HDMI Technology

I am planning to make a purchase of HD equipment later this year. I have not yet decided on a monitor for my bedroom. At this point I am thinking of something around 24″. The wall it would hang on is too small for anything larger than that. I don’t want to have to upgrade every year. I am hoping that a good HDMI-standard monitor and player will last at least five years. I know that I could purchase a converter box for the existing set but I want to be able to take advantage of the enhanced features that HD offers. I didn’t anticipate the coming changeover. I thought HD would be just an option offered. But it makes sense to drop the analog signal system in favor of digital.

Physics: Current and next steps

I watch a lot of documentaries. I know that you are all flabbergasted with shock from reading that. I just saw one that covered four of the greatest minds of history, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hawking. Galileo had the hardest job, in my opinion. He was dealing with a recalcitrant church that believed the sky was immutable and was willing to excommunicate and execute individuals for disagreeing with the conventional thinking. Then Newton refined the work of Galileo. Einstein took Newton’s work farther and Hawking has built on Einstein and others. There is work being done on faster than light motion and other more esoteric studies. But the focus continues to be on unified field theory. While the other physicists need to keep doing their work and in some cases suffering ridicule for it, I think it is good that we are getting concentrating on unified theory. Think of it as marking time with a purpose. It is our grounding…a prerequisite for the future. We’re training for the Olympics of science. This learning that we’re doing is helping get us to a Type 0.1 civilization. The things we’ll be able to do in the centuries to come will have people calling our silicon wafers the other stone age.

Notebook Computers

I’m pretty satisfied with my laptop. It could use a new battery and maxing out on the RAM and HD wouldn’t hurt. But the situation I had with my previous notebook computer isn’t the case. That one was a 333MHz machine that I bought back in 2000. Processor speed was skipping ahead rapidly and perceptibly so. Now the machines are at a level where 1.8-2GHz works fast enough for most applications. I’m not suggesting people not trade up if that is what you want to do. It’s just that if the machine you have works fine and might be helped with a few upgrades, then do that. I just bought a new case for it and am going to get a screen protector. I hope to have the other upgrades completed by the Summer.

ITPlanet: Security Cameras

Maybe it’s time for an upgrade. Do you have an entrance that isn’t covered by your current security cameras? Have you or are you considering expanding your facility? As a business owner you’ve got to protect your assets. People with dishonest intentions are watching to see where the cameras are looking. And they’re not all outside your building. Can they figure out a blind spot? So many of the new surface mount cameras have a black internal enclosure which makes it hard to see the lens. Whether this is your first or 27th camera, ITPlanet can help you improve the security of your business. They offer cameras for five different types of connections. Is your current network sufficient? Do you need to add a wireless unit in a couple of spots? Maybe having a couple of extra cameras to test certain spots in a warehouse or loading dock or hallway would make it easier for you to assess things. ITPlanet has one of the best shipping arrangements I’ve ever seen. If you place your order by 7pm Central Time, it ships that day. They guarantee the lowest price and are willing to match a lower price you find from another online retailer. Have a look at their website at itplanet dot com. You can speak with customer service 7am-7pm. Let them help you figure out the best solution to your security hardware needs.

The Ultimate Green Light

Well maybe not ultimate, but close.

I have one of these push-light gizmos that I got at one of the home warehouse stores. It uses 4 AA batteries. I just put a set of rechargeable batteries in it. Then I looked at the light and realized it has an incandescent flashlight bulb in it. So I looked up the bulb type and found an LED replacement for it. I have it mounted in the hall closet. It doesn’t get used much. Usually if we are looking for something in that closet we’ll turn it on. Once I get the new bulb we could be looking at several years on a single charge. I don’t know how long it would burn constantly…probably several days. I may test that out as well. I may put one up in the bathroom like that. It’s a bit pricey on the front end but the bulb could run for 10 years with maybe 3 recharges for the batteries in that time. So a $6 with an $18 replacement bulb and $12 batteries comes to $36 in hardware. Then maybe $3 in electricity. That works out to $3.90 a year. $39 + $36 = $75, which works out to $7.50 annually. If I have to change regular batteries once a year I end up paying at least $5. So $1.10 in cash savings, then looking at not buying and throwing away (recycling) 40 batteries over the same 10yr period. I’m not sure what the exact figures would be. Let’s say a single AA alkaline battery thrown away adds $1 in waste to the environment. My $5 pack of batteries is now a $9 pack. The $6 light costs $90 to run over 10 years. I understand that many may view only the dollar amounts and say the difference is negligible. Well part of that has to do with the current cost of LEDs. Once we get the price down to $5 or $6 a bulb more people will be interested in converting their battery powered lights and the savings to the environment will compound many-times over.

Bulb replacements cont.

We tend to leave the bulb in the rangehood on quite a bit. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes we forget about it. There was a 60w bulb up there. I bought one of the Philips CFL bulbs with the glass housing and replaced it. That drops the power usage down to 13w. Plus the bulb that was up there was coated in grease and dust. Ick. I think there is an incandescent bulb in the fixture over the bathroom sink. I had some problems with that fixture and I think I may have switched the CFL out on one side. I will have to check. I will probably replace both sides at the same time. The only other problem I have is with the chandelier hanging lamp thing over the kitchen table. Those bulbs burn so hot they have melted part of the housing. I am going to look into LEDs for that. If they’re 25w that’s 125w that can be cut down to about 30w with LEDs. Maybe more. I wish there were an LED replacement for those gas filled tube lights. There is one in the kitchen and we have two in the garage. Although we don’t use it much the garage door opener has a couple of bulbs in it that could get switched out for something with lower wattage.

Just a stopgap, but more energy efficient than before

The ceiling light fixture in my bedroom takes two bulbs up to 60W. I just replaced those with GE energy smart 75 twisted tube bulbs. These are 20W bulbs but give off the light of 75W. I find that if I only get the ones that are supposed to give off 60W they are not as bright. So I put 60W rated ones in the ceiling fan that only use 13W to replace the 40W ones. Then the lamp I keep over the washer had a 60W bulb in it. I replaced that one with a 13W one. So that was 7 light bulbs which were burning a total of 340W. Now they are only burning 105W. That will save some energy while I dig around on the internet to find LED bulbs to replace these. Is LED bulb technology at a state of the art that is too advanced for the general public? I am trying to avoid it but I am afraid I am going to have to learn all the insect intricacies of light bulbs just so that I will know what to buy for my house. Crazy.

An aid to disaster recovery

When I worked in California as a computer operator we kept a full backup on tapes in an off-site location. It was 1992 and we had just started talking about developing a disaster recovery plan. Given the state we were living in my recommendation would have been to keep a 2nd backup in Arizona or Nevada that we switched out quarterly. I left that company that same year so I don’t know what their solution was. Today companies like iBackup.com are offering online storage and online backup plans for small businesses that are affordable and much more secure and easily accessible than keeping portable drives stored off-site. They have 3 separate facilities in California, New Jersey and London, so there is built in redundancy. Their servers are monitored 24/7. The service level you pick depends on your needs, whether you only require a backup of your hard drive to entire workgroups. IBackup Professional offers 128Bit encryption while your data is enroute to and from their servers and 256Bit encryption of stored data. Their pricing plans are tiered for 5GB up to 300GB and at three levels. You can sign-up from their webpage, choose a service level, download the required software and participate in a 15-day free trial of their service. If you are a consultant, reseller, or hosting provider you should look into their partnership program to offer their services to your clients. Trust the security of your data to iBackup.com and when a crisis arises focus on your people and your business.