Archive for the 'Consumer' Category

Things to do on Earth Day and Beyond

Published
by
Dilantha
on April 20, 2008
in Consumer, Green, How To, Ideas, Life, Sri Lanka and Technology
. 0 Comments

April 22 is Earth Day so I thought of spending my lazy Sunday morning looking at how to save the world! Here is what I came up with.

Lighting
Change to CFL bulbs for long running locations. I've noticed they bust sooner for short running lights like in the store room and bathroom. I've switched to 90% CFL. The units are down but the bill keeps going up (only in Sri Lanka).

Buy CFL's at an electrical shop rather than a supermarket. They will advise you better on which ones are better and where they will fit.

Consider motion sensors and timing units for lighting where appropriate. I have a motion sensor spot light at a dark corner of the garden and an automatic water pump system. I'm waiting for LED home lighting but I guess it'll be a while more till we get them down here.

Make use of daylight as much as possible. Move desks around knock down walls if needed. :)

Heating and cooling
That last point helps with ventilation and cuts down on running fans all day.

Look at overall air flow in the house, use an exhaust fan where needed. Consider running the exhaust fan on a solar panel directly. When the heat is up the sun is up, use the free energy falling from the sky.

If you need heated water consider solar heating. If you have a electric water heater turn it down to the bare minimum you need.

Water
If you have space and a garden look at rain water harvesting. At least to water the garden. You can also filter it and use it to flush the toilet.

In the bathroom change to a low-flow shower head and a dual flush toilet. Use faucet aerators for kitchen and bathroom taps.

Electronics
We love our gadgets, but do they have to be on all the time? Stand by power still uses some power. Turn it off from the wall if you are not using it.

According to this a LCD TV is better than a Plasma. My aging CRT is close to a LCD so it'll do for the time being.

Reality
The cost of solar even CFL's are not cheap. Living in a third world country some of these things are not available to buy even if you have money. But press on, do what you can. Influence local government, inspire business to notice these things.

Links

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Got Rice?

Published
by
Dilantha
on April 19, 2008
in Consumer, Food and Sri Lanka
. 1 Comment

Went to a supermarket in the morning. There was a 3 kg rice purchase limit on each brand. My guess is its due to the distribution gap because of the new year holidays. Nothing is panic about.

Then again are we going to hit a rice shortage? I still have no idea but its a good time to look back at how we got here.

I'm no historian but I've heard my parents talk about bread queues and rice restrictions due to social and economic experiments conducted my previous administrations. Is this a result of another experiment gone wrong?

I know many guys around here that would rather drive a tuk than get down into a paddy field and grow rice.

I overheard an army guy in the early days of the ceasefire who had come home to help out on the fields. He is probably back on duty now.

Most of my family now are professionals or trying to be white collar workers. There are only 2 people in my family that farm. Should we go back to basics and start growing again?

Cause it doesn't matter what you do or how much you make if there isn't any food to buy.

Update: there seems to be a stand-off between a price fix by the gov and some traders. Don't know more details yet. That means I have to check local news... yuk.

Sri Lanka EDITORIAL:: Rice crisis: Rise to the challenge!

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Powerless in Paradise

Published
by
Dilantha
on April 13, 2008
in Consumer and Sri Lanka
. 0 Comments

Right on the eve of Sri Lankan new year celebrations we loose power. Gee thanks LECO and CEB, thanks for nothing.

We never fixed our power issues. We just pushed it around and now looks like we'll be importing power from India. We should look at alternative power more seriously. Solar, wind, mini hydro etc.

We have not considered the oil-less, food-less future we are going to hit. Take your holiday; light more crackers; be with family and talk to them about this future. When you come back fuel and food will hit new highs and you'll have lots more to worry about.

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Save 50 bucks with Dialog TV Today!

Published
by
Dilantha
on April 2, 2008
in Consumer and Sri Lanka
. 2 Comments

Here is a good call by Dialog TV Forum.

For those who do not want "CiTi HiTz" - get it deactivated or pay

The tiny red text at the bottom of the Dialog TV Tariff page sayings something like this.

* CitiHitz is activated for a monthly rental of Rs. 50/-
* Channel C is offered to all packages Free of charge until 31 May 2008

I don't really care about 50 LKR but on principal its wrong to shove down a paid channel without asking. I noticed this CitiHitz crap while channel surfing, its not worth 50 cents.

Thanks again to Dialog TV Forum.

Update: I have personally opted out of Citi Hitz.

AFP: Oil prices hover near 110 dollars

Published
by
Dilantha
on March 13, 2008
in Consumer and Driving
. 0 Comments

AFP: Oil prices hover near 110 dollars

Crap!

Things are not getting any better

Published
by
Dilantha
on September 12, 2007
in Consumer and Sri Lanka
. 3 Comments

Not in the foreseeable future anyway. I was just catching with the news about our little country and its almost all bad news.

Does anyone think its going to turn around and when?

Satellite TV Shootout

Published
by
Dilantha
on September 10, 2007
in Business, Consumer, Movies, Reviews and Sri Lanka
. 0 Comments

I got Dialog TV a few weeks ago. The sign up process was a breeze, maybe because I was already a mobile customer. They just asked for my contact details and took a copy of my id, and that was it.

I'm happy with the clarity and program information that comes with the digital signal. The only issue is when it starts to rain the signal goes away for a while.

I had a bad signal for Star World with Comet Cable but they never bothered to follow up my complaints or fix it. I was a comet subscriber for many years and I got tired of them dropping channels unannounced etc.

I'm hearing that Comet Cable will upgrade to digital, but I feel I will get a better service and more competitive prices from Dialog TV. So I've moved on.

Here are a few related sites worth watching about cable TV in Sri Lanka.

TV & Radio Sri Lanka
Comet Cable Forum
Dialog TV Forum
LBN Cable TV Forum

Epson Stylus C59 on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04

Published
by
Dilantha
on September 8, 2007
in Consumer, How To, Linux and Open Source
. 2 Comments

Epson Stylus C59

Just bought this printer in the morning and thought I'd share the setup on Ubuntu since a tweak was needed to get it going right.

The reason I bought this model was because it had separate CYMK cartridges and my friend at the shop recommended it to be a cheap to run printer for my low usage needs.

The price range for it was from LKR6000 to LKR6750. (I checked in 3 shops) What? I'm cheap.

You have to do these before plugging the printer into the computer. Its in the setup guide.

  1. Remove the stickers from the printer and cartridges.
  2. Plug power to the printer and power it up.
  3. Lift the lid and insert the cartridges to their right color positions. (the colors are labeled)
  4. Close up the printer and press the 'ink charge' button that is beside the power button.
  5. Wait about 1 1/2 minutes while the printer charges with ink. (No idea what that is)

After you have charged the printer you can connect it to the computer via the USB cable. Now in Ubuntu follow these steps.

  1. Go to System --> Administration --> Printing
  2. Go to 'New Printer'. It should auto detect as EPSON Stylus C59.
  3. The C59 driver was a bit off so I selected C65 according to the mailing list post below. You can also try Epson Stylus C63 or Epson Stylus CX3700

Here is the forum page and comparisons of test pages with other drivers.

New iPods

Published
by
Dilantha
on September 6, 2007
in Consumer and Music
. 0 Comments

iPod Family ‘07

Apple has put out a new range of iPods. The Shuffle got some colors. The Nano changed its form and now supports video. The old iPod is now iPod classic with up to 160GB of storage. Which means you have to have a bigger hard drive on your computer to sync your music library.

The good news for those of us not on AT&T is the iPod touch. Which is basically the iPhone minus the phone. So with WIFI you can use it to browse the web and it will serve as a nice video player too.

It’s In The Bag

Published
by
Dilantha
on August 27, 2007
in Business and Consumer
. 0 Comments

I bought this environmentally friendly bad a few weeks ago at Arpico. It was like 75 bucks and I thought it was a good idea at the time. They happily put my stuff in the new eco bag and I was on my way.

The thing about an eco bag is your supposed to reuse it. So I took it back today. To my surprise I was told I can't take the bag in. Their "leave your bags at the counter outside" policy contradicted with my quest to save the earth.

I explained to the security guy that they sold me the bad to spare the use of polythene and I was going to take it in. I even showed that it was empty and I was going to put the stuff I buy in it.

After 15 seconds of explaining and the other security guy at the exit telling this guy to let me go, he got off my case.

Arpico please brief your employees so I don't have to.

I'm still pissed at the whole thing. I'm going to keep taking my bag back, that is if I feel like shopping there again. Because unlike your social responsibility show that you put on I care about where I live.