

Read on for my solution using Hazel. First, add “/Library/Internet Plug-Ins” to your list of folders that you want Hazel to watch.

Next, create a rule for Hazel to apply to this folder. Here’s mine:

You can enter whatever you like for the description. I wanted something memorable for when I come back to this and wonder why I have Hazel watching Internet Plug-Ins folder. Then I can say, “Oh, yes, that’s right – because I fucking hate Adobe’s bad behavior.” The Growl notification is optional, but it will make me feel better. The key points to this rule are the [Name] [contains] “adobe” bit and the [Move file] to folder: [Trash] bit. Then, for good measure, I have an Applescript that empties the trash and relaunches Safari.

Take that, Adobe.

1) Make a new Pandora station from something you normally don’t listen to a lot or don’t have in your music library but still like. (If you’re not familiar with Pandora, it’s a huge catalog of metadata about music. Not just by artist, but by track. So, if you really like “Hotel California” you can create a station with similar tunes. Pandora is an outgrowth of the music genome project that aims to fully describe all music. Impressive goal, and they’re mostly spot on.) I just created a station based on Dave Matthews Band. I don’t have them in my library, and I generally like their sound. I won’t say all the music that has come up has been a five star rating, but it’s been mostly good stuff. You can also add to a station in order to broaden the selection.

2) Swap iPods with someone. This one doesn’t really work for me since I have an iPhone, but maybe have a friend fill up a Shuffle with some of their favorite tunes that you don’t currently have. This is a great way to expose yourself to new music and to learn more about your friend in the process. A related practice (that I won’t recommend for Brett since he’s married) is a podswap. If you’re on the subway or bus and there’s a cutie sitting nearby, swapping iPod jacks can be a great way to strike up conversation without having to say a lot and you can learn a lot more about someone by the music they listen to than by most anything else.

Hope these ideas help, Brett. And when you do find some new stuff that is totally awesome, I hope you’ll send a heads up my way.

With all due respect to Gruber, I don’t have much interest in bookmarking or archiving his blockquotes with minimal commentary. What I’m interested in is the post he’s linking to! Imagine my serendipity when using Fraser Speirs excellent Applescript for archiving the current NetNewsWire item to Yojimbo. The URL for Gruber’s linked items is not to Daring Fireball but to the item in question. So, the script archived the actual item that Gruber linked to and not his linked list post. Not that my opinion matters a hell of a lot, but perish the thought that Daring Fireball’s linked list style change.

Sidebar: The other side effect of getting used to Gruber’s linking style is that I find myself expecting that linking behavior from other sites and being confused when I’m taken to their site. Most notably among these is kottke.org.

Many who read this blog know a lot about my situation, but here is where I stand right now. I’m 27 years old working on a computer science degree at TCU. The way my prerequisites and course sequences work out, this spring is my last semester of full time work. I’ll graduate after two more half-time semesters in May 2009. My plan (and quite a common course for many here) is to work full time while I finish up my last year of school.¹

I have been doing freelance web design for almost two years. I am largely self-taught in most everything having to do with computers, and as a result I’m often bored in my programming classes.² I’m a very quick study. I consider myself above average in my programming skill and I’m well ahead of most of the others in my classes.

I’m currently an intern at Pier 1 Imports working in the data analysis/data warehousing group. It’s good experience so far, and I don’t think I would mind sticking around full time until I graduate. But that being said, I will be exploring my options starting sometime around spring break.

The question is this: Am I an entry level employee? Or to put it another way, when I’m looking for a job, which job titles should I not even bother with? Any more information you’d need to answer more cogently?

There’s not a lot really to note in my stats. The replies are interesting, though. They show who I talk to and/or about the most. It also seems I’m most active in the mid-morning. Make of that what you will.

UPDATE: There was apparently a bug in Damon’s script that was causing inaccurate stats; below are my revised stats.

Twitterific is a great little Twitter client for Mac OS X. The software is free if you don’t mind seeing an ad once an hour. They show up in the same space as the “tweets” and can be skipped or ignored very easily. If you don’t like the ads, you can register the software for $15. It’s a good deal all around.

Some idiot unhappy person, however, has posted a hack that strips out the ads. People who use this hack are stealing money from the Icon Factory: they didn’t pay for the software, and they’re not showing the ads.

In response, I just registered my copy two copies, one for me and one for my wife. They now have my our $15~$30.

The idiot gentleman who posted the hack is defending himself, as if he didn’t do anything wrong. Here’s how we (all Twitterific users, especially software developers) should respond:

• Register your copy of Twitterific for $15
• Post a note on the idiot’s site to let him know that, to prove him wrong, you’ve just registered your copy (here’s mine).
• Post something on your own weblog. Either point here, or reproduce something like these instructions.

Let’s see if we can drum up at least a few hundred registrations for them, to show our support. Turn the idiot’s bad behavior into something good for the Icon Factory.

Download it here, and leave any feedback in the comments on this post.