I've reinstated my travel/ mobile working/ camping blog, using the latest version of eatStatic blog software.

When I first saw the macbook air I was awe-struck by it's design and portability, and like many people I was wondering if it would be up to the job of being an everyday work machine for web development. At the time I was primarily interested in the 11 inch version - I wrote off the idea of the 13 inch version, thinking that if I wasn't going to get the really small version, I might as well just get a more feature-rich and powerful 13 inch macbook pro. Several of my friends have got the 11 inch version, and have found it very capable, however..

Screen Resolution

I spend most of my work time with my laptop plugged into an external monitor, with a separate keyboard and mouse, so I effectively have a dual-monitor set-up. When I do work away from the desk I use the laptop by itself, and I really want as much screen-estate as possible - especially when doing front end CSS and JavaScript work with firebug open. So when I noticed that the 13 inch air has 1440 x 900 resolution, which is better than the 1280 x 800 on the 13 inch pro and basically the same as the current standard 15 inch macbook pro (though smaller), it became obvious that the 13 inch could be ideal. So in december last year when it came time to upgrade (thanks Potato!) from my tired old black macbook (it had a good innings!), I went for a top-spec 13 inch macbook air.


Power and Storage
A couple of people have asked me about the power and storage - I went for the highest spec I could, so this has an i7 chip and 256gb SSD. I've been using it for a month or so and still have 130gb spare on the SSD, so the drive is plenty big enough once all my software, music, photos, a few movies and TV series are on it, not to mention several work projects. I would have been struggling with the 128gb version, though arguably I could use an external drive for all the media, and be ruthless with deleting stuff, and just about get away with it.

I haven't done any speed benchmarks, but this machine feels blazingly fast compared to my old core duo macbook, in fact i've never used a faster machine! Photoshop opens very quickly and it handles large photoshop files really well, is plenty fast enough for general web development and associated tools. The most demanding scenario for me is having multiple browsers (and dev plugins) open, using my usual dev tools along with a massive multi-layered photoshop file open in CS5, at the same time as virtualbox running windows 7 for IE browser testing. While this pretty much uses all of the 4GB of ram, it still runs really happily compared to my old macbook - probably because the disk is much faster.

The only thing I haven't done is try editing a video with final cut pro - I know this machine has the same graphics capability as the 13 inch macbook pro ("Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory"), so should be capable, though not as good as the 15 inch and 17 inch pro, which have a second dedicated graphics chip and memory. I would imagine it is entirely possible to edit and process large videos on this, though if video editing were my primary job (and needed a portable editing machine), i'd have gone for a 15 inch pro at least! My video editing amounts to occasionally splicing together clips in iMovie, and adding titles and soundtracks - it is more than capable of doing that, including HD.

Battery
The advertised battery time on the 13 inch air is up to 7 hours - another selling point for me in comparison to the 5 hours on the 11 inch version. I haven't had the full 7 hours yet, but whenever i'm working I nearly always have a whole load of stuff running, so i'm getting more like 4 - 5 hours. Coconut battery is telling me I have a max capacity of 6450 mAh as opposed to the design capacity of 6700 mAh - I may pop in to the apple store to see if this anything to worry about, though i'm not keen on the idea of it being taken away from me for more than an hour or two to have a new battery put in!

Portability
Obviously this is a big plus with the air - the backache I used to get carrying round my old macbook in a backpack is no longer a problem - I can barely tell whether it's in my bag or not. If you spend half your life on a train or plane, the smaller version may of course be preferable, but i've not yet been in a position where this one feels too big.

Conclusion
I would definitely recommend the macbook air 13 inch as a portable web dev machine! I'm really happy with it and hopefully i'll get many years out of it, just like I did with my old macbook and the powerbook that preceded it. As ever, whenever you commit to buying a new mac, there's always the "but aren't the new ones being released tomorrow/ next week/ next year?" consideration. I think if a macbook air with 8GB of ram suddenly appears i'll have slight regrets for not hanging on, but other than that i'm very happy that i've made the right choice!

Recently I ported this blog from an ancient version of wordpress to my own simple blog engine, which uses my PHP5 micro-framework, "eatStatic". I use the phrase "blog engine" rather than blog software, as it isn't really packaged up yet as something I would describe as software - its more just a collection of classes and templates that can be used to keep a blog.

The bulk of the code was written last year in the space of a couple of hours while sitting in a garage waiting for my car to be fixed - I was about to go on a long road trip and wanted a blogging solution that let me create blog posts and organise photos offline and then conveniently sync it to the live site when I had an internet connection. The result was my "on the road" blog about mobile working.

The thing that sets this apart from other blog engines (and the origin of the name "eatStatic", along with a nod to a 90's techno act), is that instead of using a relational database to store content, it uses simple text files for blog posts, and cached json files to store collections of data (e.g. post lists, tag references etc.). I have it set up to run with dropbox so that I compose my posts in textmate and they are synced to a dropbox folder on the webserver. You don't have to use dropbox though - you can use any technique you like to upload the data files to the server - for "on the road" I use subversion, which means I also have versioning of blog content. Draft posts are composed in a drafts folder and moved into the main posts folder to push them live. There is currently no admin area on the site, though I might add one later.

The published date and URI for each post are taken from the text file name - i've adapted it for this blog to use the same url scheme as wordpress to avoid link rot on legacy content. Some people asked me why I don't just use the title and created/ modified date of the text file to make it even simpler, and the answer is that I wanted finer control, and the option to specify the publish date - using created/ modified would have been a disaster for the content I imported from wordpress. Also by naming each file starting with YYYY-MM-DD, the post files are easier to sort/ find in the post folder, both visually/ manually and in code. You can use HTML in the blog post and additionally line breaks are converted to br tags, other then immediately after a closing tag. You can add tags and metadata at the end of the text file.

I've also got a simple thumbnail gallery which can be included in a post (see below) by uploading a folder full of full-size images with the same name as the post. The idea behind this is that a set of jpeg/ png images can be imported from a camera, and automatically pushed to the server by dropbox. A caching script creates the thumbnails and web-size version on demand, which are saved to the filesystem for efficiency during subsequent requests. I considered setting it up so that each post had it's own folder, which could then contain images, but the blog engine was mostly written with the idea of quickly creating posts by opening textmate/ emacs, writing and saving rather then faffing around with creating folders.

I made the decision not to build in any commenting functionality - the anti-spam / moderation features needed are too much of a pain to deal with, so i've archived the old wordpress comments into the post body and integrated disqus instead.

As I mentioned before, I've been using a previous version of eatStatic successfully for my "on the road" blog, but I wanted to see how it coped with 100's of posts rather then just a handful - it seems to be doing fine, coping with over 600 posts, but i'm sure there is room for improvement. I've also been investigating making the json read/write switchable to use mongodb so that it could potentially be very scaleable - i've encountered a few inconsistencies in the way that PHP json_decode() and mongodb object retrieval work, but nothing that can't be worked around - expect a blog post on that later!

I don't expect eatStatic blog to be a wordpress killer, but it may appeal to techie types who want a lightweight PHP5 blog engine, maybe to plug into an existing site and people who want to compose posts in textmate/ emacs (or any other code editor), rather than in a web form. If you are interested in trying it, keep an eye on the github repo, as i'll commit an example of how this blog is formed, once i've ironed out the more embarrassing bugs! I may add a simple admin area at a later date, to allow publishing entirely via the web, and I think it would also benefit from a "post by email" feature, for convenient moblogging, but don't hold your breath!

When I was importing content (I actually wrote a python script to parse a wordpress xml export file and create the text files), I found it quite fitting that the first ever post on this blog nearly ten years ago was made on a home-brewed ASP blog engine which used XML for data storage. I think before then I kept a static HTML blog of sorts, on a freeserve site, but unfortunately haven't got a copy of that for completeness.

Lastly, whether or not you want to set up an eatStatic-based blog, if you aren't already using dropbox, it really is excellent, so why not sign up for free 2GB account using my referral URL, so I can get some more free space? Even though I have a paid dropbox account, I use a second free account to mount on my server for automated site/ database backups and for this blog and it keeps filling up!

I read this article by Lucy Kellaway on the BBC news site - she invented the term "worliday" for a working holiday and is very enthusiastic about the idea, advocating it as the way forward. If you've read any of my previous articles about my experiences working throughout the summer last year on a six week road trip in france, you may have picked up that there are both good and bad points - I've written about the importance of "work/ loaf balance" here.

This summer we didn't make it to france, but a couple of weeks ago I was working from borrowed dining room tables, cafe's and the platform of a skateboard ramp in Ireland, and i'm writing this blog post from a field in Devon. So i'm still trying to make the nomadic working thing work, but this year I think fatigue is starting to creep in - the Ireland holiday was very social, staying with friends and house-sitting, but missing so much of what was going on around me bought home to me just how much of the actual holiday bit of a working holiday, is compromised by being obliged to work.

When I arrived at my favourite devon "secret campsite" this morning, my phone messages revealed that I had somehow missed not one but two client meetings in Bristol - my feelings of spontaneity were soon replaced by guilt. Then my wife and son headed off to the beach, while I have ended up chain drinking tea in a camping chair, sending grovelling emails and grumpily punching keys on my laptop as I deal with technical issues that have cropped up on various websites.

One of the points that Lucy makes is that by working on holiday, you can justify going on holiday more often - I agree with this to an extent, but currently it feels more like I need longer and more holidays, so that I can scrape together enough actual holiday time. I think the long holiday worked last year because the time I spent not working equated to about the length of a normal holiday.

I start to relax a bit more as I get a bit of work done, but I know that when it's time to down tools I will find it hard to switch off again, and tomorrow if anything delays me getting started with my work, anxiety will set in again - what I really need right now is a holiday!

This blog is being neglected once again, but I have recently posted to my mobile working blog:-

Combined messenger and pannier bag
The importance of earphones for emergency use when cafe working
Shedworking

I had been looking around for a messenger bag that can also be used as a pannier bag, as I tend to use a backpack when cycling with my laptop as I find a messenger bag moves around to much and I don't like the unevenness of the weight distribution, but then would prefer a messenger bag when i'm back on foot.

I was surprised at the lack of available options on the market but eventually found this on from an Australian company called Knog. . This one (bought from chain reaction cycles) is suitable for up to 15" laptops and has a showerproof canvas outer. There is a clever pull out silver reflective rain cover in a pocket at the back, if you get caught in heavy rain. There is also a waterproof version, but I wanted something that was primarily a comfy messenger bag, that also happens to work as a pannier, rather than a pannier bag that I can carry round.

As for the pannier attachment - it fits to a socket on the back of the bag, there are also attachments available (but bought seperately) to convert it to a backpack or handlebar mount, both of which I could see as being useful.

I've yet to use it in anger, but will update this blog post if I find any problems.

Mostly I can filter out the background noise in cafe's so have no need for headphones. I don't always want to cut myself off completely, I want to be able to hear the phone ringing or people trying to get my attention. But background noise is usually fine, I can filter it out and concentrate. However, sometimes a particular voice will cut through the cacophony, and whatever you do to try to ignore it you find yourself tuning in and listening to every word! In those situations you need earphones - they can make the difference between a wasted trip and a successful one!

This blog has been a bit quiet recently, but contrary to what the title suggests, I haven't been hiding in my shed. In fact since returning from our European road trip last summer I spent a while working from home, then on-site for Aardman for a few weeks, then I started renting some desk space in town. The desk space didn't really work out - just like the previous time I did this, I found myself using it less and less, and eventually decided it wasn't worth the expense. So now i'm back to home working, or more specifically right now, from the dining room table of a house we are house-sitting in Ireland!

The reason for the "shedworking" title is that I was given a book for my birthday "Shedworking - The alternative workplace revolution" by Alex Johnson, which showcases some lovely shed conversions for people to create a dedicated workspace in their garden. This is something i've considered doing, being the owner of a reasonable size breeze-block outbuilding in the garden of our victorian terraced house. While I was considering whether to give up the rented desk, it occurred to me that the money saved on rent could fund the work needed to create a work space.

I would need to replace the roof - currently blue asbestos, which although apparently safe if undisturbed, leaks a bit and i'd rather get rid of it. I's also need to divide off some space to keep as a shed - storing bikes, tools etc. and create a well insulated space with some form of heating (a wood burner would be nice, but I suspect i'd need something else for shorter bursts of heat first thing on a winter morning!). Other than that, it would be very minimalist - I would need a chair and desk, from where I could work on my laptop. The wifi from the house reaches the garden so hopefully into the shed, and I could always use a range extender if necessary. Although I would likely gets mains electricity installed, I would like to keep this space "off the grid" - maybe I could invest in the big leisure batteries and larger solar panels that I would need to keep laptop/ monitor/ lights going. A trial run for whatever I would eventually fit into a camper van that i'm still fantasising about.

So walking a few metres down the garden to a shed could hardly be described as "on the road", but it is very much in keeping with the theme of not working in an office, working with a minimal set of tools that can be packed into a bag and taken elsewhere at the drop of a hat.

If any of my neighbours are spying on me today they might be wondering why I am working standing up by the window with my laptop on a chest of drawers. The reason is this article: "Sitting is killing you". I'm not getting all tin-foil hat after reading this, but I have been wondering what to do about my home "office" set up recently, and have been concerned about the amount of time I spend sitting (well slouching, if we are being honest) at a desk. I need to find the most comfortable height and see how I get on with it, so this blog post is being written standing up as the first of many experiments!

Interesting feature on the BBC site discussing mobile working:-

I'm having to write this blog post as a brain dump - those annoying boffins at apple have got my brain in a recursive loop because they've released an 11 inch macbook air. I've always loved the idea of a very portable workstation, i'm happy to compromise on a bit of power for something small and light that I can work on anywhere.

By work, I mean web development - switching between highly visual work on the appearance of web sites, including using the very bloated and power hungry photoshop, to writing code and administrating databases. Although most of the time I work at a desk, with my laptop attached to an external full size monitor and keyboard, I also often work on site for design agencies, with or without an external monitor and I like to work from cafe's or wherever I happen to be.Therefore my brain is looping around like this:-

I used to have a 12 inch powerbook, it was great - it was small, looked good, had decent battery life (for 5 years ago) but was a little bit underpowered and if I was to do a full days work on it without an external monitor to hook it up to it got tedious, as it only had a resolution of 1024 x 768

When I replaced it with a 2006 plastic macbook, that little bit of extra screen estate was enough to make it a viable machine to work on all day if I couldn't hook up to a monitor. I bought another one a couple of years later - the original one would only take 2GB's of RAM, so struggled with Virtual Machines, I got the second one second-hand and I now therefore have a spare, which is mostly used by my wife. They have been great and i'll hopefully get another year or two out of them.

I have bought two netbooks in the past - a 9 inch acer aspire (which I sold to a friend while drunk), and then just before my road trip this year I bought a ten inch dell inspiron. Although capable, neither of them are pleasant to work on at all. They make good "emergency" machines, but the keyboard feels cramped, and the trackpads have both been virtually unusable. The vertical screen estate is just too small, so using forms on websites and web applications is fiddly, so even blogging with wordpress isn't pleasant. The dell has really good battery life however, and it is small and it was less that 200 quid, so it still makes a great second emergency laptop.

Whatever I buy needs to be able to run my full development toolkit- apache webserver, mysql and postgres databases, photoshop, code editor, virtual machines. That rules out an iPad, which doesn't run osx (or windows/linux for that matter).

So onto the macbook air - the first thing is that it looks gorgeous - like a slimmed down 12 inch powerbook - ridiculously thin and light. It seems very futuristic, but functional. at £849 in VAT for the base model it is therefore the cheapest macbook available - same price as the base model plastic macbook. I said cheapest not "cheap", by the way!

The 11 inch macbook air has a full size keyboard and a decent trackpad, therefore it should be ok to type on, and navigate intricate interfaces. It has a native resolution of 1366 by 768 so it has more horizontal pixels than my macbook, but slightly less vertical pixels. Only slightly though - I guess i'll be going to the apple store to see how that feels in use.

It has "up to five hours" of battery life - I think this will mean a couple of hours in reality, with the type of work I do - not brilliant. I think the efficiency and lower capacity battery means that I might have more success charging or powering it with my solar/ battery gadgets though.

The base model only has a 64GB "disk" - that would be pretty easy to fill, even if I have my music/ videos/ vm's on an external disk. I guess an external disk would be key to this - it couldn't be my "main machine", but I would want it to be the machine I pick up and take with me most of the time, so i'd need to adopt a way of working that means I could quickly pick up where I leave off when I switch machines. The price starts to creep up if I choose the upgraded options - more ram, higher capacity disk etc.

By the way, i've only mentioned the 11 inch version. There is also a 13 inch version which is higher spec, but also higher price and if I wasn't going to have the really small one, i'd rather get a high spec 13 inch macbook pro, for that budget. At least i've managed to rule that one out.. I think.

So the conclusion is that it would be a stupidly expensive indulgence for something that couldn't be my main machine. I should be ashamed of myself - i'm not an apple fanboy (honest!). I've never queued inside an apple store for anything, let alone outside. I just don't need one. It would be stupid to spend my hard earned cash on something so unnecessary.

I tell myself all of this each time I get to this point of the thought loop... but then I look at the pictures and video, tell myself that £849 minus VAT (I can reclaim through my limited company) isn't *that* much for such an amazing gadget.. and i'm back to the start. I wonder if it's possible to put a restraining order on myself preventing myself from going within 200 metres of the apple store...

I was asked to write a guest blog on Marieke Guy's "Ramblings of a Remote Worker" blog about my experience working on the road. Take a look!

I've just returned from a six week working holiday, touring france (and a bit of spain) with my wife and son, in a beetle, living in a tent and working as a freelance web developer at the same time. I thought i'd write up some of the lessons learned, both about camping/ touring and working.

camping

Fridge

Without a doubt the thing we missed most was some kind of fridge. We had a cool bag and some ice blocks (not all campsites will let you use their freezer, plus you need to remember to swap them frequently when you are allowed), and also tried using a bucket of water - both failed miserably. Various options are available for powered coolboxes, ranging from 12 volt only, 12v volt + mains and electric/ gas combos. This is something i'll be looking into - expect a lengthy post on this some time in the future!

Quechua pop-up tents

The Quechua tents were brilliant - we had one Quechua base "full" and two pop-up tents which docked up to the base as bedrooms. All survived storms and we loved being able to pitch them and pack them down in minutes. Having owned various tents over the years, I can't imagine going back to a tent with poles - it's just not worth the hassle when touring.

Unfortunately the zip on our 3-man tent is now broken. This is fine when it is docked up to the base, as the inner door still works, but it is now fairly useless as a standalone tent. However, I remain impressed enough with the general quality of the tent, so I'll replace this at some point and may consider adding another base tent to use as a kitchen area or bedroom (with the optional inner).

Bedding

Due to car space considerations we skimped on pillows - big mistake! Travel pillows and cushions don't cut it for long term camping. If we had more room, i'm sure a better mattress (we had self-inflating mattresses, which are good, but i'd still wake up with a dead arm now again) would have been welcome, as would duvets instead of sleeping bags.

VW New Beetle as a touring car

Is possible - just! This car is basically just a MK4 golf with a silly/beautiful* shape and much less boot space, so it is fine on the road for long journeys (over three and a half thousand in the this case), if a little thirsty. Even though it is ten years old with 100K+ miles on the clock, the only mechanical problem we had on the trip was the air conditioning breaking, although it was already faulty I suspect. With roof bars/ bag we managed to carry a surprising amount of kit, but packing the car was a work of science. I'm investigating options to be able to carry more for future trips - trailers, tow ball mounted load carrier, big roof box - no doubt i'll write about my findings on that at some point. The biggest plus for the car was the smiles it got when we arrived on a campsite fully laden :)

mobile working - kit

Solar power

My experiments with small solar panel and battery pack combos - the solargorilla/powergorilla combo and the SolarSupra showed that it is possible to charge a laptop with solar power in France during the summer, but only for occasional use. To get consistent full working days would need a more sophisticated setup - larger panels and bigger batteries. I'll be continuing these experiments in the UK, and doing a side by side comparison of the solargorilla/powergorilla and solarsupra.

Spare batteries

As an afterthought I packed the battery from my spare macbook. This turned out to be the most useful of the "gadgets" I took with me. I'll probably buy one or two spare batteries before my next trip, plus a standalone charger. It's a pity the new macbooks and macbook pros don't have a removable battery - they may have better battery life, but it is really useful to be able to carry a few spares.

Electric hookup

Most of the sites we went to had electric hookup, but not always on all of the pitches. This means that if you don't rely on electric hookup, there is more choice if you just turn up without booking during busy times. I wanted to see if I could charge my laptop with no reliance on an electric hookup, with very limited success. Also we saved somewhere in the region of £200 by not paying for electric hookup. However, I hadn't realised the extent to which we would miss a fridge, and even though i'll probably buy one with the ability to run from gas, electricity is going to be the most convenient way to run it long term. I'll be buying some electric hookup kit for the next trip, but I don't want to rely on it to the point that I would turn down a pitch if it didn't have electric hookup. It's worth noting that there are two different types of electric hookup - the caravan hookup type socket, and some that are just northern european plug sockets. I've been told that the polarity is often wrong on these sockets, which doesn't stop devices working, but will make surge protectors useless - and surges are common, especially during storms!

Proper leisure batteries

The Halfords powerpack I have previously referred to as a leisure battery, isn't actually a leisure battery at all. A proper leisure battery has much higher capacity, and can be discharged to a higher level without damaging it. The main obstacle to carrying a leisure battery is our tiny car, but if I can find a small enough one, i'll probably get one for the next trip, and leave the powerpack. My main worry about not having any type of 12 volt battery on board is for when I accidently happen to flatten my main car battery, although this didn't happen at all on this trip, so maybe i'll just buy a decent set of jump leads and improve my french vocabulary to include "gis a jump start mate!", rather than lugging a battery around.

Macbook and Netbook

My main weapon of choice is a macbook. Not a macbook pro, but the older plastic one, with the removable battery. I actually have two, and they do the job. I like the fact that as they are a few years old now, i'm not as paranoid about them as I would be a brand new macbook pro. I've been happy using the macbook to do all kinds of different work, ranging from python and php code to photoshop. I decided to buy a netbook as a spare machine, rather than carry the second macbook as a spare. In reality I didn't use the netbook much at all, as it is so fiddly to use, particularly the trackpad, but it was still nice to know it was there if something happened to the macbook. I think i'd do the same again, although if I got a chance I may try it as a hackintosh, to see how useable it is.

Mobile working - discipline

Scheduling work

In my last post I discussed how difficult it can be juggle work and holiday. I haven't really quantified how much work I managed to get done over the trip, but I suspect it falls short of covering costs. I think our next trip will definitely involve an extended stay in a particular location where I do a set number of days work on a particular project, then limit working on the rest of the trip to emergencies and short maintenance jobs here and there. I think this way i'll know in advance how much money i'm likely to earn and manage my client's (and my family's!) expectations better.

Working offline

This deserves a post of it's own, but probably on my main web development blog. I spent a lot of time working disconnected from the net and this had knock-on effects for the way I work on projects. This blog is actually written on an offline text file based blogging engine I knocked up in a vw dealership while waiting for my car to be fixed a few months ago, and it turned out to be very useful, and I learned a few other lessons that I will endeavor to write about in more detail.

* delete as applicable - I think it's the latter :)

Sometimes I get bullied and cajoled by my family and friends into doing social and exciting stuff, just as I need to do some work, or just as i've finished work and want to bury my face in a book/ice cream/beer (or preferably all three) - poor me, what a hard life etc. etc...

Taking an extended road trip like this depends on me working for part of the time, both in terms of keeping my existing clients happy and earning enough money to pay the bills. I've been experimenting with different ways of doing this.

The first few weeks revolved around my experiments with charging via solar or from the car, so I would do sprints of work when I had a full battery - which usually meant a couple of hours a day.

On longer stays on a wifi equipped campsite, when i've paid for a day pass on the wifi, it often works out better to take whole days in the campsite bar, plugged into the mains. I use the term "whole day" loosely - it has been rare to start before ten, and there have been frequent breaks for a dip in the pool, keep my son entertained, socialising, trips to the supermarket etc. - the usual things you might expect to do on holiday if you weren't trying to make a living at the same time.

Other days we might be traveling, or taking a day trip, there's not much opportunity to get any work done, albeit answering emails on my iphone.

It hasn't always been ideal - sometimes the days, or part days where i'm trying to enjoy the holiday i'm left in "work mode", really feeling like I should be getting on with something, other days i'm working away when I really should be going for a swim or reading a book. I'm not sure what the solution is yet, maybe it's just getting better at switching between work and play, or maybe it's longer work days with a stricter emphasis on work, or several days in a row on and several off.

Maybe the real solution taking a shorter road trip next time and not trying to do any work at all, but i'm enjoying this too much - how many people get the opportunity to spend this long having an adventure with their family? So i'm making the most of it - i'll make it work somehow!

It's seven o'clock in the evening and i'm being led on a wild goose chase round Santander in the north of Spain, by the very out-of-date "points of interest - cash dispenser" option on my satnav. I'm led to a building site, a car park and, worryingly, a cliff, before finally spotting a bank that wasn't on the list. I park the car illegally in a spot reserved for motorbikes and run a lost tourist flip-flop sprint to the ATM to secure some cash for the evening. Camping Cabo Mayor - the campsite that we didn't really want to stay - where i've left my wife and son setting up camp, informed me they only accept payment in cash, and we haven't got food for the night either.

We've driven well over a hundred miles to get here from Biarritz. The whole european trip has been pretty much unplanned, but so far we've always phoned ahead to check availability, but after being greeted by spanish answerphone messages and total failure of online booking, we decided that with a list of campsites hastily scribbled in felt tip on a notepad the last time we had wifi, that we would chance just turning up. In the second week of August - "peak season" apparently. The first site we tried, 20 miles or so east at Noja was manic and full, the next one at Suesa we didn't even stop to enquire, as we could see from the road it was full to bursting and it wasn't what we looking for. We ended up at Cabo Mayor on the hills above Santander, somewhere i've stayed before, on the first night of my "Spanish Adventure"* 13 or so years ago.

We've obviously been spoilt by the campsites we've stayed at in France - on this site we are crammed in like battery hens, with barely room for our car and only able to put up part of our over-elaborate tent arrangement. After carefully locking all things of value out of site in the car, we take a walk up to the Cabo Mayor lighthouse and have a beer looking out over the sea. Annoyingly, it's chilly - that's not how I remember it. We then retire to the bar down the road from the campsite, where things are more relaxed and I get to practice some of my rusty Spanish - not very much really, but considerably better than my french.

Things were a bit different last time I was here. Back then as a young and single hippy in a beaten up van, I slept in carparks, down side streets, on beaches, in the woods and basically anywhere I thought I could stay for the night without getting moved on by the police. Back then I was also trying to earn a living as I went, but busking rather than coding - I think I am having slightly more success with the latter. Not far from where i'm standing is the spot where I first ever dared to sing in public - I played a lemonheads song to some random tourists and earned a few pesetas, leaving me on a high for days.

Back at the campsite we feel slightly marooned - there's not even room to sit outside the tent to enjoy a drink. We don't want to stay more than one night on this site. Without having somewhere in mind, it becomes obvious that carrying on further into spain the next day might be counter-productive for what we want to get out of this trip. We decide that we are going to make an early start the next day, back the way we came - a 280 mile trip back to our new favourite french site at La Romieu - we'll have to save exploring Spain for the next trip, when we've done a bit more planning, maybe next time taking the ferry to Spain and starting the trip there. Meanwhile i'm happy knowing that back at La Romieu with wifi and a plug socket for the week I can get some work done and earn back the petrol money from our weekend detour.

*My Spanish Adventure is something that I always meant to write a novel about, but if it hasn't been written yet, I doubt it ever will. Also, the things I thought would make interesting reading in my early 20's, are probably less so now, but there must be at least a blog post in there!

I had been doing really well keeping stuff charged by solar power alone in the good weather, but three days of cloud and torrential rain resulted in me borrowing a mains adapter from the campsite reception and turning the boot of my car into a charging station.

The final straw was torrential rain yesterday afternoon leaving us huddled in the quechua base tent watching a film on the laptop. A nearly flat macbook was topped up with a half charged powergorilla (the result of 2 days solar charging) and we just made it all the way through Tom Hank's "Big" with a few minutes battery time left.

It was only sheer luck that we happened to be on a pitch with mains hook up - most of the sites have more choice if you don't need electric, but we ended up on a pitch with mains. I need to get hold of a proper electric hook up lead - I wasn't sure if UK/Europe mains hook up leads were the same or not, and the leads I looked at in the UK were very bulky, so I decided against it.

I've just returned from the campsite bar after unsuccessfully trying to use the campsite wifi - it keeps going offline because of power surges apparently. I guess I should be getting a lead with a surge protector built in. Meanwhile we sit out the storm with a medley of films, and frequent dashes to the car boot charging station to swap chargers over.

On a brighter note, the Quechua tents are holding up a treat in the rain :)

The temperature gauge in my car says it is 28 degrees centigrade in the shade. I spent most of the day working on the balcony of a campsite bar, using my very little french "Une cafe noire sil vous plait" to procure coffee, because I really shouldn't start on the beer yet, and the french don't really do tea. Despite my appalling pronunciation, each time I receive an espresso in a glass or cup, and know (from the change rather than the spoken response) that these cost me 1 euro 20 each time. Occasionally one of the bar staff speaks to me and I nod and smile - hoping that what they are saying is good, rather than "can you please leave now?".

From the balcony I can see the "beach on the mountains" - a sandy beach on a turquoise lake, with the French Pyrenees as a backdrop. In the water are a load of kids (one of them my own), having a riot with an inflatable roundabout in the shallow part of the lake. At lunchtime I wander down and have a picnic lunch in the shade with my wife and son, then I wander back up to the bar. Although my solar charging experiments are showing some promise, I plug into the mains to enable me to work for a decent stint without the "plate spinning" needed to swap round partially charged batteries, while I get others charging.

If I wasn't working, now might be time for a beer, but I stick with the espresso. It's hardly "chilled" here, i'm being accosted by flies, I can barely see my screen, even in the shade. Some workmen take the table next to me and start talking far too loud, and seem to be enjoying themselves far too much at my expense, (or maybe that's just my "not speaking the language" paranoia). To top things off, someone drops a whole tray of empty glasses and a splinter of glass pings off my arm. It doesn't draw blood, but adds to the feeling that this isn't exactly the ideal working environment. But then I look at the view again, and see my family enjoying themselves in the sun, and I know that i'm earning enough through working part of the day each day (or a whole day every other day) to justify the extended holiday, and that I am in fact living the dream.

We've been on the road in france for a few days now. I have an iPhone with t-mobile sim, and was offered (via SMS) one of a few data roaming bundles when I drove off the eurotunnel in calais. I opted for a 30 day/ 200mb bundle for £40, which should be plenty enough for checking email and the odd bit of remote working. At the first campsite we stayed at in the town Jumièges, the phone was showing a strong 3G signal through Orange France, but it was struggling to download webpages, via the phone or tethered to my macbook. Sometimes they loaded, sometimes they didn't - mostly the latter. I wasn't planning on doing any serious work on the first day anyway, but it wasn't encouraging.

The campsite was shady and the clouds were grey (followed by thunderstorms and lightning), so it would have been pointless to try solar charging! The battery on my casio elixim camera had gone flat (probably accidently left switched on in the bag), and the only way I have of charging this is on the road is using the 240 volt inverter on the leisure battery. This is very inefficient, so took quite a chunk of charge out of the leisure battery. Packing up in torrential rain the next morning everything was a bit frantic, so I missed an opportunity to get some charge from the car while we drove the next 200 miles south.

The second campsite near the town of Ligueil in the Loire valley, had free wifi which stretched as far as our pitch a good 200 metres from the office, which was really useful. From there I did a couple of hours work, caught up on email and launched a few new features on one of the sites I look after. There was plenty of sun, so I plugged the SolarSupra panel into my leisure battery via the 12 volt connection to top it up. I haven't got an accurate way of working out how effective this is, but I have to presume that it its a minimal trickle charge, so would require days of trickle charging to have any useful effect. When I am stationary for a longer period of time, i'll try to to leave this hooked up for a few days to see how it fares.

Back on the road heading south to St Emilion, I plugged the leisure battery into the 12 volt socket conveniently located in the boot of the beetle, and by the time we reach the campsite it was fully charged - if only I could get that kind of charging power from nice clean solar power. Also along the way, stopped at a services near Tours my mobile data connection allowed me to check my email no problems, so i'm thinking it will just be a lottery, but at least I know where will be a good bet when we head back up this way.

Meanwhile i'm going to try to charge my iPhone exclusively from the SolarMio for a while to see how I get on with that. I can't help but cheat a bit as every time I plug the phone in to the laptop to get photos off it, it charges a bit!

The site i'm currently on - Camping Domaine de la Barbanne in St Emilion, has wifi but I need to go and pay for a time period, and the signal doesn't reach our pitch. This means I need to work offline, then probably before I leave, will pay the minimal amount to check my email (i'm getting no data connection here) and upload some work. I think this will be the case for much of this trip, so i'll make note of any useful lessons as I go.

It is also worth noting that I had given up getting a data connection on my iPhone, until I switched off 3G and rebooted - I have been getting a slow but working data connection eversince - good news.

I think I am getting obsessed with solar chargers - when I see or feel sunshine and i'm not pointing a solar gadget at it and charging something, it feels like a massive wasted opportunity!

As I mentioned before, I have been looking around for other products to test and possibly sell via partner site light planet. I now been sent three new solar chargers to test:-

The SolarMio

Small, portable solar panel/ battery pack combo aimed at charging phones and USB powered devices. The panels are flexible, water resistant and robust and fold out into a sheet with eyelets making it ideal for attaching to a backpack.

The SolarDuo

Smaller version of the SolarMio, with only two panels, and the battery pack is actually a charger for two AA rechargeable batteries. This can be used purely as an solar powered AA battery charger, or to charge/ power stuff via USB. Alternatively the batteries can be charged via USB - the solar panel out put is actually mini USB, so hopefully this could also be used to charge small USB devices directly.

The SolarSupra "Value"

Much bigger and more powerful solar panel/ battery pack combo. The battery in this one can power laptops at different voltages, as well as having a USB output. It has eight solar panels on a sheet that folds out and can be laid out or hung up. The unit and all the associated bits and pieces fold away into a nice self contained package resembling a washbag.

I'll write up full reviews of these as soon as I had time to test them properly.

An opportunity came up at the weekend to head down to croyde in devon to try out some of the new camping gear and kit. I had a deadline, so there was a genuine need to work while we were down there. The campsite (sorry - top secret!) didn't have much in the way of mobile coverage last time I went, but things have obviously moved on, as I was getting a full 3G signal with t-mobile on my iPhone. The nearby beach at Putsborough sands had zero signal, which was probably a good thing as I had just bought a surfboard!

The Quechua base tent and picnic table (pictures and post to follow) worked a treat as an ad-hoc office, and I kept the macbook running from the leisure battery, which had some charge from the car on the way down. It kept me going for an evening shift and left me with a charged macbook, but the charge indicators on the battery only showed one out of four when I had finished. One thing I did notice is that I need some kind of reading light to light up my keyboard working in the near dark (yeah, yeah a new macbook pro with backlight keyboard is appealing right now!)

I charged my iPhone via USB directly from the solar gorilla - it turns out positioning really does make a difference. If I layed the gorilla flat, the iphone would complain "charging is not supported with this accessory", but with it angled to the sun it charged. I also kept the solar gorilla plugged in and charging the leisure battery when it wasn't charging the iphone, with negligible results I suspect.

My attempt to do a bit of work at a cafe in Braunton failed miserably - not only did their wifi not work, but I then proceeded to leave my bag with netbook and powergorilla in it at the cafe when I left, leading to a panic drive back to collect it..

I'm pushing the envelope with what we can realistically carry in our tiny car. These working road trips are also family trips, so tech and camping gear is fighting for space with bodyboards, wetsuits and toys. This is only possible in our car because 1. we only have one kid so we use the rest of the back set for camping gear, and 2. because of the carnopy roof bag, which we somehow manage to get a load of stuff in. After buying a surfboard off a friend in a beach car park at 5.30am, I was in danger of not being able to carry it home when the rest of the stuff was packed on the roof, but by removing the aerial I was able to jam it under the roof bars. Needless to say I was really eyeing up VW transporter vans this weekend...

After disappointing results with my first foray into solar power, I started researching alternative ways of generating power. I was wondering what was on the market in the form of pedal powered generators. I was hoping to find a decent dynamo for a normal bike, or roller type system where a normal bike could be mounted, but looking around so far i've only found DIY solutions for the roller systems (modified "turbo trainers") and very low power dynamo systems. Some of these will charge a mobile phone or other USB device, but I haven't found anything advertising laptop or 12 volt battery charging.

I did come across these two standalone solutions:-





They both have a 7ah battery, which wouldn't power a laptop for more than an hour or so, but also both take a full day or more of pedalling to fully charge! If I had had better results with the solar panel, I might have impulse bought one of these to try, but I can't see them being much use for anything other than emergency/ novelty use.

As ever, i'd love to be proved wrong on this, so any suppliers who want to send me samples to try out, please get in touch!

Following on from the previous experiment, I wanted to see how long it took to charge the powergorilla from the solargorilla in our not exactly solar-friendly climate.

Yesterday was promising as it was fairly sunny all day, but a days worth of charging (admittedly not making a massive effort to position the solargorilla so it was always facing the sun), only produced 3 out of 6 bars of charge - the first three are smaller than the last three, so i'm not sure if this represents 50% charge, or a much smaller percentage.

Today it is cloudy, and plugging the solargorilla in does nothing except cause the display to flicker. So, er.. i've postphoned this experiment too, as I want to make use of the powergorilla in the meantime. I will try again starting from the next sunny day.

Looking on the powertraveller site, the description sais the following of charging from the solargorilla:

"the powergorilla features solargorilla auto recognition, which means when you connect the solargorilla, the powergorilla will shut off unnecessary internal circuits to improve charging time by up to 2 hours and the little solar logo in the LCD screen will confirm this".

Mine doesn't have one of these, so i'm thinking maybe that the newer models, both of the solargorilla and powergorilla may be more efficient that the ones i've got. (Powertraveller PR dept: Feel free to send me newer versions and any other gadgets you think i'd find useful for review :)

Links to other articles about charging the power gorilla with a solar gorilla

• Gisvold - solar charging in the UK

The start of day two and i'm preparing to abandon the experiment. The tiny amount of charge I managed to get into the power gorilla yesterday only gave me 30 minutes worth of macbook, so at 10am i'm back in a cafe on borrowed mains.

I think I was very over-optimistic about how much I would get out of the leisure battery yesterday - I thought that maybe by getting at least one charge a day from the leisure battery and relying on the solar+powergorilla combo for the rest of the day, I might just make it through the week.

The experiment isn't wasted though - as a friend said to me yesterday, a failed experiment is just as useful as a successful one. I can conclude that I can't expect to sustainably get full working days out of my current set up. In fact, I can only just expect to get one full working day from the macbook, starting with fully charged leisure battery and powergorilla.

I therefore need to look at either getting hold of more kit (we actually have a couple of samples of alternative portable solar and battery products on their way to us at light planet), or planning the working patterns of my road trip (an extended family holiday), around charging time. I'm reluctant to consider a bigger leisure battery, as we only have a very small boot in the car which will already be overflowing with camping gear, plus a bigger battery just means more charging needed.

Several people have pointed out that the new macbooks and macbook pros claim 9 - 10 hours of battery life. I'm not rushing out to buy one though, because I suspect that a significant of this gain is because it is a higher capacity battery, so will therefore need more charging. I know there are probably other efficiencies in the macbook itself, but £1000+ is a lot to pay, especially if i'm going to leave it hanging around charging in a tent! My £200 netbook also claims 9.5 hours, and I think this is realistic. The battery capacity however is the same as the macbook, so will require a similar amount of charge.

One thing i'm keen to see is if it is possible to fully charge the powergorilla from the solar gorilla in one day, on a cloudy day in the UK. See - i'm still optimistic!

3pm and i'm just starting to run out of the "illegal" charge from the cafe earlier. I check the powergorilla which has been charging from the solar gorilla since 8am, and it is only showing 3 out of 6 bars. I don't want to discontinue that experiment, so I plug into the leisure battery again to see if the solar charging from yesterday afternoon amounted to anything. It's difficult to make out where the sun is (see the flaw in my solar charging plan?), so i'm not sure if it is worth moving the solargorilla to the front of the house yet.

When the leisure battery gets too low to sustain a charge, the DC-DC converter starts to make a high pitched noise and get very hot, so it can't be left unattended. This happened after about ten minutes. It added 10 minutes to the estimated macbook charge, so yesterday afternoons solar charging amounted to about 20 minutes macbook charge.

I have an important project to push out of the door, so at 3.22pm as I reach for the mains adapter, this experiment is officially over (for now).

As an experiment, even though i'm working mainly from home, to simulate working on the road, I thought I would see if it's possible to work for the entire week without plugging into, or charging from the mains.

In an unscientific way, i'm starting from:-

• Fully charged leisure battery (let's pretend this was charged from the car on a long journey)
• Flat netbook
• Half Charged macbook
• Fully charged powergorilla

Day 1

Last night I plugged the flat netbook into the powergorilla. A few hours later (didn't record this properly, so not sure exactly how many hours, sorry), the powergorilla was drained, but the netbook was fully charged. This morning I stuck the solargorilla on the roof out of the loft window, and the powergorilla is charging, but I have no idea what current is being produced. I'll need to keep an eye on the sun and move to the other side of the house before the solargorilla falls into shadow. The solargorilla is laid flat, I haven't pointed it directly at the sun and it's a sunny but cloudy day.

Meanwhile the macbook is being powered and charged by the leisure battery (via the trust car charger plugged into the 12v output and DIY magsafe cable). When it reaches full charge i'll leave it plugged in, on the basis that powering a laptop is more efficient than charging it. I'm doing some layout/ design stuff today, so I want to use the macbook rather than the netbook if possible.

Starting work at about 10am (i'd usually start earlier, but had car problems in the morning), I get a full macbook charge just after midday, but the macbook starts discharging at about 2pm. I was hoping to get more out of the leisure battery! By 3pm the macbook is getting very low on the internal battery, so I go and unplug the powergorilla, which is showing three bars out of 6 on the charge scale. I move the solargorilla to the velux window at the front of the house and plug the solargorilla into the leisure battery. I then plug the partly charged powergorilla into the macbook. I get about 20 minutes of charging before it is drained flat! At this rate there's no way i'm going to get a full days work. I still have the charged netbook, but it's not set up for the project i'm working on, and I really need the extra screen estate of the macbook today. The brief bit of charge I got added about 10 minutes to the estimated run time on the macbook.

This leaves me with about 4 more hours of possible solar charging with which to start tomorrow with!

By 4pm I have to switch to the netbook for a bit, but really need to get back on the macbook, so I modify the experiment to allow me to go to a local cafe to charge up. After a moment of panic where I can't find any plug sockets, I spot a double socket on a window sill so start charging the macbook and powergorilla with borrowed mains juice and charge myself with an americano.

I have to head out at 5.45, which leaves both the macbook and the powergorilla partly charged. When I get back home, I check the leisure battery, which although still showing a charging indicator hasn't been charged a measurable amount (it has 4 LED's to show charge status, and it's still on number one).

As a last attempt to keep this experiment going tomorrow, I plug the partly charged powergorilla into a sleeping macbook to see if I can get an hour or two out of it tomorrow.

I've bought a dell mini 10 netbook as a "fallback" machine for the road trip. I usually work from a macbook, but wanted a second machine, should the first one get broken/stolen/lost. Even though I already have a spare macbook, when I saw that the new dell mini's boast up to 9.5 hours battery life, it dawned on me that it might be a better approach.

As well as the battery life, the machine is very small and light, so it is more practical for lugging around in a backpack, on the offchance that I might stumble across some wifi, or find a spare hour or two do some work in a cafe.

So the question is, can I actually do any serious work on it? Software-wise i'm sorted, with dual boot windows and ubuntu linux, plus virtualbox to run other servers from within either environment, and I could even run apple osx on it if I wanted. The keyboard is useable, but the trackpad feels awkward. I think it is absolutely fine for writing code on, but doing website layout and design is going to be awkward. When i'm not on the road, I can plug in an external monitor to get around that, but the point is to be mobile.

A massive plus is cost. This was only £200 before VAT, so that makes it almost "disposable", at least compared to £1000 upwards for a macbook. This also makes me think that when the time comes to replace my macbook, maybe I ought to consider switching to ubuntu full time, and get a bigger non-apple laptop.

First test - does it charge at all?

Yes. Using the magsafe "sample" powertraveller sent me and with the power gorilla set to 16 volts, it does indeed charge the macbook. I'm very happy about that, otherwise this might have been an expensive experiment! This also confirms that the cable is suitable for charging, so therefore my previous experiment with the solar gorilla confirmed that it should have been charging, but didn't.

Test two: how long does it last?

Starting from a half charged macbook, I plugged in a fully charged power gorilla. I wanted to see how many charges I got from it, if I unplugged it whenever the macbook battery is charged and plug back in again when it gets low. Simultaneously powering and charging the macbook drained the power gorilla before it had even completed the first charge. I'm not sure what to make of that - in theory the powergorilla has four times the capacity of the macbook battery - is the charging process so inefficient that most of that is wasted? I guess I have to factor in the fact that the macbook was also drawing charge whilst being charged, because it was running. I need to repeat that experiment with a sleeping macbook.

I tried again starting from a fully charged macbook, and fully charged powergorilla - I was also using the macbook, and got just over two hours before the powergorilla was drained, and the macbook status went from "charged" to using the internal battery. This is about the same amount of time I get from the internal battery. Once again, this is disappointing, as in theory the powergorilla has four times the capacity. I should point out that even the macbook (one of the older plastic ones) claims up to 5 hours battery life, in reality I usually only get about two and a half, as I tend to run a lot of stuff - virtual machines, photoshop etc. To continue the experiment I then carried on working from the internal battery until it was virtually flat. In total I got 4.5 hours - that's combined total runtime from a powergorilla that claims 2 to 5 hours laptop power and an internal macbook battery that claims up to 5, so less than half in total!

Most importantly, this isn't a full days work, and I need to allow for charging time too. The claimed maximum battery life is always higher than you get in reality unless you switch of wifi/ bluetooth, dim the screen and work with only a few lightweight applications. There are more details on expected macbook battery life here here. The newer macbooks and macbook pro's claim more battery life, but via the grapevine i've heard that they still fall short of a days work when used under realistic load. Also these higher capacity batteries will require more charging therefore don't necessarily solve my issues.

Will the power gorilla power/charge a macbook while it is being charged itself?

When it is being charged via the mains: sometimes. I think the battery has to have a certain amount of charge before it will output anything, while being charged. When/ if the indicator changes from the charge icon to 16v, it will start charging. Note that as the mains charger is 16V, the battery can only output 16v while it is being charged. So far it hasn't worked while being charged from the solar gorilla. This is a pain - I was hoping that the powergorilla could permanently be hooked up to the solar gorilla when practical, to take advantage of any available energy, but it seems that while it is being charged, it won't power the macbook.

How long does it take to charge from the mains?

I've not worked this out yet - definitely more than 3 hours, but last time I tried I went to bed before it was finished, but it was charged when I got up.

How long does it take to charge from the solar gorilla

Obviously this is weather/ sunlight dependent, and i'm in the UK during a predictably unpredictable summer. I'll post back here when i've done it a few times.

Update: follow up articles:-

• Charging a powergorilla from a solargorilla in the UK

Last summer I was freelancing for the lovely Team Rubber, when I overheard one of the film making dept say "Now we just need a skateboarder to skate the halfpipe..". I immediately volunteered myself for the role. "Can you skate a halfpipe?" he asked. "Um.. yep, how high?", I replied. "13 foot". "..err.. (mumble)... can I come along and watch though?".

I tend to work on projects with a local working copy on my laptop of whatever it is i'm working on, so pre-empting the current meme of working away from the office, I offered to go along to the shoot, help out where I could, learn about the video shoot process and work the rest of the time from my laptop.

The video shoot was on an old air base in wiltshire. I arrived early in the morning and couldn't figure out how to get on site, so I circled the perimeter trying out various back roads and possible routes in, occasionally encountering other car drivers, eyeing me up suspiciously as I loitered. I eventually spotted some of the crew arrive and unlock a gate, and sure enough most of the cars I had encountered earlier turned out to contain runners, directors and extras.

The ramp was already set up and I was dying to have a quick go on it, but then the heavens opened leaving the uncovered ramp to get soaked. I prayed that the weather would clear up, as the shoot would have to be postphoned or cancelled if the rain continued. Fortunately it cleared up soon after, and became a scorcher of a day so I went and swept the surface water off the ramp to help it dry out quicker.

I climbed onto one of the platforms just to see what it would be like to drop in, but being considerably higher (4.5ft higher specifically) than anything i've skated before, there was no chance of me giving it a go, at least dropping in from the top. I skated it from the bottom, pumping the transitions to gradually get higher and higher up the ramp, but looking back at the embarrassing video clip I persuaded someone to film on my camera, I can't have gone any higher than halfway towards the top. Fortunately, the ramp owner, and UK vert legend Pete King arrived to provide the goods.




The plan was to use the skater as a reference for a CGI character, so the CGI guys set up a makeshift studio in one of the hangars and created a 3d model of the ramp. Pete was dressing in a rather fetching grey one-piece ("chroma key" suit) with white tape to use for CGI reference. As you can see from the photos, he didn't disappoint with the skating - pulling some massive airs for the camera. These photos are not modified - he was consistently getting airs that high, and landing them most of the day, despite the blazing sun and being asked to repeat the sequence over and over.




As if hanging around on an air base watching a skateboarder dressed in a lycra suit wasn't surreal enough, the actors, now dressed as american GI's, were bought in to encourage and heckle Pete, sometimes while he was there, sometimes when he wasn't.


Then the chopper arrived. Ever wonder why insurance companies have a problem with media types? Luckily i'm a software developer, so *cough* no chance of my car getting hit by helicopter-related flying debris on a film shoot..*cough*. I made myself handy by securing a nearby gazebo with breeze blocks before it (and the helicopter) took off again.

I can't say I got a massive amount of work done as planned. Working from the hangar and my mobile office (car, with leisure battery + 3g phone), there was no wifi on site and I could barely get a mobile signal good enough for data, but the main reason was there too much exciting stuff going on to concentrate. I skated the ramp anytime it wasn't being used - you can't stick a halfpipe in front of me then expect me to concentrate on python and javascript! Thanks to Team Rubber for a great day out!


p.s. you can see the final video here.

One of the things I need to get sorted on the beetle before the road trip is an intermittent problem where the immobilizer won't allow me to start the car. It lulls you into a false sense of security by starting the engine, then immediately cutting out, leaving you with a flashing bug/key icon on the dash. I'm getting the keys recoded (so that immobilizer recognises them), which should leave me with two working keys, and at the very least, help me rule out "faulty key" as a possible cause if it happens again.

I'm working this morning in the (very nice) coffee area in the local VW dealership. One of the main problems in being here is all the nice shiny vehicles and brochures hanging around. I have to avoid being seduced into leaving with a brand new vehicle and several years worth of debt..

I read loads of reviews of the solar gorilla before taking the plunge and buying one. I payed particular attention to mentions of the macbook (being my weapon of choice). One thing I noted was that when using the solar gorilla with the apple airline magsafe adapter, the reviews all pointed out that this would only power, not charge, a macbook. I was wondering if this was a limitation of the adapter, or insufficient power. I read somewhere that it was the former, so decided against buying an airline adapter (I had plans to make my own 12v plug adapter to link up with my butchered magsafe adapter). However, after speaking to powertraveller, they said they could send me a "sample" magsafe adapter, which connects directly to the power gorilla.

My first attempt to use it (by sticking the solar gorilla out on the roof on a cloudless day, but setting sun), and the charging status read "charged" (starting from a charged battery), but after running for about half an hour, the sun went behind some houses and the status changed to show it running on battery, which was now pretty flat, so the macbook had indeed been running from battery the whole time.

The second experiment today in the back garden, starting from a 50% full battery, the macbook status read "not charging". There are a few clouds around, but it is a rare fairly sunny june day. I think I can therefore conclude that the solar gorilla is not a viable charging or powering option for a macbook in a UK climate when used on it's own.

One question still open is whether the sample magsafe cable has the same limitation as the airline adapter - i.e. is it supposed to charge? To work that out I will try it with the power gorilla (waiting for me at olivewood HQ). If that doesn't work, I will cobble together the DIY solution mentioned before, to rule out wiring.

I have worked out that it is possible to have the solar gorilla charging my leisure battery, while I simultaneously power/ charge the macbook via my DC-DC converter. I've yet to work out what rate the battery is being charged vs drained! Another concern is that I seem to have one of the earlier generation of solar gorilla (it has a green, rather than red LED), which possibly suffers from reverse charging i.e. in theory if I leave connected to the leisure battery after dark it might drain it - still inconclusive though.

Another annoyance is that the solar gorilla will not even charge my iphone when connected to the usb port. This is probably due to the "fussiness" of the iphone, probably a fluctuating or insufficient voltage causes the iphone to declare "This accessory is not supported".

I have been buying and experimenting with some equipment to help keep my laptop charged while i'm away from mains electricity. I have few tools at my disposal:-

Halfords Portable Powerpack 200

It's basically a 12 volt leisure battery with a lamp, 240 volt inverter and air compressor built in. I only got it because I inherited it with the car (the previous owner bought it to jump start the car when it had been in storage too long and the main battery had gone flat). It can charge from a 12 volt car socket or mains adapter, plus I am having some success charging it from a solar gorilla. The battery sais that it is 20ah, whatever that means in lamens terms.

Using the 240 volt inverter is incredibly inefficient, so only for "emergencies" really. More efficient is using the 12 volt output with the Trust DC-DC converter (below) that allows me to step up from 12 volts to the 16 volts required to run my macbook.

The obvious downside of this battery is that it is very heavy, only suitable for lugging around in the back of a car, so while it will be useful on a campsite with no mains hookup, i'm not exactly going to lug it into a cafe!

Trust 130W Multi Function Notebook Power Adapter

This is really useful - if I wasn't a mac user, there would probably be a charger tip included with this, but due to licensing there isn't. Therefore I had to take the DIY approach of snipping a section of cable from my spare apple power adapter (doesn't feel good doing that, knowing they are about £60 to replace!). I also modified one of the tips to allow me to fit a section of wire with spade clips, to make it easier to plug in other adapters if necessary.

Amazingly this works - charging and powering the macbook. I need to do some proper experiments to see how many charges I would get out of the leisure battery.

It also has a USB port so I can charge my iphone from it at the same time.

More details on the dealer's site.

Solar Gorilla

This is a lightweight portable solar panel that will apparently charge a laptop. Covered in more detail here