the stinkin’ blog

Wow. I finally found it. This guy built what is just a simple Circuit Monitoring system that allows him to gain statistics on his power consumption!

I have not gone through it all, but I plan on trying to do this and will definitely document it!

Update - 31 July 2008 - 1639 ET
It did not take long to find a lot more information regarding power consumption. Amazing what using the right term in your search yields. I was chasing down the wrong path in my searches earlier this week. I have found a ton more information.
Nice tool for gathering stats

I so get a kick out of Matt Asay. His post about Intuit joining the “Linux revolution” is amusing. Intuit has always been a Linux supporter, but they continue to be blinded to the value of using it as a platform for their services. Times are a changin’.

Open your mind, Matt. Intuit is trying to find new routes to market. Currently the only route they have is their dependence on Windows or Mac. The notion of a “desktop” computer is changing and changing rapidly. Intuit is trying to get information any way it can gather it.

SAP does not promote open source? Hello? Pigs with wings? Uh…that was already on a Red Bull commercial.
Matt - pull up. SAP already promotes open source. Doh!

I wonder why it is so easy to pick on Matt Asay.

I do not always like “how-to” articles that most trade rags put out, but this one did manage to keep me interested throughout. Short and simple, the author points out 10 things one can do and also points out that you’d better know what you are doing to get the speed you may be looking for. In other words, it may not be worth the effort to gain an indeterministic amount of time.

But…the article is well written, concise, and to the point. I like articles like that!

I recently moved into a new home. The reason for the move was to get closer to my wife’s work location as well as get into a house that was flat and had more “space” overall. We increased our space by ~800 sq ft, but we added a nice sized back yard and a nice sized lanai. That helps all around. That’s great, but with the increase in energy prices (and my increased mortgage) I want to find ways to save some money. I manage my money well by monitoring spending. I want to MONITOR my energy spend. How can I do that?

I have been doing some research on home energy management. So far, I have found a number of organizations that have “energy management”, however, most of these organizations do not cater to residential. Why is that? Are consumers that cheap? Do they really not care? I don’t think so. I think it is the utility companies at fault.

Yea, yea. I can blame many, but hear me out. A residential energy management system requires telemetry. Currently the best place to put the end point of telemetry is at the meter. However, I do not own the meter. My utility company owns the meter, I own everything behind the meter. Ok great. So I can either install my own meter (can I do that?) or I can put my own meter inside? Here is where that breaks down. Right now the companies that product telemetry software and hardware are doing it to make money. They make money by enabling the utility company to provide energy management as a service to customers. This allows the energy company to give the most expensive power to those that pay the highest rates and let the residential customers use the cheap energy when they need it (we usually never need to use expensive energy!).

This begs the question of why then would the telemetry device producers want to go outside - in? Why wouldn’t they want to penetrate all of the residential/commercial customers and have demand force the utility company to follow suite? Currently they approach a utility and the utility says - eh, too expensive to implement. With a inside-out approach, the telemetry device maker sells the devices and software to the consumer at a decent price point and then the consumer drives the demand to the utility? Sound familiar? Disrupt the cycle.

I want to monitor my residential energy. I want to see how much power each device is using. I can then decide to enroll in a energy management program through my utility or manage my energy myself. With all of the part-time residents in Florida, that seems like a NO BRAINER!!!

Time to do a bit of brainstorming and see what I can muster up. Sounds like an interesting niche. Especially at the start of the baby-boomer era where they want to save money and they have money to spend in saving money!!!

HP, Intel, and Yahoo today announced they were forming a consortium aimed at performing research on cloud computing. This initiative is part of HP’s Shane Robison’s view of “Everything as a Service” which is quite the interesting concept.

Personally, I think we are a little ways off from the singularity he is predicting where everything I use talks to everything else I use and they all think like I think, but the uses are enormous. The one drawback is that if “my cloud” is doing all of my thinking what is left for me to do? Will that make me more productive and allow me to focus on the task at hand? Or will it simply make us all Alzheimer’s patients?

Food for thought.

On the Datamation blog our friend, Adrian has a dilemma. He wonders how “Will a $19.99 Ubuntu Succeed Where the Free Version Hasn’t?” But really who says it would?

Let’s get a short lesson in routes to market. You see Ubuntu is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). It just so happens that Canonical has added to the FOSS model by never charging for anything Ubuntu. Canonical is a for-profit venture, however. What Canonical is doing is finding other routes to market where it can build a revenue stream. I will say that $20 will probably not cover much since the box, printing of manuals, pressing of DVDs and shipping probably eats up most of that, but that is not the point here. The idea behind this route is more of a marketing ploy than one of profit. You see if people see it in Best Buy then, by golly, it must be worthy of $20.

For some reason Adrian digresses a bit from his headline. Not sure why, but he feels like Ubuntu (or maybe all Linux distributions) cannot be operated by the normal human being. But really can anyone operate or fix Windows? All they ever do is…reboot…uh oh that didn’t fix it….re-install. So what is different in any other OS?

I did not look at the date, but Adrian seems to be stuck in the 1990’s with his argument. Instead of bashing Canonical for trying to get Ubuntu further out into the masses, let’s bash someone else for charging too much for trash! Nah. Let’s just all go out and contribute to Canonical by buying the $20 copies of Ubuntu from Best Buy. They are doing a bang up job at promoting Open Source, communities in general, and living life as a good corporate citizen.

Ok so I find TwitterLocal and as you see have it nailed down to 1 mile from Tampa, FL, yet I do not show up in the stats. What the? How the heck does this api pull it’s info? Not that I want to be listed, but come on. Also it shows time in zulu time? Hmmm.

Something is amiss at the circle k, my friends.

An interesting article that does a good job at providing some comparison of a handful of cloud computing models.

What makes cloud computing rather interesting today is the fact that the “components” of cloud computing is really being driven by open source. Obviously Microsoft is getting on the bandwagon. The laggards have to follow what is being hyped. The question remains though - Will the community rally around a compelling concept that can propel open source into what I would call the next iteration of a network? or Will Microsoft take what could be a real opportunity for everyone and make a Microsoft standard and Microsoft-isms to “cloud” cloud computing?

Time will tell, but I can assure you of one thing. Open source has an opportunity. Open source has a community. It is time for the community to show their true strength.

Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins is just what I needed to put some more cool crap in my grasp!

Yeow. Awoke Saturday to some intense pain in my abdomen. I toughed it out until my wife had enough and forced me to go to the ER. I ended up in the OR by 1030p with an appendectomy on the schedule.

I am back at home now (out of the hospital less than 24 hours after I walked into the ER) minus my appendix with 3 laparoscopy scars to show for it and more great pain meds.

Just what I need at the end of a terrible quarter.