I have collected together data on 35 boats that are popular some even legendary in Europe. The ratios calculated are those that are often quoted by magazine reviewers, and I was interested to try and get to understand what these ratios really meant – and also to see how boats that have a great reputation fare when compared to each other using these ratios.
I would be happy to add your boat if you can supply the data that you can see on the ‘data’ tab. Just contact me to add your boat.
Click on the image below to load the spreadsheet viewer…then click on the tabs along the bottom of the graphs for different calculations to be displayed. (works in IE and Firefox)
You might think I am going off the point by talking about computers but they are really going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future. The marine electronics industry is going to have to withstand quite an assault on the high priced chart plotters and peripheral equipment that they are used to supplying, and the laptop I am referring to here is an early example of what is to come. As is the HTC 7501 I referred to before.
Toshiba have also launched a new Portege R500 Model utilising the latest 64GB SSD (Solid State Drive). The new Portege R500-10U is the lightest 12″ notebook in the world at 779g. (less than 2lbs !)
The benefits of the SSD and its appropriateness for marine use are very evident and include:
1. No moving parts – Extremely high reliability
2. Extremely robust – Less likely to be damaged or for data to fail
3. Less heat – No moving parts means the drive will operate without generating more heat
4. Power Efficiency – Again no moving parts means that the system uses a lot less power to operate – increasing the battery life of the notebook
5. Faster Access Times – The solid state nature of the drive also offers much quicker access time to the data enhancing the performance of the notebook
The use of solid state storage instead of moving hard discs si interesting. We are all used to this already with our cameras, pda and phones all using some type of solid stage storage and some as much as 4Gb in very small storage cards indeed.
The market for flash-based solid state disk drives which act as drop-in replacements for traditional hard drives used in mobile and portable devices is also heating up. Samsung has announced that it plans to ship a 64 GB solid state drive in the second quarter of this 2007.
SanDisk has also announced a 32 GB flash drive, and Fujitsu is announcing solid state drives as an option in selected LifeBook portable computers.
Not only is the capacity of solid state drives increasing, performance is as well. Samsung claims the respective read and write performance on its drive has been increased by 20 and 60 percent: the 64 GB unit can read 64 MB/S, write 45 MB/s, and consumes just half a Watt when operating (one tenth of a Watt when idle).
In comparison, an 80 GB 1.8-inch hard drive reads at 15 MB/s, writes at 7 MB/s, and eats 1.5 Watts either operating or when idle.
I presume that some of you will still remember the excitement of opening your Christmas presents and discovering something quite unexpected but greatly prised (not socks from your Great Aunt!) ….well this is one for you – go out and buy a PowerMonkey Explorer straight away…no if’s or but’s – go get one.
It will charge your mobile devices when you are far from an electric power socket, even if you are rich enough to have a generator – your don’t have to switch it on – and it is a “green” product incorporating solar energy to charge itself….
The included mains adaptor can fully charge the PowerMonkey and you will get up to 96 hours standby on your mobile phone, 40 hours on your iPod, 6 hours on your Sony PSP, 2 full charges on your PDA plus it’s original charge and up to 1600 pictures on your digital camera! The PowerMonkey will even hold its charge without leakage for up to a year!
I have used it on the boat, I have used it at home, I have used it on the train commuting into London (just to show off really…) its great.
This is my mobile phone being charged by the PowerMonkey…..and also a picture of all the different connectors that you can get for various mobile devices …..from iPods to phones to PDA’s…(click on the thumbnails for a larger image)
PowerMonkey comes with:
1 x PowerMonkey Unit
1 x Universal Mains adaptor
Adaptor for Nokia and Mini Nokia, Motorola V66, Samsung E900, Siemens C25 and Sony Ericsson wide connector
1 x Mini USB for Motorola Razr V series, Blackberry and Bluetooth headsets
1 x Direct iPod adaptor
1 x USB for smart phones, PDA and other devices
1 x Connector for Sony PSP and most digital cameras
1 x Black travel pouch
As you can tell I am very enthusiastic … the company even sponsor the the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation organisation. What more could you ask from a piece of electronics.;-)
If you have had to configure a unit such as a multiplexer you will have come across the part in the manual where it says use Hyperterminal. This is a free communications program that you can use to monitor the signals going in/out of the serial port on your laptop and to send configuration commands from the laptop to the multiplexer.
For example to set one of the ports on the multiplexer to a higher speed such as 38,400 baud suitable for connecting your AIS unit. Signals and data from the AIS would then be routed via the multiplexer to your chart plotter for example.
In my case I link a NASA AIS unit via my Brookhouse multiplexer to my Raymarine C120 chart plotter in this way. But to make it work I had to get my laptop, plug in a cable in the laptops serial port then put the bare wires at the other end into the Brookhouse multiplexer and tell the multiplexer to change the speed of one of its ports from 4,800 to 38,400 baud. Then unplug the laptop, connect the AIS and that was it – AIS data on my C120.
Even if you have done all this before did you know that that little program called Hyperterminal is no longer given away by Microsoft with Windows Vista? {read my post here to find out more…}
If you are having trouble with Hyperterminal read these tech notes from Microsoft.
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August 26th, 2007|
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(Solid State Drive). The new Portege R500-10U is the lightest 12″ notebook in the world at 779g. (less than 2lbs !)
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