Technology Ramblings

Over the last few years - I've performed various cord cutting experiments in an attempt to A) get all the content my family consumes and B) reduce the the cost compared to the Cable/Sat providers. The challenge with previous experiments was often issues with local channel support or picture & sound quality or total cost when looking to supporting 4+ active TVs. The good news is things have changed and you now have a much better experience at reasonable pricing. My most recent experiment involved both the new Google Chromecast with Google TV and YouTube TV as well as my TCL 6 Series Roku TV also running YouTube TV.  Both devices also support all the other popular streaming apps, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, etc.  The TCL Roku TV even supports Apple TV+ with Airplay and HomeKit support.   For our family YouTube TV had a really great channel selection at a reasonable price and features like the unlimited cloud based recording are unbeatable.   While you can have up to 6 &

In part 1 of the Journey to Solar - I discussed getting a good understanding of what your energy needs really are and where you should make investments in efficiency to change your consumption model and potentially reduce the size of your solar solution. For Part 2 let's assume you've done your homework and made your investments to improve your efficiency and your ready to start designing your system. Where do you start ?   How do I size my system ?   Do I want Storage ?   So let's start with an example set of criteria.  You added up your total annual kWh usage is it's around 20,000 kWh.  You've also determined that your maximum kWh consumption during any one hour in the year is 10kWh and that your daily maximum total consumption is about 100kWh and your maximum monthly usage is about 3000kWh - with a range of 1500 -> 3000 during any one month.  Finally let's say for that 100kWh day - 60kWh is during daylight hrs and 40kWh is evenings/overnight. So your think

I manage a group of homes/ranches as a side hustle - and recently started down the path for one of my clients of researching the aspects of adding solar power to the home. The solar market has really matured in the last 5 - 10 years.  Prices for PV Panels has dropped considerably and there are a wide range of both DIY and One-Stop shop companies to choose from. For residential energy alternatives - especially here in AZ - solar seems to be the obvious choice and with the addition of storage capabilities like Tesla's PowerWall - you can seriously start to look at the potential of minimizing your reliance on the utility grid for energy.  To me the combination of Solar Generation plus battery storage is potentially very compelling. With that said - there is a lot of due diligence and additional expenditures in preparing for solar that I learned and will discuss here While you can go to many sites and just enter a monthly bill amount and have a tool spit out a system size and price quo

  It's been a long 9 months since I've decided to write and post anything.    While I'm still a Windows Insider - Windows 10 is pretty boring at this point without much to really report on.   The catalyst for me to jump back on was the announcement / release of the Surface Duo device.  Part of the double announcement back in Oct of 2019 along with the Neo - of dual screen small form factor devices. I have to applaud MS for the effort here.  Of all the attempts at dual screen devices from Samsung, Huawei, Motorola and others - the approach MS has taken makes the most sense to me using hinges vs flexible screens.   It's an elegant looking device and the testing I performed using the emulator platform does show some promise from a general use perspective. At the same time however a few things stick out.  First is the price @ $1,399 for the 128GB model and $1,499 for the 256GB.  That's pretty pricey - I think $1K might have been a better target and I can see that price