Archive for the 'Geek stuff' category

We are doing SOLAR

Sep 02 2010 Published by under Geek stuff, Sloar, Taxes

After all the research:

And waiting for years we are finally making the plunge to installer solar.  We kept waiting for the economy to get better but it seems that could take for ever. The monthly cash flow will not change that much. Instead of making a monthly payment to Southern California Edison, for electricity, we will be paying off the photovoltaic solar panel system. And we will be getting FREE electrical power in 7 years.  Plus the state and federal rebates almost cut the price in half.

We have done all the research, reading on the internet, subscribing to magazines like Home Power, home showes, and even going to Solar seminars. We have talked to several contractors, gotten all the bids.

All the contractors licenses were checked  on the California Contractor State License Board website at: http://www.cslb.ca.gov/.  We checked to see what kind of  license that had, whether they had just a C10 (electrical) or a C46 (solar electric),  how long there were in business,  and was their bond and insurance current. We also checked some Solar directories, on the internet, were customers can comment on the contractors work.

After selecting a local Solar contractor, which was important to us. We started checking the job references. We talked to to several home owners and visited several installs to check the quality of the products and workmanship.  we asked wach referance the same four questions;

1.   Would recommend this  solar company to a friend or family member?

2.  Did this Solar company perform the work in a  timely manner?

3.   Did this company perform the work in a professional  Manner?

4.  Would you use this Solar company again?

All the reference came back extremal positive, all the site visits were installed in a professionally, timely manner! So we singed a contract are are ready to start installing are 7kw system. Check back as I will be posting updates of the install. The entire install will take only four days. It will take me several weeks just to post the progress of the project.

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Have you gone Key Less yet?

Aug 03 2010 Published by under Future things, Geek stuff

How things change. I use to have a pocket full of keys. You know a key for the house, and key for the car and Key for work and some how the number of keys just grew. Will now I do not have any keys in my pocket and guess what I do not need any keys for normal daily  life.

The world is going key less, in respect to the old fashion metal tumbler keys. Now days I carry around electronic do dads in my pocket. For the car it is great. You do not even need to take anything out of your pocket to unlock the door. It just automatically unlocks for you. Just grab the door handel and poof the door pops open. Then to start the car just push the button on the dash. That’S it.

For work, it is a wireless iButton that allows Me to unlock and open the door. Not as hands free as the car access. Still the same iButton can get you in the main office door and any other door you are authorized too open.  The iButton access can be limited by time of day or even the day of week. Plus when a employee leaves you just deactivate his iButton.

Now your saying, what about your house , well in the car there is the home link system that allows me to open the garage door, so who needs a key to open your house. and if your not in your car there is an outside keypad that you can use to open the garage door.

All this stuff is not rocket science, and has been available for almost 10 years. So what is the big deal. The big deal is the adoption rate of the technology recently and the low cost. It seems this technology is every where. Makeing it easer for every one to go key less.

 

 

 

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Steve Jobs out of Touch

Feb 24 2010 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Geek stuff

steve-jobsThe iPad look and sounds cool, but who will buy it. When I talk to friend and co-works I always a are you going to buy and iPad? I asked the same question a few years back about the iphone and always got a resounding yea you bet, as soon as it comes out. No matter how long the lines are or how much it cost.

Well the response, i’am get now, when I ask the question about the iPad is “No I’am not going to buy the iPad for myself”. Then they continue “I will definitely buy it for my parents!”

Parents! Why are you going to buy it for you parents? “Because, it is easy to use and does not have a mouse.”

I though Apple product were always for the generation x and y’ers not the old baby boomer’s of the 50′s.  You know the cool products that the young persone has to have. The fancy packaging, the modern stores, stuff that a baby boomer would never identity with.

So what happened? Is Jobs designing products for a different generation?  Is this a planed marketing change? Or did Apple just miss-read the masses? Or is Steve just getting old like the rest of us Baby Boomer’s?

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Save Electricity Without Doing Anything

Jan 22 2010 Published by under American Consumer, Geek stuff

cutoffSave electricity with out doing anything, well almost. You do need to buy this handy new plug strip. The gizmo works like a  normal power strip/surge protector. With a twist.

There is a USB cable attached to the plug strip, strange right. Not for this new plug strip. You plug the USB cable into you computer. Then plug all your peripherals into the plug strip. Now the USB controlled power strip will turn off all your peripherals when you turn off your computer. And that is when you star to save money. The manufacture clams a 10% savings, for me that $25.00 a month.

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Google Chrome OS

Nov 19 2009 Published by under Changing scene, Future things, Geek stuff, Google

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In a nutshell the Google Chrome browser is the Google Chrome OS. It is aimed toward a netbook. There will be no disk drive only a RAM or solid state memory. Googles plan is to have the OS ready for Christmas next year.

So the good news is Google OS will load in 7 sec. The bad news all your data will be in the cloud. But is that  good or bad news. If your data is out in the cloud you can access a document from your notebook or your home machine or your office machine. So that is good, right.

Google Chrome OS  introduces a secure platform that stores your user settings in the cloud. If you loose your netbook , just get a new one and log-in to the cloud and you setting will all be there with your files.

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Everything you do in Chrome OS will be in the browser. So all your applications will be web based. Google claims that this is to make computers more accessibly,  less costly to install and maintain.

The example Google gave was you can buy several netbooks for $300 each. Load Google’s Chrome OS and get an adorable house wide solution. And since Google’s Chrome OS  is auto undated you do not have software updates to buy and install on all your home PC. For me that would have saved the purchase of the new windows 7  Family Pack and several hours of installation time and i still have bugs to solve to get everything working.

Looks like something I will be install at home as most of the laptops we use, around the house, are for web browsing and e-mail. So a new netbook with Google’s Chrome OS will be a lot cheaper.

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Blu-ray Disk Push Blu-ray Techonlogy

Nov 17 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Corporate America, Dumb Americans, Geek stuff

I_believeI do not get it! You already bought the Blu-ray player. You bought or rented a Blu-ray disk. You bought the high definition television to watch your Blu-ray disks. You are knowledgeable about high definition. After all you own all this Blu-ray hardware and software. Yet when you pop in the Blu-ray disk into your Blu-ray player  there is a 30 to 60 second commercial about how great Blu-ray is.

Well, ya I know Blu-ray is great, you already sold me on the Blu-ray technology. Otherwise how would I be viewing the Blu-ray disk. So why are the studios putting these Blu-ray commercials on a Blu-ray disk?  Beats me!

It has got to be the dumbest strategy I have ever seen. It is like preaching to the choir, we already believe  in the Blu-ray technology. So why the commercial? I just do not get it?

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Organize yourself with Twitter

Nov 03 2009 Published by under Blogroll, Changing scene, Geek stuff, unbelievable

lists-birdEver had a problem sorting through you Twiter time lines. Will in the past you had to use a third party applacation to help sort out Tweets by topic. Now Twitter will do it foe yuou.

Recently Twiter luanched a new feature called “Lists” . With the list feature you can organize yout timelines into separate lists by topic. Have as many topics as you like. You can even share you list by marking them as “public” or you can keep your lists all to yourself by marking them “private”.

It is a simple feature but it sure makes using Twitter a lot easier to use.

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Who Decides What IPTV You Watch?

Sep 05 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America, Dumb Americans, Geek stuff

Are only certain Networks channels displayed on your television set because the television manufacture has done a deal with that network?No, you get all the network channels that are broadcasted in your area.

So then why are Television manufactures making deals with internet video streaming sites and only displaying the ones they get paid too? It would be like Mitsubishi making a deal with NBC and CBS only. And since they do not have a deal with ABC you cannot receive ABC on the Mitsubishi Television. We would all thing that was nuts.

Will that is exactly what is taking place in today’s market. Television manufactures are only allowing streaming services that they cut deals with. No deal, no access through the television.

If the smarts are in a TV to receive, for example, Netflix, then the TV is smart enough to receive others. True the software for streaming is not standardized today BUT it should be. Manufactures should not be controlling what Internet Streaming sites work or do not work on a given television.

5 responses so far

Wave Taking Over the E-mail World

Aug 25 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Future things, Geek stuff, Google

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Is Google Wave what e-mail should be? What category does Google Wave  fit anyway? What is Google Wave exactly? Does it do too much?

It looks to me as Google is pushing for a complete paradigm change in the internet communication sea. At first glance, Google Wave, does E-mail, Instant messaging, pulse Collaboration. But then you start to peel back the layers and there is so much more. You could use Google Wave to Tweet, blog, share photos albums, project documentation, play games and the list keeps going on and on….

So will the world’s tides be shifted by the Google Wave. The first problem is Google Wave requires a forklift replacement of the old way of doing things on the internet today. Namely it replaces IM and E-mail as we know them to day, for the better in my opinion. After all that was the geniuses of the Google Wave project the mission was “What would e-mail be like, if it were created today, not 40 years ago?”

So you might see early adopters start using Google Wave in a Corporate or business setting. Google Wave could increase productive by offering faster communication and better collaboration between staff. Will the corporate world want all that data stored in the Google cloud? Or will they install their own Federation copy of Google Wave?

So will we be using Google Wave in a year or two? Or will the Google Wave project lead to something else that is better and easier to implement? Or will Google Wave be a wash out?

One response so far

Google announces Chrome OS

Jul 10 2009 Published by under Changing scene, Geek stuff, Google

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Google announces Chrome OS 7/7/09. Just as we perdicted in our post of September 2008  Google Chrome shine or safety.  Google posted this entry on the Chrome blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS.

So the to titans are going to battle it out. The question is: Will Google be able to survive in the Operating System arena. Microsoft has struggled for years to gain a foot hold in the search space.  Microsoft has pored Millions in to search and have made very little progress. Should the titans stay with what they know and where that make money?

Google is going to spend million of dollars to develop the Linux based Operating system then theyare going to give it a way. There has got to be more to this business model?

3 responses so far

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