Adobe Iceland Adventure: Practical Lesson #3

Ulefoss, Norway: Sometimes we learn lessons the hard way, all by ourselves. Other times we learn by watching others. As I pack my bags and get ready to fly and meet the rest of the Adobe Iceland Adventure team I'm obsessed with what to bring and what to leave behind. I remember something that happened years ago to my good friend Rudy Burger, then director of Media Lab Europe, when he was humbled by his boss, Nicholas Negroponte.

Rudy and Nicholas (everyone calls Negroponte by his first name) were standing in the MIT reception area in Cambridge. I was standing discretely nearby. Rudy was explaining to Nicholas why he hadn't responded to emails for a few days. His laptop had crashed and his brutal travel schedule didn't allow time for repairs. Nicholas glared at Rudy for a second, and then said, very coolly, but with great heat behind the words, "That's why I always carry two laptops where ever I go."

Rudy paled and I turned away, a little embarrassed for my friend, but also impressed with the simple logic of carrying a spare laptop, especially when computers are critical to one's work. I certainly would never travel anywhere without a backup camera.

Anyway, with two laptops staring at me from my desk, and my bags nearly full, I only hesitated for second: Two laptops it is. The pair of rain boots stay behind.

One of the laptops is my shinny new Apple MacBok Pro, with a 17 inch screen. It screams along at 2.16 GHz and I bought it primarily to run Adobe Lightroom, the new imaging software we'll be testing. Lightroom is optimized for the new Intel chip and boy does it make a difference. I can run Lightroom on my other laptop, an older Apple Titanium Powerbook, but it slugs rather tediously through my numerous RAW files. (Lightroom also now runs on Windows.) The McBook Pro runs Lightroom really fast, however, when it comes to running Photoshop CS2 in Rosetta mode, I don't see much improvement in speed with the new machine.

I'm also bringing my LaCie 300 GB external hard drive. We'll be shooting RAW files everyday for a week, and it won't take long to fill my memory cards, even the 4 GB cards graciously provided to the adventure by Sandisk. (RAW files from my Nikon D200 weigh in at 15.3 MB each.)

Yes, my baggage is getting out of control. And yes, I long for the days when all my equipment will be really miniaturized and built with the strength of a tank. ... but then again, I also long for the days when we can teleport ourselves anywhere in the world (or universe) and not suffer from uncomfortable plane seats, or jet lag. Just call me a dreamer. And as my colleagues pack their bags and get ready to head to Iceland, I'm sure I'm not the only one.