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Solar Power System: Get The Facts

2009-08-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

A solar power system is a device that is commonly used today. These days, many homes have beautiful rooftops that glitter in a number of colors as soon as sunlight hits them. Indeed, the colorful dazzle of these rooftops have become very much a part of housing styles in urban areas. However, it has to be kept in mind that these rooftops are not mere ornamental additions to any home. In fact, these are the extremely useful solar panels, which are used for generating electricity, thereby serving a practical necessity. Results from detailed studies show that, over 10,000 houses in America (in all the major cities) make use of home solar power units domestically. To obtain AC electrical power (of the pure sine-wave variety), more than 200,000 blocks of homes are currently using photovoltaic solar power systems. Nor is the growing trend of using solar power systems a pattern evident only in the United States. People all over the world are increasingly using these systems. In fact, the increased usage of these systems has become a common phenomenon all across the globe.

Knowing the mechanism of solar power system

There are several different components of a solar power system. Among them, the main parts include an inverter for the conversion of the DC power (that is obtained through the solar panels) into AC current of 120 volts, which can be practically used and wires that are used to attach the clamps of non-conductors and the other parts of the system. Other equipment is also used to set up the system at places that have continuous flow of sunlight at all times of the day, like rooftops or other such places. To create a single module, several Photovoltaic (PV) cells (or, solar cells) are attached with each other. Several such modules are then combined to make a solar panel. The system also may or may not have a battery backup unit.

Let us now take a sneak peek into the needs of the homes which actually use these systems. At places where utility power cannot be acquired (non-grid regions), solar power systems are popular for electrifying the place. At grid areas too, usage of these systems is pretty common. This can be put down to a couple of reasons:

First, solar power systems can now store energy during the day, which can be used as electricity at night. Earlier on, these systems could be used only when sunlight was available (i.e., during the day). This problem came in the way of these systems becoming popular in the initial years. However, this shortcoming has currently been rectified, and electrical power can now be produced even after the sun has gone down. The power that is stored in the solar panels can also be retrieved and used during cloudy days. The sophisticated techniques of the modern solar power systems make all this possible.

There are certain other factors that are also worth a note. For example, if people wish to make use of electricity generated from solar power during the night, they can go for the grid-tied systems. In these units, the grid yields the requisite amount of electric power. For this purpose, the system simply needs to be linked to the grid. Any amount of excess electricity that is produced can also be traded in exchange of money. Indeed, a large number of people these days are opting for the usage of solar power precisely for this. Hence, homes can easily produce the electric power that they need, while selling off the excess quantity. An ideal case in point in this regard is the headquarters of Google in California, and other such congested urban areas, where this type of setup can be utilized.

In cases where power grids are located at a certain specified distance (for example, around two miles) from the residence sites, usage of solar power systems is found to be financially rewarding. In fact, the cost of setting it up and connecting them with the site by using power lines can be on the higher side. Indeed, setting up the solar power system (SPS) at the site itself is generally a lot cheaper. Once the system has been set up, there are no further concerns regarding monthly charges on electricity consumption. This is because, the raw material used in the plants, viz., sunlight, can be obtained totally free. Other incentives are also offered by the local authorities to encourage more people to use these units. A home can avail of various discounts, financial aids and rebates if they set up solar power systems.

A solar power system can help you cut down on unnecessarily large amounts of electricity bills. It also offers an eco-friendly way to produce electricity. Any amount of surplus electric power can also be sold off to earn some extra money too. Hence, it is indeed advisable to install a solar power system at your home. For this, you need to consult a guide that would help you know the installation procedures as well as the place where the unit should be set up for best performance. The wiring system of the unit, as well as the safety measures that need to be adopted are also discussed in such a guide. You can also find out from where to get free batteries, as well as the other components of the system, and that too, at lower prices. Armed with all this information, installation of a solar power system at home becomes easier and much safer too.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com
Written by: Michael Anderson

10 Things Your Tech Guy Wants You To Knkow

2009-05-14T10:18:00.001-07:00

I jacked this from another site...but who cares, right?

1. If you ask me technical questions please don’t argue with me because you don’t like my answer. If you think you know more about the topic, why ask? And if I’m arguing with you…it’s because I am positive that I am correct, otherwise I’d just say “I don’t know” or give you some tips on where to look it up, I don’t have the time to just argue for the sake of it.
2. Starting a conversation by insulting yourself (i.e. “I’m such an idiot”) will not make me laugh, or feel sorry for you; all it will do is remind me that yes, you are an idiot and that I am going to hate having to talk to you. Trust me; you don’t want to start a call that way.
3. I am OK with you making mistakes, fixing them is my job. I am not OK with you lying to me about a mistake you made. It makes it much harder to resolve and thus makes my job more difficult. Be honest and we can get the problem resolved and continue on with our business.
4. There is no magic “Fix it” button. Everything takes some amount of work to fix, and not everything is worth fixing or even possible to fix. If I say that you just need to re-do a document that you accidentally deleted 2 months ago, please don’t get mad at me. I’m not ignoring your problem, and it’s not that I don’t like you, I just can’t always fix everything.
5. Not everything you ask me to do is “urgent”. In fact, by marking things as “urgent” every time, you almost ensure that I treat none of it as a priority.
6. You are not the only one who needs help, and you usually don’t have the most urgent issue. Give me some time to get to your problem, it will get fixed.
7. Emailing me several times about the same issue in the same day is not only unnecessary, it’s highly annoying. Emails will stay until I delete them. I won’t delete them until I’m done with them. I will typically respond as soon as I have a useful update. If it is an urgent issue, let me know (see number 5).
8. Yes, I prefer email over telephone calls. It has nothing to do with being friendly, it’s about efficiency. It is much faster and easier for me to list out a set of questions that I need you to answer than it is for me to call and ask you them one by one. You can find the answers at your leisure and while I’m waiting I can work on other problems.
9. Yes, I seem blunt and rude. It’s not that I mean to, I just don’t have the time to sugar coat things for you. I assume we are both adults and can handle the reality of a problem. If you did something wrong, I will tell you. I don’t care that it was a mistake, because it really makes no difference to me. Don’t take it personal, I just don’t want it to happen again.
10. And finally, yes, I can read your email, I can see what web pages you look at while you are at work, yes, I can access every file on your work computer, and I can tell if you are chatting with people on an instant messenger or chat room (and can also read what you are typing). But no, I don’t do it. It’s unethical, I’m busy, and in all reality you aren’t all that interesting. So unless I am instructed to specifically monitor or investigate your actions, I don’t. There really are much more interesting things on the internet than you.

Geocities is Now Dead

2009-04-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

Geocities.com is now dead. That's right, the popular free hosting provider has been dumped. Yahoo announced quietly that there will be no new Geocities sites any longer. I've been building websites for a long time, and some of my fondest memories of learning the trade have been building crappy angelfire and geocities websites for friends, bands and more. It's funny to me that people still use the free hosting source, but it's not too out of the ordinary, I guess. It's a sad day for free tech though, that's for sure.

Old Email Ad

2009-04-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

We've come a long way. BoingBoing posted this awesome photo. It's just a scan of an old Honeywell ad that had a graphic representation of EMAIL! Electronic Mail, so rad:

The Government Needs Hackers

2009-04-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

If you're an IT professional and are really good at network protection, the U.S government is looking for you. They have recently opened up themselves to get taken out from the inside. I'm not sure how much they are willing to pay, but they need hackers and they need them now. If you can hack, if you are really good at programming and protection, this could be your chance to make some dough.

The U.S. government is seeking some good guys with hacking skills to shore up its weak computer networks. In order to do the job right, the ideal candidate will have the ability to get inside the heads of the bad guys -- whether they're mere mischief makers or serious foreign spies -- and stay one step ahead of them.

For more information and so much more check out technsworld.com

Credit Card Hacking

2009-04-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

This has been all over the tech news for a while. It's nothing new to me. My friend used to do crap like this for fun, but never took it too far. He just wanted to prove that our information is easily taken away. He was weird. Anyways, here is a video of some Credit Card Hacking from two sides of the perspective, and it's more of a warning video than it is a how to video, so don't get too scared.

Facebook Protesters Hit The Streets

2009-04-20T11:34:00.001-07:00

The Streets of France were hit hard with protesters holding signs and hoping for civil change. But what kind of change could they be yearning for? Is it genocide, civil liberties? Nope. It's none other than a Facebook Design change!

Apparently, a few people have gathered in Paris to protest against the changes in Facebook, and Alex van Herwijnen was nice enough to send us some pictures he snagged while visiting the French capital. The protesters can be found at the Arche de la Défense, holding signs saying that they’re against the new version of Facebook and that they want the old one back.

What a load of crap. These people must have no lives, to really band together over a website design change? Man, what a load of crap.

More info via Techcrunch.com

Youtube Deletes You

2009-04-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

News broke out this morning about how hulu and youtube are teaming up to basically end the "you" in youtube. That's right, you will soon not be able to promote yourself on youtube...so they say. If you're inclined to be scared....here is a video that explains more about it.

Netflix Blu Ray Sucks

2009-04-17T13:41:00.001-07:00

Apparently more and more people are complaining over what is going on with Blu Ray and Netflix. Netflix recently rolled out Blu Ray dvd rentals and they were sending them through the mail. However, it seems that Blu Ray takes a beating and will not play.

Netflix naturally blames the post office.

I blame Netflix's stupid envelope mail packaging, but whatever.

You can read more about this and other developments via wired.com

Time Warner Quits

2009-04-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

After much complaint and sorrow from users all over the internet and the world. Time Warner Cable seems to have thrown in the towel on their bandwidth tier pricing. This is great news for everyone in the tech world. However, it doesn't really effect me, since I have the slowest internet at work and that's that.

Check out all the news posts in regards to this.

Slashdot.org, Consumerist.com , Wired.com

Power Hogs of Tech

2009-04-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here is the best statement I've seen in a long time in regards to power and tech. Not political power or anything, we're talking about energy and how the tech industry sucks the life out of electricity and then some. The best part is the opening line of this quote, which is so true. Internal politics and poor leadership are the number things that I've seen in Tech that force unsustainable business models. Like the one I work for.

"Internal politics and poor leadership on sustainable IT strategies are among the top reasons preventing organizations from practicing proper PC power management — to the tune of $2.8 billion wasted per year powering unused PCs. According to a recent survey, 42 percent of IT shops do not manage PC energy consumption simply because no one in the organization has been made responsible for doing so — this despite greater awareness of IT power-saving myths, and PC power myths in particular. Worse, 22 percent of IT admins surveyed said that savings from PC power management 'flow to another department's budget.' In other words, resources spent by IT vs. the permanent energy crisis appear to result in little payback for IT."

Src - Slashdot.org

Download Cap Update

2009-04-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

photo and info src - Wired.com

New York Democratic Representative Eric Massa called TWC's proposal to switch its 8.4 million cable broadband customers to metered internet billing an "outrageous plan to tax the American people."

Oh yeah! Finally someone is stepping up!

If you don't know what's going on, then you should really pay attention to more news. You should consider that Time Warner Cable wants to cap the download ratio that you have.

This is not too uncommon in places like Alaska, where bandwidth is crucial.

They are seeking to make the most money they can. However, today news broke out that someone is stepping up to help consumers out.

For more information check out wired.com

Asinine Assignments

2009-04-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

You know what's the worst assignment in tech? Making asinine content management systems. CMS systems are popular and make work easier for everyone. However, making them sucks, and it's made even worse when NO one uses them. So creating a large CMS platform is a terrible thing to have to make.

No, I take that back. It's made worse when you have to show the end user how to use it!

If those things don't soil you completely, consider the fact that these CMS platforms often go unnoticed and unused. I've built several accounts for the company I work for and they are collecting cyber dust and NO ONE ever makes use of them at all. It creates a terrible notion that I am just a Yes man.

In fact, that's all tech departments are, Yes men to your face, only to squabble behind your back.

CompUSA Returns From The Grave

2009-04-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Yep, Compusa went out of business last year and liquidated all of its stores. They had an unsustainable business model and evaporated.

However, this morning I read online that they are back with an all new plan. They are going to do what they did before, suck. They plan on switching over to rock bottom prices and more competitive ideas that will fuel their business to competition yet again. They have 30 new stores throughout the U.S and they have completely remodeled their stores and what not.

I don't trust them. You shouldn't trust them, and this is bad news. What if other companies decide to go bankrupt, kill their stores and rise again with the same name?

I don't know.

This sounds fishy, and you should treat it with skepticism. The tech world shouldn't have these zombie companies coming back for more.

Read more about the zombie tech retail world via Wired Magazine Online.

Mountain Dew Throwback

2009-04-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

I just caught wind that my favorite drink is going to take a step back and start producing soda with SUGAR!

Cue in the "System of a Down Song"!

That's right, the Pepsi Cola company is tired of people and their nit-picky attitude towards High Fructose Corn Syrup and so they are going to make an all sugar sweetened soda!

I for one am excited and so are my cubicle land mates because that's all we drink in the tech office. We were sponsored by Lost Energy drink at one point, then we got a sponsorship with Red Bull, then it was Gatorade, and even Propel Water...but if Mountain Dew ever wanted to sponsor our crew, we'd drink so much of it that we would probably die.

We're fiends for the Dew, and while we work on extreme sports crap all the time it seems only natural that the company is going back to its sugary sweet roots.

This is great news for me, since I love the Dew.

On a lighter note, I did manage to try cane sweetened "Jones Soda" but it was disgusting to me.

So bring on the Throwback!

news src - The Consumerist

The Clueless Manager

2009-04-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

In the world of tech there is always the manager that was hired for his past experience as a "manager". These guys know topical vocabulary but don't know how to implement lines of code or anything like that.

But there is a small growing amount of workers that are being pushed into the management chair and they are uncomfortable. These guys get clueless due to lack of work, or their work now consists of trolling other people's work for mistakes and then fixing them.

It's give and take really.

More giving then taking sometimes.

If a line of code goes bad, the tech worker doesn't get yelled at, the manager does. However, there are times when the whole department gets a tongue lashing, but these moments are rare.

I'm lucky, I've recently made the transition to management and it's been a real mixed bag. There are moments when there is nothing else to do but just sit and wait for problems, while there are other times when a more proactive endeavor is needed. it's a conflicting position.

The Top 14 Dirtiest Jobs in Tech

2009-04-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

A lot of people work in tech and a lot of people have to do the worst jobs ever.

I used to work for a company that required me to have tech skills in order to fake orders inside an ebay system to boost their feedback. It was a ditry job but more of an ethics battle than a "dirty" job in the traditional sense.

Here are the top 14 dirty jobs as compiled by infoworld.com You can visit their site for full explanations on the top 14.

Legacy Systems Archeologist
Help Desk Zombie (I had this job for a while)
On-Site Reboot Specialist
Interdepartmental peace negotiator
Enterprise espionage engineer
Datacenter migration specialist
Sludge Systems Architect
Disconnect/Reconnect Specialist
Data Crisis Counselor
Fearless Malware Hunter
Zombie Console Monkey
Data Cleaning Drone
IT Mortician
Espionage Engineer

There you have it, that's the list, but if you want explanations to all of them visit Infoworld.com for more on these.

Tech Jobs Lost Increase

2009-04-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

Tech Jobs are now taking a major hit, and I thought it would happen, but didn't want to believe it myself. As a tech worker I don't want to lose this job nor do I really want to wish the loss on anyone, but it was bound to happen.

This morning’s news about the latest unemployment statistics was dismal and quite sobering. The U.S. has lost 5 million jobs in the past 16 months, and the unemployment rate has hit a 25 year high, reaching 8.5%. Our own TechCrunch layoff tracker reports nearly 320,000 tech jobs lost since August. While jobs are being shed at an unprecedented rate, job listings are also being affected, both in tech and general employment sectors

While I don't agree that 92% job employment is bad, I do agree that there is a tough time ahead for tech workers the world over.

The thing is not so much that our jobs are being outsourced to other countries, it is that people are paying less and less for tech work or just are closing down major parts of the media department inside companies.

I worked for a Tech Company in college and that's what happened to me. They grew too fast and they cut out the tech workers on a Tuesday, without warning.

Tech is sometimes a great sector to work in, but more and more people are going to have to deal with the fact that they have a degree in something that is no longer going to be useful...and then what? I know what I'm going to do, work at Barnes & Noble or McDonalds...at least they still pay for employees.

news src - TechCrunch.com

8 Levels of Prgramming

2009-04-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

This morning I ran into an awesome post about programmers. I like to call myself a programmer sometimes, but I know the truth; I'm not. I have a degree in "interactive media design" and I haven't designed anything interactive in at least 2 years. The world is an awkward place sometimes, and all my skills and knowledge have garnered me a paupers wages and a boredom movement so strong that I have to think twice about speaking up, lest the bards smash me for being out of line. Whatever the case is personally, the eight levels of programming are housed by eight different programmers that control the mass of code that makes the world online work. The eight are as follows:

Dead Programmer, Successful Programmer, Famous Programmer, Working Programmer, Average Programmer, Amateur Programmer, Unknown Programmer, Bad Programmer

Now, you'll have to click and go over to the official Coding Horror website to find out the explanations of the programmers that are making a different, or lacking there of, so enjoy that, I'm going to go sulk in the break room for a little bit.

Get Busted At Work To Be Better

2009-04-02T10:52:00.001-07:00

If you want to be better at work, just get caught looking at facebook, myspace, and/or pornography. That is the advice that is being touted at Wired Magazine this morning.

It's true though, if you get caught at work, assuming you work at a tech job, you might start performing better.

I once worked at a video game store and we always got in trouble and nothing ever came of it. However, these are new times, so if you are manager out there, try to catch your workers slipping and see the production go through the roof...for a while.

Nothing last's forever...except the cold November Rain!

One For The Working Class

2009-04-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

You rewind the clock a little bit and you understand that white collar is the new blue collar. Well, maybe there is something to be said about people that are truly blue collar workers, doing hard labor at the factories, but you have to admit there are fewer people working the grueling jobs than there were before...right?

My job didn't exist a few years ago.

I sit all day. I sit and I pretend to use my brain because that's all you can really do with rudimentary jobs. However, when I leave my world of work, I go and do more work.

I don't blame the economy, I just blame the situation. I know that you can pull yourself up, and you can do a lot, but seriously, after working 8 hours it's not worth it.

I don't know. It's just not worth it.

And We're Back

2009-04-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm back.

This site is not really a serious site, it is just a site about working. Expect lots of cubicle experience talk and random observations. Just hang in there.

PHP and MySQL Web Development 4th Edition

2008-11-10T15:33:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the tools of the trade. A lot of people swear by open source, but you know what? You would benefit greatly to getting a book... Here you go:

The PHP server-side scripting language and the MySQL database management system (DBMS) make a potent pair. Both are open-source products--free of charge for most purposes--remarkably strong, and capable of handling all but the most enormous transaction loads. Both are supported by large, skilled, and enthusiastic communities of architects, programmers, and designers. PHP and MySQL Web Development introduces readers (who are assumed to have little or no experience with the title subjects) to PHP and MySQL for the purpose of creating dynamic Internet sites. It teaches the same skills as introductory Active Server Pages (ASP) and ColdFusion books--technologies that address the same niche.

Authors Luke Welling and Laura Thomson's technique aims to get readers going on their own projects as soon as possible. They present easily digestible sections on specific technical processes--"Accessing array contents" and "Using encryption with PHP" are two examples. Each section centers on a sample program that strips the task at hand down to its essentials, enabling the reader to fit the process into his or her own solutions as required. Tables that list options and other nuggets of reference material appear as well, but the many examples and the authors' commentary on them take center stage.

Coming Back Full Force

2008-10-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is, but there is always a need to throw stuff in our office. We tend to throw floppy disks at our door, we throw cans at each other, we throw pens, and we throw pencils. We just randomly throw crap at each other, to keep from drowning in a sea of boredom.

I'm coming back full force, so watch you.

Here and Not Here

2008-10-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

I'm here and not here. I'm really jaded. I work all day and come home to read and then go to bed.

Everyday is the same.

This is the plight of all of us that work for a living in quiet, cubicle jobs.