Does such a thing exist?
I sometimes find I need my external drive for like 5 minutes on the road without a socket in sight so it'd be great if I could just have it suck power from my computers USB port.
Or even solar power.
Obviously I wouldn't power something for a long time with it.
Or it'd be great if only one plug is available like at a coffee shop
Anything like this on deal extreme?
You can by and inverter for your cigarette lighter. Then plug in to it .As a matter of fact I have one sitting right here in front of me. From RadioShack. You get to still plug in your lighter and have 1 Ac plug it also has a 15 amp fuse just in case in between the lighter socket and the plug.It pivots at the point where you'd plug it in and has a built in fan for cooling.Fabe Oh it's 150w
I mean like maybe something solar powered.
Or if I needed a file for ten minutes it could drain the computer battery.
It'd also mean that the wire for the HD would be as easy to unplug if the plug was right next to the computer
Well, then a 2.5" external USB harddrive would be the thing, right?
1. It is as small as a pack of cigarettes
2. It gets it's power from the USB port.
3. It has only a USB plug, so it's easy to plugin and out.
4. When not operating it can survive a drop because of it's small mass.
5. they come with 320gb nowadays.
You might also consider a USB stick 32gb.
1. it is very small.
2. it get's it's power from USB
3. Super easy to plugin and out.
4. you can run your car over it,
it will survive the washing machine if you forget it was in your back pocket.
it can take extreme temperatures low and high.
To charge your laptop, there are solar chargers, but they are expensive.
A car plug charger is much cheaper.
I hope this is helpful.
Greetings
Hi all
slightly (but only slightly) OT -- on the road why not consider one of the new "Netbooks" - these can have up to 9 hrs (yes 9 hrs) of battery life. Combined with one of those "powerless" USB passport type of drives you are well set.
A small netbook is fine (and quite cheap) -- I can't imagine you out in the field without power etc etc wanting to do a huge amount of "Photoshop".
When you get back home / to studio etc you can copy stuff back from your netbook to desktop / conventional laptop if you need to and of course the small usb drive is totally switchable between computers. The netbooks are also fine for browsing and emails etc etc. I HATE BLACKBERRIES - a proper computer is much better IMO.
BTW these netbooks run W7 fine. They usually have Windows XP home installed but you can easilly install W7 -- if there's no "conventional" internal HD (although a lot do have a 160 GB drive) install W7 via a USB stick -- these "netbooks" allow booting from a USB device and there's loads of tutorials on this board about creating a bootable W7 USB installation stick.
Cheers
jimbo
Laptop solar charger Amstron 315.00 Solar Charger - ASP-10 Green 20 Watt Foldable Solar Charger
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