Measure it to Save It !

Metering, one word that will be the buzz word in the next few years to come. In fact so much so that Google has enteres into the utility metering race to provide all of us with information that can help us save money as well as do our part for the environment.

I have spoken about this for sometime, Google has an ideal platform that can help it foray into the households of people, this looks like a right step in the right direction for google. Microsoft made it big, only once it entered homes of people; its now google's turn. Check out google's video for it.


In fact they have joined hands with GE to plug into the power grid.

I also highly suggest checking out the GE smart grid site as well here.

For those of you who are thinking wow this is a new initiative, well it isi'nt. Google is following footsteps of some of the great thinkers in the same industry. You can check out some of the leaders below

The Monetary benefit of Energy Saving

Like most things in this world, people only take notice of positive ideas when money is involved. One of the roles as a team leader in a marketing company is to be able to convince people to use technology (especially one that we are promoting) to enhance their everyday lifestyles. Off late we as a company have seen a big push from the European / American product manufacturers to move in the direction of possible “Green” solutions.

I believe that in the recession anything that will save you money is a good darn investment to make. Or should I say investing in something that will give you a return on investment as soon as possible. Well how does one quantify such a thing. I was talking to Allen this morning, and he mentioned that he wanted to know the usage of electricity of his existing incandescent bulbs to check if it is worth making the change to CFL considering the cost of CFL vs Incandescent which is almost twice, at least here in Dubai that is the case. I do know that the price difference would be more in India. So moving on, in typical Allen style he asks for information regarding the tariff of the electricity. I used our faithful Google and got him the info that he needed.

After about half an hour he messaged back “AED 25 saving per month, will get changing right away !!”. I said wow, that was really sweet and then when I spoke to him, he mentioned about how he had got it and made a calculator on excel for this. This sparked off an idea of using Google Documents to make the same in a online spreadsheet such that people use it to check out their own electricity usage and see the difference it is going to make to their lives. Well the calculations are pretty simple and can be shown below :

KWH Usage of the bulb = ( No of Bulbs x No of hours they are used x wattage of the bulbs x no of days in the month ) / 1000

The electricity bill = KWH usage x Cost per kWh

Replacing the wattage of the incandescent bulb with the CFL (13W) will show a significant saving. As an example Allen has 15 Incandescent bulbs of 60 W and with 7 hours usage for 30 days the electricity bill with only the Bulbs at a fee of 24 fills per kWh gives AED 45/- as the bill. Consider the same with a 13 W CFL the bill is AED 9 /- a direct saving of about AED 35 or close or USD 10 per month.

Now that makes economic sense to change.

The Google Spreadsheet document is viewable at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pIdcGlHXjKDBV2cXz0QK0QQ

Published on Apr 6, 2009 12:25:58 PM GMT+04:00

India vs India – the battle continues.

A while back I cited a small ad made on the independence day celebration that featured the Big B himself here. And the hidden meaning of that saying was to clearly and surely show the India that was willing to give support but asked “Proof” of growth, to the “India” that wanted support to prove growth. And until this dilemma was solved we would never have a prosperous government, either just, secular, economically stable or anything positive.

The election is just shaping up as another place where something like this is beginning to show up. There are good intentions within non political entities that are trying to get India to leave behind all that is happened and try to make a change for the better of the country like the awesome campaign from Times of India i.e Lead India ’09 campaign which is really noteworthy in their approach trying to bring about changes like anti corruption, no criminals as leaders etc. And on the other hand you do have agencies like “Bleed India” which are discouraging people from voting because of all the bad that is happened in the past from the leaders.

The Lead India campaign has taken note of this as well and have put up this on their website

We know systems are corrupt. We know many politicians are too. But where is the solution. It is always easier to criticise than create. Their website has the potential to keep the young and tech-savvy glued to their screens. Be it the games or the ring tones, the fun quotient tickles the senses of all and sundry but we feel a more serious approach would have served them better. One grudgingly admires their creativity and innovation.


Like everything in our country, there is a constant battle between the India that was and the India that aspires to be. We know we have made a lot of mistakes in our past the partition, relisious divide in the country,

You can visit the sites here to see more about their campaign. Let me know what you think is the correct opinion because it’s us who will shape up the future of the country.

Lead India '09 - BY Times of India

Bleed India Campaign

20 marvels of modern engineering

Well this has been a topic of discussion over the internet for sometime now and various people have their different top 20. Thinking about it, I have also compiled a list of 20, well most of them were from standard off the shelf lists that were available but then I tried to weigh between them to see if they really are the 20 engineering marvels of modern times.

This list here features only the construction sector. I have also included the Airbus A380 in the same list as I thought this was an apt thing to do.

Lets see, I also made a presentation with the same and added the information on Slideshare.net. You can see the presentation there on slide share at the following link address here Or you can see it right her on this blog down below



I would like to congratulate and give my respects to all engineers world wide with this post.

Slideshare Rockstar !

Well, this is something interesting that happened today, I received a mail from the Slideshare team and they actually sent me complimenting that I am a slideshare rockstar. Check out the mail below ...


Hi misterjester,

We've noticed that your slideshows on SlideShare has been getting a LOT of views in the last 24 hours. Great job ... you must be doing something right. ;-)

Why don't you tweet or blog this? Use the hashtag #bestofslideshare so we can track the conversation.

Congratulations,
-SlideShare Team



So I am actually blogging this ! lol ... well on a serious note I have learned a lot from the presentations on slideshare.net. And i think that there is an awesome requirement for more sites like this which allow people to freely publish and exchange everything from their knowledge to personal opinions. And whats more this one is some amazing presentations approach.

I have put up 8 presentations and am finishing my 9th to upload on slideshare. You can see these presentations on

http://www.slideshare.net/misterjester/slideshows

The Letter 'M'

I got this on face book, and think that this should be fun to do, so I am adding it here as well.

Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up (things you actually like beginning with that letter)!
If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question. and tag me too cause i wana know the answers cause i wana know toooooooo


1. What is your name : Melvin

2. A four Letter Word : Mast !!!!!

3. A boy's Name : Marlon

4. A girl's Name : Michelle !

5. An occupation : Money Making (Dont we all want to do that !! )

6. A color : Maroon

7. Something you'll wear : Muffler!

9. A food : Makhan Chicken or butter chicken quite literally !!!!

10. Something found in the bathroom: Mirror

11. A place : Mangalore

12. A reason for being late : Mangled hair (that could happen)

13. Something you'd shout : Moron !!

14. A movie title : Munna Bhai MBBS

15. Something you drink : Milk

16. A musical group : Maroon 5

17. An animal : Monkey

18. A street name : M G Road

19. A type of car : Magna

20. The title of a song : My heart will go on !! cheezy but thats what i could think of

21. T.V. show : MASH

22. A dessert : Malai Kulfi .. OOh like that one !

23. Something found in the kitchen : Me

24. Book : Marley & Me

25. Designer: Mango

Hmm ... tat was not too difficult!!!!!

Slideshare

I have found an interesting site where I am looking at power point presentations and adding a few of my own.

The site gave me an entirely new thinking on how presentations should be and also on how we dont usually pay attention to things like presentations.

Well here are a few that I have added to Slideshare.