Home Energy Monitoring

It appears the both Google PowerMeter and Microsoft Hohm are throwing in the towel for home energy monitoring.  :(
Home energy monitoring is a pretty cool idea- being able to monitor power usage in real time via a dedicated display or via an iPhone/Android application.  Some of the systems have individual plug monitors so you can see exactly how much power your refrigerator or computer consumes in relation to your overall power usage (don’t think they have anything for 220v systems like the A/C, oven or dryer as of yet). 
Some of the more advanced monitoring systems will even allow for solar or wind generated power monitoring and calculate your offset from the grid power. This would be useful as I have been looking into setting up a modular solar power option that I can expand over the next several years- but solar is still so very expensive to deploy.
The idea is that once you identify usage patterns you can make changes to reduce your energy usage- and save on utility bills.
The Energy Detective (TED) lists several alternative application providers- but most are directed for use with the TED 5000 devices.  There are also several upcoming iPhone applications and one Android application listed.
I recently ordered the Current Cost CC128 from Amazon- which looks like it will be supported by MyEragy ‘soon’.  No sign of appliance modules for US plugs at this time…

Samsung Focus (SGH-i917) on T-Mobile

I picked up a good deal on a Samsung Focus phone from eBay a few months ago.  After TechEd 2011, I was interested in Windows Phone 7 (WP7) OS.  At the time my office used AT&T for my company cell phone so I was able to pop the work SIM in and use it without getting an additional carrier plan.
Times change and I no longer have an AT&T SIM- and I really do not want to pay the crazy GoPhone data rates ($25 for 500MB!) or sign another contract and I started looking at alternatives.
T-Mobile has an prepaid 'unlimited’ talk, text and web plan for $50/month.  The ‘unlimited’ allows for up to 100MB at 4G speed and everything else after that is 2G (EDGE) speed; for another $20 they offer unlimited 4G data as well.  I was unable to find a way to use an old T-Mobile SIM I had on-hand so I purchased an inexpensive prepaid T-Mobile phone from Target ($20 for a Nokia 1661), activated it and promptly pulled the SIM an stuck it into the Samsung Focus.
The Samsung Focus is a quad band 850/900/1800/1900Mhz device and T-Mobile uses 1700/2100Mhz for its 3G network- so there is no possibility of getting 3G/4G data on this phone with T-Mobile; the $50 plan will provide unlimited voice, text & 2G data. 
The Focus is SIM locked to AT&T- so installing the T-Mobile SIM provides a ‘SIM locked’ status on the screen.  If you are an AT&T subscriber, you can call AT&T and request an unlock code (tell them you are looking at vacationing out of the US and you want to be able to use foreign SIMs).  If you are not with AT&T you will need a 3rd party to unlock the phone.  I found a seller named ‘nckzone’ on eBay that will unlock the Focus for $5.80.  I forwarded the seller the information requested (IMEI, carrier and phone model) in an email and I received my unlocking code in about 10 minutes.  This purchase was made at 12:30AM EST, so I am pretty sure the seller is not in the US. 
With that, I now have an unlocked Samsung Focus working on T-Mobile.  For $50/month I have unlimited voice, text and 2G data- quite a bit less than the $115/month AT&T wants for unlimited voice, messaging and 2GB of 3G/4G data on their contract plan… (granted they are subsidizing a phone, but over two years that is a $1,560 difference).
If you are overly paranoid or hate credit cards you can even keep the prepaid phone as a total cash endeavor by purchasing the refill cards from Target/WalMart/etc.

Acer Aspire TimelineX 3830TG-6431

I have been on a quest for a decent gaming laptop for several months now.  I had a gateway P6860FX that was very awesome, but it 17” and way too bulky to carry around everyday.  There are some very cool new Sandy Bridge laptops coming out from MSI, Asus and Gigabyte- but these will all be $1000+ laptops.  Some of these can support up to 16GB of RAM (via four SODIMM slots), have dual SATA hard drives capable of RAID0 and offer full 1920x1080 HD resolution- oh, and a couple also have nVidia 3D or the new Samsung passive 3D.  :)

I was looking for a light weight laptop with a decent CPU and a decent discrete GPU; I came up with the Acer Aspire TimelineX 3830TG-6431.
The 13.3” screen is only 1366x768 (a very common resolution for 16:9 displays) and it can only hold 8GB of DDR3 RAM in its two SODIMM slots.  It uses an average Core i5-2410M dual core CPU clocking in at a native 2.3Ghz per core.  Where it shines is the GeForce GT540M (1GB dedicated memory) and an 8+ hour battery life (during normal use- definitely not gaming time).  USB 3.0, 1.3MP webcam and Bluetooth 3.0 and WiFi B/G/N are also nice added perks.

There is no optical drive on this model- but it only weighs in at a little over 4lbs!

Oh- and the battery is non-removable… WTF?

The device achieves 8+ hours of battery life by creating a hybrid display integrating the CPU embedded Intel HD 3000 and the discrete GT540M so the later is only used when needed- like what apple did with the MacBook a few years back.  This seems to work pretty well (save for MineCraft as it is all Java and CPU driven; OpenGL does not appear to help much) and I have seen an average use time of 6-7 hours during normal browsing/video watching/etc.  This drops down significantly when gaming that uses the nVidia 3D rendering.

Note: it does not appear to be possible to download the generic nVidia GT540M driver and install on this system; I get ‘supported hardware not found’ when trying to update to the latest & greatest driver.

Overall, I am very happy with the performance of the system for gaming.  I played Dungeon Siege III, Trine and Bioshock all with very high graphics settings.  The video was flawless; no frame skips or lag.  The bottom of the laptop stayed relatively cool, but the heat coming out of the left of the left fan exhaust was pretty hot.  :)

Not to happy with Minecraft performance; it is chunky and gets slower as you play.  I would be quick to blame this on the damnable java that this application uses for everything.

Note: this is with a Seagate Momentous XT Hybrid hard drive; the stock HD was a 5.2 rating.

Here are a few shots of the actual system:

Keys are separated; non-backlit.  Keyboard is not too bad, but the trackpad is very easy to hit while typing- which will drop the cursor somewhere inconvenient in the document you are typing.

There is a ‘P’ button on the upper right of the keyboard; when you unplug from the charger it auto enables.  I assume this is some kind of ‘power save’ mode as the screen dims and an on-screen green battery icon appears when the button is physically pressed.
There is also a little battery button on the front of the laptop.  If I press it while on battery it will turn blue for a few seconds; not exactly sure what this does.

The ‘user manual’ included the recovery DVDs you burn (three for full restore or just one for drivers & apps) is a ‘Generic User Guide’ for all models of the Aspire TimelineX series; the 30MB file has about 60 pages in English that cover computer safety, making recovery discs and the other Acer branded applications that are bundled with the unit.

The memory and hard drives are accessed by removing a single screw from the bottom of the laptop.  (Yay!)

Memory is easily upgraded to a maximum of 8GB with two 4GB DDR3 SODIMMs.  I replaced the standard 500GB WD hard drive with a Seagate 50GB Momentous XT hybrid hard drive.  I didn’t try one, but it looks like there is adequate space to fit a 12.5mm hard drive (like the Seagate 1TB 2.5”) in here- if anyone really need to know, let me know via email and I will test.

On the right side of the laptop there are solder points on the board for a Mini PCIe card, but no header was installed.  There also appears to be space for a SIM card slot, but again nothing was installed in this model.

One clever adaptation for this model is since the battery is non-removable there is an on/off switch integrated into the removal of the bottom of the laptop shell (switch is located to the left of the bottom SODIMM).  This switch disables battery power when the bottom is removed for service.  It can be turned back on for testing, but should (of course) remain off when replacing memory, HD, etc.

Note: FN+F3 toggles through and enabling Bluetooth and WiFi in some sequence (I think it is All Off/WiFi only/WiFi+Bluetooth/Bluetooth Only).  I took me a while to figure this out.

All said and done, I am very happy with my new laptop.  Is is basically a larger sized netbook with a real (i5) CPU, a decent amount of memory upgrade (8GB) and a dedicated GeForce GT540 GPU.  It is zippy for everyday work and very decent for real gaming.  The only thing I would really like to change would be a slightly better screen resolution (1440x900 would be nice, 1920x1080 would be awesome!).

UPDATE: I did a teardown of this system to apply some good thermal paste (I used Artic Silver 5).  I did not think there were any thermal issues before, but I have found the laptop runs MUCH better (and quieter) than it did prior! Most noticeably was in Minecraft- which is very CPU intensive.  I am going to assume that the thermal paste used by Asus wasn't very good so the heat was not being adequately transferred from the CPU to the heatsink/heatpipe- and this was causing the CPU to throttle..

MacOS is User Friendly - Total BS

MacOS seems pretty nice for basic web browsing but it can really become a tiring pain in the ass when you try to print an envelope from Microsoft Word...

I had a simple task: Open word, create an envelope (COM10 sized) and print it to my networked HP LaserJet printer.  I created the said envelope and went to print.  I had forgotten to setup my printer since my last re-install of MacOS, so it prompted me to add a printer.

Both my HP and Epson printers were found.  I chose the HP and it installed drivers and printed the envelope.

But nothing came out of the printer?

I checked the printer an all was Ok.  Looking in the MacOS control panel I saw the printer was paused.

Odd.  I un-paused.

The printer queue indicates:
  Looking for Printer
  Printing
  Paused

After a few attempts and checking settings, I cleared the queue and tried again.  Same problem.

Printer control panel shows device is Ok, detects the toner levels and links to the webpage in the HP device for more info.

Ok.  Clear queue, close Word, delete and re-add printer, open Word, create envelope and print.

  Looking for Printer
  Printing
  Paused

WTF?

Ok, clear queue, close Word, delete and re-add printer with alternate driver (Gutenprint?), open Word, crete envelope and print.

  see above.

Wow- this is starting to be annoying.

I decided to see if HP had a specific driver for my printer for MacOS.  Under HP's site there is a specific driver holder space for MacOS 10.6 which basically says 'driver included in OS'.

I did a Google search for 'MacOS 10.6 HP LaserJet Paused' and I see many people having the same problem with a variety of other models and MacOS 10.6.

I printed the envelope from Word on my Windows 7 system and had no problems.

Note to self: If I need to do work, use a PC.

ThinkGeek T-Shirt Grab Bag

ThinkGeek sent out an advert for ‘One Random Shirt of Surprising Awesomeness’ for $5.99 – $6.99 ea (men’s XXL are $6.99- everything else is $5.99).  I placed an order on Thursday for five shirts and today I received my package, consisting of:

• One blue World of Warcraft ‘Gnomeregan’ crest t-shirt (Ok)
• One black World of Warcraft Cataclysm shirt (Cool!)
• One black Mortal Kombat Fatality shirt (Ok)
• One beige “I’m On a Worm’ shirt (guessing a Dune reference- but WTF?)

and… and… (wait for it)

• One gray MineCraft shirt (Awesome!)

Ironic part is that I was looking for almost the exact same MineCraft shirt design- but I couldn’t find anything like this! 

I ordered another 5 shirts- total with standard shipping is $40.84- so $8.17/ea. for some pretty cool shirts!

Looks like I have my summer/fall wardrobe shopping pretty much done!  :o)

Good Science Fiction- Re-Discovered

I cannot remember how long it has been since I had a SciFi book that is so enthralling that it made me want to skip work/school to be able to finish it; Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton is such a work.  This book is immediately followed by Judas Unchained to compete the Commonweath Saga and later followed by The Void trilogy which is comprised of The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void and The Evolutionary Void.  Together these books construct a plausible future that promise growth and evolution for the humanity through technology and discovery.

Pandora’s star is set in 2380 at a time where the human race has discovered wormhole technology and uses it to colonize other worlds and transmit data streams at faster than light speed.  Humanity has also discovered near immortality with their (stem-cell research derived) ability to rejuvenate bodies to prevent death due to old age and by recording human memories to crystalline devices embedded in the skull –so the unexpectantly deceased can be re-lifed into a newly cloned body with all memories intact (or edited).

Most of the populace in the 24th century also have organic circuitry tattoos (OCTattos) that serve to interface directly from the human nervous system to control external machines/electronics.  This technology also allows direct connectivity to the Unisphere (the galactic Internet) and options for additional physical enhancements such as enhanced strength, augmented vision, scanning devices, etc. 

Artificial intelligence has been created by copying human memory patterns and people tired up rejuvenation can upload their memories to the AI when they are ready for final death.  The largest of these is the Sentient Intelligence (SI) and it occupies its own planet and lesser Restricted Intelligences (RI) supplement everyday use systems.

The book opens with a little of background on the multiple characters that appear through the series and then focus on a pair of stars that have disappeared- supposedly enclosed by Dyson spheres.  There are numerous sub-plots and threads that seem to be completely unrelated but eventually everything comes together in the end of Judas Unchained.  If you watched the Battlestar Galactica spin-off series Caprica, you might know the complexity and entertainment value that the multiple threads create- and the ultimate feeling of satisfaction when they all come together.

Not to give any of the plot away- but it is a very good read; aliens, spiritual journeys, detectives, terrorists, starships- it is all in there.  All of the characters are uniquely human and the technological statu quo for the future seems like an expected evolution from current trends.

The Void trilogy is set 1,200 years after the end of Judas Unchained.  It references many of the events and characters from the prior two books -and I do not know how this new series would read without the fore knowledge from the others.  I have just started reading The Dreaming Void so I cannot comment much on this series.  So far it seems to follow the pattern of the earlier series- and is very entertaining. 

Unfortunately, I did not know that Misspent Youth was Hamilton’s initial foray into this universe- I will need to go back and read that one as well.  My understanding is that this book lays groundwork with the development of the rejuvenation process and he discovery of memory crystals that can store phenomenal amounts of data- which are both widely used in the later books.