hello again all, its jiggy back from long ride in india, and good news to report on the durability of tr1a when traveling.  i’ve had the little thing strapped to the side of an enfield for over 10,000 km in terrains ranging from the wet jungles of chitwan to the high alpine of darjeeling, and no problems to report but one.  i’ve had it plugged in to iffy power sources and i am seriously designing a charging system from the royal enfiled itself, but regardless, no problems there.  it was great to be able to wow locals with the camera and to write my own version of war and peace, or more precisely On The Road II while traveling india and nepal on motorbike. 

the weight is just right for walking around with in messenger bag protected with a polyfoam sleeve, and it fits perfectally into the back pocket of the Targus TSB312 backpack carrier - i highly recommend this bag as it has seen 2 laptops in 3 years and still cleans up and looks like new.  not a tear nor splitting of a single seam, and this bag has seen hell as well as heaven.

the one problem i had with the laptop was that for some reason the laptop awakes from hybernation at 7am every morning.  i have no reason why.  since i have a bios password it stops there, goes into standby i guess, and then will eventually die unless i notice it.  i wish i could figure that out, checked all my schedule things like palmdesktop and Chameleon clock.  wierd. it’s like the laptop is trying to set an example, and not be lazy in the morning. but a couple of times i set up a drive in theatre for the locals after a long ride , spending the nite in a village of no electricity, and then had to explain the concept of dead battery inside a computer the size of a dinnerplate.  all was not lost, as i hooked the ipod up to a local pa system and we listened to the latest bollywood tunes.  but damn, i wanted to show everyone the wizard of oz.

anyway, i am convinced that extremes of cold and hot, dry and wet do not affect the box and it cleans up like new after being used in places that ya certaintly would not eat in if ya had any other choice.

happy holidays from nepal!

Excellent news.  How often did you use your tr1a?

One of the reasons why I bought the TR1MP is that I’m off to Africa for 2 months and wanted a portable image store device that would also suit my day job as a consultant working abroad.

Now that i have had it for a couple of weeks i have no complaints - if the same is true by the end of march (and if it still works!!) I will let you know how it copes with sand, dust and general backpacking duties

i use it everyday no matter if on the road (50% of the time) or not.  most of the on the road is literally on the road - side.  some dirty hut or just plain out in the open where it’s warm these days.

at home i have an icekey, icurve, and adaptec usb hub stand with gf picture.  it’s a great setup.  for weekend trips i just take the spare battery and leave the charger at home.  i sold my clie palmtop…no need for it anymore.

As a law student, I use my TR1A for class notes and am very much concerned about the endless plugging in/out of the USB/power jacks and the associated wear and tear that comes with such use.  Good to hear that things are still working fine for an even busier road warrior than me.

well, in my exp. with portable computers, that range back to the IBM PC XT portable, ya should still be very careful with usb plugs.  the last sony i had a few years back saw one plug go bad and the last remaining got very iffy. when i travel. i dont use usb on the road as i have a compact flash adapter that goes into the otherwise useless PCMCIA slot, and when at home i have a 7-port usb hub, so only one usb plug on the tr1 gets any use….save the other one for later!!!!

power plugs, ethernet, and modem all seem to be solid industry wide…nothing much to go wrong there. so dont be to concerned over those.

i mention the ibm pc xt portable computer cause the thread reminded me of the time that i dropped it down a flight of steps.  it rolled end over end about down 30 steps in seemingly slow motion and all i could think of was oh sh** there goes my job, as i was writing the user’s guide for the box at the time and i had borrowed the box from the development lab at ibm florida to get the work done.  to my amazement, the box booted right up without a hitch after i broke it open and made sure all the cables where still attached and the memory was seated and whatnot. you could never do that with a computer today of any description…but then again, that old thing must have weighed in at 30 lbs.

cheers,
jig