iPhone Power Station Review

Anyone with an iPhone loves it’s ability to carry around various flavours of multimedia whilst enjoying it’s syncability with everything Mac. Occasionally we even find ourselves drawn to play with app after app, be it some GPS twitter tool we ca’t now live without, or a game we’ve bought for a few coins.

We can’t do it for long though. The iPhone battery is rubbish. Especially if you are a blogger and have a tendency to tweet, tag, snap pix and roam for more than an hour or two.

All this may be about to change. No Apple haven’t got their act together, third party companies are designing some pretty cool bolt-on’s.

This last week my iPhone has almost been behaving like a normal handset. I can now get through the day without planning my outings from power source to power source. Trips in the car no longer start with mirror-phonecharger-signal-maneuver and I am now not even thinking about whether or not I should have wifi enabled or not.

This is all thanks to a very tidy and pocketable iPhone power booster I found online.  The ‘iPhone Power Station’.

This funky little device cost around a tenner and can be temporarily inserted into the base of your iPhone to either be charged simultaneously as the phone is being charged or when your phone battery is running low, inserted and activated to boost the power. On the occasions I have had to top my phone up from 20% empty warning this little 1000mAh lithium ion gizmo has replenished my battery to 100%. This has been enough to last out the day and I don’t mind having this little 48g device knocking about in a jacket pocket or my bag as it’s far more convenient than carrying a charger on the off chance I pass a plug socket.

As it only takes two hours to charge It’s also handy if you are off grid with a solar charger as now you can charge the booster in the sun independently of your phone.

Of course Ideally Apple will get it right third time with the third generation iPhone and actually produce a device that shoots video, has open architecture, bluetooth that works, is not tied to O2, allows memory expansion and has a battery capacity at least comparable to other phones on the market.

In the meantime.. we have the iPhone Power Station and all the other little bolt-ons that are required to satisfy our tech needs.

Just Google iPhone Power Station to see places online where you can buy.. If you need one that is..

FreeAgent Central - Financial Management

I have not long got all my tax shenanigans out of the way for this year.. Well when i say ‘I’, i mean i pay a guy to trawl through a shoebox of paperwork and make sense of my financial dealings at the end of the tax year.

I am scared of such matters, but after talking with my friend Giles @kyomedia I am feeling like technology is finally simplifying the right parts of peoples lives and may well be un-complicating areas I have previously feared to tread.

Giles informed me that In September this year, a new online UK book keeping service launched. If you don’t like doing your accounts or have problems with invoicing or tax returns, take a look at FreeAgent. In the past he has tried using Quickbooks, Simplybooks, Freshbooks, Excel and even the dreaded Sage. (All of which make me want to go live in a cave.)

He says FreeAgent allows him to keep a track of his time, mileage and expenses. He can even upload copies of receipts or create a login for his accountant etc. He started with downloading and importing his statements from his online bank account and it was no drama at all to categorise the income and expenses.

Normally when Giles recommends something, I am all over it like a rash. He is certainly the early adopter when it comes to professional tools. I just can’t seem to find my business gland on this one.. A little office confidence to make me take the plunge.. There’s a good chance that I’ll still be chucking receipts and printouts of my bank details into a box this time next year. I am sure this is down to my formaphobia.. Still. I am doubly enthused by Giles’s enthusiasm as I’ve felt this kind of intuitive accounting has been a long time coming.

Giles sent me a referral code that gives both the user and himself a 10% discount. Feel free to use it if you are going down this path. There’s also a free 30 day trial.

On the whole It’s not that cheap but comparable to other boxed software and by the sounds of it, good value.

Giles then went on to tell me that he was not just sending me the link for the discount – He really thinks the service is excellent. Here is the link..

http://www.freeagentcentral.com?referrer=2q1pb929

Should you click it and give it a go, please let me know how you get on. Every time I throw a receipt into a box I do wish i had a little more control over my finances. Maybe the time has come.

Bottle-Kicking in Hallaton

On the 25th of February 2008, on a cold bright morning, I visited the village of Hallaton in Leicestershire. I was told to expect something strange. A field full of violent people, small kegs of beer called ‘bottles’ and man with a rabbit on a stick were also mentioned.

How could I not go?

They were nearly right. The man actually had a hare on a pole.

Local folk law states that long ago two ladies of Hallaton were saved from a raging bull when a startled hare distracted it from it’s charge. Thinking this an act of God they donated money to the church so that every Easter Monday the Vicar would provide hare pie, twelve penny loves and more importantly, two barrels of beer for the poor of the village.

The villages would fight for the food and beer and on one occasion the residents of the bordering village of Medbourne joined in the chaos and stole the beer. The village rivalry continues to this day.

It is also possible that the custom dates back to the Pagan ritual of sacrificing hares to the goddess Eostre.

Bottle Kicking in it’s present form has been and annual event for over 200 years and has occurred yearly apart from in 2001 where the national foot and mouth scare canceled many rural activities traditions and sports.

I arrived in the village during the parade shortly after the massive hare pie had been blessed and chopped up. I then watched a parade of locals lined by photographers and press, march through the village with an ornamental hare on a pole, held high along with three bottles (actually kegs) of beer. One of which is called the dummy and made of solid wood.
Once a hill outside the village is reached (Hare Pie Bank) the chopped pie is thrown to the onlookers and shortly after, the chaos begins.

There are hardly any rules to Bottle Kicking. Each barrel is thrown in the air three times and then all hell breaks loose.

The basic idea is to get the beer over a stream boundary marking each village border. I wasn’t at all prepared for the melee.. Dressed for a walk in the country with my best shiny camera in hand, i hadn’t expected a 50 meter square rugby scrum to spin, surge and chew up the ground as it ignored barbed wire, trees, bushes and the injured holding their crushed limbs.

The emergency services were on hand with more than one ambulance and I saw people carried off bleeding and broken.

It still appeared that all were smiling in some strange way.. A nervous, insane kind of smile as a rallying cry would cause another serge. If you were lucky you caught a glimpse of a barrel, deep in the scrum through a forest of muddy-bloody legs.

I did my best to get as close to the action as I could armed with my precious tech. That said, my trousers were torn and muddied, i took an elbow to the eye socket and lost a lens hood in the fray.

If i were to visit again it would be with some kind of body mounted camera, filming the shouts and screams along with the action. I would probably also join the locals in having a few numbing beers before leaping into the scrum.

The whole spectacle is watched by families friends and the injured. Ales in hand, cheering madly. In the distance over one of the winning line streams on the next hill, more spectators can bee seen in the pub. Staying clean, dry and drunk. There is also the possibility I will be there next year. With a long lens.

I managed to break away to grab a fleeting shot of the winning sprint down and across the stream.. I too would run that fast if pursued by a crazed marauding rabble.

The game was won by Hallaton. Everyone was happy. Some were bruised, most were drunk.

Who wants to join me next year.. with or without cameras?

Click this link to see more photographs of Bottle-Kicking on my Flickr page.

Wilderness 2.0

Monday morning for me this week will start at 4am as i rise, wash and head over to my friends for 5am, the official start of our trip into the wilderness.

We will drive nearly 500 miles north into Scotland to Mallaig. From there we hope to be in time for the ferry over to Inverie on the Knoydart Peninsular, mainland Britain’s last wilderness.

From there who knows… We plan to hike across, find a nice spot in a wood on the northern coastline of the peninsular where we can build camp, enjoy the wilderness and perhaps even do a little fishing.

We plan to exercise our bushcraft skills and although not packing a tent, we will be taking hammocks to sleep in unless it is as cold as it was last week where we may find it better to dig snow holes.

For my friend Dave it is an extension of the kind of weekends we find ourselves on in the summer. He will be practicing his axe skills, carving stuff, fishing, hunting and general camp craft. For me i also want to enjoy the wilds of Scotland but in addition, I am keen to see if i can blog, record and capture the great outdoors by using solar power and the no doubt limited cell phone coverage.

If you don’t here from me on Twitter or through my normal channels for a week, it’s because there is no mobile signal at all. Although not traveling too light, there was no room for a satellite modem as i wanted to make sure we had enough food and whiskey.

If you don’t hear from us for longer than ten days.. Expect to hear a story about how two stupid bushcrafters misjudged the weather and perished in the wilds of Scotland.

That said.. there will be a video diary shot along the way so the news should have more than enough decent footage.

For those interested in the kit I will be taking, i have tagged a flickr photo below.

(Please click on the photo)

Amongst other bits and bobs, Dave will be packing the first aid kit, axe, skillet, fishing kit, and flares. I’m not sure if anyone will actually pay any attention to flares around Bonfire night..

Before you say.. “The fools.. they will surely perish out there.” I must tell you that i’ve packed a Handpresso coffee machine.. I refuse to perish without caffeine in my blood.

Please don’t email or call unless it’s important. If i can get a mobile signal i will most likely be blogging via Twitter. You can find me on http://www.twitter.com/documentally

“I’m just going outside; I may be away some time.” ~ Captain L.E.G Oats