Monitor Your Energy Consuption, CO2 Emissions, and Money Use
At CES 2010, Oregon Scientific unveiled the Wireless Appliance Manager. It is a savvy and rather sexy geekery that monitors and shows you–in real time–how much power you’re sucking from the line and how much money the line is sucking from you. Not to mention the amount of CO² you emit. Again, in real time.
The Manager comes in two versions: basic and advanced. The basic version–retailing at $60–can only receive a signal from one appliance. The advanced version–retailing at $80 plus extra transmitters–can receive signals from up to eight appliances at once. With either version, a programmable timer allows you to control sockets which turns the Manager into a control panel for your lights and appliances.
I can’t wait for the product to be available to consumers. I wasn’t able to find out a release date on the Manager, but I hope it’s sometime soon. These would make great gifts for anyone: the budget conscious, the greenie, or the curious.
[Parts of this post via Popular Mechanics]
Year Round DIY Gifts
A homemade gift can go a long way with someone. Much further than an expensive gift. A homemade gift shows you took the time and energy to actually think about the gift and craft it for that person instead of going to the shelf in a store and picking something out.
With today being Christmas, I’ve been thinking a lot about the gifts I bought my relatives. All of it was bought the 23rd and all of it was made in China. As part of my New Years Resolutions, I want to start making more gifts this year. Not only Christmas, but birthday and anniversary gifts as well. Maybe even a few ‘thank you’ gifts for my clients.
Although a bit late for Christmas, here’s a roundup of a few DIY gift ideas that can be used year round (after the jump). Read on. »
Saving 33% On Your Comcast Bill
I found a nifty way of cutting your Comcast bill by up to 33% on Get Rich Slowly. The author, G.E. Miller, gave readers a chat transcript between him and a Comcast representative. He ended getting his bill down by about $50 a month. I, personally, can’t get any further of a discount than I do already on my Comcast bill since I have the student discount.
The moral–of sorts–of the story is how to haggle prices. Miller lays out seven excellent (and universally applicable) techniques for price haggling. Read on. »
