Can you get through a long day without running out of power on your cellphone? At some point, our cellphones stopped being phones. they are now rather powerful computers with one app that happens to make phone calls. other apps let you surf the net, listen to music, read books, wake you up, figure out where on the planet you are and a host of other tasks. All that functionality eats up batteries at an alarming rate. Battery technology has not been able to advance as fast as other kinds of technology. If you manage your day, you can make sure you have all the electrical juice you may need. I’ve always made it a habit to have all the cell phones in the family be the same model. that way we can have one car charger in each car, and even swap batteries if someone needs more power. thanks to the European Union demanding all cellphones use the same charger, it is now a lot more affordable to buy car chargers and wall chargers, so my need to have all the same phone is diminished. I suspect readers who commute to DC every day are used to having a car charger, and plugging their phones into their computer in the office to help them get through the day. what happens though if you do not commute by car, and spend no time at a desk? there are solutions for you. some phones have separate chargers and batteries available as accessories. I know Sprint sells these for one of their EVO phones. the devices come with a battery and a unit that holds the battery during charging. you still need to hook it up to a charger or your computer’s USB port. there are extended batteries that work with many devices, not just your phone. they are larger batteries that you charge up, then when your device is getting low in power, you can plug this external battery to operate or charge your built-in battery. there are even smaller ones that fit on your key chain. If you have an iPhone, this is your best solution since the iPhones do not have user replaceable batteries. I only use my Bluetooth headset in the car. Unfortunately I have to bring it into the house to charge it since the car only charges when it is running, so I often leave the headset behind. A solar charger would let me charge my headset when I leave the charger on the car seat where sun will hit it while I am parked. that could also charge an extended battery. For emergency power generation at night, there are also hand cranked cell phone chargers combined with emergency radios. these often come with the Red Cross logo on them, implying your cell phone is useful in a natural disaster. I am not sure how well the cellphone networks will function after many kinds of natural disasters. I suspect the electricity and cell networks will come back at the same time. ThinkGeek.com sells a clever little device that would be a boon to travelers. it plugs into an outlet and gives you two powered USB ports and two outlets. If all the outlets in your airport boarding area are being used by other travelers, you can ask them to share the outlet. you can plug this device in, and charge your phone, theirs and even two others. Read more at the link page at bit.ly/FamilyTech. Visit Mark’s blog at wmarkstout.blogspot.com. His email address is markstout@gmail.com.