My wife will happily share how much she loves a good purse and loves to coordinate them with her outfits, all the fun stuff. When I think of a good backpack I focus on three major areas ascetics, functionality, and longevity. I happily rocked the original The North Face Jester for men from high school all the way through my college years until it met a sad end from old age. After years of searching I finally found a happy replacement in the Evergoods CPL V1 linked here. Now I love a good tech back review as much as the next person so keep an eye out for my other articles how I make use of various types of backpacks. I’ll take you through my usual bag setup for everyday carry.
Laptop
First up the device I use the most is my 2019 16” MacBook Pro. Not only is is my work machine, but it also serves as my personal software development environment as well. It’s definitely my preferred option to use when I’m home. Besides coding I use it for writing, photo editing, and most of all searching for new projects to work on. If you are interested in a great review of this MacBook check out fellow Medium author Paul Alvarez linked here who has an amazing, but short review post that actually convinced me to purchase mine.
iPad Pro 12.9 (2020)
I usually don’t move too far around my house or outside of it without my iPad Pro. I picked it up after using the 11” for awhile because I wanted something that I could work off of should I choose too. Little did I know that Sidecar would become vital to my office set up. When I’m not writing at home the iPad Pro is a perfect device to work off of for writing, photo editing, reading, and surfing the web. My one complaint about the iPad Pro is that there’s not a good way to actually do software development on it. I’ve read and tried many of the articles that suggest using remote desktop to a computer and even using the Raspberry Pi which you can then connect to the iPad. Neither of them provided that raw development environment that I’m used to when I sit down at my MacBook. I’m hoping the introduction of GitHub Codespaces that may solve some of my issues, but I continue to hold out hope that the “pro” space for Apple will include more attention to developers in the future.
Tech Pouch
My tech pouch is a pretty simple item I found on Amazon to have a better way of organizing all the items I need to have with me when I’m working away from home. In the words of YouTuber Chase Reeves “Always need you, never want to see you”, and that best describes all the charges, cables, and other miscellaneous gear I keep here. My current case pictured above is soon to be replaced by the Bellroy Tech Kit which is in the mail right now. Once it’s here I might post a short article about how my setup has changed.
Misc Pouch
I have another pouch that holds pens, pencils, hand-sanitizer, all the fun stuff one needs but doesn’t want just floating around my bag. I’m using the Porterpen Case by The Brown Buffalo because it’s tough and best of all it’s water-resistant. I tend to toss some of my more sensitive items in there in for safety if it starts to rain while I’m out like my AirPods Pro.
Water bottle holder
So my only complaint about my backpack is that it doesn’t come with a water bottle holder built in and unlike some I’m a tiny bit nervous about sitting a water filled bottle inside my bag next to my $1200 iPad. Enter the Modular Water Bottle Holder by Black Ember. I love this for the simple fact I can add additional space for a water bottle to any bag I own. It’s a great but simple addition that closes the small gap I found with this bag.
There you have it, my tech bag in the year 2020. I’m a pretty simple person with a simple setup that works for about 90% of my workflow to accomplish what I need to. Keep an eye out as I’ll be following up with what my camera bag looks like.