How to choose a good solar USB charger

Solar USB chargers are all the rage these days.

The most popular models are small, and many have integrated lithium-ion batteries.

But just how good are these things? Will you be happy with a small one, or is it better to supersize it?

In short, get a big one! Smaller solar panels just don’t output enough current to make them really worth the price.

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

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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Seagate Agrees with Scottie about Green Hard Drives

I hate to say, “I told you so!”, but: I told you so!

Actually, I don’t hate saying it. I’m relishing every second of this glorious moment, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Okay, I was ashamed for the few seconds it took me type the first sentence, but I got over it.

What the heck am I yammering about? Green hard drives, of course! You may recall a previous post I wrote:

Why You Don’t Want a Green Hard Drive

Recently, Seagate came out and openly called “BS!” on their own green hard drive BS.

I suppose we should praise them for this, but it would have been better if they hadn’t let their marketing bozos direct their engineering department in the first place!

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Why You Don’t Want a Green Hard Drive

These days, the fad is GREEN. Everything is “eco-this” or “green that”. Of course, we’re supposed to be terribly concerned about saving Mother Earth. Well, I’ve got news for you: Mother Earth is plenty capable of taking care of herself… Whether or not humankind survives her care is another question entirely. Frankly, if I were Big Mama, I’d be pretty pissed off that my occupants were continually dumping toxic crap on me and irradiating me. I don’t think I would care if they were using a certain type of hard drive or not.

But, I digress…

If you’re in the market for a new hard drive, you may have noticed that there are now tons of “green” hard drives out there. There are several reasons why you do NOT want one of these things. Perhaps the most important reason is that when you get right down to it, they do almost nothing to truly save energy – which kind of defeats the purpose of having a green drive, now doesn’t it?

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