Running a Laptop on Solar Power
It's official! Powderdust has gone green. Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, an 80 Watt solar panel has been installed by my good self and is now taking care of charging:
• 2 x Laptops (Macbook and IBM) 0% - 100%
• 2 x Mobile Phones
• 1 x Bluetooth Headset
• 1 x 10 Megapixel Casio Camera Battery
• 1 x Canon 400D SLR Camera
• 1 x Sony DV Video Camera Battery
• 1 x iPod Classic
• 1 x iPod Shuffle (via Macbook)
• 1 x Tom Tom One Sat Nav
• 2 x House Phones (top-up to full when down on 30%)
• 16 x AA Batteries
• 4 x AAA Batteries
• 1 x Battery Drill
And to top it all of 1.5 - 2hrs x 11 Watt Lamp every other night.
I do believe I could draw more power from the system - watch this space or suscribe to the blog to find out more.
You may be asking yourself a few questions. Like where in the world is powderdust? How is the power stored? What kit is used? Well its quite easy actually. Here is a list of kit used:
• Solar Panel (80 Watts, 12V) Mounted on shed roof facing south
• 4 x 12v, 26 Amp Hour Batteries wired in parallel
• 1 x 10 Amp charge controller, bought off eBay
• 1 x 12V-240V at 300 Watts inverter, again, bought off eBay
• 25 Metres of cable to run from shed to kitchen
Wire it all up, switch it all on, and hey presto! Free power. And this is all in rainy old England.
Feel free if you want to ask any more questions. And if you are going to use powderdust's design services, its good to know a percentage of energy used is from renewable resources.
Internet World 2008
A very very well received show where exhibitors and visitor were concerned. One this that was lacking was floor-space. This show shared it's footfall with a direct mail exhibition and duly deserves the whole of Earls Court 2 to ply it's wears.
Floor-space aside the main message that came across is that the internet industry has evolved from simply, excuse the term, geeks talking to geeks about development to Account Managers, Project Managers and media buyers talking about implementation and deployment. Internet products matter, and with the pressure to join one type of social network such as
Facebook for your free time or
LinkedIn for your business/product profile, inclusion is the buzz-word and need for companies to succeed in the ever expanding digital world.
All very good for the end user, but for a developer/supplier the main specter of crushing competition is the big boys. As ever, Google and Microsoft were there touting for business. And on reflection, when talking to exhibitors offering affiliate marketing packages standing up to Google and Microsoft must be a pretty daunting task knowing full well what type of resources they have to draw upon for development.
On a positive note there were many inovative exhibitors at the show.
T3D showing off their 3D XML Flash product viewer was something to behold. The guys on the stand were very passionate about their product, selling the fact that 3D will be the way of the net in the next 3-5 years as bandwidth levels expand ,processors become cheaper and faster and audiences demand a more hands-on approach to the net environment.
LinkedIn were there on a surprisingly small stall teaching people about LinkedIn and for those that have an account, how to make that percentage profile bar rise!! Very friendly staff, informative - but extremely busy for a small stall, you need a bigger boat.
