Build a Solar USB Charger, Portable & Powerful

Build a Solar USB Charger, Portable & Powerful

This is a high-speed portable USB charger was specifically designed to charge my phone and tablet at the same time.

This charger can be charged at the mains or by solar panels that I have modified.

Cannot live without technology these days!

List of Materials

1 x Small disused makeup box (free from the Mrs, priceless!)

1 x Multimeter (£3 eBay)

1 x Push switch (£2.50 Maplin)

1 x Dual USB Car charger (£5 eBay)

2 x 4.5AH SLA Battery (£6 each eBay)

1 x Scrap metal face plate (was lying around in the shed)

Grand total £22.50

Paul #wmcreative30 Blind Dave Heeley

#wmcreative30 30x10K for Sightsavers Complete

The last 10km in WM Creative’s epic 300km charity appeal was run last night at Sandwell Valley. To celebrate 30 years of creativity WM Creative have pledged to save the sight of 30 children by raising £3,000 for the charity Sightsavers.

The last of 30 10km runs had added significance when Blind Dave, the nation’s favourite blind endurance athlete, once again pulled on his running shoes to join WM Creative MD, Paul Whitehouse, friends and supporters on the last 10km around Sandwell Valley Country Park in a fitting climax to our appeal.

#wmcreative30 Run 30

You can donate at justgiving.com/wmcreative30. Please give generously!

Letter from Mads Gilber Norwegian hero doctor who is in Gaza right now

PLEASE ANY HUMAN WITH A HEART PLEASE READ!

Letter from Norwegian hero doctor who is in Gaza right now
Dr. Mads Gilbert MD PhD

Mads

Dearest friends –
The last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying – all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!

Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).

My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace – but we cannot afford that, nor can they.

Ashy grey faces – Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes,cannulas – the leftovers from death – all taken away…to be prepared again, to be repeated all over.

More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs. enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors – all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterdays hospitals.But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormous resolute.t

And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flows, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!

An then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones (Arabic ‘Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much made and paid in and by US.

Mr. Obama – do you have a heart?

I invite you – spend one night – just one night – with us in Shifa. Disguised as a cleaner, maybe.

I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.

Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.

But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.

The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.

Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue.

Mads
Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Mads Gilbert MD PhD
Professor and Clinical Head
Clinic of Emergency Medicine
University Hospital of North Norway

#wmcreative30 Sightsavers

WM Creative 30 years in business and the Sightsavers Challenge to celebrate #wmcreative30

This July marks 30 years in business for WM Creative, a Birmingham-based branding & design agency.

I am proud to say I have been part of the wmcreative team for the last ten years – bringing my digital expertise to meet client needs. I have seen the company evolve.

To mark this occasion and to give something meaningful back, managing director Paul Whitehouse is doing the #wmcreativee30 campaign for Sightsavers:

“I have decided fundraise for Sightsavers. Restoring sight is a gift I want to give.

Simply, I’m trying to raise £3000 for a fantastic charity called Sightsavers.

This will help them restore the sight of thirty children. My challenge is doing thirty 10K runs over a three month period. I am looking for all support I can get – all donations large or small are welcome, they are going to a great charity. Or you may want to join me in one of the runs, you’d be most welcome!”

Visit Sightsavers

Get involved

Donate now
JustGiving https://www.justgiving.com/wmcreative30

Text WCAA63 £2 / £5 / £10 to 70070 to donate now. eg WCAA63 £5 

Join in the conversation
Use the Hashtag #wmcreative30 on Twitter and Facebook to join in on the conversation.

Take part
If you would like to take part on one of the 10K runs:

Call WM Creative on:
0121 233 4845

Send an email to:
hello@wmcreative.com

Or send a message to @wearewmcreative

Employment Street Event 4/4/2014

Employment Street #EmploymentSt

Held at the Handsworth Fire Station Cllr Narinder Kaur Kooner, working with South & City College Birmingham, Business in the Community and Handsworth Wood CDT.

The Lord and Lady Mayoress of Birmingham will officially open the event at 10am.

Cllr Kooner said: “When I was campaigning to be re-elected, people asked me time and time again: Will you help me get a job? I’m thrilled that ‘Employment Street’ is now all set for 4 April.

“The great thing is that actual jobs, apprenticeships and training will be available on the day to those who impress the employers taking part.

“Hundreds of people came to a similar event at the fire station back in 2011, and I’m sure that this one will be very well supported by the local community. We’ve got a really broad range of employers, looking to employ people of different ages, skills and backgrounds.

“I’m very grateful to Business in the Community and to the Handsworth Wood Community Development Trust for supporting the event, as well as to West Midlands Fire Service for providing the venue and such enthusiastic help.”

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Local legendary artist Apache Indian was present to entertain all..

Over 600 attendees & around 300 people have taken up offers of jobs or training programmes!

Why you shouldn't give a rats ass on the quantity of likes or followers on Facebook, Twitter & Google+?

Why you shouldn’t give a rats ass on the quantity of likes or followers on Facebook, Twitter or Google+?

We live in a vain world where numbers matter and are a symbol of status. Whether it is how many zeros are in your bank account; offering you a sense of security to how, many people are friends with you on your Facebook, the number of likes you have on your Like page, or the number of followers you have on Twitter.

In the late 1990’s business made a bee-line to get their businesses online because that was the craze at the time. The current day craze is Social Media. Of the many board rooms I have been in, up and down the country. the talk is, “we need to be on Facebook, our competitors are already using Facebook” or “our  competitors have more twitter followers than us, we need more followers, and we need them fast”.

Businesses know that Consumers make a snap shot decision about their business based on how many followers or likes they have. Ultimately this leads to whether the Consumer decides to make a purchase. There is pressure on businesses for this reason to have high number of likes and followers. Consumers use these figures as an indicator of popularity, good service & quality of product.

This gives rise to the wholesale purchase of likes and followers from shady websites to whom you pay a small fee to for followers. This works on a sliding scale, the more you pay ,the greater number of followers your money gets you.  Although this method may get you the much desired numbers beware of these likes and followers, which are mainly all dummy accounts that do not interact with you.  At the core of Social Media is interaction between your patrons. Dummy accounts are like people who do not hear or speak or spread the good word about your brand. Other than giving you a false image of popularity a purchased like or follower has no value whatsoever and is a cancer to social media.

Conversely a natural like or follower will be a real person and more inclined to  interact and spread the word about your product or brand to others.  Essentially this all boils down to the age old Quantity versus Quality argument.

So I put these two questions to you; would you rather have just a few hundred natural likes and followers who regularly interact with you, or thousands of purchased likes and followers who make you look popular but with little or no interaction?

Businesses should focus on getting natural likes and followers.  They need to add a bit of personality in their statuses, do regular interesting status updates, interact with their audience, and finally exercise a bit of patience and the followers will slowly grow.

Sport Relief 2014 Birmingham

Sainsbury’s Sport Relief 2014 event organised by the Birmingham City Council

I was asked to photograph of the ‘The Birmingham Mile’ for Sainsbury’s Sport Relief 2014 event organised by the Birmingham City Council on Sunday 23rd of March at CannonHillPark.

Despite rain, hail and cold weather, many hundreds turned up to do their bit.

Watch the highlights on YouTube

Photographs from the event

20 item(s)
Green Screen HD Footage

Green Screen HD Footage

It have been an exciting weekend. I wanted to create a very short clip of video to illustrate how easy it is to use green screen technology in video projects.

To summarise the key things to remember are:

  • You need a green screen.
  • Adequate lighting with no shadows
  • Never get your subjects to wear green, they’ll appear invisible.
  • Do a short screen test first to establish all you setting are correct.

Green Screen technology opens up a whole new world to video and a whole new dimension to still photography. So experiment and have fun.

eBay increases stake in Snapdeal, invests $134 million

In other markets eBay’s investments have lead to buyouts further down the line. This is the second investment in Snapdeal that eBay have made. The first was made in 2013 of $50m. There may not be a third investment by eBay as it may be a outright buyout.

There are two major differences in the Indian market compared to developed nations:

1) In India and to other developing countries, cash on delivery is a preferred payment method rather than credit. In India 80% of Indian e-commerce tends to be Cash on Delivery.

2) Direct imports constitute a large component of online sales. Demand for international consumer products is growing much faster than in-country supply from authorised distributors and e-commerce offerings.

India is set to grow the fastest within the Asia-Pacific. India’s retail market is estimated at $470 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $675 Bn by 2016 and $850 Bn by 2020.

The penetration of e-commerce is low compared to markets like the United States and the United Kingdom but is growing at a much faster rate with a larger number of new entrants. The industry consensus is that growth is accelerating and thus confidence in the market place it at a all time high. This is reflected and eBay’s second investment in Snapdeal.