I use a couple kinds of cloth diapers. To be honest, there a few types I don’t really understand, myself, but I can share what I know and what works for us.

First, I have a friend who uses cloth diapers (a couple friends actually!) and she introduced me to these totally cute diapers: www.cutest-cloth-diapers.com. They’re called “Little Lambs” and they’re all-in-ones (AIO), meaning they have the plastic pants built in. They’re comfy for the baby, adjustable, dry fast after washing, and (a definite plus) easy for husbands to use! (: The only problems I have with them is that they are prone to leaking if they get too soaked. Also, the girl who makes them offers a couple different soakers that snap into the inside (they’re what soak up the pee). The fleece ones are supposed to be the best (they wick the moisture away etc.), but for some reason, I’m having trouble w/mine and the moisture just runs off them. I’ll let you know if I get that fixed (:. When our baby was newborn though I had just cotton/hemp soakers and they worked great. I use the side snap model. She offers a front snap one that’s supposed to be more adjustable and just started making a one-size-fits-all, but I haven’t ordered any, so I can’t tell you how good they are.

In addition to the Little Lambs, I have some other cloth diapers I use around the house. I sometimes use them when we go out, but since I have to handle the wet part of the diaper with those, it’s not as pleasant/convenient. The ones we’ve been using for a while are made by MotherEase and they’re one-size-fits-all! We think they’re great! (www.motherease.com) I use the “One Size Dry Diaper”.

When our baby was first born I used the old fashioned tri-fold diapers a lot of the time. I absolutely WILL NOT do diaper pins, but they have this great thing called a snappi that works great! (Click here) I got mine from my friend who had more than she needed, but I think they’re only a couple bucks and you can find them all over the internet.

For the above mentioned cloth non all-in-one diapers I of course use plastic pants with them. I don’t really like the stuff I usually find in stores. It seems really stiff and the elastic feels really scratchy. I use two brands. The ones I like the best are Bummis whisper pants (I’m pretty sure – they’re not labeled!) (I think this is where I bought them) and the other ones I must have found at Babies R Us because they say they’re distributed by Toys R Us. They’re made by “Especially for Baby”.

Our happy baby in her cloth diapers and “whisper pants” cover.

With our new daughter on the way (back in 8/2003) my wife was debating between using cloth and disposable diapers. My wife liked all the pro’s of helping the environment, saving money, and the health benefits to our baby.

I was ready to fully support my wife in her decision, but I wasn’t convinced that cloth was cheaper… especially after I saw the price tag of some of the cloth diapers I saw online (up to $20 each).

Being the MS Excel freak that I am I decided to do some calculations. I gathered some general data concerning prices of purchasing and washing cloth diapers vs. disposable. Here is a screenshot of my calculation:

To download the spreadsheet click on the image or click here.

So, based on my calculations we’ll be saving the environment and saving some cash ($868 in this example)!

During the first 5 months of our baby’s life we were able to use grandparent’s washing machine at no cost. If we could go all the way through her diaper life and take out the cost for washing the savings jump up to $1,800 over disposables.

Here is my wife’s favorite place to get cloth diapers. They work great on our baby and we’re really happy with them (as is our baby and all her friends that use them) ! www.cutest-cloth-diapers.com

Here is Emily’s follow up regarding cloth diapers: CLICK HERE!

My husband loves LEDs (light emitting diodes) and puts them into everything.  He likes that they are so efficient and don’t burn out.

He modified a tap light and changed out the regular bulb for an LED.   It has been perfect for middle of the night feedings and diaper changes.   What I love is that the light isn’t super bright.  This is good because:

1.       It doesn’t blind me, the baby, or my husband when our eyes are adjusted to the light.

2.       LED’s are so efficient the batteries last what seems to be FOREVER!

He has started selling these modified lights to other mothers.  Here is what one had to say after reciving and testing her light:

“The taplights are awesome still. My favorite one is the one that I use in my room. I’ve used it every night since my son was born (about ten hours a night), and I think I’m only on my fourth set of batteries. This seriously is a “magic” light. I mean, it gives off a decent amount of light, and the fact that it runs ten hours a night for over six weeks on two batteries is pretty crazy. I think this light would be great especially as a night light for kids’ rooms because it’s safe (doesn’t use an outlet), and it’s so cheap to use that you can let it run all night.”

If you are interested in buying one of these lights please visit this page:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/led-tap-light.php

 

While I was down in Arizona I saw my brother and his son racing / playing tag with two “Zip Zaps” (Radio Shack’s brand of mini rc cars). They were the coolest things and I knew I had to have one. I asked him how much he paid and he said, “Somewhere around $25 – $30.” I thought “NO WAY.. I could find them much cheaper on eBay so I began my search!!!I found a dealer and bought 3 micro racer knockoffs. When I got them a few days later I compared them to my brothers. Here is what I noticed:1) Mine were cheaper ($5.00 each)
2) His had “progressive steering” which means they could be turned it smaller increments vs. hard right and hard left.
3) Cheaper transmitter.
4) Mine only took 2 AA batteries while his took 4 AAA
5) His had LED headlights and taillights that turned on when he went forward / back (respectively)
6) Did I mention, mine were cheaper!!!

When I have a break and find the box with my electronics / soldering iron, etc. I’m going to start playing around with stuff. Here are some of my first mods I want to try.1) Add LEDs to the car
2) Dual Cell Mod:3) Charger:

Live To Learn, Learn To Love, Love To Live!
-Matthew Cowley-

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, & small minds discuss people.
-Admiral Hyman G. Rickover- Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying
-Ralph Waldo Emerson-

Don’t tear down the fence until you know why it was put up.

Life is a grinding stone. If we’re ground down or polished up depends upon what we’re made of.

You can’t run away from trouble, there is no place that far.
-Thomas S. Monson-

There’s nothing as boring as loafing because you can never take a break.

Husbands and wives should never yell at each other… Unless the house is on fire.
-David 0. Mckay-

Humble people don’t think less of themselves, they just think of themselves less.

The weakest ink is stronger than the best memory.
-John Bytheway-

I’ve never seen marriage turn an unhappy single person into a happy married person.
-Marvin J. Ashton-

Education is what you get when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get when you don’t.
-James E. Foust-

No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
-Christopher Morley-

When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back the rate of improvement accelerates.
-Thomas S. Monson-

Favorite Words:

Knackered – British slang for exhausted
Plethora – Excess, Superfluity; Also : Profusion, Abundance
Fraught – Full of or accompanied by something specified
Coagulate – Being Clotted Or Congealed
Dollop – A Lump Or Glob Of Something Soft Or Mushy
Ambivalent – Uncertain or unable to decide about what course to follow
Facetious – Joking Or Jesting Often Inappropriately
Quandary – A situation from which extrication is difficult especially an unpleasant or trying one
Farce – A comedy characterized by broad satire and improbable situations

Our VTech 900 mhz cordless / portable phone started having a hard time keeping a charge so off we went to Radio Shack for a new battery pack… “WHAT?!?!? $16.00… that’s about how much we paid for the phone! Thanks but no thanks!”

I pulled the battery pack out and looked at it a little bit closer. Basically all that is there is 3 AA NICD rechargeable batteries in series and put into a cute little package. I can make one of these cordless phone battery packs myself! It may not be pretty, but it will work, and only be $3.00 So, here it is, my Do It Yourself (DIY) portable / cordless phone battery pack!

Here’s what I did:

1) First I got some of my NIMH batteries that are 1800 mAh (compare this to the 700 mAh NICD batteries that came with the phone. In theory I should get about twice as much talk time. $3.00, is about the price of this pack because Fry’s Electronics has similar NIMH batteries (2000 mAh) on sale at 10 for $10.

2) Next I used a hot glue gun to stick the batteries together (next time I’ll use some JB Weld 4 minute epoxy.

3) I cut out some small strips of copper and placed them in the same position that the contacts on the original battery pack and glued them into place.

4) I used some sandpaper to scuff the contacts on the battery terminals and soldered the wires to the contacts. This put all the batteries in series at 3.6 volts.

5) Finally I soldered the copper tabs to the positive and negative terminals of the battery pack. Here is the monster below:

Like I said, it isn’t pretty but it works great!

This sure was a fun modification / project, and was really easy. As with many of my projects the first build is a bit rough (I don’t want to spend too much time on aesthetics if the project isn’t going to work). With subsequent builds I’ll use:

• JB Weld Epoxy to stick the batteries together.
• A better solder job (maybe use the tabbed batteries you can get on eBay)
• Shrink wrap to make the whole thing really pretty.Another option is to pull the original pack apart and use it as my case for the batteries.
  

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• NIMH vs. NICD:
  Nickel Cadmium (NICD) take an “overcharge” better than Nickel Metal Hydride (NIMH). Portable phone chargers are “dumb chargers” because they don’t sense when a battery is fully charged and keep charging at the same rate. People say that this is okay for NICD, but bad for NIMH and will damage the batteries. Others argue that because of the higher capacity on the NIMH that overcharging isn’t an issue. To be on the safe side I’m going to try to remember not to let the phone stay in the charger for days in a row.

• VTech Phone:
  Before doing this cordless phone battery modification I put 3 AA NIMH batteries in a battery clip to see if the NIMH batteries I had would work. I hooked the wires from my battery clip to the phone and it wouldn’t turn on… it would just beep three times! I couldn’t figure it out. The voltage was the same as the original battery pack.I put the original pack back in and hit the on button, but the same thing happened. At first I thought I broke something, but then I had an idea. I took the phone and put it in the charger and pulled it out. The phone worked fine! From this I discovered there is something about the phone that requires that I “reset” it in the base before it will work properly.

(a rant by Rob Ludlow 11/20/03)

The advertising demographic of my site www.reviewum.com is very geographically and age targeted: College Students

I attempted to contact local business’s regarding advertising a while ago when my site was much smaller, and the reception wasn’t so good. It seems that many brick & mortar / mom-pop shop businesses are afraid to try internet advertising.

I’ve also noticed that many are paying through the nose for ad space in the local school paper. I believe I can more than beat that price. I’m an MS Excel freak and love to analyze all kinds of data, so I did a few calculations.

There seems to be quite a bit of debate about the transition from traditional to online advertising. There are many schools of thought regarding the terminology, the metrics, and how to convert old school ideas into this thing we call online advertising.

My first experience was trying to sell local advertising for my site to local advertisers. I visited the school paper and got their ad rates. I rushed home booted up my pc, got into Excel and started off into converting the newspaper rates into CPM rates. Here’s the info I had to go on:

The school newspaper had multiple size formats available, so I used the small size ad which was $46 a week. There are 11,000 copies of the paper printed, 5,000 on campus 6,000 off (I’m not sure of the number that are actually read). Excel tells me that $46 / 11000 = .00418 for a CPM of $4.18

So, what’s the problem? Well I started to wonder… Should I compare this to my site’s impressions, or unique visitors? When someone picks up the newspaper and sees the ad a few times is it counted as multiple impressions? Another problem: What if the average person only looks at 75% of the newspaper? Those ads were never seen… an impression was never made yet the advertiser still paid for that ad in that paper!

I’ve also tried to work the pricing from the advertiser’s point of view. I did this by using the click through rate and conversion rate of a local business’s ads, and determined a CPM that would make it cost effective for them to advertise. I realized that for an average product price of $5 – $10 I couldn’t justify a charge a $15 CPM, or even a $5 CPM because my analysis seems to show that it wouldn’t be cost effective for the advertiser.

I read a post in an online forum that said “there are still tons of sites that charge more then US $50.00/CPM for ROS and as much as US$ 120.00/CPM for target Categories.”

I had to look up and check the date on this post… 11/26/02?!?!? I thought I was back in 1998 for a second. I can’t even comprehend how a company could justify $50 CPM let alone $120 CPM for an advertising campaign.

For example, using the very high $120 CPM and BEST case scenario that I can imagine for ROS banners using very high CTR and Conversion rates I get:

200,000 Impressions
$120 CPM
3% CTR = 6,000 clicks
2% Conversion = 120 sales
Cost per sale = $200

If I’m high or low on any of these numbers PLEASE let me know! From my research industry averages are all over the place, but IMHO I can’t imagine any ROS campaign getting a CTR of higher than 2%. Am I wrong? I’m open to being wrong. It has happened before… once I think!

So, if my numbers are close, then a company has to have a pretty high profit margin to cover their advertising expense and justify such an expensive ad campaign.

Using averages from what I’ve seen online and the lower amount of $50 CPM I get the following:

200,000 Impressions
$50 CPM
.1% CTR = 200 clicks
1% Conversion = 2 sales
Cost per sale = $5,000

I don’t know too many local advertisers that can justify $5,000 per sale. I also have a theory that the higher the profit margins on the item, the lower the CTR and Conversion rates will be.

Now, let’s plug in the newspaper rate of $4.18 CPM. Unfortunately this is the hard part… converting to CPM and CTR so I’ll use values from above:

200,000 Impressions
$4.18 CPM
.1% CTR = 200 clicks
1% Conversion = 2 sales
Cost per sale = $418.00

Below is an example using real world experience with a company that advertised on my site. They paid $0.75 for a large ad contract to advertise on school specific pages (I’ll use 200k impressions to be consistent).

200,000 Impressions
$0.75 CPM
.3% CTR = 600 clicks
3% Conversion = 18 sales
Cost per sale = $8.19

This model showed that it made sense for the advertiser to advertise on the site (based on their internal ROI), but not all offline advertisers see the picture.

All these abbreviations CPM CPC ETC. are very confusing to the traditional business owners and humble brick-n-mortar shops. It has been suggested to simplify the online pricing model for offline merchants. For example, the school newspaper sells an ad space for $184 a month to 11,000 readers. If my site has 11,000 unique visitors a month I should sell the advertising on a monthly basis of $184 (or comparable rate). This makes it easier for the offline advertiser to wrap their head around the concept of online advertising and allows them to compare apples to apples.

The bottom line is to determine how to bring traditional and online advertising to a comparable model and base rates in a way that makes sense to you and to the advertiser.

TERMS:
CPM – Cost Per Thousand (M = Roman numeral for 1k)
CTR – Click Through Rate
ROS – Run Of Site

Last night my wife came to me with the age old question, “Do you have a good battery for this?“

I didn’t have an answer. I knew I had a box of batteries, but were any of them “good”? I don’t have a battery tester in the house, but from my past experience I knew that none of them seemed to work well for all my different types of batteries (alkaline, NiCad, NIMH, etc.). I did some research and learned that the best thing to do is use a digital multimeter and measure the voltage while the battery is under a “load”.

I decided to rig something up. I chose to use a small hobby motor as my load. This will run fine from 1.5 volts, but will also run (mind you slower) at lower voltages. While the battery is running the motor you measure the voltage on the battery. I used a power connector from an old PC power supply to insert the test leads from my multimeter and the wires to the motor..

Here it is testing one of my NIMH batteries.

An unexpected bonus to this battery tester is that I can hear the difference in the voltages of the battery. When I started testing a box of batteries I noticed that the whizzing of the motor changed from battery to battery. I could very easily hear the difference between a good, medium, and bad battery and didn’t have to look at my meter!

Footnote: I remember as a kid my first experience with rechargeable batteries was in my Tyco Turbo Hopper RC car. I’d run the batteries “dead” but after they sat for a few minutes I could get a little bit of juice out of them. While this was fun with my car, it makes testing batteries more challenging. For example, when I put a NIMH battery in the tester I can get 1.1 volts at first, but as the motor spins I see the voltage drop: 1.0, .9, .8….. and down to the point the motor stops spinning and I’m at about .6 volts.

Comments, Questions, Suggestions, (or warnings that something I made is about to blow up) shoot me an email!
rtl@nifty-stuff.com

(Winner…. The 2001 Hyundai Elantra GT)

As many of my friends know, I’m pretty frugal. I will admit that I am 95% value driven in 90% of my purchases. This is why it is a big surprise that I bought something I thought I’d never buy… a NEW car.

We needed to get a car to replace my tired old Mustang, and something that would be good for our upcoming family-to-be. So began the search for the best car value.

Basically I used the prices of four comparable cars and weighed them against the features that were included at that price. After hours of calculations, I determined what car would provide me (and this is a very personal calculation) with the most “utility” or personal satisfaction per dollar spent.

The first thing I did in my spreadsheet was to determine which features were important to me on a scale of 1 – 10. For example, alloy wheels aren’t as important to me as air conditioning, so alloy gets a 2 while A/C gets a 7. The next step was to list if the feature comes standard, is an option, or cannot be added at all. I gave a numeric value to these variables and multiplied it by my personal utility. Finally I took all these calculations and calculated how much satisfaction each dollar I spent gave me with each car in my list.

The results… the Hyundai Elantra Gt!

This spreadsheet is an example of my Excel addition. I love Excel, numbers, value, economics, and a nice new car. This spreadsheet pulls all of these things together. Keep in mind this spreadsheet and the calculations therein are NOT perfect. Looking over it now (three years later) I realize there are a few corrections that I need to make prior to my next vehicle purchase.

Even if it isn’t perfect, it should give you an idea of what I was trying to accomplish. If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet you may download it here:
car-purchase.xls

My 2001 Elantra GT features: (my cool features in RED)

EXTERIOR

• Power mirrors w/ heat timer
• Front fog lights
• Intermittent rear window wiper / washer
• Rear window defogger w/ timer
• Remote keyless entry system with alarm
• 15×6″ 5-spoke aluminum alloy wheels with Michelin® tires

INTERIOR

• Driver’s multi-adjustable seat w/ lumbar support
• Dual front and side airbags, with front passenger detection system
• Front seat belt pre-tensioners w/ force limiters
• Leather seating surfaces and door panel inserts
• Leather wrapped steering wheel and gear shift knob
• Tilt steering column
• Air conditioning
• Purple-illuminated instrument cluster including tachometer
• Trip computer
• Cruise control
• Power windows and locks with 30 sec. retained power
• 100-watt Clarion AM / FM / CD player with 6 speakers
• Bi-level center storage console with armrest
• 60/40 split-folding rear seat
• 3-Point seatbelts in all positions

ENGINE & DRIVETRAIN

• Aluminum-alloy head, cast iron block DOHC in-line 4 cylinder displacing 2.0 litres
• 135 hp @ 6000 rpm / 133 lb.ft @ 4800 rpm
• Electronic ignition
• Multi-port fuel injection
• Platinum-tipped spark plugs
• 5-Speed manual transmission with 3.65 final drive ratio

SUSPENSION / CHASSIS

• Fully independent sport-tuned suspension
• Sport-tuned variable-assist power steering
• Stiffer front and rear stabilizer bars
• Power assisted rack and pinion steering
• P195/60R-15 Michelin® tires
• Four wheel power disc brakes

DIMENSIONS

• Wheelbase 102.7 in / Overall Length 177.1 in
• Width 67.7 in
• Track 58.5 in / 58.1 in (front / rear)
• Curb weight 2635 lb
• 14.5 gal. fuel tank
• EPA mileage estimates 25/33 (city/highway, mpg)

Best way to contact me is by posting a comment on one of my articles, or via the InkJet forum.