This is the circuit from start to finish. The purposed of the 7805 stabiliser is to take the voltage from the battery (9v, dropping off as the battery dies), and convert that to a stable 5v output. The resistor bridge will then drop that 5v to the required levels across pins 2 and 3 to activate charging on the iPhone/newer iPods.

And here are the components. Nothing too scary here.

To get the physical form factor of the charger setup, glue the 7805 on to the top of the 9v battery clip, and then glu the usb charger onto it. You'll end up with this column of components.

Here it is from another view

The rest is simple soldering, using the diagram above solder the various connections in, and the resistors across the pins on the USB port. Because the length of cable on the battery clip is so long, you can clip this short, and use the leftover cable for short runs between parts. Test everything with a multimeter, especially output voltages, and you're ready to hook your USB device into this and start charging. Easy!

Here's the main town wall by the harbour in Alghero. Here you can get boat trips to Neptune's Grotto, hop on board a Submarine for a trip around the harbour, climb the walls and walk the perimeter of the town where there's restaurants overlooking the sea, or grab a fruity flavoured liqueur and soak up the sun.

Another view, from the top of the town wall, you can see some of the boats available for hire.

Another boat!

Gosia doing her best to camoflague herself with the sky and sea.

Another shot of the harbour, and the private jetties.

This is the other end of the town where there's a few more restaurants, cinema, and another harbour.

And this is the Tower overlooking the harbour on the other side of the town.

The ultimate pick'n'mix shop. Pretty damned pricey, but look at it!

Here's the submarine we took out to the harbour for a look at the coastline and fish. It's called the Mizar, we had to wait until the weather got better to take a trip out in it, and for enough people too, as it only takes 5 people at a time.

Here's the viewing cabin in the Sub, kinda hard to see anything when you're moving along because the water gets churned up, but once the sub comes to a halt, you can see the bottom of the sea pretty clearly, and all the fish. If you look very carefully you can see Gosia standing on the steps at the end of the cabin.

A shot of the sea floor.

We decided to do one of the recommended trips to Neptune's Grotto. A 30 minute boat ride around the idlans brought us to this cave entrance in the side of a cliff face. The strange thing is that the boat can't go all the way in or it'll be grounded. It has to wait for the tide to swell and push it forwards - when it does about 5 people can run along the gangway to the cave entrance before the tide pulls the boat back again. They have to keep doing this until the boat is empty/full.

At Neptune's Grotto you've 2 choices, do the cave tour which we did, or climb all these steps, and plenty more up the side of the cliff to get a good look out at the sea. In this photo, the boat is moored at the bottom left. The stairs and walkway are carved and recessed into the cliff face.

This is the entrance chamber to Neptune's Grotto. There's little light in here, and most surfaces are wet which makes flash photos difficult. The size of the chambers are hard to gauge from the photos, but they're big enough to park a few tour buses inside.

This is another main chamber, called the Organ becase the staligtites and staligmites look like a church organ. Apparently the Italian Royals used to have private concerts in here with orchestras setup in the shallow water on platforms because the acoustics were so good.

Here's a shot of the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, including the Cathedral, the Baptistry, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was possible to climb the tower, but there was a 5 hour wait after buying tickets so we decided to give it a skip.

Gosia trying to fit in with the surroundings.

And here's the second leaning tower of Pisa. This one is the one people don't know much about. It's about 2 kilometers away from the main one, along the riverside.

A shot of the riverside in Pisa. What you can see if you look very carefully on the left hand side where the riverbank is, are a few spires. This is a small church called the Santa Maria Della Spina, which some people say has the spine of Jesus inside, other's say it's a spine from his crown. Either way, it looks spikey.

One of the indoor markets in Pisa, this was great fun. Plenty of food to taste and try - my favourites being this spicy cheese. They had dozens of meat counters, wine sellers, you name it.

We're in Florence in this photo, walking towards the main Duomo. I took this photo to give you a scale of how ridiculously big it is in comparisson to everything else around it.

Here's another one again to give you some sense of dimensions.

This is tower next to the Duomo. You can climb this for 7 Euro, we did. It's not such a long hike to the top, but some people were fit for heart attacks half way up.

Here's Gosia ready to start the 400 odd steps to the top.

And here's one of my photos from the top of the tower overlooking the Duomo.

This is Piazza Signoria, which has plenty of architecture, including the Castle here in the photo which is now the town hall, and many sculptures including a copy of Michelangelo's David. It's en route from the Duomo to the Ponte Vecchio bridge that Florence is famous for.

Here's one shot of the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which dates back to Roman times. There's a Wikipedia article here about it, but it's packed with shops, and it's supposed to be the place where the word Bankrupt originated.

Just a shot from on the bridge.

And a shot from the other side when the sun finally decided to come back out again.

Here's me overlooking Perth from King's Park. Dave Lee picked me up from the Airport in his convertible MG and gave me a whistlestop tour of Perth in the evening sunshine. Kings Park was where the wedding would be taking place, and if you look very very carefully behind my right shoulder, you can see a white tower, next to that was the boat club where the reception was held afterwards.

After I had been to a dinner party in Dave's house the same evening, I was taken to Charlies for an all night drinking session. There was a fridge full of beer at the start of the night, and not much in it at the end of the night as you can see here :)

This is Charlie's kegerator. Charlie makes his own beers - Charlesburg, Low Carb Beer, Stout, you name it. The brew stays in the fridge along with the gas bottles, and he pours his own beer from the taps you see here in the evening in his bar at the back of his house. Unfortunately the 90 pints Charlie made had a life expectancy of about an hour and a half.

The second day, hungover, we went to Freemantle, or Freeo as it's known locally. It's a town about 20 minutes outside Perth that has that old worldly Australian feel about it. Here's one of the buildings there. It was a bit drizzly though, but that dried up later in the day.

Here's Bob. Bob's insane - a street performer from the states - and entertained the crowd with various balancing acts, and cycling a uni-tricycle (3 wheels all one on top of the other), and at the end had this finalé, balancing on 5 moving and wet metal cylinders.

Dave's House. Like Cribs, only better. What you don't see here is the lake in front of the house.

Dave's House from behind. Gorgeous swimming pool, great gardening (I have to say that after all your hard work), and the bar/bbq area you see here where Dave and myself stayed up until about 4.30 polishing off vodka neat, chased by lots of red wine. We totally forgot about the wedding the next day!

The beach. We went for a gorgeous breakfast overlooking the beach, and then took a wander downwards. It's crystal clear water, soft grain sand, and eye candy everywhere.

Like this next installment of my usual Babewatch photos. And she wasn't alone, there were girls like this up and down the beach.

One of the many surfing schools at the beach.

Next to the beach, are parks, with barbeques provided by the city. The city also provides the gas. You bring your own beer, your own meat, have a family & friends barbeque, and provided you clean up after yourself, it's totally free.

Beach warning sign - beware of snakes!

And here's myself, Dave and Carmel. hard to believe it was over 14 years ago when we worked together in Cork. They haven't changed a bit.

And so we get to the wedding. Myself and Dave were a bit late because of our late night drinking session, and then we took a wrong turn in the park, which meant we had to sprint over a glass bridge above the wedding, and take another 500m diversion. We got there about 45 seconds before the wedding started. Not bad! Here's Charlie waiting for Jane, and the enless squad of musicians behind setting up (Well, we were nearly all musicians there!).

Jane and her Dad.

I play music for a lot of weddings, about 60 a year. This is usually the bit where the father of the bridge is smiling, but in a 'you'd better behave and look after my daughter' way - not this time though. He was obviously well chuffed Charlie was marrying Jane.

Liam! Liam's a nutcase. He's just turned 50, but you'd swear he's still 28. He's Charlie's neighbour from Offaly, living in Australia since the 70's. Absolutely top guy, and well up for the craic.

Mr and Mrs Charlie McCarthy stepping out for the first time.

And the Bridal Party.

Charlie Mc, you're a soppy git.

The view from the Boat Club where the reception was held. We had a great night there, but because you're so close to the southern pole, sunset happens all of a sudden, in about 10 minutes flat. Bright one minute, dark the next.

Here's a few of us enjoying some cold beers outside the Boat Club, listening to some Jazz, and enojying Canapes.

And here's the Jazz band, enjoying a cameo performace by Frosty on Trombone. Dowtchaboy!

Lots of drink, not much food = ?

The most unique wedding cake I've ever seen.

Fionn giving his best man's speech, and one of about 5 people to give very short, but very meaningful speeches. The start of a serious session!

And of course, all the Corkonians had to have their photo with the PROC flag. Small world and all that. Speaking of small worlds, I got chatting to the guy next to me at the dinner, who was from Ireland. I asked what part, and he said Baltinglass. My family's from there, so I asked if he knew them - turns out he played Golf with my late Uncle. The odds of this guy being in the same room were small, the odds of him sitting next to me at the dinner smaller again!

At about 10.30 the real party started, and went on until the very small hours of the morning.

Charlie and his Mum dancing - who's one of my old School of Music teachers. Well not old, but you know what I mean.

And Liam with his wife again. These two were pretty much on the dancefloor for the whole night.

And finally Charlie. Fuelled to the last with Drink and Mischief!

This was the view from our B&B in Trapani right on the harbour front. Our B&B was i Colori del vento, which had the coolest rooms as it was a very old building with high ceilings, and the rooms were all 2 stories having the bathrooms up a flight of stairs, and large wooden beams traversing the ceilings.

Down the road from Erice, about 10kms away from the beach was the cable car to Erice. Erice is an old walled city build high in the mountains above Trapani, with many castles and winding streets leading to restaurants and villas. Some of the castles were literally built on the side of the mountains as you'll see later. Erice also holds world conferences for Science on a regular basis, so we weren't surprised to see many people walking around with science conference tote bags. The cable car itself was my very first trip in one of these doohickeys, and despite being nervous on the first trip out, after taking dozens of trips later on during the holiday, it became quite enjoyable.

This is the main square in Erice, a bit of a walk from where the cable car dumps you off, but worth while. There are 6 restaurants at the square to choose from, and many curiosity and souvenir shops in the alcoves. We had some beer here and a local rice ball filled with cheese and ham - Arancini. These are also sold here in Cork in the Italian foodstore on North Main Street. Delicious!

One of the most impressive sights in Erice, castles set into the mountainside overlooking the waterfront below. All in states of disrepair, but breathtaking none-the-less. You do have to wonder how much drink the Sicilians must have had a few hundred years ago to decide that yes, this is the absolute best place to build a castle!

And here's Gosia with one of the more complete Castles in the background behind her.

This was one of the buskers in the grounds of that Castle, he played music on his Accordian, while his horse dressed in plumed feathers and regalia moved with the music much to the delight of the hoardes of German tourists.

Back at the waterfront near our B&B, here was one of the boats you could take to the smaller islands off the coast of Sicily. We decided that Favignana would be the best to visit, and took a hyrdofoil over to see the islands. The hydrofoil was very bond-esque, rising out of the water once we had cleared the main harbour - damn fast it was too. On Favignana, we hired a moped to scoot around for about 12 Euro. I got bitten by a stray dog, but otherwise it was good fun to scoot around and see the cactii and mountains.

This is one of two photos I took in Palermo. Palermo really isn't worth visiting to be honest, we spent one hour here after fighting the insane Italian traffic to be faced with one hell of a noisy city. We had a nice bite to eat in a restaurant, but once that was done, it was back into the hire car, and on to Taormina.

We got to Taormina very late in the evening after driving through one of the worst thunder and lightning storms I've ever been in. Late at night, we got into Taormina which seemed like the mountain passes in the Alps, lots of twisting roads with beautiful surfaces winding up the side of a mountain, but it got stranger after that. I spotted one rally car, then another, then 2 more, then 4 all going flat out, and it was only when we got to the entrance of Taormina that we realised the main street was closed for the Rally - which was great fun. The cars were racing through narrow, cobbled pedestrian streets, with people squeezing tight against the shop fronts whenever the cars got close - can you imagine doing that in Ireland? The politically correct 'speeding is bad' crew would chime in, and that'd be the end of it. The rally went on for the entire time we were there, and it was incredible. It was only the next day that we got to see Taormina in it's splendour, and the only way to describe it is to imagine Monte Carlo with a bit of Switzerland thrown in.

Caprese Salad. We had this everywhere, but this was the best one we had in Taormina. It's just Tomatoes, Mozarella, with some olive oil and herbs. Gorgeous, and we eat it every weekend now for breakfast along with some meats at home. Highly recommended!

This was one of the beaches near our B&B in Taormina. Tepid, clear water, with octopus swimming nearby!

Some of the winding streets in Taormina, this one led up to the ancient greek amphitheater, one of Taormina's main attractions where gigs are held regularly.

The amphitheater itself, while we were at the top, we were pleasantly surprised when a girl started singing a traditional Polish song at the bottom for everyone to hear.

Catcii at our B&B Villa Schiticchiu. Our B&B was owned and designed by a retired couple, one of which was an architect. They had a fantastic location only minutes away from the cablecar to Taormina centre, and from the beaches too. Interestingly, you could eat the red fruit of the Cactus, and it was on sale in nearly every shop we saw.

This was one of the squares in Taormina, Piazza Aprilia, which had plenty of restaurants but were wildly overpriced. 2 beers cost us 17 euro! This was also the kick off point for the rally, and the location of the prize giving after the weekend had finished.

Babewatch! There was a Sicilian wedding happening in another of the main squares, and not only was the bride seriously hot, but all her guests were as you can see from the foreground too. Italian women are just incredible ... so are Polish (Course I have to say this!). After the wedding, the guests paraded down the main street, with the bride and groom following.

Mt. Etna! At our B&B we met a fantastic couple, Stephan from Holland, and Judith from Germany, both living in the UK, and speaking fluent Italian. They were a great help to us, so we all piled into our hire car, and drove the 30 miles or so to Mt. Etna for a spot of hiking. The scenery was eerie. All around was blackness peppered with red from iron ore, and yellow from the sulphur thrown up from Etna in her last eruption. The surface was like loose gravel, meaning that even though the hill you see in this photo is a 60 degree incline, it felt like an 80 degree one, and as the surface was loose, as you took one step forward, you slid 3 back until you grabbed a hold of something. This was a walk around one of the smaller craters, later we would take a cable car to the basecamp, and from there take a 4x4 to the base of the main mountainside.

Here we are at over 10000 feet. From here if you were to ascend anymore, the effects of hypoxia would set in, and oxygen would be required. In this photo, you can see the iron and sulphur very clearly in the photo. But the blackness surrounding it is all you can see when you're this far up the mountain. It's the closest thing to the Lunar surface you will ever see, or experience.

This photo is purely to give you an idea on perspective, at 10k feet, we would still need to climb about another 3-4k to reach Etna's summit, and you can see the base camp is dwarfed by the mountain itself. Although the air here was bitterly cold, the ground was quite warm, and if you placed your hand into the hollows underneath the rocks on the surface, you would have very moist skin when you would pull it back seconds later.

Myself, Gosia, Judith and Stephan in front of the magnificent Mercedes Unimog. These vehicles are incredible, and are used mostly by the military, they can go anywhere, and do anything. This one had a 4x4 cab fitted to it to take passengers, but I've seen them fitted with cranes, cutting equipment, ballistics, you name it. They've dozens of gears, and masses of power reserves.

This is the beach near Agrigento, Scala di Turqui. We walked the length of the beach before climbing the chalk cliffs at the end for some sunbathing. There were tiny fish swimming in rock pools one inch deep, crabs, and large fish in the reefs. The water was warm, and the sun was doing it's best to burn our skin. Needless to say the beach was full of very hot Italian girls sunbathing too.

Agrigento was a great experience. We stayed in the best B&B we have ever been in, Terrazze di Montelusa, owned by the eccentric, and hugely charismatic Francesco. This B&B was set into the hillside of Agrigento overlooking the Greek Temples and sprawling streets below, and had a wonderful rooftop terrace for breakfast every morning. Francesco was a classical pianist, and had a grand piano in the foyer of his B&B. When he discovered that Gosia was from Poland, he learned some Polish classical music by Chopin and played for us. Nothing was too much trouble for Francesco, and he always made sure we had a parking spot outside his B&B, even if it meant leaving his own car in the crowded Sicilian streets down below. He was also kind enough to give us directions to the Greek Temples about 15 kms away, and here is Gosia and I pictured in front of the Temple of Concordia - the most complete of all 3 temples there.

And here's one more photo of the same temple. What a holiday, and what a way to spend our birthdays!