Published Date 2/15/12 12:57 PM

The solar vagabond. Move your office to a beach or mountain-top far away from the power lines and keep connected. I have been testing and working with solar tech for years and will do a presentation of new and old toys.  With advice on which gear to buy/not buy for your laptop/mobile. Feel free to bring your own gear! 

The exampes I give here are from two of my less successful solar experdions. 

Fri 17th February 6.30pm

This is 32W soild panel with 2nd generation lithium battery

This was a more robust solution, but it had many problems, the second generation battery would not pass throug power while charging thus was very limited in use. And the set-up was 3x as heavy as the flexible panel limiting its use to more long term set-ups rather than vagabonding. This set-up hasn’t been fully tested yet.

Equipment: Thinkpad T410 and Panasonic 900 AVHCh

Not used yet due to carrying weight issues.

0.2w USB 4xNiMH phone charger

A very cheap, 10 and 10 for the battery’s. This worked, but it would take 2-3 days of sun to power the phone for one charge, and the NiMH battery’s had a high self discharge rate thus would lose power as fast as they gained it on low sun days. This kit kinda worked, so I bought a second one, I use it mostly as a USB backup charger for my citizen journalism work – with the recharging coming from the laptop USB not the solar panels. On the Greek island trip I would use a car lighter USB charger to recharge the NiMH battery pack for later phone charging, with the solar part being marginally useful.

HTC Desire Z and Nokia 95B

Used on wild camping trip to Greek island beach for one month.

Published Date 2/10/12 3:05 PM

iPhones have excellent cameras and pretty good internal mics so work well as basic CJ tool. But when you go beyond using it at a basic level you start to have problems. I highlight one of them here. It is much more complex to get an external mic into an iphone than other makes of phones, for Android, Blackberry and Nokia you can use a simple $5 adapter then plug any mic in to achieve professorial sound for interviews.

This is not so for iPhones, firstly each is different, thus a solution for one generation will not likely work for a different generation of iPhone. You might be able to use a normal cable to work on your iPhone, by matching the impedance of the mic and phone, try every mic you have, there is a chance one might work. Here is a current cable which should work with all iphones and most mics http://www.kvconnection.com/product-p/km-iphone-2trs.htm as you can see it is considerably more expensive than the normal standard cables. 

So to sum up, iPhones are problematic for citizen journalism as they are very restricted in some obvious, and less obvious ways that have a tendencies to trip you up as you develop your skills. With this in mind If you are buying a new phone for CJ I would not recommend a Apple product. If you already have one and you won’t to grow beyond basic CJ work then its time to get geeky and/or shell out some money.

Published Date 2/5/12 3:50 PM

(UPDATED)

This is still well worth a read, it’s too late to save the common web from Scoble and an answer from Dave Winer

This is something I have been facing for the last few years, and its why i have been working on the visionOntv open web project. Phwww…. but as you may have realised this has been an uphill battle which has become bogged down in the trenches and the mud.

If you care about the open web, pass some amunition… and a flask of hot choclet and rum.

Published Date 2/4/12 5:03 PM

I am visiting my parents who are of the newspaper reading age, it’s an interesting revelation/reminder to me of something I have known for a long time. That the people in newspapers are trailing edge, their thoughts and opinions are a week old, their news stale even before it is printed on paper.

IP based news is gatekeeper frictionless, instant as it happens and its up to you to build your own network of connections. If you haven’t done this then you are back in the world of gatekeeper flow and even lower “quality” news world. The IP world is not a panacea for lack of action on your part, it’s just an opening of possibility that you can build a news flow that is not gatekeepered and/or a week old.

Published Date 2/4/12 4:49 PM

We are a contemporary media project, not a traditional media project that works with “the people formerly known as the audience“.

But the people formerly known as the audience are now the crap producers, could they become better producers? Throwing the net wide – getting a happy community rather than great films? Your film has no value on its own. Have to change the concept of the value of people’s work, that it’s a brick in a wall. 

We aim to be part of the technological backbone of an Open Media Network. But to build this we have to overcome “What is innovative is not sustainable, and what is sustainable is not innovative”.

Published Date 2/4/12 3:34 PM

Poll Tax Riots – why I made the banner

This banner was made in 1990’s in reaction to Margaret Thatcher introducing the Community Charge.

Trade unions at GCHQ – banner

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces. Based in Cheltenham, it operates under the guidance of the Joint Intelligence Committee.