Allan replied:

Wayne, We took a laptop with us on a 5 week trip through the Kimberleys last July - August. It was used mainly for downloading photos which is really great for seeing how they are going to turn out. Our camera has a 64 kb card so we can get about 90 photos on it at high resolution. We normally downloaded every 2nd day. We used the Nokia Data Suite to connect the mobile phone to the laptop for receiving e-mails when we were near towns in mobile range (but that was not very often and hardly worth the effort because it is too slow for attachments). My Compaq notebook has a cigarette lighter power connection that meant we did not have to worry about recharging batteries.

Stephen Hartley replied:

Wayne, I am in the process of setting up a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 for a client. It will have GPS interfacing, Video camera interfacing, Digital camera interfacing and hopefully Vodafone Globalstar interfacing. The client has planned a 7 month trip. This is a project that will be brought to fruition over the next two months. I will write a story so that it can become adaptable to other scenarios.

Joe McDermott replied:

Wayne,

It sounds like Steve Hartley has all the answers that anyone might need - his setup certainly exceeds mine ! A pertinent question though might be about your budget. The Tosh that Steve is talking about, configured with all those interfaces, would not see change out of $6,000 and that would be doing it cheaply - it will almost certainly end up at 50% more than that all told.
Another response mentioned using a 12v power source and this may be ideal for you is most of your needs revolve around writing rather than communications.
As for email up North well most communities will have a line that you can use, even if it is the pubs own phone ! Connection speeds will probably be down from the city, but so long as you are not moving large attachments that should be fine.
One thing you should consider is a backup mechanism - any computer can be temperamental in the heat and dust of the bush and you dont want to lose everything as a result. I am fortunate enough to work in the IT industry and have a couple of laptops available for me to use, but the one I take bush is an old IBM with a 486 DX4 100 processor which does everything I need while I am away from home (albeit slowly, but hey ! whos in a hurry ?) and being stone age seems to survice the dust etc better than anything else.

Call me if you want a chat.

Joe

Ian replied:

You might consider buying an inverter. These are available for around the $130.00 and will give you a 240volt outlet from the cigarette lighter socket. Great for charging all of those batteries while you drive and will give you limited paower to run other 240volt appliances. I have one from mrinverter@omega2000.com.au

Gerri replied:

You could try here http://www.costpluscomputers.com.au/ I got a 2nd hand IBM Thinkpad (pentium 120) for under $500 & I couldn't be happier with it