Sep 06 2013
if you’ve been reading regularly, you may know that I have been on a bit of a crusade to decrease our electricity bill after it tipped over $1000 about a year ago. This has been primarily in the form of replacing particular devices and next week sees another major step towards saving a bit of …
Jul 30 2013
It’s nice to get away from it all and take a holiday every now and then but just because you’re clocking off doesn’t mean your power bill will do the same thing. If you have a home server that will continue to use power as will the fridge, hot water service (if you’ve got an …
Jun 15 2013
Since picking up my Nokia Lumia 920 I’ve not actually taken advantage of the wireless charging capabilities native to the device. A while ago I did write about the fact that I was checking out Qi wireless chargers and then eventually selected one off eBay given the relatively high cost of the official Nokia chargers. Even in …
May 21 2013
Back in December I was looking at Qi wireless chargers and finally decided to pull the trigger on two of them. They aren’t official Nokia chargers which at $100 a pop for the Fatboy pillows I found a bit steep but for two for under $60 I thought that was a better deal. I bought these …
Feb 18 2013
Here’s a quick tip. Hotels in some countries can offer power sockets of varying voltages in the same room which may leave you scratching your head as to which one to use before you’ve even cracked out the adapters. Well, it’s pretty simple – use the socket that provides the maximum voltage compatible with the …
Jan 21 2013
Here’s another quick tip for Windows Phone 8. If you know you’re going to be a while before you are anywhere near a charger you may want to preemptively put your Windows Phone 8 handset into battery saver mode. Normally, this kicks in automatically when battery charge drains to 20% which may be too late …
Jan 11 2013
Down under I reckon solar power has raised its profile quite a bit given generous subsidies and feed-in tariffs which has stimulated uptake of solar arrays being installed in homes while some businesses have bitten the bullet as well. However, as those incentives are scaled back, it is worth considering if simply installing solar by …
Dec 20 2012
While I don’t have a need for another charger, I have been curious about seeing how well they actually work given their supposed standardisation when used with compliant devices such as the Nokia Lumia 920. They are a bit pricey compared to regular chargers and simple USB cables so whether or not you can justify …
Jul 05 2012
The title says it all really – after coming home from work we found that the circuit powering the microwave, coffee machine, insinkerator and fridge had been tripped. After checking everything I reset the circuit and everything sprung back to life except the fridge. It’s a Fisher & Paykel Q E442B fridge which has been trucking …
Jun 15 2012
Here’s a quick tip. If your phone has an AMOLED screen (as opposed to an LCD screen) it’s worth knowing how these displays work. In a nutshell, LCD screens rely on a backlight and a liquid crystal matrix in front of it which blocks certain colours and allows other colours through. Power usage will be …
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