Solar Power Briefcase - every filmmaker should own one!

Charli

cool little "title"
I wrote an article about the Solar Power Briefcase here: http://www.savings.com/blog/post/Gadgets-You-Never-Knew-You-Needed-Solar-Power-Briefcase.html

Please place comments in the comments box below the article through your facebook or twitter account. Or just sign up and tell me what you think.

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Now here's the thing - you are out on the field on location at a shoot, you can constantly charge your laptop, recharge your cellphone, charge your camera battery - dudes, they come as cheap as $70 and even help keep your car battery charged.

Put this on your Christmas list because you will use it over and over again on location, especially those long laborious shoots where everything goes wrong.
 
I'm always puzzled by the articles that reach for wouldn't you like to use your laptop on the beach! or similar stuff.

No, I would *not* like to use my laptop on the beach. It's hot. I don't need the addition of a hot electrically-powered device sitting on my lap. I don't care to worry about keeping blowing sand out of it, either. Nor salt water or spray, which play merry hell with any kind of electronics and are inescapable if you're on the beach. Don't even get me started on seagull crap. Or those little teeny crabs who enjoy climbing into your removable media drives and refuse all notices to evict. And what the hell do these people think I go to the beach, to do? If I want to work on my laptop, I have an office, a car, a home or any one of a multitude of Starbucks' etc (so that people can *see* me working on my laptop, which - I suspect - is why people take 'em there, in the first place).

Which isn't to say this doesn't look like it has its uses. But the whole laptop-at-the-beach thing has got to go. I often wonder how much time the people who make that suggestion actually spend using laptops, or going to the beach. I bet they don't spend a lot of time, doing both at once.

Also, if you can't go camping without refrigeration, power tools, computers, or other electricity-dependent equipment...then I suspect that you may have missed a large part of the purpose in going camping to begin with.
 
I lived in Santa Cruz for almost 7 years and Santa Monica for about 3 years. Laptops on the beach were common. People want to be alone in their thoughts with the waves lapping on the shore.

Saw it constantly in both cities. I imagine the ones in Santa Monica were writing screenplays, the ones in Santa Cruz who knows? Mostly women, which is interesting.

But yeah, after living in front of the beach nearly 10 years, I would not have put it in the article if I didn't see it every single week.

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On the camping thing - kids get bored, they need their iPods or hand-held games. Back in the day in the 70s girls didn't like camping because they couldn't blow-dry their hair, no joke. Some people just need their luxury items or they can't have fun.
 
I didn't mean to denigrate your article, or anything. That particular chestnut has just always impressed me as kind of funny.
 
Up to 30 watts, so probably not. Can recharge your small Paglight or Vidleds.

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Typing on the beach, on top of a rock and letting that fresh air hits you is cool.
What I find funny is in Santa Monica going to Starbucks and EVERYBODY is typing
away at that next best screenplay. Now that's funny!
 
@Sad - ha ha ha ha, if I were drinking something I would have spit it out. That's just soooo true.
 
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