Good grief! Could you please lay out all this electronic gear and take a photo of the assemblege? And how much did it weigh? And when will somebody invent a single gadget that does all this stuff? You really should send this review into Engadget and Gizmodo. It’s classic.
On Dec 7, 2004 12:35 AM, JamesM said:
I bought the PowerShot A75 a while back. No swivel LCD, but otherwise very similar to the A80. Great camera. I used similar reasoning when opting to go for a camera that uses AA batteries. A little bigger, but power is alway available if you run out…
I’ll take that photo for you … but not now. Why? Because the damn GPRS wireless card is currently off getting repaired — hopefully.
How much did it all weigh? Not sure. Had a tupperware container filled with alot of the smaller devices and other items — power cords, chargers, etc. That container always sat at the top inside my backback (a Karrimor Bobcat 60-65, which I highly recommend). Most of the devices themselves were stored in my jacket or my cargo shorts, which started to hang pretty low near the end of the trip — I lost between 10-15 pounds.
All together, I’m sure my gadgetry weighed a good bit. But I don’t have a scale in my apartment — the toilet seat was tops on the priority list.
By the way, I am writing from my iBook in my office — which is very nice to be able to say. My iBook now has a new hard drive and a new logic board, which was free thanks to the friendly people at Apple.
To my surprise, the whole process was relatively painless, too. I highly recommend a place called ServiceOne if you ever need any repairs done to an Apple computer here in Shanghai (they do repairs for other brands, as well). The people there are kind, professional and some of them speak English. It’s one of the few places I’ve been in China that seems to know a little something about customer service.
ServiceOne is located on the 15th floor (office 1502) of Kerry Everbright City, 218 Tian Mu Xi Lu, very close to the Shanghai Railway Station. Their phone number is 021.63531133. Email is service@serviceone.com.cn.
They were nice. But hopefully I never have to go there again.
(I still need to figure out how to get files of my old hard drive, though.)
Looking forward to a photo of all that stuff, and glad to hear you actually found some decent customer service for your broken laptop there in Shanghai. You probably noticed, but Simon World, at his twice weekly Asia Blog update, mentions your great article about gadgets. He also plugs the Teaching in China article by Hank, both of which were mentioned on my blog, so the word continues to spread. Looking forward to more stories, now that you have a toilet seat and a refurbished hard drive.
On Dec 10, 2004 3:51 AM, Matthew Weinreb said:
Jeepers - did you have some kind of fancy charger for that lot?
I have been trying to find a universal charger that does ALL my kit but they NEVER do everything!!!
Fancy charger? No. I lugged around individual chargers for almost all the stuff. And in Ningxia, I bought a power strip for RMB 7 (that’s less than $1). Worked pretty well — but sometimes sparks would shoot out of it when I tried to plug something in.
Really? You needed a special charger? We backpacked through SW and Central China for a month (only used a guide for the Minority Villages…my Mandarin only stretches so far) and didn’t need any specialty chargers for the laptop or camera. Hmmm.
We did take a lot of trains, though. Didn’t need any specialty chargers on there and that is where we recharged mostly. But we avoided Western-catering hotels and restaurants like the plague! Loved every minute. Would go back a million times.
Dan … sounds like you had an intersting time! Looking forward to hearing about it from you someday at the Dock. Glad that some of your gear made it back and actually took decent care of you. Have you thought about putting that iBook to use and do a daily/weekly podcast to go along with the blog and photos? I know I would tune in … Take it easy—>
On Dec 11, 2004 2:07 AM, Geir said:
Hi Dan. I just read your story, and it is impressing. Both the journey itself and your blog about it.
I had a similar journey, although in a somewhat smaller scale, through Russia this autumn. To feed my own blog about the trip, which unfortunately is Norwegian only, I used my old Palm Vx with the GoType keyboard and the infrared connection to my GPRS enabled mobile phone.
It worked without any problems for the whole journey. Maybe I am a retrogeek, I for instance still use the 6GB Nomad MP3 player, but it works…
Dan, good round up on the gizmo’s on your trip. As for the old HD from you iBook, you can buy a pocket FireWire drive enclosure and not only transfer the old info off of it (if it isn’t too fried), but have a place to back up 10 or so gigs of important info. It’s what I did with mt HD after I upgraded my iBook.
On Dec 11, 2004 6:46 AM, Amy S Khoudari said:
I travelled to China in 1981 and again in 1984. I still have the Panasonic shortwave/AM/FM radio that made both trips. It is compact, has a decent speaker, and I nice long retractable antenna. It brought me beautiful hours of news and music from the BBC world service as I travelled throughout post-Mao China. After reading of all these electronics failures, I have to say, I appreciate this sturdy radio’s steadfastness even more. As for notes, photos and messages back to the US, I had my trusty pens and notebooks, rolls and rolls of 35mm film, a lovely manual Pentax SLR, and the kind operators at the phone offices who managed to connect me back to the main office (home) in Great Neck, NY.
I’m pretty sure you would be the only person tuning in if I did a podcast. (By the way, I’m proud to say that I had to do some reasearch to actually find out what a podcast is.)
I’ll never understand all of this. If I were you, you would see more gadgets on the floor and being sent for repairs.
On May 28, 2005 7:49 AM, Sarah said:
Dear Dan,
Hello, My name is Sarah from Maine of USA. I was born in Cambodia. I read some of your articles and it was excellent. I was wondering if you might help on looking for my real parents in Camboida when Vietnam invaded in 1900’s.. I was about 3.5 or 4 yrs-old. Now I am 18 and my fake DOB is Dec 17, 1986… Please contact me on my Email Cambodia200420052006@yahoo.com… Thank you again, Sarah
21 Comments
Good grief! Could you please lay out all this electronic gear and take a photo of the assemblege? And how much did it weigh? And when will somebody invent a single gadget that does all this stuff? You really should send this review into Engadget and Gizmodo. It’s classic.
I bought the PowerShot A75 a while back. No swivel LCD, but otherwise very similar to the A80. Great camera. I used similar reasoning when opting to go for a camera that uses AA batteries. A little bigger, but power is alway available if you run out…
I could definitely see this post being used to justify an C-Net “Three I can’t live without” entry.
Carl,
I’ll take that photo for you … but not now. Why? Because the damn GPRS wireless card is currently off getting repaired — hopefully.
How much did it all weigh? Not sure. Had a tupperware container filled with alot of the smaller devices and other items — power cords, chargers, etc. That container always sat at the top inside my backback (a Karrimor Bobcat 60-65, which I highly recommend). Most of the devices themselves were stored in my jacket or my cargo shorts, which started to hang pretty low near the end of the trip — I lost between 10-15 pounds.
All together, I’m sure my gadgetry weighed a good bit. But I don’t have a scale in my apartment — the toilet seat was tops on the priority list.
Dan
By the way, I am writing from my iBook in my office — which is very nice to be able to say. My iBook now has a new hard drive and a new logic board, which was free thanks to the friendly people at Apple.
To my surprise, the whole process was relatively painless, too. I highly recommend a place called ServiceOne if you ever need any repairs done to an Apple computer here in Shanghai (they do repairs for other brands, as well). The people there are kind, professional and some of them speak English. It’s one of the few places I’ve been in China that seems to know a little something about customer service.
ServiceOne is located on the 15th floor (office 1502) of Kerry Everbright City, 218 Tian Mu Xi Lu, very close to the Shanghai Railway Station. Their phone number is 021.63531133. Email is service@serviceone.com.cn.
They were nice. But hopefully I never have to go there again.
(I still need to figure out how to get files of my old hard drive, though.)
Looking forward to a photo of all that stuff, and glad to hear you actually found some decent customer service for your broken laptop there in Shanghai. You probably noticed, but Simon World, at his twice weekly Asia Blog update, mentions your great article about gadgets. He also plugs the Teaching in China article by Hank, both of which were mentioned on my blog, so the word continues to spread. Looking forward to more stories, now that you have a toilet seat and a refurbished hard drive.
Jeepers - did you have some kind of fancy charger for that lot?
I have been trying to find a universal charger that does ALL my kit but they NEVER do everything!!!
Dan, Sure enough……you got your well deserved mention today at Boing Boing.
Dan, another mention today at Gizmodo.
Fancy charger? No. I lugged around individual chargers for almost all the stuff. And in Ningxia, I bought a power strip for RMB 7 (that’s less than $1). Worked pretty well — but sometimes sparks would shoot out of it when I tried to plug something in.
Really? You needed a special charger? We backpacked through SW and Central China for a month (only used a guide for the Minority Villages…my Mandarin only stretches so far) and didn’t need any specialty chargers for the laptop or camera. Hmmm.
We did take a lot of trains, though. Didn’t need any specialty chargers on there and that is where we recharged mostly. But we avoided Western-catering hotels and restaurants like the plague! Loved every minute. Would go back a million times.
Dan … sounds like you had an intersting time! Looking forward to hearing about it from you someday at the Dock. Glad that some of your gear made it back and actually took decent care of you. Have you thought about putting that iBook to use and do a daily/weekly podcast to go along with the blog and photos? I know I would tune in … Take it easy—>
Hi Dan. I just read your story, and it is impressing. Both the journey itself and your blog about it.
I had a similar journey, although in a somewhat smaller scale, through Russia this autumn. To feed my own blog about the trip, which unfortunately is Norwegian only, I used my old Palm Vx with the GoType keyboard and the infrared connection to my GPRS enabled mobile phone.
It worked without any problems for the whole journey. Maybe I am a retrogeek, I for instance still use the 6GB Nomad MP3 player, but it works…
And another mention today at Gadling.
Dan, good round up on the gizmo’s on your trip. As for the old HD from you iBook, you can buy a pocket FireWire drive enclosure and not only transfer the old info off of it (if it isn’t too fried), but have a place to back up 10 or so gigs of important info. It’s what I did with mt HD after I upgraded my iBook.
I travelled to China in 1981 and again in 1984. I still have the Panasonic shortwave/AM/FM radio that made both trips. It is compact, has a decent speaker, and I nice long retractable antenna. It brought me beautiful hours of news and music from the BBC world service as I travelled throughout post-Mao China. After reading of all these electronics failures, I have to say, I appreciate this sturdy radio’s steadfastness even more. As for notes, photos and messages back to the US, I had my trusty pens and notebooks, rolls and rolls of 35mm film, a lovely manual Pentax SLR, and the kind operators at the phone offices who managed to connect me back to the main office (home) in Great Neck, NY.
if your old hard drive is not totally dead, get a firewire enclosure to put it in and you can plug it into your ibook and copy of what you can.
Cole,
I’m pretty sure you would be the only person tuning in if I did a podcast. (By the way, I’m proud to say that I had to do some reasearch to actually find out what a podcast is.)
Dan
JBJHill and Peter,
I have my old HD in a firewire case, but I can’t get my iBook to recognize it. Any other ideas?
Dan
Please vote for Dan for Best Asian Blog Awards 2004 here
http://pub2.bravenet.com/vote/vote.php?usernum=131619791&cpv=2
I’ll never understand all of this. If I were you, you would see more gadgets on the floor and being sent for repairs.
Dear Dan,
Hello, My name is Sarah from Maine of USA. I was born in Cambodia. I read some of your articles and it was excellent. I was wondering if you might help on looking for my real parents in Camboida when Vietnam invaded in 1900’s.. I was about 3.5 or 4 yrs-old. Now I am 18 and my fake DOB is Dec 17, 1986… Please contact me on my Email Cambodia200420052006@yahoo.com… Thank you again, Sarah