1. Install a programmable thermostat
   Invest a little money and time into one of these and you’ll find the AC and heat can be used more efficiently. Setting a little higher temperature in the summer and a little lower temperature in the winter (especially when you are away from home at work) can save you a lot in the long run.
2. Turn off lights
   If you aren’t in the habit, you’re wasting a lot of energy and money by leaving lights on when you leave a room.
3. Replace your light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lights
   For the time when you legitimately need the lights on you should be using light bulbs that don’t waste the majority of their energy on heat instead of light. Compact Fluorescent Lights, or CFLs, use an electrical charge and gas to produce light instead of a heating element like incandescent lights.
4. Use less laundry detergent
   Chances are the detergent you’re using is very concentrated and you don’t need the full recommended amount listed on the back of the bottle or box (especially if it isn’t a full load).
5. Enable power saving features on your computer
   If you leave your computer on all the time, make sure to enable power saving features to turn off your monitor, hard drives, and other parts of the system when it’s not in use.
6. Replace your monitor with an LCD
   If you find yourself in need of a new monitor, make sure you buy an LCD monitor. These use a lot less power than traditional CRTs. Chances are you might not even find CRTs in the store these days, though.
7. Use Linux
   Chances are you don’t need to spend money on a Microsoft or Macintosh operating system if you find yourself doing simple things like web browsing, word processing, and listening to music. Check-out Ubuntu linux. It’s helped bring linux closer to the average computer user in it’s ease of use, clean looking user interface, and ease of installation and configuration.
8. Share an Internet connection
   Without permission, this is technically illegal in many places, but there’s no reason not to go in 50/50 with someone living nearby. Why pay the phone or cable company twice as much when neither you nor your neighbor are using all your bandwidth.
9. Use a free virus scanning software
   Try-out a program like AVG instead of paid-subscription based virus scanners.
10. Use rechargeable batteries
    These are great for things like digital cameras, XBOX controllers, and mp3 players especially.
11. Open windows during city driving instead of A/C
    When you’re driving at slower speeds it makes sense to open your windows instead of using your A/C which puts extra work on your engine and thus uses more gas. However, at a certain speed, it’s actually more fuel and energy efficient to use your A/C for aerodynamic reasons. On the highway, for example, you’ll probably be better off closing the windows and turning on the air in many cars.
12. Check your tires for correct inflation
    Again, you’ll use more gas and put yourself in less control if your tires are improperly inflated. The extra friction and heat caused by low tires require greater work from your engine and will require you to buy more tires more frequently.
13. Keep your oil changed
    Better fuel economy and a car that lasts a longer time will result from this.
14. Replace your air filter
    Also produces better fuel economy. You might even want to try something like a K&N air filter that can be rinsed-out and reused. I really need to clean mine, too, now that I think about it…
15. Buy less food
    Do you really need all the food you buy and ingest? Chances are you don’t, and that excess of calories means more stress on your body, less money in your wallet after the grocery store / restaurant, and not to mention more money on products and memberships to loss your weight and maintain your physical health!
16. Walk instead of driving
    Free exercise; better for the environment; relaxing; different.
17. Visit the doctor
    Some health insurance plans encourage preventive treatment since it can save them from more costly repairs to your health in the future.
18. Smoker! Stop smoking
    As I’m writing this outside at a cafe I’m sitting next to a couple young gentlemen who probably spend half their hourly wage on the pack of cigarettes in their pocket. They’ll need the other half to pay for their future medical treatment.
19. Exercise regularly
    You know this is important. Stop putting it off and get working-out NOW.
20. Have a game night at home
    A night out on the town really adds up. Try inviting some people over to your place. Mix in some games, food, booze, and you’ve got a good time for less of a price.
21. Drop premium movie channels
    How many of the movies on your premium movie channels do you actually watch? On Demand technologies might make more sense.
22. Drop subscription TV altogether
    Replace it with an HDTV antenna or watch online at ABC, Fox, ESPN360, and other sites that offer the same and even extra content online.
23. Go out for matinee movies
    I couldn’t believe it when I took my parents to the movies a month ago and found the price to be $10. Go to the movies at lower priced times or watch them at home.
24. Dine at home on your next date
    Hit the store, bond while making pasta, get a bottle of wine, and put on some great music.
25. Get the cheap toothpaste
    I’m not convinced that my brand or type of toothpaste makes any difference, are you? I buy the cheapest tube of Crest I can find and my teeth are doing great.
26. Buy store brands without accepting lower quality
    Alright, so the store brands are made with the same stuff, but aren’t always the same. Sometimes, I like the name brand cereal, canned fruit, and grape jelly better. It doesn’t always make a difference, though, and you can save money with the store brand on those products that are exactly the same.
27. Buy clothes at the end of the season
    Pants are cheaper at the end of winter, shorts are cheaper at the end of summer. Offset when you buy what.
28. Buy quality goods that require replacing less frequently
    A quality pair of shoes may cost twice as much, but could last five times as long as the cheap pair. Think about this with everything you buy. Just because you bought the more expensive option doesn’t mean you should necessarily feel guilty– it might make sense in the big picture.
29. Drink office coffee
    If you load it up with cream and sugar anyway, it might not make any difference at all what kind of coffe you’re drinking. Drinking it black? Well… might not want that office coffee.
30. Filter water instead of buying bottled water
    Depending on the filter you buy, it might save you money.
31. Pay bills online instead of using a stamp for snail mail
    The price of a stamp keeps going up. Pay online and make sure you don’t get hit with late fees either.
32. Pay student loans over a longer period of time
    Unless you make in the top 5 percentile of people in the world, chances are you can write your student loan interest off on your taxes. Instead of paying them off quickly, take your extra money to build up an emergency fund and long term savings.
33. Revise your insurance policies
    Things like keeping a fire extinguisher in your home, a blinking light on your car dash, and a safe driving record can save you money on your insurance policies, but only if you let your insurer know!
34. Avoid careless fees
    Overdraft fees at banks, ATM fees for out-of-network withdrawals, late bill payments, no trading fees, etc. all add up and take a large bite out of your bottom line over time.
35. Trade your skill or service for someone else’s
    The tax man can’t hit you up for sales or income tax if money isn’t changing hands.
36. Partner for ventures without financing
    If you don’t have an angel investor to help your company, it might make sense to spread your risk across someone else’s bottom line.
37. Find friends to hook you up
    It’s great to get discounts and free stuff when you use services of companies your friends work at.

It’s important to remember that it does not always pay to be a cheap b*stard, but there are many times it most definitely pays to spend less!

PS: more to come ^^; & by the way, this post was posted under Ubuntu (virtualbox) hosted on an Windows XP PC.

The MobileMinistryMagazine.com has gotten ahold of the E71 now, though unfortunately for them, it’s the Euro version, so no 3G goodness. The initial reactions post covers how small the device really is, while noting that the battery is a monstrous 1500mAh powerhouse. Antoine handed his E71 over to a friend who’s used to the BlackBerry Curve, and the gut reaction from her was ’small yet powerful.’ Following up is his 2nd post, where he looks at the design, usage, and initial conclusions, after several days of usage. I couldn’t help but notice that Antoine used the term ‘impressive’ repeatedly, showing that Nokia has come from left field to hit the enterprise market head-on with the Nokia E71. What do you think? Is the E71 just another Nokia, or could it do some real damage to the BlackBerry market share in the U.S. specifically? ^^;

]]> http://bsl5.com/blog/mobileministrymagazine-praises-the-e71.html/feed http://bsl5.com/blog/nissan-are-you-kidding.html http://bsl5.com/blog/nissan-are-you-kidding.html#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:30:28 +0000 whlooi http://bsl5.com/blog/?p=909
This is ridiculous, all I need is 4 liter of fuel consumption to go back Ipoh (my hometown) from Kuala Lumpur (where I’m staying now). Minds you, the distance is 183km and our local fuel price now is RM2.72/liter, add up all together, I only need to spend RM10.88 per trip ?? Too gooood to be true, right?

All the Malaysian knew that after the fuel price hike which happened in June, causing aftermath every where in Malaysia, but this advert really make me choke…. Malaysia Boleh.

Look at their advertisement in The Sun newspaper (15/8/2008) that I captured with my E71 (sorry for the low quality of the pic).

Wonder why do they never give us statistical proof? Why always “Internal Test Data”? ^^;

Use your vacation time. Some people are proud to declare that they haven’t used any vacation time in two; three, or even four years but that really shouldn’t be a source of pride. There is no glory and benefit in working constantly, never taking a break from the daily routine. Plan time for a vacation every year.

Learn to say “No”. People agree to requests from others because they like to please them. Instead, realize that you have a right to say no. Creating plans or policies makes saying no easier.

Find 10-20 minutes each day to sit and relax, do nothing, or meditate. This is a few minutes to reflect on your day, your vision and to clear your mind.

Know that where you are right now is exactly where you should be. Don’t worry if you haven’t accomplished what you think you should have or what others expect you to accomplish. Be okay with where you are and work forward from there.

Focus on an area each day. Rather than worrying about everything you’d like to organize and/or clean in your home or office, choose just one area each day and focus on it for a minimum of 15 minutes, and a maximum of one hour. This will help ensure you don’t feel overwhelmed, and will also give you a rewarding feeling that you worked on something that has been on your mind.

Understand that simplifying your life is an ongoing process. Keep at it and continue to work at making your life simpler and more satisfying.

1. Use multiple browsers - This is probably the simplest way to solve this problem. Basically, if you’re on Windows, you’ll already have IE installed and you can go ahead and install Firefox and another browser like Safari or Flock. You can actually install all four if you want! Or you could just create multiple profile under Firefox/Flock/Shiretoko since each profile will maintain different set of cookies and settings.

2. Use CookiePie Firefox Extension - The same concept as method 1, the reason why you don’t have to constantly keep entering your password to log into Google or Gmail is because cookies are stored on your computer which save your personal settings. If you can maintain separate sets of cookies for each user and switch between the sets easily, then you can use run multiple Google (Gmail, etc) accounts in one browser!

CookiePie is a cool add-on that does just that. The cool thing about CookiePie is that you can use it to not only log into multiple Gmail accounts, but any sites that uses cookies, i.e. multiple Yahoo email accounts, Hotmail accounts, etc. It’s not just specific to Gmail or Google.

3. Gmail Manager Firefox Addon - This also requires that you use Firefox as your main browser. Gmail Manager for Firefox is another cool add-on that allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts from one browser window. It resides at the bottom right task bar of Firefox and displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail.

4. IE Tab Firefox Extension - This is another Firefox extension that basically allows you to run IE within Firefox. Since IE is loaded into a Firefox window, it’s still maintains it’s own separate set of cookies and therefore allows you to manage two profiles or accounts at the same time. Download IE Tab Firefox extension.

5. MailPlane For Mac - Don’t worry, I didn’t completely forget about the Mac people out there! If you’re looking for a way to use multiple Gmail accounts on a Mac at the same time, your best best is MailPlane. I’ve not used MailPlane myself, but I’ve heard it can handle this type requirement. There’s also a Firefox and Safari add-on for Mac called Profile Manager, but you have to know how to use the Terminal.

That’s all of the ideas I could find for logging into multiple email accounts at once! Happy multi-Gmail-ing! ^^;

Recently my internet broadband was down for no reason ( provider is premier Screamyx, ask any Malaysian they will know who am I referring to), when call up for complaints, to no avail despite the ‘not up to par’ quality of services (at least for me).

You see, it’s not my intention to blame anyone, but in this case, this have to do with our G. Most of the Malaysian do not have much choices in selection of broadband despite our G keep on saying that they are putting efforts on pushing greater accessibility through WiMax. The G even allocating RM30mio for the promotion and the awareness of HSBB (High Speed Broadband Project) alone! Anyhow, till today when we get out of the office especially away from the big city, we would face difficulty in getting good broadband connections not to mention the WiMax.

My two peanuts, for those concrend, do buck-up instead of coming up with more promises and showing nothing at the end of the day. Show your worth and walk the talk as we are ready and willing to part with our hard earned money in getting ‘good services’.

• Data shows it takes about 90 seconds for an average 5-year old car’s engine to warm up and reach its thermal efficiency. According to IAM, reversing out of a parking bay while the engine is cold takes up between 20-25 times more fuel than when it is warm. Apparently driving away forwards will help you save fuel. Could be related to the usually lower gear ratio of the reverse gear compared to the first gear.
• The UK’s Highway Code actually encourages reverse parking. This is because reversing into a parking bay which remains static (just an empty piece of road/cement, nothing will suddenly fill it up) is safer than reversing out into a road/lane which may have constant traffic where you cannot see easily. Driving out forwards into the road makes it easier for you to look out for incoming traffic.
• Reversing close to a wall may make it more difficult for thieves to break into your boot as there will not be enough space for them to work.
• With the amount of crime these days, it is easier to get out of the parking bay as fast as possible driving forward as it is easier for you to see where you are going in case you have to leave as fast as you can for security reasons.

Lucky, I’m reverse parking guy ^^;

But if you want some nasty speed for your FF3 or Shire, try this:

Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return.

Then right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer.

Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″.
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages 2-30 times faster now, I suppose ^^;

Electric Meter Hack! How To Cut Your Electricity Bill In Half!

PS: Don’t do it if you think it is ‘illegal’, I’m taking this as educational purpose ^^;

Traffic to blogs in June accounted for for 1.19 per cent of all UK internet traffic, according to Hitwise, an internet monitoring firm. The research also revealed that traffic to blogs is growing much faster than traditional news and media sites.

Over the last three years traffic has grown by more than 100 per cent, compared with an increase of 70 per cent to news and media websites. UK surfers are also more likely to visit blogs than their counterparts in the US; 1.09 per cent of all visits to the web in Britain during May were to blogs compared to only 0.73 per cent in the US.

Google’s Blogger features prominently on the most-visited list, as do blogs by traditional outlets such as the BBC and The Guardian. Blogs first started in the late Nineties as a type of online diary. The world’s oldest blogger died aged 108 earlier this month.