Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Once again we find the economy held hostage by the oil companies.    Their obscene profits (trust me having been in business, it is very difficult to use obscene and profits together) are choking the economic recovery.   Our future depends on developing alternate energy sources.    Leaving our economic future in the hands of big oil is like giving your kid’s college fund to Bernie Madoff.    The poor babies say they have no control over the price, the speculators say they are just protecting their investments, the oil nations say they can’t meet the demand, either it is the perfect storm or an enormous snow job.   My bet is an enormous snow job.    I have no solution but my plea to anyone who will listen is to support alternative energy plans with fervor and passion.   Until we get big oil off of our backs they will continue to milk the cow until it is dead.

VideoSecu Articulating LCD LED TV Wall Mount Aluminum Alloy Bracket for VESA 100 Flat Screen Monitor TV 1EC This wall mount for an LCD TV works great.  It was easy to install and it works with either the 100 or 75mm VESA mounting holes found on most current model flat screen TVs.  I liked the fact that they included 4 sets of 4 screws in different sizes.   They have obviously discovered that in spite of the VESA standard there is a need for multiple size screws.  I also liked that this was aluminum colored as opposed to the more common black.  It is less visible on a light colored wall.   The articulating feature works smoothly and the attitude adjustment was easily accomplished with the included Allen wrench.  Overall this is an excellent value for the price.

Another reason I love my Droid X   is the ability to take my dictation. I can sit here on the lanai, looking out over the lake and the seventh green while reveling in the weather and working on my blog. I can simply talk into my phone instead of typing. I use the voice command for texting all the time but this is the first I have composed blog posts on Gmail and sent them to myself. Then I just copy them into my blog. I love it! I suspect voice command will become more ubiquitous in the future in all electronics. We certainly can’t make a tech support or customer service inquiry without being forced to deal with voice recognition. Right now I'm just amazed that the Droid X software recognized the word, ubiquitous. Believe it or not, back in 1985 we spent a great deal of time trying to make a voice recognition software package work so we could sell it. We never did promote it due to our inability to get it to work well. Dragon Naturally Speaking was the first voice reco...

Picture this, the ability to install solar panels just like regular asphalt shingles. Just line them up and nail them on. It isn’t quite that simple but pretty much with the addition of a trained electrician it is almost a DIY project. The term alternative energy is bantered about but seldom produces alternatives for the average person. These solar shingles aren’t there yet but they are getting close. The essence of the solar shingle is embedded photovoltaic cells. The integration of these photovoltaic cells has the potential to eventually free up energy products of all types in every corner of the country that gets sufficient sunshine. Here are some very interesting links from the Technology Review Article on Solar Shingles. Solar Shingles      Light-Trapping Photovoltaics

Feit Electric ESL40TN/D 42-Watt Compact Fluorescent High-Wattage Bulb, Daylight This bulb was very disappointing. It is most definitely not a suitable replacement for a 200 Watt incandescent. I have an area in the basement that has a single fixture and a 200 watt incandescent provides more than adequate light for that area. I put this bulb in and it would be suitable for accent lighting but hardly adequate for normal tasks. It was like twilight in the early evening. I have no objection to a bluish light but this provided far less light than a 100 watt incandescent let alone the 200 watt. My hopes of using less energy were thwarted. Watts, or the wattage of light, is the power that is used to operate the light source. Lumens refer to the brightness of that source. Specifically Lumens are the measurement units of "luminous flux." This is the total number of packets of light that is created by a source of light. I erroneously looked at the advertisement for this b...

Fantom G-Force3 2TB USB 3.0 External Desktop Hard Drive - GF3B2000U32 with 32MB Cache.  Buy.com has a 2 Terrabye hard drive , for us old timers that is an astounding number, for only $89.00 after a $10 rebate with free shipping.  Specs and features directly from Buy.com’s site are: Fantom Drives Gforce/3 USB 3.0 hard drives are the newest and fastest external disk drives available. With the latest generation hi-speed USB 3.0 interface, the Fantom Gforce/3 features a maximum bus speed of 5Gb/sec... That's 10 times faster than with USB 2.0! Fantom Gforce/3 USB 3.0 hard drives are also backwards compatible with USB 2.0 connections. Fantom Gforce/3 USB 3.0 hard drives features the ruggedness and durability you've come to expect from Fantom Drives complete with a fan-free design for a virtually silent operation. Choose from the available capacities from 500GB, 1TB, 2TB or 3TB for maximum flexibility at the speed of 5Gb/sec! Features USB 3.0 Interface options, Availab...

If you Google Amazon you can come up with a lot of good and bad posts. I have had unqualified success with Amazon for purchases. Whenever I have had an issue it has been remedied with alacrity. I recently fell prey to incomplete reading. I saw a 42 watt CFL (compact fluorescent) light bulb listed as a replacement for a 200 watt incandescent light bulb. Alas I did not compare lumens. Watts, or the wattage of light, is the power that is used to operate the light source. Lumens refer to the brightness of that source. Specifically Lumens are the measurement units of "luminous flux." This is the total number of packets of light that is created by a source of light. My mistake was not comparing the lumens on the 200 watt incandescent which is rated at 3910 lumens compared to the light output of 2800 on the CFL bulb. Needless to say when I screwed the light bulb into the basement socket I too felt screwed. My first thought was *&$%#* light bulb that I paid $11.57 for. I...