Dec 21, 2015

HURAH! Winter Solstice arrives again.

Today is the day when we get the least solar energy of the year. I managed to get 8 kwh from my 6 kw system so basically you could say I had 1.2 hours of sunlight. In reality I started making electricity at 10 am and stopped at 4 pm. There were 6 hours of sunlight. Another reason why I don't make much electricity at this time of year is the angle of my solar panels. My panels are laying flat on my 4/12  roof (66 degrees off vertical) In an ideal world my panels should be only 10 degrees off vertical because I live at 56 degrees north. If solar panels cost more than one dollar per watt I might get the incentive to make the panels more perpendicular to the Sun. Losing 50% electricity production seems easier to me than building the infrastructure needed to keep the panels from blowing away. 10 years ago we got an 100 km/h wind that stripped the asphalt shingles off this roof. So December and January are the 2 months that I can barely bring in 100 kwh.
     Our newly elected NDP government says we need to have 30% of our electricity generated from renewable resources by 2030 (right now we are at 9%) Currently only 1104+ households in Alberta have a grid-tie solar system and right now 10% is coming from wind and 0% from solar. Most rooftop solar systems, even though they are grid-tied, use their electricity on site. In Alberta the distribution and transmission fees cost 60% of your total electrical bill. So even though we can buy electricity for 7 cents / kwh by the time we get it to our door it costs us 18 cents / kwh. I for one am hoping that the Tesla powerwall makes rooftop solar financially more feasible for Albertans. Not having to pay for power line losses (5%) and other infrastructure costs will help Albertans be more green.

Nov 12, 2015

Don't do Windows update until Microsoft fixes it's software.

Yesterday I spent the day fixing Microsoft computers. Normally I repair computers in which the user is at fault, yesterday it was Microsoft's fault. Most people are familiar with "patch Tuesday" in which Microsoft fixes their Operating System Vulnerabilities. So on Wednesday a lot of computers didn't boot up.  Microsoft's update caused their computers not to be able to reboot. I did a windows recovery and low and behold it worked. So I installed the critical update and the computer stopped booting again. So if your running Windows and you want to keep using your computer don't do the update.
I downloaded Windows 10 and put it on a usb stick thinking I might have to do a fresh install. Who knew Microsoft now gives their OS away for free. Mind you with critical updates not working it can see why.

Feb 18, 2015

How to make money doing what you like.

My mother loves me!
In life we are always learning how to fit into society. Having strong family ties makes adaption to the church and then to the larger community easier. The problem is not long into life we realize that it is only our mother who really cares for us; and the farther we wander the more we find people who don't have our best interests at heart.
Who really cares?
Growing up involves learning where and how to draw the line. We want to be able to help others, but not allow them to hurt us. Being able to judge between potential positive influences and negative influences in our life is quite complicated. Even more so when we don't understand the technologies that we use to interact with others. This is where I come in.

Should we trust Facebook?
Facebook came in like your mother, warm and fuzzy, introducing you to family and then friends. Not emphasizing that they were using you as their profit guinea pig. So now the relationship we have with Facebook is a lot like a teenager has with their parent. And the more time Facebook changes the rules the more we are bewildered, should we trust our mother Facebook. Will we really receive the inheritance this Facebook mother is offering us? Or will they just keep on receiving $10 a year for us and we just receive promises of comfort?

Can a relationship with Google benefit us?
Google+ on the other hand doesn't promise you comfort it provides you with hard cold cash. Two cents per CPM (cost per one thousand impressions) doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that most of us have influence over 500 people. So in other words every thought you have is worth a minimum of two cents per post. On a post like this I will make $5 but that is because I have an editor who makes it readable. So let's let go of our mother's skirt and find relationships that are profitable.

Feb 5, 2015

Views counts - G+ vs FB

Judy and I both updated to lollipop today.

