What do you keep in your eTravel kit?

I travel a fair bit. Whether it be work related or just general holidaying. One thing I hate about travelling is packing (I'm sure we all do). There's that last minute "oh shit have I got everything" and of course, there's at least one you left behind.

So lately I've been putting together a travel kit of sorts - for the electronics gear. Here's what I have so far:

2 x retractable iPhone/iPad cables
2 x retractable mini usb cables
2 x retractable  micro usb cables
1 x retractable ethernet cable
1 x usb wall charger
1 x mini stylus
1 x multi charger (those ones with all the adapters on the end of a short USB cable)
1 x sd card reader - just in case any built in usb card readers fail
1 x standard camera cable
1 x usb backup battery pack
1 x wifi drive
2 spare sd cards

That's just off the top of my head. What do you keep in your eTravel kit?

DIY Wifi Drive

I keep a lot of my documents in the cloud. I like this because it's accessible from almost anywhere with an internet connection. Since going iPad I'm becoming more reliant on having data at hand, such as research docs or general reading.

However, what about those times when you dont have an internet connection (or have a lot of data to access)?

I've been looking at those WiFi drives in the shops and on ebay and thinking that would be kinda cool, but of course I tried to figure out a cheap way of accomplishing the same thing. I dont know about other techs, but I have quite a bit of general crap lying around in the way of old mobile phones, tablets etc. Why not re-task one of these devices?

I broke out my old androind 7" tablet thinking this would be a great test bed. A quick search on Google Play found an app called Samba Filesharing. This simply allows samba file sharing on your Android device. It's got some good settings such as password protection etc.

I already had an iOS app called File Browser (I couldn't find this on the online version of the appstore, but believe me, its there). You can use other apps of course, anything that accesses samba shares.

Follow the instructions and you'll be accessing your Android device just like any other drive.

Ok, so a 7" tablet is a bit bigger than a WiDrive right? Well I also happen to have a HTC Touch Pro 2 lying around. This currently has Windows Mobile 6.5 on it, and I haven't been able to find any software that does anything even close to the Android app above....but....

You can make this (and some other) devices kind of dual-boot Android, using FRX07.1. Follow the links for installation instructions. It takes less than the time to have a coffee to install. Just be sure to read the instructions, and first boot will take a while so be patient.

From there it's the same, install Samba Filesharing, set it up, and access.

Of course this mainly applies to iOS users, but it's still handy to know. Yes, there will be people out the ready to bag iOS for the fact you cant just plug in extra SD cards etc, but if you're that childish about your phone/tablet OS, maybe its time you put the portable device down, went outside and kicked a ball around for a while eh? :)

I'm happy to hear from anyone that tries this, or has other versions of how to do similar things.

VLT Timelapse

Just a quick post to show something I stumbled upon today. This is a fantastic time lapse of the VLT skies.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wFpeM3fxJoQ

O'Mara refurbishment - Part 2

Another meeting today, kinda impromptu, but worth it. Seems all involved are extremely eager to get this project live now, and I don't mean next month, I mean now.

As it turns out, our refurbishment is just the start. Once running we're going to be part of an international project to share telescopes around the world. Let's say for example you are in the UK and would like to see the southern skies - you connect to our telescope and away you go. Discussions have also led to the possibility of doing solar viewing as well.

Preliminary research has us deciding on software, Astronomer's Control Panel.

So, now we wait. Politics plays a part at first. We just have to wait for the documentation to go through and away we go.

O'Mara refurbishment - Part 1

Late last year I received an email from Dr B requesting me to come to see him. Usually your boss requesting your presence is something to be concerned about but with Dr B its usually a good thing.

So, I wander in. I've been involved with the Astronomy group for a while now, despite desperate attempts by my former employer to stop this from happening. It seems this meeting was good news indeed. One of the telescopes at Mt Kent which has fallen into disuse is now being refurbished, an exact date had yet to be set, but it was all looking very positive. 

I was to be given a key role in this refurbishment and I was very happy about this.

Late last week I get another request from Dr B. Now, due to a desperate need for this telescope to be brought back to life, Jack and I are being tasked to rebuild this sucker, seemingly almost from ground up - new servers, new software, fixing tracking bugs, and making suggestions at possible extra markets for this machine when it's up and running. *yay!*

This is quite the project. Not many people get the opportunity to work something like this. As yet we're still unclear of the exact details, but I expect a call any minute for a meeting to start the process.