Saturday, November 8, 2008

messing with Gimp


I use Linux for about everything I do, today I was messing around with gimp and was playing with the animation part of it. I have paintshop pro on a my dell but I like Gimp better is a little more user friendly and I think things are laid out a little clearer in the menu. As far as Microsoft products go I just Nuked XP media center off one of my other computers and installed Kubuntu on it because I put a new Readon card in it last week and XP has given me nothing but problems with it. all driver related but kubuntu discovered it right away. Problem solved. As far as I am concerned I dont need Microsoft for anything I do, yet My wife still uses it (the Dell).

Friday, November 7, 2008

Cats Day


HMMM computer smells funny, thats why my ears are back.

















baily says you made me open my eyes for THIS?

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

New Jobsite


Today we got to start a new job because we are still waiting for part of the service at the old farmhouse. This a pair of restrooms at a stadium. nothing fancy just a service some heaters, lights and couple of plugs. I would much rather do commercial work over residential work, so I was happy today.














We also noticed there a whole bunch of new houses going in behind here.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election

What a day, we worked at a school again today replacing ballast's. They had the polls set up in a classroom so we kept clear of that part of the school because of the amount of traffic. One of the school employee's told us that the amount of people voting was double what it has been in years past. Guess we should know the outcome in the morning.

Monday, November 3, 2008

More Lights


Today we went to another one of the schools we were working at over the summer and replaced some more lights in a kitchen. This one had surface mount lights we took down and replaced with some lay in fixtures. The school board is trying to cut cost's by replacing fixtures or replacing ballast's in many of the schools as possible. When you get a large number of ballast's the cost for electricity is pretty large. It seems like we are getting a lot of these types of jobs now since new construction has slowed down so much.








Yesterday a reader asked about LED bulbs as opposed to compact fluorescent bulbs.
LED bulbs will save you more than a CFL but they are still relatively new so their prices are still kind of high in my opinion and I would guess over time they will go down as more brands become available. I do have some LED night lights installed in my home and I love them.



Sunday, November 2, 2008

Daylight Savings Time


Well its daylight savings time again that means we get an extra hour today, Maybe now is a good time for you to start getting rid of those old incandescent light bulbs too. For a given light output, compact fluorescent lamps use between one fifth and one third of the power of equivalent incandescent lamps. I myself have changed most of mine and we can see a difference in our electric bill from it. The downfall is the purchase price of an integrated CFL is typically 3 to 10 times greater than that of an equivalent incandescent lamp, yet the extended lifetime and lower energy use will compensate for the higher initial cost.