So I’ve been trying to cut down my electricity bill from ~$180 to something closer to $100.
This is what I’ve done so far:

• I replaced all the light bulbs with energy effiicient CFL lights.
• I replaced my dual processor, multiple drive, Server with a capable NAS drive
• I replaced my 170Watt aquarium lights with 40Watt LEDs

Finally I replaced my 4yo, second generation Plasmawith an energy efficient LCD. Here my Plasma energy tag:

Plasma energy HOG

This thing ran so hot that the AC had to be on all the time, it would raise the room temperature by 4-7 degrees!!.  It was so hot you could not keep your hand confortably touching the back. I researched energy efficient solutions and found: “Vizio 42″ Class Eco 1080p LCD HDTV, VO420E” it uses less than half the power of the old system:

Voltage Range: 110~240Vac at 50/60 Hz
Power Consumption: 150W average, <0.34W standby

Vizio 42" Class Eco 1080p LCD HDTV, VO420E

So the old Plasma used ~370Watt while on, this new LCD around ~150Watt and it doesnt heat my room so the AC doesnt kick-in due to it.

The best part is that you can get this LCD on Walmart for $599, I sold my old Plasma for $325.

I’ve been running my iPhone 3G jailbroken so I could install software thats not approved by Apple such as tethering and all kinds of utilities like copy/paste etc…

I just downloaded firmware 3.0 and without jailbreaking it you can use it to surf the web on your laptop.

If you’re on an iPhone running firmware 3.0 rightnow just click on the link and install:

USA iPhone 3.0 tether for AT&T
*I’m not responsible for any damage to your iPhone*
*Side effect – Visual Voicemail will be disabled*

Follow the guide made by Richard Lai

Thanks Richard!

P.S after following the guide if its not working for you, download the UK version of iTunes and it will pick up the iPhone as a Network interface.

While Apple says that OSX doesn’t need defragmentation due to the OS built-in method of coordinating disk writes blah blah blah…If you use your MacBook for awhile you’ll notice it will begin to lag and become less stable. Windows users can just run the defrag utility that comes with Windows, Apple users will have to purchase something (it figures right?) iDefrag is my choice,  it works well.

There’s a catch though, if you want to do a “Full” defragmentation you’ll have to connect your Apple computer to another Mac and connect them via Firewire (if you have a new MacBook you’re screwed since that port has been omitted,  you can no longer even grab video from your camcorder).

Start the MacBook that you want to defragment and keep the “t” pressed on it. It will boot in FireWire mode and its drive will be available to the other Mac for defragmentation…

*** Update
I recently bought a DS209 which is half the size of  the 407, it holds two drives and its way faster. It also powers itself on/off on a schedule in my case 12:00am – 7:00am its off.
I read at 33/MBs and write at 44/MBs over my network!!! thats faster than my USB2.0 drives
*** Update

So I used to have a Windows 2003 Server in my basement that  took care of my shared drives and backups using robocopy. I then had a “LaCie Ethernet Bigdisk” which really gave me problems and it crashed twice. I also tried Apple’s Airport Extreme and that proved frustrating due to Apple disabling basic features so people will buy OSX server instead…. so I researched every affordable NAS solution and decided to go with:

Its the Synology CS407e and its the most amazing little NAS box around. It holds four SATA drives and supports RAID 0-6. It can serve as a webserver, photo station, FTP server, IP camera server, MP3 station, etc…

I have two 1TR drives setup as RAID 1 and two 500GB also setup as RAID 1 which basically mirrors both drives so if one fails the other still has all your data and it can rebuild a replacement drive. It can also back itself up via rsync or a USB drive (Which I do monthly and keep offsite).

So I was transferring everything from my Win2003 Server and my LaCie bigdisk when I get an email:

Dear user,

Volume 2 on CubeStation is in degraded mode. Please identify the cause of degradation and take corrective action.

To obtain further assistance, please contact Synology Online Support: http://www.synology.com.

Sincerely,
Synology Cube Station

Followed by:

Dear user,

Internal disk 3 on CubeStation has crashed; please replace it.

Sincerely,
Synology Cube Station

How cool is that? I had setup the notifications and it caught one of my old 500GB drives failing. It also beeped and flashed some status lights until I logged in and acknowledged the problems.

The web interface is really polished and fast, its truly worth the $365 (from tigerdirect.com). I’m also happy that this thing doesnt use nearly as much power as my old Windows server.

Quick way to get Push over gmail to the iPhone is:

Create a free yahoo account and foward your email over to it… You can then set gmail email schedule to “Manual” and yahoo to push (which it already done by default).

You’ll hear the notice/vibration once you get email, you can also respond from Yahoo just remember to switch to your Gmail account when responding.

Its annoying… I know…. but its a free option until Gmail activates Push…

Peace!