Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with charging

What are appropriate rates for computer surveillance work?

Jack Feschuk — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:37:08 -0800

I'm currently running a business where I monitor computers for people. I use custom made software that gets by all the anti-malware scanners and through the firewalls. I have been charging $40/hr for the first hour, and $45 for each hour after that. Since most of work may only take 1-4 hours per client I've been told that I'm charging too little. Figures have been thrown at me by friends, family and even clients that I should charge $60, $75 or even $100. What is a fair amount in this business. Yes this involves spying on people at the workplace, churches and spouses. My first question. I've searched mefi for similar stuff and came up empty.

Stubborn powerbook battery won't charge

Rumple — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:49:25 -0800

The battery in my G4 Powerbook won't charge, and I am a long way from any technical help! I have a Powerbook G4 15 inch 1.67. The battery is about a year old and is not one of the recalled ones. I left my computer in hibernate mode while away for a week and when I came back the battery was drained, which is not uncommon. However, now the battery will not take a charge at all. Some relevant symptoms:
- menubar indicator shows 0%,"calculating until full", which never changes
- the lights on the battery do not blink
- depressing the battery button produces the flickering green "battery empty" signal
- the computer will only boot if the PMU is reset, but will soft reboot without that step
- it runs fine with the battery in or out, but of course dies immediately the power cord is pulled out

I have googled around and done the PMU reset and also tried:
command-option-p-r (reset PRAM) (whatever that is) and
command-option-o-f; reset-nvram; set-default; reset-all

One potential confound is I am using an aftermarket power adapter which apparently only puts out 50 watts not the 65 of the stock model. This is preventing me from updating the firmware - it demands 65 watt adapter. However, I have never had a problem with this adapter and it shows as charging.

Sytem profiler:

Battery Information:

Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3421
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 0
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 9831
Cycle Count: 293

AC Charger Information:

AC Charger (Watts): 50
Connected: Yes
Charging: No

So, any ideas, hive mind? Software, hardware, battery itself? I am in a town (pop. 800) with internet for one day, then back into the bush for three weeks, where I would like to have use of this battery!

iPhone Battery Charging

yizzle — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 19:04:45 -0800

We've all been reading about the iPhone and its battery that's supposed to last 300-400 charges. How do they define "charge"? I usually charge mine every night, when the battery is at about 50%. Is that a "charge"? If I top my iPhone off when it's at 80%, is that a charge? What's the best way to preserve the life of my iPhone battery?

Why does my electricity go the wrong way?

talitha_kumi — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:11:12 -0800

Why does my electricity go the wrong way? This sounds weird, but I swear I'm not making this up.

If I try and charge my cellphone, camera or mp3 player from the power strip in my office, the battery levels go down.

A few weeks ago I plugged in my Samsung D500 phone through the OEM charger and I watched the battery level indicator fall. Then today I plugged in my Creative Zen as soon as the low battery warning came on and it suddenly died and started blinking a single blue light at me.

Back at home, I plug them in to the power strip in our study and both of them start charging normally (although the zen decided it needed to rebuild its system).

Both home and office are 230v AC power. What the hell is going on?

Proper Invoicing for Sold Photograph?

Coherence Panda — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:36:11 -0800

I recently sold a photograph (of dragonflies copulating, no less) to an Italian publishing house. They asked me to send an invoice and appropriate tax information. This is the first time I've ever sold something like this; can anyone tell me what forms, et cetera I ought to use or make? Thank you!

Help me find the mobile device of my dreams

JonnyRotten — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 06:33:57 -0800

Small, WIFI, USB, Externally rechargeable batteries, Tablet PC Does such a beast exist? For the project I have mentioned that I am working on in my last several questions, I need to find a device that can run excel like a mofo, has *decent* battery life, can print natively (Rules out pocket PC devices because as far as I can tell with ours you need to use third party software to print excel files from it) and has USB and WIFI to accomidate a barcode scanner attached to it, and printing over a network.

I am leaning toward a tablet PC, but my major hurdle is I cannot find one that has an external battery charging station. I need the device to be accesible 24/7 to employees and have spare batteries ready to roll when one poops out. Does this device only exist in my head, or is there a tablet PC that I can buy a couple spare batteries for, and charge them while its not in use?

Solar panel

pullayup — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:27:46 -0800

I have an old portable solar panel setup rattling around, and I'd like to put it to use. It's constructed like a zip up binder, with a panel on the inside of each cover. It has a car-cigarette lighter type connector. I bought it at a moving sale, so I don't have much in the way of information or documentation, but I've determined that the company that made it has disappeared.

I'd like to use it to power, or at least charge, a laptop. (I just got a new one, so I have laptop fever.)

How do I measure or otherwise determine the output? It hasn't been sunny here in a few months, so the obvious method of laying it in the sun and sticking a multimeter on it won't work, but spring is coming...

How do I determine which inverter I need?

Links to websites with instructions/howtos would be appreciated. I can only seem to find pages that want to sell me stuff.

I'd also love some suggestions for other uses...

Charging electronic devices overseas

schoenbc — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:51:12 -0800

I'm traveling outside of the U.S. (to Israel) and want to know about charging my electronics. I'm only taking a few (I agree with comments in a summer 2005 posting that taking too much stuff can distract from the actual visit) namely my HP handheld (for contact numbers) and my digital camera. I may need to recharge both. I have the original charging cords, appropriate adapters and I have access to a transformer. Do I use the transformer, and is it safe to charge these devices overseas?

iPod Shuffle Won't Charge

eurasian — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 14:08:16 -0800

My iPod Shuffle just doesn't charge off my PC. I disabled the "Use iPod as an external drive" or whatever that option is so that the computer uses it like a Shuffle (which I assume means charge it).

Everything on the web talks about connecting it to a high power USB (i.e. not a USB port on a keyboard). But I'm connecting to the actual computer. Tried out every USB port as well. What's up?

One caveat, when I plug it into my work computer (which is a bit newer), it seems to charge.

The computer where the shuffle isn't charging is an AMD1600XP, 512DDR, 30Gig HD, running on a.. ah, so long ago, .. MSI motherboard. A good one at the time. Anyone have any fixes to this?