Tumi Alpha International Wheeled Office Review

International Wheeled Office with
cable pouch

To go with my new Lenovo T510 I now also bought a carry-on with space for the laptop. As it goes with purchases like this I spend a lot of time researching them on the net, it just seems to be the German or nerd to do. Also quite typical for a German is to choose something which is of better quality than you need, but also not the most expensive one out there. Other bags I considered where by Rimowa, Victorinox, Samsonite and Briggs & Riley.
The reason why I am writing about this at all is that the Tumi website doesn't include the information I needed and there seems to be a lack of information about this bag on the, so this is more about the facts as an actual review.

Size: height: 54.6 cm, width: 37.5 cm, depth: 25 cm ( compressed ), 28 cm ( normal ), 32 cm ( expanded )
Weight: 5kg ( including cable pouch, lock and bits and pieces )

The size and weight might be a problem if you want to use it as a carry-on, because some airlines are annoyingly strict with there size and weight restrictions.  Some have a 20cm depth limit or a 8kg weight limit. Easyjet and BA are probably OK, Germanwings and Ryanair maybe not so (but you shouldn't use Ryanair anyway).  

The protected laptop compartment fits the T510, but the laptop is a bit wide which makes it a tight fit. Using the 9 cell battery is not a problem. A 15" Macbook Pro should fit without problems.   

If you decide to buy it, try to get it from the US as the prices are tumi.com: $695 (528€) , tumi.de: 725€, uk.tumi.com: £695 (818€).

Review: it is quite nice

If you need any other details or measurements, give me a shout with a comment.

Why I am deactivating my facebook account

I have decided to deactivate my facebook account. It isn't done yet, so this message gets through and I am also waiting for the download of my information.

The reason is not a concern about privacy. I am sure that facebook is doing all kind of evil stuff with the information I provide them, but my guess most of this is used to present me with ads to make some money for them.
I think that facebook is probably the site with the best privacy settings out there. Every other site I am using from small forums over job sites to other network sites like xing or linkedin, doesn't provide anywhere near the privacy options that facebook provides. And none of them in under the scrutiny that facebook has to face all the time.

The reason why I would like to stay is that facebook is the best way to keep in touch with people from my previous live in Germany and London, some of who are all over the world now and I will loose any contact to them without facebook.
And facebook is the best casual photo sharing site out there, the people tagging works very well and because a lot of people are on facebook the like/comment bit is brilliant.

No, the reason why I leave facebook is that it is a big time waster. I spend most of the time scrolling to rubbish game notifications, switching the time line back from "magic" to "most-recent". People are starting to send me facebook messages instead of proper emails. And there are no useful RSS feeds for the news feeds, photos or anything else.

For everything else I do on the web I use three applications: gmail, google reader and pidgin. So any information I receive has to be provided as email, RSS feed or jabber. The are additional requirements: the RSS feed has to include all (or most) of the content and there is a limit to the amount of rubbish/spam/4sq I am willing to tolerate. (this disqualifies xing too by the way).

So: good bye

(facebook allows to just deactivate the account, which is also a nice feature if something changes and I decide to come back)

update: in case you want to stay in contact with me find some options here: about me or follow this blog