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Computing Al Fresco?
ear1grey writes "With summer fast approaching in the northern hemisphere, do any readers have experience of taking their 'working from home' one stage further and 'working from the garden'? Any tips for making the screen more visible in the bright sunshine? Any problems with direct sunlight and overheating components? Are there other issues that we should be aware of before we venture, blinking, into the great outdoors?"
Get yourself one of those fancy deck tables with the umbrella that comes out of the middle. Voila - sunlight problem solved.
"It was hell!" recalls former child.
Yeah, that's goat.cx in that link. Congrats, mods, on not clicking the damn link.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
gotta love /. moderators ;)
how can you justify modding up a post without going to the damn link!!! thats jsut stupid
-=Hinkey=-
You want to do that? Keep it indoors, please!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
From experience, the following are useful.
#0 - Laptop - easily moved and re-moved
#1 - Go wireless. For both network and power. Don't put any AC current anywhere near the pool!
#2 - Think Dark places -Stay in the shade. Install/build shade if you have no alternative, especially next to the pool. Go for blocking out as much sunlight as possible.
#4 - LTSP.org - Use your laptop as a wireless thin client. It reduces local CPU power consumption, extends the life of your battery, and your server, (any desktop machine), does all the heavy lifting so you can still go fast.
#5 Cheap Sunglasses and a hat. Brim helps block out sunlight, Iris will dilate just "a leetle bit" so you can see the screen easier.
#6 Pump spray bottle of sunblock! SPF 30+
#7 Ice tea. (Or caffinated beverage of choice)
#8 Extra towels
Warning...goat.cx link above. Man, I haven't been hit by this one in a while... I was getting lax about checking them.
I've long wanted to be able to give up my occasional mod points that expire in 3 days, and trade them in on a single "persistent" point, that I can hold onto until needed. I know that the focus should be on modding posts up, not down, but jeez, for this to be +3 for _any_ length of time is just awful.
Wouldn't having a single point every 3 months be better than hoping that the mods catch screwups like this before you click on disgusting links?
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
You mean (gulp) outside? You can't do that. There's like plants and animals out there. They eat you and stuff. And the sun! What about the sun? I'm sure you've been working on your geek tan. Why would you want to ruin that? Mine's a lovely blue. The star burns you know.
I hear there's even girls out there. Dude, it's not worth it. Trust me - I've heard the stories.
Pass the cheetos will ya?
Refuse to make a statement in your sig!
Isn't that the room outside the server room, where the ceiling is sometimes blue, and sometimes black with little white lights? The HVAC doesn't work to well there either.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Wouldn't even need to click - the URL ends with ?url=http://goat.cx.
In order to reduce glare, you may want to look into glare reducing filters and monitor hoods. The filters are extremely expensive but do the job well enough, and the hoods will work brilliantly if the monitor is positioned correctly.
-Meeper
All references to pasty white skin aside, please do remember your sunscreen...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Well Microsoft might release sunsreen for your computer but I warn you it comes with manditory security updates and licensing cost. But really the UV light will fry your monitor both LCD and CRT. Melt your keyboard. Overheat your processor. Cause your battery to explode. Great we can market it as a weapon of mass combustion.
I've done some non-work stuff from a hammock outdoors using an ultralight PC with a WiFi card. Fairly pleasant but a little uncomfortable. However, given that I have three screens wrapped 'round me at work and I'd have more if I could justify the cost I think that going entirely portable for work would be counterproductive. Also, it's just started winter here ;-p
Thin Film Transistor screens, like those found on the GameBoy Color/Advance/SP thrive (if you can get around the glare) in high light conditions, as do a good number of LCD screens.
Install Ubuntu in Android
I'm just happy to see that goat.cx still exists. for a while there, they got owned by someone and had to take the site down. And I was just getting over the mourning of the internet icon too.
He means "yard".
It's kind of like how they say "pavement" when they mean "sidewalk", or "Tony Blair" when they mean "GWB ass-kisser".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Dont get a black laptop and leave it out in the sun, a nice reflective silver laptop should keep things relativly cool. A white iBook would probably work even better. As for direct sunlight... Turn around at noon.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's the funniest thing that I've ever read, and so original! I'll bet absolutely no one here has ever thought of that before! God, you should go into comedy! Perhaps writing scripts for American sitcoms, since every single episode of those is completely original, too!
If you can invest in a new laptop, I'd recommend the NEC Daylite - it allows you to turn the LCD backlight completely off. This makes viewing the screen in bright light MUCH easier (it's virtually impossible with most laptops I've used).
They're also very small and lightweight, and have excellent battery life. (Well, at least the older Transmeta CPU models had excellent battery life - don't know about the newer P-III models.) I'm pretty sure NEC has discontinued the line, but you can probably still find them on eBay. (I've heard a few e-tailers still carry them too, but you might have to dig to find them)
Be sure to pick a spot where you'll get a good wireless signal. Because of where my AP is, half my porch is covered, and the other half the signal craps out. Gotta get a repeater... Also, I've found that the more direct of sunlight you're in, the better you'll see if you turn the brightness of your screen up. Of course, YMMV, but I found that this helps.
I spent all of April and much of May away from my home in Seattle, and worked from my car quite a few times. (802.11 is wonderful stuff.)
A useful item, I found, and one which applies in your case, is a velcro-attached sun-shade. I've seen ones that look both more functional and more durable than the cheap-n-cheerful one I picked up from a MicroCenter in Columbus or Cleveland (it was a long trip -- this map is largely accurate, just misses a dip I ended up making to the Four Corners area), but even the one I bought -- $15 on sale -- was a big help. It may also let you get away with *less* than the maximum brightness on your screen, so if battery life is a concern it's an important addition.
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I worked from home for about 6 months a few years ago on a consulting gig. I lived on the beach so whenever it was sunny I would want to bring my laptop on the deck with the wireless and work out there, but I couldn't see the screen. The key is to construct a highly technical cardboard shutter that you can tape around the screen of your laptop - 2 sides and top. Neighbors think your staring into the screen of some peep show, but regardless of the 73 other distractions that come with working outside, at least the sun won't be one of them. Tslim
Buy and install one of these on your porch near the garden. I think it tracks light sources and compensates by rotating itself. Apparently it also has built-in AC as well.
This makes sense in theory, but I've yet to find a Linux that will run on my HP notebook and manage power properly. The fan comes on shortly after booting and the batteries run down in half the time or less than with XP, no matter what I'm doing , even sitting idle. I'm far from the only one who has been seeing this. So suggesting a Linux thin client as a power saving concept just doesn't fly, at least until Linux is able to manage power as well as windoes does on most or all of the notebook with that feature.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Unless you have a veranda or porch where you can get a little shade so you can see the screen, I recommend chosing your times wisely.
It starts getting light here (the UK) at about 3.45am, and I enjoy going out at this time. By 5.30am, of course, it's full daylight. Then at the other end of the day you get a nice light between 8.30pm and 10pm. The beauty of these times is also that it's not too hot to be sitting around, and there are also less flies/buzzy things about. Of course, not everyone has as loose a schedule as I do, and may not find these times ideal! (I do, as I sleep during the late morning and early afternoon, I like some night-time in my life!)
I am only happy to hear that goat.cx still exists. I prefer not to look at it. But for some people it makes them happy :)
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
I've tried to do this over the past few weeks. I've been taking my iBook out into the garden, loads of sun. I've found that I can't sit in the sun (screen invisible), and sitting in the shade doesn't really help either (and its not going to help my pasty white skin). It seems that turning the brightness up and down doesn't seem to affect it at all, and often having the brightness lower makes it more visible! Why on earth is this?
What kind of freak goes out when the sun is shining? Jeez, next someone on Slashdot is going to admit to eating garlic or having a mirror in the house.
I have long struggled with the issue of hacking on my laptop in the daylight. Funny thing, the old LCD screens that everybody hated on the early laptops worked GREAT out in direct sunlight. I would love to get my hands on one of those with a decent resolution - even though it would not be color it would be slick for use outside.
Many times I have tried to take my regular lappy outside and if the sun is shining directly on you, forget it. Even a deck umbrella or a big shady tree generally won't do it for you. You need to be roughly three degrees of freedom away from the sunlight (no direct sunlight, no reflected sunlight (like bouncing off the sidewalk onto you) and no two bounce sunlight (like sunlight bouncing off one wall, off another wall, then onto you.) Under a bridge, back in away from the light, or in a garage with the door open, those are pretty much ok but first and second generation reflected light simply overwhelms the screen (like using a laptop in a room or on a plane with the windows open, even if the sun isn't shining directly onto the screen.)
Overheating shouldn't be an issue, particularly if your laptop is running on battery and steps down the CPU.
The biggest environmental factor I would be aware of = keep your eyes and your hand on your laptop. All the time, be aware of your laptop. A nice laptop has ~steal me~ written all over it and in less time than it takes to go walk the lizard a n'er-do-well will swipe your $1,500 laptop and all your un-backed-up data (which is probably worth more than the laptop.)
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Go to david-drake.com. He does ALL of his writing outside, on a computer. As in, if its raining, he doesn't write that day. And he writes a lot.
/. - he's one of the major authors involved.
Don't emulate him too closely - he apparently has a jinx that wipes out machines on a regular basis.
See also http://www.baen.com/library/ for the Baen Free library, previously referenced on
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Sunglasses have the 2nd highest markup of any mass-market consumer good. You can't find a non-prescription pair that cost more than $5 to make no matter what they're charging for them.
The highest markup is perfume which seldom costs more than $1 a bottle to produce.
Direct sunlight is bad for you, why would you want to sit outside in the sun when everyone knows the proper environment for programming is a batcave?
I'm not kidding. I just came back from my dermatologist, who gleefully cut away every little precancerous mole she could find, now I've got stitches in extremely uncomfortable places that won't be removed for another week. I used to work outside when I was a kid, mowing lawns and gardening, but now I regret it, since it apparently increased my likelihood of skin cancer.
The whole REASON I studied computer programming was because I hated working out in the hot sun in dirty environments full of allergy-inducing pollen, I vastly preferred air-conditioned, dark offices. So I figured that computing was the best profession, back in those days, computers were always installed in glassed-in rooms with intense air conditioning and filtered air.
Do you mean outside of the room/rooms that your computers are contained in? Like a hallway or bathroom?
Even if you do throttle back, you're going to have to go indoors or swap batteries every few hours. Investing $80 in a nice deep-cycle 12 volt storage battery and a battery box will let you plug into a DC power source outside and run your 'puter all day without having to worry about running out, and you have no shock hazard or installation issues either. Haul the battery in at night and put it on a charger and you should be fine.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
its newbie and veteran friendly!
"Sigs mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny."
Here is an advantage to running your own DNS
I tried a G3 Powerbook; when the screen gets warm in the sun the display washes out. OOOOgly.
The NEC Daylite suggested elsewhere sounds tempting, albeit no longer made.
This is why I kept a couple of PBook 180s running all this time, so I can work outdoors and read what I'm writing.
Sigh.
You can view the model details here:
http://www.Ham-Shack.com
or here
http://www.Ham-Shack.com/laptop.html