Tag: Travel

Categories
Miscellaneous

iPad as a second PC Monitor

When I travel, I need to have a second monitor. I have a small Wisecoco monitor that I purchased from Amazon. It works well, but it is one more thing that I take with me when I travel. I had thought about turning my iPad mini into a monitor as it is about the same size as the Wisecoco monitor.

I started looking around and found some options, but not pleased as many seem to require an internet connection or at least a monthly subscription. I don’t mind paying a small fee for software so I can use it for many years but do not want to pay on a reoccurring basis for something that will only be used occasionally.

I found a blog post on Joey’s Retro Handhelds that talked about setting up Apollo on the PC and using a client such as Moonlight on the iPad to add the iPad as a second monitor. I was able to follow the post at https://www.joeysretrohandhelds.com/guides/apollo-artemis-streaming-setup-guide/ and have it setup in no time. I did run into one issue while playing Udemy videos, but there is a quick fix in Chrome, which is to disable graphics acceleration in the System settings. Once I did that, I could use the iPad. The audio does play on both the iPad and PC no matter which way the audio settings are setup. I will need to play with it a bit more to have it only on one or the other. This has an easy workaround, which is to mute the audio on one of the devices.

Hope this helps you lighten your load and increase your productivity on the road.

Categories
Review

Travel – Power Cord Reduction

USB Cables and adaptors

We will be traveling soon and one of the things that I am terrible at is overpacking, particularly with my electronic gadgets. I have a desire to reduce what I pack and one area that I’m focusing in on for our next trip is the cables. The devices that I typically travel with, use various USB charging cables. My devices use USB C, micro USB, mini USB, and Apple’s USB lighting cables. The chargers also have USB A and USB C connectors. That is a combination of 2^4 or 16 combinations of cables.

In addition to powering my devices, I like the option to connect to an HDMI monitor if one is available or I bring one along. The addition of HDMI increases the cable count as there are three types of HDMI connector: HDMI, mini HDMI, and micro HDMI. In addition to the three types of HDMI there is the option of USB C to HDMI.

As you can see, it is very easy to pack way too many cables on a trip if you want to be able to support these various options.

There is an option to support all of these combinations while carrying a small number of cables. The option is to only pack USB C cables with adaptors. The only option not covered is the HDMI Cable but as most devices support Display over USB C, this is not an issue. One way around this limitation is to use a wireless HDMI adaptor.

cables and adapters
Travel power kit with USB Power Adapters, USB C cables, and USB C adapters

The image shows the items that I have in my kit. Links are affiliate links to Amazon products. (paid links)

  1. USB Power adapters
  2. USB C cables
  3. USB C to USB A adapter
  4. USB C to micro USB adapter
  5. USB C to mini USB adapter
  6. USB C to Apple Lightning adapter
  7. Apple pencil adapter
  8. USB C coupler – Used to couple to USB C cables for long USB C runs
  9. USB C to HDMI adapter
    NOTE: Make certain at least one of the USB C Cables is a display cable!
  10. HDMI to HDMI micro adapter
  11. HDMI to HDMI mini adapter
  12. Not shown: Power plug adapter for the area(s) we will be traveling to, if needed.
  13. Not shown: Wireless HDMI Adaptor

It may be possible to travel with less, by carefully planning what is needed and carrying cables that will work with just the devices you have. Unfortunately that typically does not work for me. I usually get asked if I have a cable for another device that someone else brought or I forgot about the one device that still has mini USB. Being able to adapt to nearly any need is best and the ability to only use USB C cables will make it much easier. I hope you find this useful and if like me, you find you may not always have the cable you need, you too will travel with a similar assortment so you always have the cable you need.

Categories
Education Makerspace Miscellaneous

Lao Digital Week 2024

Standing in front of the Laos National Convention Hall

I had the opportunity today to attend Lao Digital Week 2024. While one is on vacation, attending a convention is not usually an activity one would take but I wanted to attend this event when I noticed it yesterday, and an opportunity happened to open for me to attend. I had a great time walking through the exhibit hall and seeing how many businesses are involved with assisting Laos to move to a digital government with three pillars of Government, Economic, and Social. I saw vendors providing video conferencing options that are on-premises verses in the cloud to allow more control over data. (Not totally necessary as the cloud providers partition data to prevent spillage, but a nice option.) There were others presenting HR Solutions for paying staff in different currencies to facilitate importing staff with needed skills when required. Other services provided included electrical distribution and remote meter reading, network and device providers, vending, IoT, cashless payments, Government Services, etc.

One of the things that really got me excited was to see Maker Box. Maker Box is a makerspace in Vientiane, which is encouraging people to learn more about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), through hands on learning. They are supporting startup businesses, with one of the first being an electric bike company and a remote farming monitoring system. In their booth, they showed off a few things that have been made in the Makerspace, including a prototype prosthetic arm, weather monitoring station for farming, a machine for taking plastic water bottles to turning them into 3D filament, and a game to help learn typing.

The Maker Box Booth