Quick check: We're prepping for a long car trip and have a MacBook and an iPod and an '03 Civic hybrid; on the old car it was easy enough with one of those cassette player connector thingies to get the iPod to play on the car stereo, but so far I'm getting a doomy feeling about this...everywhere I look online, all I get is various people warning that a MacBook will totally suck the life out of any and all car batteries without a heavily Macgyvered arrangement of cables and adapters that have to be special ordered and will run us a hundred dollars and change, and a whole other set of Macgyvers for the iPod for another hundred dollars and change. So now I'm boggled and discouraged.

Am I in fact understanding this correctly, that there's no simple way to connect our stuff to our car without killing either the car or the stuff, plus our budget? Or am I being a total idiot and using all the wrong search terms and there are in fact perfectly obvious solutions for all this that we can grab from the Apple store downtown in one quick trip?

I take it it doesn't have a cassette player, JZ?

You can use one of those radio adapater things--plug the radio bit into the ipod, it broadcasts on a station, you tune the radio to that station. It can sometimes be a bit tough as you drive on a long drive, because you have to keep changing it, but it shouldn't be more than $30?

Some people say they've had a lot of trouble finding a station to work in urban areas with lots of stations on the radio (you have to find one with just fuzz) but I've not had many problems.

(Not that I couldn't find a use for the 2 sticks of PC133 512MB RAM, I just have nothing to offer in trade.)

If my diabolical plan does not see fruition, it's yours. Send me a snailmail address via profile addy.

Least I could do, given your assistance over the years!

JZ, you want to charge your macbook in the car? you will need some kind of adapter for that and those aren't particularly cheap.

You could get a hypermac battery (if you buy one a certain size, it comes with a car adapter automatically), but it is $100 I think.

le n, yeah, sigh. That's what I was afraid of. We're already scrounging to make this trip, so we really can't justify that.

However, meara, hmmm. I think we can swing the radio adapter -- and since most of the drive will be on I-5 between here and Oregon, which is mostly open land with the occasional small town or gas station, we shouldn't have too much of a problem with finding a station to use.

When's the trip, JZ? I have one, but I won't be in your area til September.

Is there any reason JZ couldn't use any 85+ watt power inverter with the regular charger that plugs into the wall? I think the specialized ones are designed to charge with DC power.

You may be right, Ginger. I should check our box of miscellaneous cables and chargers and adapters to see what we've already got. But if we can get a radio adapter, I think we can make do - we'll have our laptop and Emmett's, both fully charged, which should have enough power for at least two movies. Between those, the iPod, and possibly even interacting with each other and noticing the passing landscape outside, we should be fine until we get to the cheap motel halfway up. Recharge overnight, then on to Portland, and Bob's your uncle. Or something.

Aw, meara, thanks, but we're leaving Thursday morning.

JZ, I've got a transmitter you can use.

Offtopic, but - JZ, I hope you guys know about the Shell station on the North side of Ashland that has an enormous selection of esoteric sodas (and also some crazy deal where if you pay with coins of a certain vintage your gas is ridiculously cheap, but I'm afraid I don't remember the year)

t /natter

I've charged a laptop using an inverter plugged into my car and nothing was destroyed, fwtw.