cell phones and plans and the iPhone

01/19/10 - These six pics are the various phones offered and comparison of options. For some reason, none of them include the iPhone ... which will take over the market ... and greatly reduce computer usage (see below).
I have to thank Best Buy for this paper information. 

All six carriers in the same pkg with all their phones and plans and phone options options.

This was published for December 2009. The information is available on their mobile website.
For some reason this information does not include the iPhone (my next cell phone) which I have outlined separately. 

These three charts compares the 3G vs the 3GS iPhone features. The difference in price is $100 with a 3-year plan. It seems everyone wants the 3GS version for the speed, video camera and voice control. 

I have being reviewing the applications that are developed for the iPhone. There are well over a 1,000 (a lot more coming) that are free or relatively inexpensive at the apps store, that make this the cell phone for the immediate future ... if you can get one. All the carries have it.
I have seen the GPS app (includes traffic conditions) and am quite impressed. It also acts as a hansfree speaker-phone while driving. 
I am very impressed with the web browser (the best I have seen yet on a phone) and the Internet speed is quite fast ... may result in less computer time. 
It comes with a 3MP camera but it should be a 5MP to compete with the HTC Hero phone (offered by Telus). Here is a comparison of the two. There are also quite a few YouTube comparisons.
If you hear anything interesting about the iPhone, add a comment and it will be included in this post.

01/20/10 - CNET scan and shop app - this app allows you to scan the bar code of a product in a store, before you buy,  and instantly see the CNET reviews, locations for purchasing along with prices, and directions to the various stores. It also allows you to hold in a wish list and attach a price and will notify when the price drops to what you want to pay.

02/03/10 - I am ready to buy the iPhone ... now can install a Golf GPS app!

The next pics are the various carrier phone plans.

Reducing Standby Power Usage

01/02/10 - There are a couple of devices available that will show you how much electricity you are using in your home.
1. energy monitoring device (previous blog item)
2. whole house meter
Using these tools on a regular basis, enables a home owner to determine where exactly the power eaters are. 
Now, if the libraries would allow borrowing the whole house monitor (as they do with the energy monitor), instead of the $150 to buy, it might be more attractive to home owners. 


Part of the energy usage equation relates to standby power of household appliances.
As per a BC Hydro article, the power saved could run 400,000 homes, here in Canada. 






Use of surge protectors (and turning them off when not in use) would go a long way in reducing our standby power utilization. The surge protector uses very little electricity and your appliances are protected when the protector is turned off.
Were you aware how beneficial it is to buy Energy Star appliances for reducing standby power? 




 


California is leading the way in this standby reduction by demanding new appliances use a maximum of 1W standby power by 2011 - just for TV sets. 


This is a result of a test showing up to 26% of total household electricity usage could be related to standby power. By reducing power required to run stanby function to 1W, would reduce standby power use by 68% and overall electricity usage by 7% annually.

POIs to add to your GPS

Web communities, such as POIfriend, are popping up on the web.

Although most GPSs have at least 6 million points of interest (POIs), it is not nearly enough.

If you are looking for a retail store not in your GPS, you may want to go to one of these communities and add their POIs to your GPS.

It is very easy to do, if you have your GPS connected to your computer.

Some POIs are 'direct' (click on it and your computer will automatically install it on your GPS.

You may also download and install POI Loader (here is the Garmin site), if the POIs you want to add are more than 50 locations.

If you use the 'direct' loader approach for your GPS, it will install only the first 50 locations of the POI closest to your home location.

If you are/become aware of POIs of interest (not included at POIfriend), let me know and I will update this blog item.

kill-a-watt ... or two

01/01/10 - Quite a while ago (Feb 21, 2008), I did a study using a metering device borrowed from the library.
The device was a Kill-A-Watt and it somewhat accurately calculated the electrical usage of some devices within our home.

It is now time to determine our energy reduction items. By the use of a Kill A Watt (P4400 Energy Meter at Lee Valley Tools or  Blue Planet Energy Meter at CTC), I will find the big items we can do without ... old fridge, old freezer, non energy star remaining items, etc. 








Here were the results from the 02/21/08 analysis:

A few more conclusions from the data gathered:

1. a 100W incandescent will cost you $.23 for 24 hours usage.

2. a 100W fluorescent will cost you $..047 for 24 hours usage.

3. a 250W incandescent will cost you $.60 for 24 hours usage.

4. a 4ft double fluorescent fixture will cost you $.15 for 24 hours usage.

5. a laptop will cost you $.097 for 24 hours usage.

6. a desktop will cost you $.389 for 24 hours usage.

I used my laptop and three fluorescent 4ft lights at a cost of approx $.32 a day or $9.62/month.

A laptop kW usage cost is half that of a 100W incandescent but twice as much as a 100W fluorescent.

A desktop is four times as costly as a laptop to run.

A 100W incandescent bulb usage cost is 5 times a 100W fluorescent. Time to convert all incandescents to CFLs.

We now have both the laptop and desktop computers on surge protectors and turn them off nightly.