Save Time and Money on Your Garden This Year

My yard is slowly turning from white to green this week, as warmer weather chases the snow away. And not a moment too soon. I look forward to getting outside again, even if it does mean I have to start mowing my lawn. If only I had a robotic mower.

Whether you have a backyard paradise or just a small garden, watering you plants can be time-consuming and expensive. Even if you manage to remember to water, you have to make it a point to actually do it. And then, you have to watch your water bill go up, in part because traditional watering techniques can be very inefficient. Next time you run a sprinkler, watch how much water doesn't reach your plants.

Two tools can help alleviate these problems.

1. A watering timer. A watering timer connects to your outdoor faucet or a hose, and allows you to schedule your watering times via a digital or analog clock. I paid full price (about $29) for mine because I bought it in the spring. Our local WalMart sold them for $10 each at the end of the season. It sure is nice to set the timer and forget about it. Even if I'm on vacation, my plants are getting watered. And more importantly, my plants are getting watered even on days when I'm being lazy.
2. Soaker hoses. A soaker hose is a porous hose made of rubber. When the hose is filled with water (it's capped on the end opposite the faucet), water seeps out of the hose and into the ground. The soaker hose can--and should--be buried under mulch; you never see it. This watering method allows you to water only the regions you want watered, keeping your watering costs as low as possible.

Tip 1: My research indicated that you should connect no more than 100 feet of soaker hose together. If you find anything different, feel free to comment.

Tip 2: Get more bang for your buck out of the watering timer. Connect a splitter to your timer, allowing you to control up to 4 or 5 hoses. I used this method to split my soaker hoses into two 100-foot sections on the same watering schedule.

Creating a Good Password That's Easy to Remember

Conventional wisdom tells us that a password needs to be complex to be strong. Complex means that the password includes different character types--numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and symbols. And of course, the password is preferably not a real word, and it better not be something like Fluffy-2. (I'll give you one guess about that person's next password.)

Don't get me wrong; a complex password is indeed a good idea, until it gets so complex that you have to write it down. Once you do that, you've made your password more discoverable.

There are a couple of articles from Microsoft that talk about another option: long passwords. The longer, the better. (In this article, search for the section called, "Myth: Passwords Must Be Complex to Be Strong." In this other article, search for the section called, "What should I do to protect my passwords?") One easy way to create a really long password is to use a passphrase. This is preferably a phrase that you can easily remember, but may not make sense to somebody else. For example, "The bird wasnot inthekitchen's waterbed." After reading the articles mentioned above, you'll understand why this is such a good password. Even something simpler, such as "I'mgladBobreturnedwiththemilk" would take a long time to crack.

I'm not saying complex passwords are a bad idea, nor am I saying that long passwords are a complete alternative to complex ones. The best password is both complex and long. I.T. pros and others protecting high-security accounts should still strive to use the most complex passwords possible, and a password utility like PINs (see previous post) can help. But for the regular Joe wanting to keep his accounts secure, a long password--or passphrase--may be the best option.

Freeware Feature: PINs

PINs

Purpose: Store passwords in a secure database
Web site: http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/pins.html
Skill level required: Beginner

Deep down, you know that you shouldn't use the same password for so many of your accounts. You also know that you should use more complex passwords, rather than just incrementing a digit at the end of your pet's name every time your password expires. The problem is, how are you going to remember all those passwords?

The answer is PINs. Actually, the answer is: an encrypted password database. PINs just happens to be a fantastic and free one. With solid encryption and superb portability (no installation is required), PINs is my password database of choice for home and work.

A bonus is that PINs can generate passwords for you. So it can generate a password like P!+tZ-(9M, and you don't have to worry about remembering it. Or better yet, we can devise a password that's much more difficult to crack and is easier to remember. But you'll have to wait for another post to hear about that trick.

Keeping It Clean

Now here's a predicament: You enjoy movies and television shows, but you don't appreciate foul language and indecency that is often found in them. So what can you do? The way I see it, the options can be categorized as follows:

1. Avoidance. This entails watching only those movies and shows without the offensive content. I understand and respect this choice, but it sure limits your entertainment options.
   
2. Manual censoring. This entails strategic use of the fast forward and mute buttons. The drawback is that it's difficult; you could get burned. This is particularly unacceptable when you're watching a movie with your family.
   
3. Automated censoring. This is my favorite option. It's more accurate and less stressful than manual censoring, but it's not free.

Manual Censoring

To effectively fast forward or mute unwanted content, you need to first educate yourself on the movie's content. I know of three free services that can help you in this matter:

1. Screen It (http://www.screenit.com/). This site evaluates 15 different content categories for each movie, including Alcohol/Drugs, Blood/Gore, Violence, and more. After reading through the categories that are of interest to you, you will be well-prepared to avoid any content that you don't want to see. This site is advertisement-heavy unless you're a subscriber. I personally bookmark the search page and use a popup blocker; I find the site most usable that way.
   
2. PluggedIn Online (http://www.pluggedinonline.com/). This site from Focus on the Family reviews movies, with a focus on appropriateness of content. I haven't used it much, but I heard about the site from a relative. It's worth a look.
   
3. The Dove Foundation (http://www.dove.org/). The mission of this foundation is "To encourage and promote the creation, production, distribution and consumption of wholesome family entertainment." Movies are reviewed for their family-friendliness.

Automatic Censoring

There are a couple of tools that can perform automated censoring. The tools differ in several ways.

• TVGuardian (http://tvguardian.com/). The TVGuardian is a device (or embedded functionality in a TV or DVD player) that filters out only foul language. Its strength and weakness is that it does so by monitoring the closed captioning for offensive words. There are some options in the system, such as how strict to be and whether to display modified closed captioning text when the audio is muted. TVG has been expanding its product line. I've personally used only one of their old devices similar to the Model 301 currently on their site, but other options are now available. Keep in mind that some of these Pros and Cons may be outdated if their technology has recently improved.
  
  • Pros
    
    • Works on anything that's closed captioned, including television, DVDs, and VHS tapes.
      
    • Cost ($70 for basic unit). No ongoing costs. Once you purchase and install the unit, it can run for years.
      
  • Cons
    
    • Only language can be filtered.
      
    • Not all movies—even DVDs—are closed captioned. If the production company (such as Universal Studios) decides that subtitles are a good substitute for closed captioning, the TVGuardian won't work.
      
    • You miss too much. TVGuardian mutes the audio when an offensive word is detected in the closed captioning. But closed captioning can show an entire sentence at one time. So to mute a single word, TVG has to mute a lot of audio.
      
    • Its accuracy is limited. If the closed captioning isn't completely in sync with the audio, the TVG can't do its job.
      
    • The replacement words are ridiculous. TVG replaces the word "screw" with the word "doodle" on screen (when that option has been selected). Some of the other word substitutions are equally silly.
      
    • The system cannot discriminate. A word like "screw" can be used innocently or offensively. TVG doesn't know the difference. So try watching a home improvement show with TVG, and you're likely to miss quite a bit.
      
      
• ClearPlay (http://www.clearplay.com/). ClearPlay-enabled DVD players can filter language and much more. With this system, the DVD players use DVD "filters" or "masks" to block out unwanted content. The DVD is never actually modified; ClearPlay just fast forwards past unwanted visual content, and mutes unwanted audio content. These filters are created by ClearPlay staff, so the process is much more labor intensive than the TVGuardian technology. Therefore, the ClearPlay model requires a subscription (although an option does exist for buying individual filters, which may work well if you don't watch many movies). The benefits include improved accuracy and a wider range of content categories. Unfortunately, this technology is currently limited to DVDs.
  
  • Pros
    
    • Accuracy. The filters are created by humans who watch the movies and pinpoint (to the second) where the undesirable content is.
      
    • More than language is filtered. Scenes of indecency, violence, or drug use can be completely skipped.
      
  • Cons
    
    • DVD only (and you need to buy a ClearPlay-equipped DVD player)
      
    • Cost ($85-100 for DVD player, $80/year for membership –but other payment options exist)
      
    • Procedure. With my early ClearPlay DVD player, I had to burn the filters onto CDs, and the filters needed to be loaded for each movie I wanted to watch. It's cumbersome. Obtaining the filters by modem or USB—which you can do on some of their players—would be much easier.
      
    • Limitations. Because these filters are created manually, you'll encounter movies that do not have filters. What's worse is that a different filter often has to be created for each edition of a DVD (widescreen, full screen, director's cut, special edition, etc.). You have to be sure you're renting/buying the edition that ClearPlay created a filter for.

Conclusion

A combination of these tools may be your best option. With the right tools, you can open up your entertainment options while keeping offensive content out of your home.

Update on Amazon Price Alerts

One of the Amazon price alert services mentioned in this post has been updated. I received word from the APriceAlert.com webmaster a couple of days ago that the price threshold feature I requested has been added. Now you can get notified when a selected item at Amazon hits your specified price.

You won't see this option until you enter some initial information and hit Submit. The price threshold is set on the second page, prior to final confirmation.

As of today, it appears that there's still a built-in 30-day limit on price alert requests. That's because this site was built to serve the needs of people who want to take advantage of Amazon's 30-day price guarantee.

Let It Snow

I don't loathe snowstorms quite as much as I used to.

When I bought my string trimmer (or 'weed eater') a few years back, I decided on a model that supported attachments. [It might be this one; I don't have the model number memorized.] This design essentially makes you pay for a motor only one time, and allows you to simply add whichever attachment you'd like. The attachments aren't cheap, but theoretically they're cheaper than their gas-powered, standalone counterparts.

I now have a string trimmer, cultivator, blower, lawn edger, and a snow thrower similar to this one.

Yep, I said snow thrower.
Yes, I live in a state with real winters.
Yes, I was skeptical too.

It turns out that the snow thrower attachment is more effective than you'd suspect. When the adjustable chute is in the straight position, it can throw snow up to 30 feet or so (the description for a similar model on Amazon's site claims only 20 feet). Turning the chute to the left or right results in a dramatically shorter throw, but it can still get the job done. It has only a 12" wide path, but its design makes it easily maneuverable; I even use it to clear my stairs. I pull this thing out anytime we get more than 2" of snow. I'm not sure I'd use it for a long 2-car driveway, but it might do the trick.

I guess this is a mini-review for the snow thrower attachment, but more importantly, it's a plug for considering TCO (total cost of ownership) when buying anything. It's not just a concept for businesses. More on this topic in the future...

Bookmarks Evolved

You have an extensive collection of bookmarks (or "favorites") in your browser for the sites that you visit. You become so accustomed to using them that you don't even know the URLs of some of the sites you enjoy. Then one day you're using another computer, and you feel lost. Your bookmarks aren't there, and you can't operate without them. What can you do?

This is the kind of problem people are encountering more and more as computing becomes a commodity. The idea of having one personal computer where you keep all of your data is becoming less tenable. You need some way of storing data so that no matter what computer you're using, your data is accessible. The answer is to store data on a server; the problem is, servers are mostly designed for businesses these days, and typically only geeks put time and money into having a server at home.

The good news is that for small needs like centrally storing your bookmarks, you can use servers on the Internet. For example, Google Bookmarks and Windows Live Favorites are two free services that allow you to store your bookmarks on an Internet server so you can access them from any Internet-connected computer. Neither service provides quite the same quickness and convenience of your browser's built-in Favorites or Bookmarks feature, but they offer important functionality that today's browsers can't deliver.

The Little Oven That Could

I too was once like you: helpless, hopeless--living life without a toaster oven. But those sad days are behind me now.

The toaster oven really is a great idea, particularly if you're cooking for only 1, 2, or 3 people at a time. Rather than heating up an entire oven, you can heat up a relatively tiny space for cooking your food. And if saving energy doesn't float your boat, consider this: some toaster ovens require no pre-heating. With my toaster oven, I can start cooking food the minute I turn it on--saving the 8-10 minutes of preheating over my full-size oven (and again, there is an additional opportunity for saving energy; I'm using the toaster oven 100% of the time that it's turned on).

For what it's worth, the toaster oven I ended up buying after doing lots of research is the Panasonic NB-G100P-S. (Incidentally, this is one of those product categories where the Consumer Reports ratings have absolutely no correlation to consumer ratings on Amazon.com, as I alluded to in an earlier post.) It has minor drawbacks, such as the odd temperature increments, but overall it's fantastic. The reviews on Amazon give you all the information you need.

Curious About the 'Ove' Glove? Me Too.

I thought I had graduated from mittens when I finished second grade. Although I understand that mittens are more appropriate than gloves if your main goal is warmth, I hold dexterity in higher regard that comfort. So I was quite distressed that for handling hot items in the kitchen--a situation in which dexterity is particularly desirable--, the mitten was the only heat abatement device available.

Then the 'Ove' Glove showed up, and the following transpired:

1. I thought, "it's about time."
2. I thought, "what an unfortunately irritating name."
3. I thought, "I want one"
4. I found out that it sells for $14.
5. I thought, "ouch."
6. I waited. (This is what I do when I want something and it costs too much. I may have no reason to believe that the price will go down, but if I wait long enough, I wear myself down. In this case, I waited about a year--maybe longer.)
7. The second-generation 'Ove' Glove was born. It now has silicone grips.
8. I bought one.

The 'Ove' Glove has two benefits over an oven mitt: 1) it's a glove, 2) it has high heat resistance since it's made out of Kevlar and Nomex by Dupont. Yes, they sound like a couple of Norsemen, but I assure you that the 'Ove' Glove is not made from burly Scandinavians.

The 'Ove' Glove does deliver, in that it allows excellent control while providing good protection against heat. I'm a cheapskate, and I still believe it's worth $14. However, I hope somebody makes a cheap knockoff.

Everything was going fine, but I felt I had to give this new item a more scientific test. So I turned on a burner on my electric stove, to the Medium setting. I allowed plenty of time for it to heat up. I held my outstretched hand about an inch above the burner for as long as I could stand it. I made it about 4 seconds.

Then I put the 'Ove' Glove on and tried the same thing. Things were going pretty well for a while. I couldn't feel much heat until about 15 seconds. Even at 30 seconds, I was quite comfortable. But around that 30-second mark, I saw smoke. That development was quite intriguing, and at this point, I decided that the test was concluded. From what I can tell, the silicone grips seem to have begun melting--just a little bit. Do with that information what you will. My guess is that if you refrain from senseless experiments, you'll be fine.

Amazon Price Alerts

Amazon.com sets the standard for online retailers, but it's not perfect. One feature that Amazon lacks is price alerts (NewEgg.com has this feature, as I suspect many other retailers do).

Let's say you're shopping for a particular item--a Black and Decker DCM18S Brew 'n Go Personal Coffeemaker, for instance--but you want to wait for the price to drop before buying. You could check Amazon's site every day while you wait for the price to drop. But if you have better things to do with your time, you could use one of these price alert services:

1. http://apricealert.com/ (recommended): This site is currently geared toward somebody who wants to take advantage of Amazon's 30-day price guarantee. (Apparently if a product's price drops within 30 days of your purchase, you can ask Amazon for a refund.) Enter an item number and your email address, and every time the price drops within 30 days of signing up, you'll get notified via email.
   The catches:


• The alerts work for only 30 days. I don't think the web site makes this clear, but the site's creator told me as much.


• You can't set a desired price. You may be waiting for the coffeemaker to reach $9.99 (which it has), but you'll get an email even if the price drops to $13.99. When I asked the site creator about this, he told me he would add the feature soon.


2. http://www.wishlistbuddy.com/: This site is geared toward the person who wants to be alerted when a particular item(s) reaches a particular price. Sounds promising, but there are a couple of catches that make this my second choice rather than my first:


• Alerts are available only for items on your default Amazon wish list, and the list has to be public. Those requirements are a pain, because your default public wish list should be just that--a wish list for your friends and family to use when buying gifts for you. I use other lists to "save" items I'm thinking about buying for myself or others, but I don't necessarily want those lists made public. I think this is an inherent flaw in wishlistbuddy's design.


• You can't cancel your account online. You have to contact the person running wishlistbuddy.com, and he'll cancel your account for you. Yes, the entire service is free, so I shouldn't be too hard on him; but it's not particularly difficult to program an "unsubscribe" feature of sorts. On the plus side, he emailed me back within just a few hours when I asked him some questions.

If/when the http://apricealert.com/ service adds a "target price" feature, we'll have a clear winner.

By the way, the coffeemaker mentioned in this post can potentially save money--particularly in a home where only one person drinks coffee. It makes only one cup at a time, meaning that it's faster than the average coffeemaker and cuts down on the amount of wasted coffee. It also comes with a permanent filter (no, it doesn't require the ludicrously expensive coffee pods; it uses a regular filter basket) and a stainless steel travel mug, so it's a bargain at its $10-18 price range.

How My Phone Helps Me Shop

I like to do much of my gift shopping online, but I still spend plenty of time in brick and mortar stores too. On a good day of gift shopping, I'll find several gift ideas--so many that I can't remember them all. Rather than carry around a piece of paper for writing down items and prices, I just take pictures with my camera phone. I try to get the price tag in the picture too; with one picture, I can have the item, its original price, and its sale price. Much of the time, you can tell a store by its price tags, so I kinda have the store name captured in the picture as well. When I go home, I have a picture album of gift ideas. I can show those ideas to my wife or whoever needs to see them.

My phone happens to be a Windows Mobile Smartphone, so I have other options as well. For example, I use a cool tool called ShopEdge--a free program that allows me to shop Amazon from my phone. Why is that so cool? Because I have access to prices and consumer reviews when I'm in the store. Let's say I see a coffee maker on sale for $50 at WalMart. Is $50 a deal that I shouldn't pass up? Is the coffee maker a good one, or is it junk? Having quick and easy access to that information is great. You may not have a Smartphone, but you may still be able to do some of this kind of research if you have Internet access on our phone. (You won't be able to use the cool ShopEdge tool though; that's designed for Windows Mobile.) Just be aware of the charges you'll incur under your current service plan.

Power Inverter: An Inexpensive Investment

Have you ever come up with an idea that is so stunningly simple, you're embarrassed that you didn't think about it before? This was one such idea for me. And the most embarrassing part is, it's not a breakthrough idea.

As a penny pincher careful spender, I carefully avoid getting ripped off. I spend so much time researching an electronic device, more time finding the best price for it, extra time looking for coupons and other discounts, and then I finally buy it. I did it. I won. Unlike the suckers out there, I refused to pad the wallet of the manufacturer and retailer. Good for me.

Two months later, when it's time to go on my vacation, the manufacturer and retailer scoff back at me: If you want to use this device when you're on a road trip, it will cost you $90 for a power adapter for your car. There's nothing you can do. Hahahahahaaaaa!!!

I'll conceded that some power adapters are actually reasonably priced. Some car chargers for cell phones can cost as little as $10--even less if you buy aftermarket products. But some of them easily approach $25, and this can add up when you upgrade your phone every 2 years. Laptop car adapters are much worse, costing easily $60-90.

What's a stingy frugal person to do? Buy a power inverter for your car. Spend the $30-60 to get a nice one that's got enough wattage to handle your laptop (avoid the inexpensive but underpowered tiny units unless you know you'll never need more than 150 watts or so). You can buy these at discount retailers (WalMart, Target), home centers (Menards), online (Amazon), and plenty of other places. They're easier to find than model-specific auto adapters for your electronics, and then all you need is the AC adapter that you use in your home. Don't be dissuaded even if you want to keep an AC adapter in your home and one in your car; the standard AC adapters are usually less expensive than their DC counterparts, so the inverter is still a bargain for most people with mobile electronics.

Cheap Comfort

As a man born and raised in Minnesota, I am supposed to embrace the cold. When I was in college in Wisconsin, one of my roomates liked sleeping with the windows open--during the winter. Somehow that was construed as manly rather than idiodic. Today, I prove that I am unworthy of such a rugged heritage because I admit...I have a heated blanket. And I love it.

Actually, the heated blanket has a purpose beyond compromising my masculinity. One purpose of the heated blanket was to serve as a gift for my wife, who loves her heated throw. (Take note, guys: a $30 heated throw makes a fantastic gift for your wife or girlfriend.) But another purpose was to save money. We live in a house without zoned climate control. If I want it to be, say, 68 degrees in our bedroom at night, I have to either heat the entire house to 68 degrees (which is a waste of money), or I have to get creative.

One option is to use a space heater. This is a perfectly fine option if it works for you, but we found that it wasn't working as well as we had hoped. So I decided to try a heated blanket, which--like the space heater--should theoretically let me turn the thermostat way down without compromising our comfort. We bought a Sunbeam dual-control unit, so we can each select the temperature we like. It costs $70 at WalMart.

We love the heated blanket; it does the job very well. It's a basic unit though, so it doesn't have automatic shut-off. No problem; I purchased a $5 outlet timer to cut the power at 7:15 am so we don't have to bother turning off the blanket in the morning.

But does it save money? Sunbeam claims that you can "Save up to 10% a year on your heating bills by turning on your Sunbeam Heated Blanket and setting your thermostat back by 10%-15% while sleeping." (That quote is from WalMart.com.) Well, I used my Kill-a-Watt unit (I'll probably dedicate another post to this gadget) to gauge the electricity usage last night, and 9 hours of continuous use at the lowest setting (on both sides of the blanket) cost 0.44 KWH, which equates to 4 cents at my current electricity rate. I suspect that dropping my thermostat level even 1 degree for the evening probably saves more than 4 cents in energy costs. I don't know how long it will take to pay for itself, but given the comfort level and the low operating cost, we're considering this a great investment.