• Multicheckin – automatic foursquare checkin

• Sleep master – monitors sleep cycle through the accelerometer and sounds an alarm near your target time when you’re in the lightest sleep

• Stormglass (free, sideload only) – weather that can automatically update its live tile with the current location and conditions

• Outdoor Navigation – topo and street maps from a variety of sources, breadcrumbs, map caching, made for hiking/biking/offroading

• accurate tuner (free) – music instrument tuner

• Amazon mobile (free) – includes upc scanner and one click buying

• lookuptonight – iridium flares and ISS passes for current location through heavens above

• myfitnesspal (free) – exercise and food intake log

I’m also looking at Radio Controlled and MetroRadio even though Pandora STILL doesn’t work right on the pc.

Background

After I got and reviewed a Goal0 Guide 10 4AA Battery Recharger a couple of weeks earlier, I decided to jump in and get the big battery.  I fly on Southwest and Air Tran a lot, and it’s apparently magically impossible for them to have power outlets on their planes, even though every other 737 operator in creation has them.  So it’s either deal with 90 minutes of movie-playing time, or go without.  Well, it was.  This thing is a hoss, it weighs about three pounds, takes arbitrary power in, and provides power out from a standard USB-B female socket at 5 vdc, and some arbitrary coaxial plug at 12 vdc.  It comes with a near-proprietary charger and a converter from the output socket to a standard car lighter socket.

There’s also Sherpa 50 Battery, which I haven’t tested, which seems to be almost exactly the same thing, but with a smaller battery set.

Construction

The construction is, again, rock solid. This thing is, for all intents and purposes, a brick.  There’s a slight chance of damage to the status indicator and power button, but after a month of heavy travel I haven’t even come close to hurting them.

The thing weighs about three pounds.  It’s got a lithium-iron phosphate (LiFe) battery instead of the more common  lithium-ion/lithium-polymer batteries that most laptops and phones have.  This gives it about 15% less energy density per mass, but the battery will hold a charge longer and not degrade as fast (yeah, that 1-2 year laptop battery lifespan should not apply to this one).

Specifications

From the specs, it looks like the “120″ is a reference to 120 watt-hours of power storage – the 30 watt solar panel charges it in a minimum of 4 hours. That means it would keep my cell phone running for a month (assuming I use about half of its battery’s 5.55 watt-hour capacity a day). Or my laptop running for about six hours (depending on how hard I ran her – it’s a “full sized” laptop, so netbooks and tablets will run longer).

There isn’t much to it.  On the front face, it has a coax charging port, power indicator, battery meter, power button, usb output port, and coax output port.  On the back, it has a coax plug and socket for daisy-chaining.

• The power button switches the unit into charge/chain mode or off.
• The power indicator is solid green when it’s in charge/chain mode, and dark when it’s off.
• The charge socket is an uncommon coaxial socket that fits the included proprietary charger and accepts 15.3 v.
• One output is a USB-B female dumb (doesn’t negotiate) socket with the regular 0.5 A at 5 vdc.
• The other output is an uncommon coaxial socket that fits the included proprietary adapter to a standard cigarette lighter, and puts out 10 A at 12 vdc.
• The daisy chaining plugs/ports on the back are uncommon coaxial and appear to accept only 12 vdc, but that’s just going by what it says.

Observations

The pack only charges from the proprietary charger (or perhaps from another of these units connected to a proprietary charger), or from a Goal0 solar-panel like the Nomad 13.5M.  That means that for any significant use, I have to carry a bulky solar panel or a bulky single-purpose charger.  I tried using my iGo Travel Charger to charge it (and the standard tips fit all of the unit’s uncommon ports), but the charge sensed an input mismatch and turned off.

I’m puzzled as to why Goal0 did not use the 12 vdc input port for charging by default, and have it use a standard cigarette lighter adapter – that would allow an option for charging in a plane or car too.  I suppose the 12 volt output has a coax port to save space, but I have to carry the coax-to-lighter dongle any way, so there’s no real savings.

It also should have been easy to tie a voltage regulator into the primary charge port, to allow it to accept a wider range of inputs.

Several of these points lead to interesting experiments (what happens if I run my 19.1 vdc laptop charger through a voltage regulator and into the 15.3 vdc charge port?  Or do the same into the daisy-chaining port?  That’s for a later post.

It also seems more bulky than necessary.  I’m sure some is ruggedization, but it takes up a lot more space in my travel pack than I’d normally want to dedicate.  I’m sure some of the flashy case could be removed.

Conclusion

This is an attempt at getting the best of the worlds of rechargeable lithium battery technology and lead-acid/acid-mat batteries. As far as that goes, it’s not a bad shot. It approaches the lower weights of rechargeable lithium batteries and has the life span of a lead-acid battery.

Unfortunately, the designers missed several important design points that cost this unit a lot of practicality.  The requirement of a proprietary charger and the complete inability to charge from a DC power source significantly reduce the utility of this device, especially considering the cost.  Given that practically every laptop provides USB power any time a battery or power adapter is connected (even when sleeping or powered off), I’d be MUCH better served by getting two spare batteries for my laptop instead.  And it’s big enough that it doesn’t feel “electronics-heavy”, but like there’s dead air inside – a huge detriment for anything used in travel.

Sorry, Goal0, this gets one and a half out of five stars.

Got mold? It’s hard to get rid of. (i.e, the following is a summary of a recent nightmare I’ve endured). It can take weeks to remove all visible mold and prevent it from coming back.

First, solve the moisture problem; open windows more, install dehumidifiers or run air conditioner often, check plumbing / seals for leaks, check for entering rain water etc.

Get a cheap temperature/humidity meter or two and place them around your house. I got two that are solar powered (they run off indoor lights) for $15/ea at a hardware store. The relative humidity should be <55% for as much of the time as possible but preferably lower.

Then, clean away the mold with a HEPA filtered vacuum cleaner (on rough surfaces), or clean with bleach (hard surfaces, tiles etc) but this won’t KILL the mold.

Now, kill the mold spores which are remaining by buying some distilled (‘pure’) clove oil from Name Your Linkamazon or a health store. Put about 1/2 tablespoon of the oil into about half a cup of methylated spirits (or denatured spirits, different named in different places around the world) and stir. Dilute this to 1 liter with water and then wipe the moldy surface: WORKS AMAZING FOR MOLDY SHOWERS. Clove oil is an incredible thing!

Lastly, some things are essentially ruined by mold in most cases and cannot be treated; leather and carpets are two examples. Throw them out.

I tried all sorts of troubleshooting – even built a UPnP monitor so I could see what was being advertised – they all were (note that WMP won’t show its own shared libraries on the computer that’s sharing them under other libraries).  I noticed a pattern.  The Tablet PC library would show up on both the Laptop PC and the Media PC, and the Tablet PC would see EITHER the Media PC or Laptop PC libraries, but never both.

I tried reconfiguring the home group, rebuilding the libraries, and all that.  I even re-sysprepped the Laptop PC and Media PC.  None of it helped.  I dug in the registry and found something… Turns out it was my export/imported profile causing the issue.

The list of UPnP media servers is in the registry, under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media Player NSS\3.0\Servers".  Turns out that the Laptop PC and Media PC had the same serial number, and that serial number is supposed to be unique per the spec.  So I closed WMP, stopped the related services (UPnP Device Host and Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service), deleted the subkeys, and started it all up again.  And they came right back.

More digging found that those keys are related to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\UPnP Device Host\Description".  The next leap took a few minutes.  It looks like when you set up sharing, WMP registers its library with the WMP NSS service, which stores the reference under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media Player NSS\3.0\Server Settings".  WMP gets that data from its local settings cache in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\HME".  And it pulls data into that from any library it finds.

Those last two bits (the registry keys and library data) are reinforcing.  WMP will rebuild the settings for one from the other.  The solution was to wipe all the WMP settings and the library, then run WMP again.  It will build a new library with entirely new settings (including a new GUID for the media server serial number).

In script form:

First use an elevated account to stop the related services:

net stop WMPNetworkSvc
net stop upnphost

Then wipe the duplicated data from the user account with the affected libraries:

taskkill -f -im wmplayer.exe
rd /s /q "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player"
reg /delete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer" /f

And restart the services from an elevated account:

net start WMPNetworkSvc
net start upnphost

And start Windows Media Player at your convenience.  It will go through the configuration dialog again, rebuild the library, and it should present a new serial number for the media server UPnP device.

Has a USB Mini-B female socket on one end, and a USB Micro-B male plug on the other.  Plus a little tether so you can connect it to a cable.  With my mix of devices that have mini (battery charger, camera) and micro sockets (phone, nook), I’d have to carry around twice the number of cables.  Now I carry two cables, each with one of these adapters on it.  I also keep one on the car charger.

Background

I saw this on the shelf at Target one day and thought it might be a good contender for a travel battery charger.  I’d been using some crappy ones, and couldn’t find an all in one device.  Basically, I wanted something that would store two or four AA batteries, provide 5 VCD out, optionally have a flashlight, and preferably charge them from a 5 VCD standard USB port.

This one does all of the above.  And does it well.

Construction

The construction is rock solid.  The door doesn’t come open without some effort, and the body is sturdy.  After a month of heavy travel,mine has some scratches, but no cracks or damage.

It stores four AA batteries, and has a removable tray that lets it hold AAA batteries instead.  One gripe is that the tray comes out – I’d prefer they have some sort of flip-down spacer that changes the fit.  If it can be removed, it will get lost. I’ve standardized on AA batteries, so that’s not a huge deal for me, but it’s still annoying.

Specifications

The front face has a switch, a status indicator, a bright white LED light, a USB A Female port, what appears to be an EIAJ-01 coaxial power plug, and a USB Mini-B Female port.

• The switch changes the function from off to power out to light.  It will recharge itself in any position, but will not power the output port and the light at the same time.
• The indicator uses an intuitive red/orange/green system, and a key is on the back. 
• The bright white LED appears to be a standard 1 W white LED.  It functions great as a convenient flashlight, and should last for about fifteen hours on a full charge (assuming you have 2500 mAh batteries). 
• The USB A Female port (the kind most computers have for inserting devices, for people who haven’t bothered to learn what the types are in the past fifteen years) functions as an output port.  It spits out 2.5 W (5 V at 0.5 A, exactly to USB spec) when the switch is in the middle position.
• The coaxial port is for charging.  It didn’t come with an external charger, but other goal zero products use 6.5 v with these connectors for the low power interconnections.  They make several solar charging mats like the Nomad 7M Solar Panel that use that connector and voltage.
• The USB Mini-B Female port (like you have on your camera or phone, unless it uses the new thin Micro-B standard) is for charging from a USB power source.  They lose some points because it’s not standards-compliant – the device is supposed to negotiate before it draws more than 50 mA or so.  So if it doesn’t charge from your device, it’s not necessarily your device’s fault.  But it’s not like anyone else follows the standards.

Observations

It’s a trickle charger, made to work on 2.5 watts input.  It will take several hours to charge batteries.  That’s inherent to working with low power levels like this.  If you want something faster, get a high current quick charger.  The auto-off works fine, so you can leave it connected to a charging source.

Oh and it has a neat hook on the back… I have no idea what that’s for.

Conclusion

This meets my criteria for a travel device: compact, uses standard batteries, accepts standard power in, provides standard power out.  It’s not fancy, not expensive, and does its thing reliably.  If you need power or recharging in a portable platform, this might just be the best option out there.

http://mastercardisnotsafe.blogspot.com/2010/12/mastercard-deemed-unsafe.html

Alright boys. The other night I took some flu tablets which kept me awake all night, and as a result I had a moment of insomniac genius and invented a game that I call “The Phone Moan”.

These are the rules: “The Phone Moan.” While with a partner, one person goes down on the other. The person getting head now has to make a phone call to a friend of theirs and attempt to hold a regular conversation for as long as they can manage. While on the phone, you aren‘t allowed to lie. The game ends when the person on the other line figures out they’re being phone moaned, and only then is the person who made the call allowed to hang up. When found out, you should note the length of the call. The person giving head should be trying to inflict the quickest Phone Moan time on their partner, while the person getting head should try to get the longest time that he or she can go for. lt’s a battle of wits, self-control and physical stamina. The ultimate sport, The Phone Moan.

I woke up late, hopped on IRC, joined my paintball channel, and everyone said “GLASS GO TURN ON A TV NOW!”
I got it on just in time to see the towers fall.

The rest of the morning was spent reading and relaying the CNN closed captioning channel. Web sites wouldn’t work, lots of information was missing.

Two days later, I was on my way to a client’s site to work. There was practically nobody out there. I went minutes without seeing another car. I was going down 45 between Houston and Galveston on the salt flats, took my foot off the accelerator, and coasted until stopped, probably over a mile. Then I got out and walked down the freeway, car off and door open. The world felt completely empty. No cars were on the road. No planes were in the sky, that was the real creepy part. The skies felt dead. The only sounds were the wind in the salt grass and my shoes slapping the pavement that’s never touched by anything but tires.
I walked a hundred feet down the freeway, turned around, got back in, and left. I’ll never forget that feeling.