Our Man Inside

If like me you were a little pissed off to see that many of the iPod and iPhone chargers would not work with the new iPhone 3G you may be pleased to know I have finally stumbled upon an in car charger that works with the new iPhone.

Apparently there are a few that work floating around and it is something to do with some using the firewire voltage and some using USB voltage that is the issue.

Up until now I have been using the Power Monkey Explorer and it’s iPod adapter when out and about. It only seemed to last a few minutes but it was enough to top up my iPhone till I got to a plug socket.

I have a solar panel set up I like to use when on a shoot or as I did at the Geeknbury Festival but up until now I have had to use the mains plug adapter with an inverter into the cigarette lighter socket.

Not any more though. Today whilst in Milton Keynes I managed to find something that actually works.

I had popped into town to go to the Apple store but it wasn’t there I found the working charger. When I asked them, they told me that due to the new iPhone 3G not working with any of their previous 3rd party car chargers, they had to discontinue all makes!

Sheesh.. You would think Apple would have thought of looking into supplying a mobile charger for their pride and joy prior to it’s release.

I left disheartened but just a few doors down in the O2 store they told me they had just taken delivery (2 in stock) of an new car charger called the XtremeMac Incharge Auto.

At the inflated price of £14.99 ($30) I still thought I would take a chance and after the other devices I have tried recently, this turned out to be third time lucky.

Although it works, the packaging has no mention of the iPhone 3G, just the iPhone and the iPod like all the others I have tried. Still i’m not complaining. I’m very gratefull in fact, as now I can feed my power hungry iPhone whilst on the move. And Lord know it needs it.

I have been loving the apps especially Life Cast by @SleepyDog but blogging on the move with all the GPS functionality is draining the battery before the day is out.

Forget the new plastic back.. they should have stuck some solar cells on it.

It’s been a real pain in the ass finding this basic accessory for my new phone. I hopes this will assist you if you are having similar issues and should you come across any other makes that work, please leave a note in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Tweet generation is a book being put together by Butterbeep, (Dave Goodchild) about the power of social media and the people who use it as a enabling tool and a way to create wide-reaching and potent connections. The book, which touches on a number of social networks and prominent posters, geeks and visionaries, is different from many books about tech in the desire to capture the intersection of art and science, the heart and the mind that is so prevalent in these emerging communities.

Can these tools, in the right hands, be a force capable of reclaiming the human heart and placing it smack bang in the middle of the technosphere. Who knows.. but it’s going to be a lot of fun finding out.

If you haven’t already.. anyone can contribute to the book by going to http://butterbeep.com/tweetgeneration and sending in their quotes, experiences and thoughts. Not every upload will make it – think of them as frenzied spermatazoe on their way to the ovum. Make them fertile and fast, and you are in with a chance.

Dave plans to have the book finished by August 28 2008 and final submissions will be accepted up until August 15.

He has put in loads of work so far and peoples comments, feelings, favorite tweets will all go to glaze the cherry on top.

I have dropped in a line or two but may have another go as everyday my networks amaze me.. It’s all moving so fast. So much of what we do passes our eyes in the flicker of a monitor, I will be surly ordering my own copy of the finished book and if that solar flare does come to erase all our data.. At least I can thumb through the pages of Tweet Generation and remember.

Happy posting!

That link again.. http://butterbeep.com/tweetgeneration

Note: this blog post was hacked together with slolen words from Daves own site. It’s late.. i am tired.. and it looked better than just posting a link..

After the UK Home Secretary’s recent statement green-lighting the harassment of photographers in public places, could it already be too late for us to reverse the attitudes of certain members of the law enforcement agencies and the general public?

At the bottom of this post are a few links to tales of photographic woe and more cases of people’s civil liberties being ignored as more often we are told “No Photos!”.

Should we continue to raise awareness with blogging, protesting and flash mobs?
Maybe we can do what this guy is doing..

Personally I think all of the above but also.. Prepare yourself for the worst. If the situation does start getting more and more difficult for photographers and video makers in public places, then at the very least I want to protect my media.

It used to be that I carried a crappy 16 meg memory card in my back pocket, just in case some over jealous policeman in a far off land tried to confiscate my data.

Now with some of the new technologies at our disposal we can safely stream our content either back to our laptops or straight to the web as we continue shooting.

I am not talking about the Pro range of Wifi kit available to sports photographers using top of the range Nikon and Canon cameras. I am talking about off the shelf consumer software and hardware like Qik.com for mobile streaming and the Eye-Fi card for rapid transmission of stills from almost any compact camera.

If these two methods of shifting data from your camera to the web are just the beginning, we are in for some exciting times.

I for one will continue to put both systems through their paces and do so while actively shooting footage and taking stills in any public place i find myself in.

If we don’t exercise our civil liberties, they will atrophy.

http://photorights.org/blog/42-days-and-hand-over-your-flash-card

http://maximumsorrow.com/writing/whyineverprintmyphotos.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/nyregion/29camera.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://trinyprada.wordpress.com

Big thanks to Photo Mart for lending me the Eye Fi to test.

Yesterday I picked up a little solar panel and charge regulator contained in a handy little flight case. I love it so far.

I have been testing it with the Mac Book Air and it all works splendidly. I am looking forward to testing it further at the Larmer Tree Festival and of course my own festival Geeknbury.

This is what technology should be doing, liberating us. Check out the Qik posts below embedded in the Phreadz widget to keep them together.

And here is a recent Seesmic conversation..