News and Views

We have approvals from the city of Tempe, the HOA and the utility company, so we are ready to move forward and install the solar panels on our roof. Construction is scheduled to begin this Friday (November 4), and be complete on the following Tuesday.
Inspections and final approval will take another 1 […]

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I posted in February about installing a new hybrid hot water heater. Although the initial price was almost $1000 higher, it is supposed to cost less to operate.
6 months later, I have some data. Comparing kilowatt-hours consumed in 2011 with 2010, my average monthly bill is $43 less than it would have been […]

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I received an email this morning that looked like spam — Xerox_Document.zip. Looking inside the zip file was a file like this:
  Xerox_Scan_phyexe.doc
Looks like a Word document, right? NOT! The sender used something called “Right to Left Override”. It was originally implemented to support languages such as Arabic that write right to […]

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HP announced a couple of days ago that they were going to discontinue their “TouchPad” tablet. They decided to clear inventory by reducing the price to $100 for the 16GB, or $150 for the 32GB version. The web and retail stores immediately were hit by a buying frenzy that is still going […]

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About once a year I check the price of adding solar photo-voltaics on my roof, and every year decide that it’s still too expensive, and the payback is too far out.
This year things finally look good enough, with payback estimated to be about 10 years. Tax credits and utility company rebates cut the cost […]

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***Geek interest only disclaimer.***
Lately I’ve been using the Pale Moon web browser. It’s a modification of Firefox, optimized for speed and simplicity. (I was going to call it a “fork”, but since each time they update Firefox they soon create a new Pale Moon based on it, it’s not really a true fork)
It was […]

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I just discovered a very neat application that allows you to easily share files between your computers, phone and friends.
Dropbox can be installed on Windows, Mac, Android and even iPhone (Wow!). You can take a picture with your phone, drop the picture in the Dropbox (or just select “Share” and choose Dropbox), and […]

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I got a new phone this week, the HTC Thunderbolt. I’m trading up from the original Droid, which I’ve had for almost 2 years.
The phone works on Verizon’s new 4G (”LTE”) network, and it is FAST. Speed tests show that I’m getting between 10 and 20 Mbps down, and between 3 and […]

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Geek alert. May not be interesting to the casual reader. Technical, gadget-type stuff.
We have had our current water heater for over 15 years (it came with the house). It’s inefficient and I’m concerned that it is ready to cause another flood. So I updated to the latest technology.
I got a GE […]

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If you’re not a geek or nerd, you should probably stop reading right now.
I upgraded my computer to an Intel Core i5 processor last year, and it’s been good. For Christmas I decided to help Derek upgrade his computer, and since he plays games and needs a fast CPU I planned to get him […]

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