Category: Columns & Opinion
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 7
Today I take a look at energy saving light bulbs. Sure, we’ve all replaced our old fashioned coal-powered light bulbs with new, efficient nuclear models to save money and/or the world – but now what? Is that it? Is there no more energy to be saved?
Yes! There is lots more energy to be saved! Allow me to tell you how to reduce your electricity bills further still, thanks to a little invention I’m calling “No Light bulbs.”
I can only apologise for the poor picture quality. It’s not a joke, I just cleaned the lens
O'Malley's Mashup: Prepare for election night!
I can’t articulate just how much I’m looking forward to Tuesday night. For most people, it will probably be a fairly normal Tuesday evening, but if you’re a politics junkie like myself, its going to be like watching the World Cup final. The stakes are high, the build up extensive and somewhat tiresome, and it has all come down to this one evening to decide who will be the next President of the United States. But how can you maximise your enjoyment of this media circus? By embracing technology, of course.
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 6
Today I will reveal how you can save POUNDS by recharging all your gadgets for FREE! Yes, that’s right. For free. How can this be done? Have I invented something? Have I learned how to harness the awesome power of the sea? Have I mastered cold fusion in my fridge?
Or am I just lying to get attention? You’ll have to watch the below video to find out, as there’s no point me saying what the secret to a lifetime of free electricity is here if I’ve spent ages doing a video about it. That’s not how it works.
So there you go. I’m typing this using electricity I didn’t have to pay for…
O'Malley's Mashup: Synchronise your browsers
As you’re reading a tech blog, I’d say that the chances are that you use more than one computer regularly – perhaps you have a desktop and a laptop. Or if you’re me, a desktop, two laptops and access to yet more computers all over the place.
As you probably know, this can be a frustrating experience – if you bookmark something on one computer and you need it on another, do you really want to spend all of the time Googling for it again, or logging into your e-mails on each machine every time? How about having to update all of your saved passwords when you change them? Well the good news is, as luck would have it, there’s a few solutions to these irritating problems, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about in today’s mash-up: how to make your browsers sickeningly consistent.
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 5
It’s bad enough having to wash your clothes, but when the washing process sucks up vast piles of water and electricity and costs you money it’s downright INFURIATING!
Which is why today’s tip addresses how to get your washing machine working for you. Make it more efficient, get it running better while saving money AND the environment in the process. It’s a complete no-brainer!
Can anyone recommend a good plumber…
NOISE GATE: Lala launches idiotic "web song" concept
After the joy (and surprising popularity) of Spotify the other day, my palm is firmly back on my face thanks to Lala and their launch of “web songs” – cut price music that’s locked up tighter than a… actually I probably shouldn’t pursue that simile any further.
Lala is offering music for 10 cents a track. “Great!”, you cry. But wait a sec. The only way they’ve got the record labels to agree is to limit you to only listening to that song in your browser. You’re essentially paying 10 cents for something that you can get for free on Spotify, Last.FM, MySpace, or even YouTube, for god’s sake. As the unnamed head of a digital music service once said, “you want the world’s best on-demand music service? Go to YouTube and close your eyes…”
O'Malley's Mash-up: Access your home computer from elsewhere
One of the big buzzwords surrounding web 2.0 is that of “the cloud” – the idea that the internet is replacing the hard drive, and we’re storing stuff online rather than on our desktop computers. Things like Google Docs, Flickr and Facebook means that it doesn’t matter what computer we’re sat at, we can always get hold of our spreadsheets, photos and people we haven’t seen since school.
But what if you want to do more heavy duty tasks? What if you need to access things stored on your actual home computer? There are some solutions out there, and that’s what I’m going to be looking at in this week’s mash-up.
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 4
The kettle. A massive household energy absorber. Mum wants tea. Dad wants tea. You want tea, often all at different times. And sometimes, if you’re busy, you might want a coffee – all require the boiling of a kettle. It is an energy black hole.
So, how can you cut down on kettle use? Is there such a thing as an energy efficient way to generate hot water? Yes! There is! Allow me to demonstrate.
Follow this advice and save pounds…
O'Malley's Mashup: Location-based services overview
Speculating about the future is always a silly idea – because the futurologist who is speculating is invariably always wrong. You only have to look at the insane ramblings of the fundamentalist Christians in America who predict the “end times” every new year or the deluded announcer who introduces John McCain as “the next President of the United States” to see this. The technology sector isn’t exempt from this either – there’s the famous old quotes of IBM executives saying in the 1960s that they think there’s demand for maybe four computers in the world, or poor old Sir Clive Sinclair, who genuinely thought that the C5 was a good idea, or poor old Sony, who thought that people might actually want a PS3.
So with this in mind, I’m going to set myself up for a gigantic fall, and go ahead and claim that location-based web services are going to be the next big thing. Feel free to e-mail me a link to this column with a wry note in the future when I have been proven wrong.
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 3
This week, I take a look at fires in the house. Not as dangerous as you may initially think, plus burning wood is a superb environmentally sound and low-cost solution to home heating.
It’s also great fun if you draw effigies of your enemies on the logs, then watch them BURN.
CONCLUSION: Everyone should buy fires for the home. Watching wood effigies…
