Everything Nifty – From Chickens & Gardening to Printers & Technology
My daughter just started driving recently. My brother had an old (2004) Hyundai Sante Fe he was willing to sell to her for a great deal. It’s got over 110,000 miles and it’s very obvious it’s been pummeled by the Arizona sun. One of the parts of the car where this was most evident was Read More …
Four years ago I posted the article, “Cleaning Solar Panels – Does it make much differenceâ€. In that article I calculate the difference between my dirty and clean panels to be only 1.5% efficiency. That number just didn’t *feel* right to me, so I decided to give the process another try. I proceeded to export Read More …
We LOVE our Google Chromebook laptops! They are super inexpensive and do about 99% of what the kids need, about 90% of what my wife needs, and about 70% of what I need. We have two models, the Acer C710 and the HP 14-c011nr. The Acer was the first to have the screen broken. It Read More …
As I’ve pointed out in my other article, “Cleaning Solar Panels – Does it make much difference”, I discovered that it actually does make a difference… and sometimes a surprising amount of difference! Well, last week I was looking at my data on my solar panels and I kept seeing this one panel consistently under-performing Read More …
As you’ve hopefully read I’m pretty anal about backing up my computer and my websites. I’ve been in the market for a new 2nd online location for my backup files. Over the years I’ve heard fantastic stories regarding Amazon S3 as a wonderfully inexpensive and reliable storage system and I’ve been anxious to give it Read More …
I’ve been SUPER happy with my Hyundai Elantra. I can’t believe it’s been over 12 years since I did my geeky car purchase calculations and bought it new! Unfortunately over the past year I’ve noticed that it’s been harder and harder to unlock my car and disengage the alarm using both of my keyless remote Read More …
11 years ago I did what I never thought I’d do… I bought a new car. I wrote a blog post about my new car purchase calculator and how I made the decision on which car to buy. Well, I went through a similar (but considerably less detailed) process again recently when buying our new Read More …
In my last post, Cleaning Solar Panels – Does it make much difference, I briefly mentioned the 11 foot telescoping squeegee that I used to clean my solar panels. Basically the device looked just like this: For the most part this device works fine for my needs, but I was very excited to get an Read More …
UPDATE: I’m not sure I trust the data in this article and have published a new article here: Cleaning Solar Panels – 8% Efficiency Difference As I posted a year ago we added solar power to our house. Well, I noticed that our panels have a bit of a dusty haze / layer on Read More …
This is another great contribution from Ken. You can see his other creations, the Dirt Shaker & Power Barrow and the HomeMade Rotary Trommel Screen. He’s got an amazing gift and we’re glad he’s willing to share it with us! From Ken: