mutters

I had a Helly Hanson jacket for a while, which I was very happy with but since then have had a North Face coat which is BRILLIANT. Was out sailing in greece with it in a wicked storm and I was dryer in that than my mates were in their yachty coats. Can be pricey but I always go for bargains in the sales or at outlet villages, the north face coat (with fleece) cost me £70

is that a beer or who you were with?

oh fantastic - that's the perfect crimbo pressie for my folks!

My ex swore by eating marmite kept em away but I was never convinced I can't stand deet, prefer citronella/eucalytus (spelling?), but having mozzi nets over the hatches kept them out the best.......

Can you make a cover (wood, hinged??) for the bed for when cruising?

yay! So jealous! Can't wait for boatwarming party

They just have! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6994957.stm

Yay! Glad it was a help. Have fun with the new laptop!

i found that the other day during my search and bookmarked it cos it was well interesting! Guess that makes me a total geek then! oh wicked - nice one!

Guess that blows my idea of going round the shops with one of these to see what they use! But I doubt they'd let me start plugging stuff in unless I find a super-nice salesperson..... but they usually are pretty unhelpful!

I was chatting on a laptop forum and a guy gave me a link to laskys (http://www.laskys.com/pcs_and_laptops/laptops_and_pdas/laptops/), that website shows power based on Comet Tech lab results. I get what you're saying, and they are very cagey - but it's the best info I've been able to find. My goal was being able to try and see what laptops are less power hungry without having to actually buy the thing first and then look at the power supply label!

Totally agree - if you get a web-based one now then you won't run into the problem again if you change your ISP in the future. Yahoo are pretty good... That's weird, my mate changed from orange to 3 and they deleted his email account saying he wasn't a customer anymore - he was well annoyed!

I've just been looking at those gizmos.... so does your battery have to be tip-top charged up in order to use the laptop off the 12V? How long do you get out of it? Am just wondering whether it's worth getting one of them or whether it might as well go through the inverter....

A topic started over here got me looking around for laptops that are low on power usage. My search led me to this website which has tested the laptops' power usage. I pulled together a quick spreadsheet of the laptops that are under £1000 with their power usage (there are different worksheets showing them sorted by price, power etc) The MacBooks are coming out on top - but as is being mentioned over on the other thread make sure you get a good battery life with it and also there are a number of things you can change on your computer settings to help conserve power also and get the most out of your laptop. I thought it might be useful for some who are researching getting a laptop (do double check my figures cos I may have typos in there!) and thought I'd pop it in the equipment forum too. Hope this helps someone

Hello again peeps After a lot of browsing and chatting on geeky forums I've been given a link to this website: http://www.laskys.com/pcs_and_laptops/lapt...d_pdas/laptops/ which seems to be A LOT better at showing the power consumption of a laptop (if you don't see the power consumption in the summary, click down to view "full products specs"), rather than hiding behind battery life etc. Thought it might prove useful to some so hope it helps!

Cork for keys Magnet for "fishing" Bloody brilliant idea!