Slashdot Asks: Do You Label Your Tech Gear, and If So, How? 250
At last month's CES, I mislaid a microphone that I'd just bought: too many items in little black pouches, and that one disappeared on a patch of dark carpet when I got something else out of my bag. A few minutes later, when I realized this, I walked back to find (no shocker) that it had walked away, and the lost mic somehow never made it to the Lost & Found office. Dumb as I felt for having let it get away, the real sting is knowing that I didn't so much as have my name on it, which I like to think might have nudged a morally ambivalent finder into returning it. My question is this: How do you personalize, label, or mark your expensive tech goodies, so it's harder for them to be innocently or less-innocently taken away? Even at a LAN party, it's easy for items to get swapped around and confused. I've sometimes put my name or initials (in permanent ink) on any flat surface I can find that will fit it, but even the "permanent" ink of Sharpies seems to fade on many surfaces. Stickers degrade with heat, time, and bag jostling, but they certainly help. Is engraving the best permanent option? Have you used one of the physical tag services, like Boomerang, and has that ever actually come in handy for you? There's theft-deterrent (or at least post-theft tracking) software, as we've mentioned a few times on Slashdot, but many things aren't suited to it, like my lost mic. What do you do to keep your stuff yours?
Re: lacking answers here, ask roadie on a band for (Score:5, Funny)
Seconded. We had spray painted stencils on anything larger than 12". For mics and cables we used colored duct tape and wrote on that with a Sharpie. Every gig ended with a "dummy check" at the end of the night: even if you think everything is in the truck, it never hurts to make one last check (onstage, backstage, etc.). You'd be surprised how many times something turned up in a dummy check.
Designate one person as the gear wrangler. Teach him the Roadie's Creed:
If it's wet, drink it.
If it's dry, smoke it.
If it moves, fuck it.
If it doesn't move, PUT IT IN THE TRUCK.
-k.
Like my cat... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WARNING Sticker: (Score:3, Funny)
"Contains Contaminated Body Fluids" usually keeps people from touching my stuff.
Sort of like setting down a tray of food in the highschool caf with a note stating that "I spit on this" (Only to return to find a 2nd note "I did too!")
LOL
Re: Easy (Score:1, Funny)
Actually all of the above posts were all by me (AC) I was just having an internal debate about what to do with this crappy microphone I found and didn't realize I was typing out loud.
Re:non-issue (Score:5, Funny)
The immediate problem I see is that a laser engraver is a cool tech toy, and a lot of geeks might actually want to buy one rather than hire the engraving done.
Once you own one, you'll probably want to take it to a LAN party and show it off... which means it will need to be engraved.
This basically means you need to buy two.
Re:non-issue (Score:4, Funny)
This basically means you need to buy two.
Or a mirror.
Entertaining (Score:4, Funny)
A group of Anonymous Cowards playing the Internet Tough Guy game together is honestly pretty funny.