Wheres your Lappy?

I got the touchpad LCD, so I may not have the same dramas as you had with the mouse- They will probably be worse because I struggle as is with my hand-eye coordination on that little screen.

It stopping working seems odd- sure it wasnt the batteries in the mouse rattling out or something like that? Keep in mind that the wireless recievers are picky at times, and some will only work properly when at the same level as the mouse.
I have seen pen pads and touchpads that hang off USB- I might check into the price of these and see what the go is with one of those

I havent got a cargo barrier- I have drawers behind the back seats, and althought here is enough room to wedge something like towels in the small gap that is left, its too snug for my lappy. I am considering mounting the inverter on a middle row seat back, but am concerned about tek screws in a persons back and the difficulty then of folding seats forwards.

Casnat, if the lappy fits under the seat, what is the reason for the box? If to fix it down so it won't slide, try some velcro. Great stuff. If you have carpet, you might have to contact cement it down to the floor, which might be a bit messy, but at least you will never see it.
It you are worried about scratches on the case, get SHMBO to make a simple cloth bag. Either have a string on each corner and tie it to the chair mounts, or make the bag without a bottom but with elastic so it fits over the laptop, but leaves the bottom exposed.

Another alternative is to tell me I've missed the point entirely. If so, disregard.

I'm experimenting with these ideas at the moment, but havn't reached a solution yet.

firstly re the wireless mouse......I think it just got itself tied up in knots and gave up. When we got home and read the booklet that came with it there was a tiny "reset" button. After pressing that everything worked again.

Re the box not fitting.....the idea of the box was for protection of the laptop which is actually doubles as my work one. The cloth bag is an option I will give some thought to but it has issues of ventilation which were the subject of my earlier post.

If I fix the mouse issues my box concept seems to be good (except it won't fit (by the bees proverbial!) where I was hoping it would go. In my GU under the seats are the (probably useless) air conditioner outlets which I know some have removed. If I remove them it may give me enough room. Feedback from anyone who has done this mod would be useful. Can it be done without taking the seats out?

My work one also copped a good litre of bundy, dry and lime to the keyboard and survived, but im not sure if i'd be keen on doing it to my own.
The back seats in an 80 are flat on the floor, so theres no room under. I cant seem to find somewhere to wedge it in, so it looks like the box is the way to go.

AZnother option is a sling over the headrest bag behind the rear seats?
Do the rear seats lift up at all like the GQ ones (eg, you can fold them, then sit them up against the front seats)? Then there would be a pocket of space under them...
yea box sounds like your only choice.

Another option is mounting some of your other kit to the Cargo barrier, Ive seen many things mounted there up out of the way of water as well.

Cheers mate
hanging below or off the headrests sounds like a good plan. Up out of the water, a secure mounting place, ventilated, easy access to plugsand connectors...
I reckon you're on a winner.

Its a standard 7" colour LCD, but it acts as a touchpad thru USB as well. It has a built in mono speaker, but no TV tuner. It has RGB (computer) input as well as a mono AV input (standard video). So you can basically connect it up to a lappy, VCR, playstation, digital camera... whatever. Runs off 12V, so its just a cigarette socket connection

If you have had success installing drivers for the USB to Serial adapters, then I reckon you'd have success with installing the touch drivers for one of these. Alot of people have had dramas, but it does work. It aslo comes with some handy utils- A one-click shutdown util, and one for selecting left or right mouse click for screen touches.

The touchpad control itself is pretty fiddly- it seems as though the touchpad membrane refracts some of the light from the screen which can make it appear blurry, and the brightness needs to be adjusted between day and night driving (although Ozi Explorer has a useful night-mode though) other than that though they do a pretty good job. I was trying to steer clear of having my lappy hot box on someone's lap for longer travels, and the unit is a good compromise.

It is a lilliput, and was purchased thru ebay from a shop in HK- beware the cost of shipping, customs tax (get around it by writing "GIFT ONLY" on packaging) and the cost of a wire transfer to overseas. These costs almost came to as much as the unit, and I have no local warranty etc, but it still worked out cheaper than locally purchased stuff.... in Kal anyway.

thanx Ben- looks like something I didn't know I needed till I saw your post- my lappy is a huge 17" toshiba, so this looks the goods!