Paint.NET: The Photoshop Alternative for the Rest of Us

17 December 2012 | Computers | 1 comment

Paint.NET RulesPretty much everyone has heard of Adobe’s Photoshop software. It’s extremely powerful stuff that lets you create all sorts of graphics and images, edit photos at a professional level, and so on.

The only problem is, Photoshop has a very steep learning curve.

What are we left with? Microsoft’s Paint application? Ha! While it has improved over the years, it’s still pretty basic.

So, what do you do if you run Windows, and you want to do some image editing, create graphical elements for web sites, or otherwise play around with images on a computer?

You download the free Paint.Net application, because it rocks. Here’s why…

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How to Choose LED Light Bulbs: Efficiency, Power Factor, Color Temperature, and Everything Else

9 December 2012 | Energy, Gizmos, How Does it Work? | 28 comments

These days, it’s all about energy efficiency.

In some countries, you can hardly even buy normal incandescent light bulbs any more. You are left with a choice of slightly more efficient “a bulb inside a bulb” halogen options, or compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs.

Well, there are some problems with CFL bulbs, as we shall see.

Now, LED bulbs have made their big debut on the scene. They use even less power than CFLs, and supposedly they are better for the environment and all that jazz.

In some ways, this is true – but at a cost unless you are careful about which LED bulbs you pick.

And, since LED bulbs are so darn expensive, you need to choose wisely. Here’s how…

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