Saving on Electricity Using Energy Efficient Products

With the ever growing popularity of various electronics products today comes the burden of higher electrical bills. Our Television sets are bigger, which consumes more energy, and we also use either a receiver or a TiVo in addition to the TV. And as Computers also have become an integral part of our daily lives, that's another appliance that will consume energy and add up to our electric bill. As the climate changes, we find our homes colder or warmer than what used to be some years ago, so we end up making our airconditioners colder or heaters warmer, which again, adds up to our electrical bill. And let's face it, with the ever rising price of electricity, we need to save on our electrical consumption.

When it comes to saving electricity, one name instantly pops into mind. Energy Star. Yes, the same Energy Star that you often see in the top left (or right) of your monitor whenever you boot up your PC. The Energy star site features various products that have "earned" the Energy Star logo for their efficiency in using electricity. You can also find guides and tips on how to choose a specific product to suit your needs. For example, aside from showing you a list of Energy Efficient models of Airconditioners, the Energy star site also shows how much cooling capacity (measured in BTU's) is needed for a certain area. That way, you will be able to save money by buying the Airconditioner Model that will suffice in cooling your target area.

Another good method of choosing Energy Efficient Products is the EER rating. EER means Energy Efficiency Ratio. The higher the EER, the more energy efficient the product is. EER ratings can be mostly found in products that have a electrical motors in them, such as Airconditioners, Freezers and Refrigerators, and Washing Machines. When it comes to lighting CFL's (compact Fluorescent Bulbs) should be your only choice. You can save as much as 80% on your energy consumption when you use CFL's than incandescent bulbs. Beware of cheap CFL's though, since most of them don't last long.

Energy Efficient Products not only saves you money, but it also contributes greatly in reducing pollution. Simply put, higher energy consumption denotes that more fuel is needed to be burned to produce more energy. It doesn't matter if your energy source comes from renewable sources like solar, wind, or hydrothermal Electrical Plants, consuming less electricity would help the environment.

So if you're looking to buy a new electric appliance, consider browsing the Energy Star website first so you can check the list of Energy Efficient products and also read some guides and tips on your purchase.

Getting the most of your Bandwidth in Windows XP

As a cheapskate, I make sure that I get most of what little resources I have. One example is the bandwidth of my broadband internet connection. Since I primarily use my connection to browse the internet and for some downloads, I only subscribed at my Internet Service Provider (ISP) the cheapest broadband connection they offer.

I own three computers at my house, 1 old laptop, 1 XPC (160 Watts model, so less energy consumption), and a gaming rig I just bought for my wife (who is addicted to PC games such as The Sims 2). The laptop is almost always open, acting as a torrentbox and most of the downloads (again, to get the most of what i pay for the internet connection) since it is only rated to consume 60Watts.

As I was browsing the internet, I came upon a site that discusses how to increase the download speed of your connection in Windows XP. It says that by just editing some simple settings in the so called "Group Policy Editor" you can increase your download speed by 20%. Here's how it works - By default Windows XP reserves 20% of your bandwidth for its own usage such as updates. Think about it, Windows XP updates don't occur everyday, yet on each day you use your computer, you internet connection is running at only 80% of its real speed. That's a lot by Cheapskate standards. For example, my connection is rated at 128Kbps, and that's just the rated speed, the real speed of such connection is only at 110 - 114 Kbps, but for demonstration purposes, let's just say I get that 128Kbps. To get my maximum download speed, I need to divide that number by 8, which means ideally I can download at the speed of 16Kbps. At 16Kbps speed, a 1MB download will take roughly 1 minute. But since Windows XP is "reserving" the 20% of my connection, this means i can only download at the speed of around 12.8Kbps, meaning the 1MB download will take an additional 20 seconds. Now imagine that scenario if you're going to download a 100MB file. Then, if you are subscription speed ia at, say, 512Kbps, you're wasting the same amount of bandwidth I am paying for at 128Kbps.

So, just how do you lift off this 20% bandwidth reservation by Windows XP? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Click on the Start Button, then click Run
2. Type in gpedit.msc (this is the Group Policy Editor program) and click OK
3. Click Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Network, QOS Packet Scheduler, Limit Reservable Bandwidth.
4. By default, the value set is "Not Configured", but this is not the case. Windows XP already limited you bandwidth by 20%. If you want proof, you can click on the Details Tab and you should see the following messages:

"Determines the percentage of connection bandwidth that the system can reserve. This value limits the combined bandwidth reservations of all programs running on the system.

By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default.

If you enable this setting, you can use the "Bandwidth limit" box to adjust the amount of bandwidth the system can reserve.

If you disable this setting or do not configure it, the system uses the default value of 20 percent of the connection.

Important: If a bandwidth limit is set for a particular network adapter in the registry, this setting is ignored when configuring that network adapter."

5. So, we need to reclaim that 20% back. Go back to the Setting Page by clicking the Setting Tab. Click on Enabled, but make sure you set the value of Bandwidth Limit to 0. Click OK. Remember, you should set it to Enabled. "Not Configured" and "Disabled" actually is the same, as explained in the details above.


There, you should see a considerable speedup when you download, specifically, 20% more speed. This trick also works on WIndows 2000. Enjoy the increase of your download speed by using this simple CHEAPSKATE TECHNIQUE.

Configuring the Lexmark E210 to use the Samsung ML-1210 Toner

CHEAPSKATE TECHNIQUES NOTE
In this section, I will show you some of the simple methods or techniques that i have learned that will save you money while using various technological equipments.

Configuring the Lexmark E210 to use the Samsung ML-1210 Toner

My mother from the U.S. asked me if I’m interested in a laser printer. I was ecstatic! I thought she was gonna buy me a new one. Turns out that a neighbor of hers was throwing out some old stuff on their garage, and she spotted an old laser printer. She thought that since I’m good at computers, I could still use it. So I said, yeah sure, why not? If I can’t get it to work, I can still sell it to some people who buy old/broken parts online. Or I can even use it in Samsung and Epson’s Trade up promo, where you trade in your old laser printer, working or not, so you can avail of a 20% discount when purchasing a new one (this was back in July 2007, they don’t have that promo as of this writing).

So when the package came, I was excited to see the printer. I was really hoping that it was an old HP 1020, since a local store here in the Philippines is selling HP1020 compatible toners at just $20. An old Brother laser printer would also be a welcome site. To my disappointment, it was a Lexmark laser printer – a Lexmark E210 to be exact. I don’t really like Lexmark printers since they seem to have a habit of selling low-price printers that use expensive ink cartridges. The very first printer I bought back in college was a Lexmark Z series. I was all smiles at first since I was able to buy a printer for a low price of around $60 (this was back in 1999). Come cartridge replacement time, my smile went upside down when I saw the price of the ink cartridges - $30 for the color cartridge, and $20 for the black ink cartridge. It was almost buying a new printer. Then to add to my frustration, it will be difficult to find a toner for the Lexmark E210 since most of the toners sold here in the Philippines are for the HP, Canon, Brother, and Samsung brands.

Before I go hunting online for a toner of the Lexmark E210 my mother gave me, I needed to make sure that it still works. Since it came from the U.S. where they use 110-volts in their electrical lines, the first thing I did was to check its voltage rating. It was rated to work at 110 volts only. So I hooked it up to the 110-volt port of my AVR, and connected it to my PC. I powered it on, and sure enough, Windows detected it. To be sure that it still works however, I needed to print a test page, but I can’t, since I don’t have the drivers for it. So I searched for the Lexmark E210 drivers on the net.

As I was searching for the drivers, my luck turned out. There was this site where I found an interesting information about the Lexmark E210. Seems like with a little tinkering, you can configure the E210 to use the Samsung ML-1210 toner. You just have to open the printer, and take out a small metal tab. So I saved the web page, and followed the instructions. Then after installing the drivers, I printed out a test page on the E210. The printout was blurry, which is understandable since the toner must have ran out of ink. But at least I have confirmed that the printer is still working. The next day, I went to out and bought a Samsung ML-1210 compatible toner which only costs $30. I installed it in the E210, configured some settings on the utility, and printed out a test page. It was perfect! The text was smooth and crisp, and since the toner yield is rated at about 4000 pages, that $30 will print out a lot of documents. As a matter of fact, I’m still using the toner I bought six months ago.

So if you happen to use a Lexmark E210 check out this CHEAPSKATE TECHNIQUE on how to configure your printer to use any Samsung ML-1210 toners here.