Thrifty Care Hire

I've been using Thrifty for my care hire since hiring myself and have found their service to be good, and with coupons, easily the best value.

The best coupon I've used is this one.

More can be found at retailmenot and sidepon (what a great idea)!

Enery Smart

A couple of days ago our solar system came online when the electrician came to install the new 'smart meter' and solar meter. From that point on our electricity is charged at the PowerSmart rates: peak 40.26c, shoulder 14.9c and offpeak 8.8c and an increased daily connection fee of 52.8c. This new scheme is bad if we continue to use the power the same way we'll be charged through the roof (as mentioned in many new stories), although it is good if we can alter our usage to be done in more offpeak and shoulder periods.

Sometime ago I remember some guy making a website which shows his electricity usage via a smart meter and putitng it online for all to see. The website escapes me, but it's sometihng that I want to do as well in the future (privately).

At first I thought I could easily get data out of our inverter, an SMA1700 but without a sunnywebbox or some other way to interface with the serial port + a computer, it wouldn't work.

Searching further online I found there to be a few meters out in the market that can monitor your usage from the meter box and even see solar output.

The following links are my current research sources:

Wattson
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/?action=google_search&q=wattson&f=83


Envi / R
http://steplight.com.au/education/monitor-energy/wireless-real-time-home-electricity-display/
http://www.currentcost.com/product-envir.html
http://www.smartnow.com.au/support.php#faq23
http://www.smartnow.com.au/current_cost_ENVIR.html
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1413064&p=4

Jet Lun
http://www.smarthomefamily.com.au/keeping-an-eye-on-electricity-use
http://www.jetlun.com/75613.html

Efergy
http://www.efergy.com/
http://www.multipoweredproducts.com.au/products/Efergy-Elite-Wireless-Electricity-Monitor.html

TED 5000
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1298573

Overview of meters
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1527637
http://www.zigbee.org
http://smartnow.com.au/advancesolutions.html

Solar Stuff:
http://www.pvoutput.org/help.html#live-list
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1558447

Japanese Quake/Tsunami and Ebay

On Monday I was still in the mood for jets and wanted to decorate my desk with more JWings. Searching on Ebay I came across a few sellers, and when I clicked on a listing for an F-2 I found the seller coming from Sendai, Japan; one of the worst hit areas of the tsunami.

I bidded on one of their itmes but subsequently lost. It just came to my mind about the wellbeing of this seller; are they ok, can they still sell their items or are they no longer with us. It was just eerie even though I never dealt with this seller before.

I hope the seller is safe and can keep selling Jwings, but if they did happen to fall victim to this disaster, then I hope Ebay doesn't take fees for transactions they cannot fulfil.

DIY Lightboxes

One day I'll venture into making a lightbox and see what it's really like to take pictures of objects within this frame.

Links from Ozbarigan to get started:

DIY Photography
Origami Lightbox
Mini macro lightbox
and WIX (cos I saw the link about photo storage)

Clickatell sms throguh email

Not sure if this will work, but I need a simpler way of sending smses as the Clickatell gateway is slow and not built for quick sms sending.

Link to python script

Street photography

I've always wanted to do street photography but always been too shy to take candids of strangers. What's the etiquette with these kind of shots? Do we need to ask the subject if it's ok to take photos of them or we just shoot and run?

Anyway I read this article while on my way to Melbourne, and thought I should stick it on here to refer back to later.

Alternatives to Delicious

I like to use social websites, but sometimes I like to have more control about where I'm publishing to and being able to make backups or do whatever I want.

Wanting to make use of links I come by daily, I thought Delicious would be a good website to use, but have found out there's an open source alternative known as scuttle.

Once I get a chance to I'll put it online and see how it goes. And here are a bunch other cloen scripts.

Water bottles

Yet to recreate my blog, I'm using this place as my link page to free up browser space.

So I've been using this plastic water bottle given by the AFP. Problem is that it smells unpleasant and I don't want to go reusing those disposable bottles. Enter the metal water bottle.

I picked one up at the airshow last Saturday but now I'm having doubts to use it ever since I saw the ad for Aquasteel on the Tigertales magazine. It mentioned being free from BPA and not leaching chemicals since it was made from steel. Looking at the one I just bought, I'd say it's aluminium and have no idea if it has BPA. There's no coloured lining inside but I'm still hesitant to use it.

My google searches reveal:

Ozbargain topic on water bottles
Is there plastic in your water bottle?
Camelbak-reccommendation
SIGG Bottles Now BPA Free. But what were they before?
And finally, what sparked it all - Aquasteel