Tony's Place

I always hated printing confirmation pages from web sites. Printing a piece of paper that’ll end up in the recycle bin in a few weeks is just silly. There are also times that I’m not connected to a printer and I really need to save a copy of something I’m viewing.

My answer for the past few years has been PDFCreator, install it and whenever you print, you can print to a pdf file instead of a printer. This month alone I think I’ve printed one paper page from my printer and about 90 pages to PDF form.

I also used PDF creator to email proof pages for our daughter’s yearbook to teachers. In the past printouts would be made for each teacher, they would mark them up and send them back. I’ve easily saved a ream of paper this year by doing this via email. Not to mention its easier to manage email than paper.

Once installed, just use it like a printer. It will show up as a printer in the print dialog.

From there it will ask you for a title and then a name for your pdf. If you want to make a hardcopy later you can just print the pdf file you created.

Electric clothes dryers are not an efficient way to heat your home, but if you’re using it anyway, you might as well use that heat to warm and humidify your home in the winter. Not only is your dryer heating air and sending it outside, it is constantly pulling warm air out of your house when it is running. What is coming into your house is cold dry air to replace the air the dryer is expelling. There is also the issue of air coming into your dryer vent when the dryer isn’t running. If your outside vent cap doesn’t seal well this can make your laundry room very drafty.

Here’s what I do every fall to help warm my home, increase humidity and lower drafts in my laundry room.

1) I disconnect my dryer hose from the outside and stuff the hole with plastic grocery bags. These make great insulation, just don’t forget to take them out in the spring when you reconnect.
2) I connect a longer dryer hose to my dryer and run it to a lint trap. Try to get the trap as far as possible from the dryer as you want the humid air to dissipate. Depending on your existing setup you may be able to use your existing hose.

Here is my lint trap. Under the sink, next to the washer

Here is the dryer hose running from my dryer and past the washer.

Since I have kids we do a lot of laundry, which in turn results in me never having static electricity issues in the winter as my home is never too dry. These lint traps are pretty common. If you Google “lint trap” you’ll find plenty of places selling them. They are filled with water and they catch most of the lint. Warning, If you let the trap run dry you’ll end up with a linty home.

I know some people use nylon stockings over the end of the hose instead of a trap but if you didn’t clean it often you could damage your dryer or cause a fire. I also have friends who have created larger boxes to capture more lint. Please leave comments or other ideas below.

Warning #1: Only do this in the winter months as you may end up with a mildew problem from excessive humidity and this will work against your air conditioning. We want to expel heat in the summer. Also, the dryer will not be able to dry clothes as fast if it is pulling in excessively humid air. I find this to be a non-issue in the winter because the humid exhaust is quickly evaporated into the relatively dry house air. The further you can get the lint trap from the dryer the better.

Warning #2: Don’t do this if you have a natural gas dryer.  You must vent this outside to prevent carbon monoxide buildup in your home.

Warning #3: If you use fabric softeners or home dry clean kits you should probably not do this as you may end up with unhealthy air.

i find that switching over from internal to external venting gives me an excuse to clean lint out of the lines and dryer twice a year. When was the last time you cleaned your vent hose?

Up until a few months ago, all of my bedroom ceiling fans used Compact Florescent bulbs (CFLs). Back in October I bought a Hampton Bay Ceiling fan for Dani’s room and when I installed the light fixture I noticed it had a different socket type. It used Intermediate base bulbs (also known as E17). These bulbs are rare and there is no CFL option. So I went back to Home Depot and sure enough all the manufacturers were starting to use these things. The Home Depot guy suspected it was a conspiracy between the ceiling fan companies and the bulb manufacturer. There is only a single brand of intermediate base bulbs at Home Depot so this made a little sense. They also cost as much as a CFL!
I had no desire to use these bulbs so I started looking into converting my base to use the standard medium base socket. I saw a medium base for a ceiling fan display model at Home Depot but they wouldn’t sell it to me and it was no longer going to be carried. The plot thickened. So I looked on the Lowes website and I found a medium base socket that I figured I could retrofit onto my base. While I was looking for the item at Lowes, I asked a representative of one of the lighting companies (who was restocking) about the intermediate bases and he said it was all part of the 2007 Energy Bill. Huh? How can using a base that doesn’t support CFLs be part of an energy bill? I googled around and it appears this was a loophole to get around the Bill. The bill required ceiling fan manufacturers to ship with CFLs, UNLESS they used candelabra or intermediate base bulbs.

Bastards.

Here is the conversion that I did tonight in about 15 minutes.

DISCLAIMER: Please do no do this unless you are experienced with electrical wiring. Follow these steps at your own risk. There may be typos so use common sense if you do this.

1) Unscrew the existing sockets and cut the wires. Keep track of the original wiring. Save the screws.

2) Remove the mount from the Lowes socket and attach it to the base with the screw from the intermediate base. Twist and bend to get it as close to center.
3) You’ll need to strip the existing wires that were not part of the intermediate bases.
4) Combine your whites and blacks and attach with a twist on electrical wire connector.

5) Reinstall

Since these sockets are bigger I needed to bend the socket a little before the light covers fit but overall the fixture looks great.

Pictures. yeah close ups are out of focus but hopefully helpful.
This is the bottom of the intermediate bulb base. poor focus. This is where you will find the screw to remove it.

Here is how the medium base (lleft) compares to the intermediate base (right).

The new base had 2 screws. I removed them and used the screw from the intermediate base since I knew it fit the fixture.

Old Wiring.

New Wiring

And now I have CFL joy.

I was happy to see that the minivan was no longer parked in my yard when I returned home tonight. There is damage to my lawn but fortunately no oil. I put the grass back but its so dry this year I doubt it has a chance or re-rooting.

From this picture I took it looks like the driver might have lost the front wheel before running into my yard. Note the scrape marks on the road.

This morning as I left for work I noticed a minivan had crashed into my yard. The left front wheel sheered off when it hit the curb and the occupants left as the minivan was no longer functional. I would guess the driver was under the influence of something.

With my string of bad luck lately I might as well focus on the good positive items here.

1. The van missed the telephone pole by a foot or so. If it hit it, I would have lost power, cable, phone, etc
2. The van missed my car. Having just put new tires and pipes on it I guess this is a good thing.

Of course being the pessimist here are the negatives that will probably happen today

1. The oil pan (if not already cracked) will crack when the tow truck drags the van out leaving me with an oil spill in my yard
2. The process of dragging the van will do damage to my lawn (if the oil doesn’t)

I’ll put up pictures tomorrow. The van had “pimp my ride” written on the hood in black tape and a “Dead Kennedys” symbol made of tape on the side. Classic.

Was it just a coincidence that I was wearing an AIM mail “Pretty Vacant” t-shirt as I left?

People who know me know I can’t stand general motors cars. In college I got a GM Card and I ended putting my mom on the account so she could use my points towards a GM car.

I don’t claim to know anything about design but I find cars like the Aztec hideous. Also quality of GM cars has been historically low. But as my 1996 VW GTI ages I’ve decided I really need to start looking for a new car.

What do I want? A light all-electric car. Sorry, I don’t want to spend $100,000 on a telsa. I don’t think an affordable all-electric will be available before I need to stop putting money into the GTI.
Compromise? A small and sporty clean diesel. (torque is more important in urban areas than horsepower). Oh wait. Car companies think Americans don’t want diesels.

So that leaves me with a small sporty car that runs on gas. I don’t want a hybrid. Maintaining and carrying 2 drive systems seems wasteful to me.

How about another GTI? No way. I love the car but after 11+ years I need something different. Cooper? Tempting but its soooo small. I really like hatchbacks.

I noticed that GM is bringing the Opel Astra to the States this year under the Saturn nameplate. They are throwing out the diesel option but it still looks nice. It looks a lot like the Dodge Caliber but a little better. Chrysler has great designers but I think the blew it with the Caliber. I think the issue is that they try to use designs that work well on big cars on the compacts and it just doesn’t translate.

Maybe I’ll just have someone bring me an Opel Astra Diesel from Europe. I think this rant is done.

Its been so dry this summer that I saw my 1st Asian Tiger Mosquito last night. Last year I suspect they were out by May. These things are much faster than normal mosquitoes and they are sneaky too. They seem to intentionally stay out of your line of sight.

The Maryland page about these mosquitoes does not mention Montgomery County but I have seen them for at least 2 years now.

http://www.mda.state.md.us/plants-pests/mosquito_control/_asian_tiger_mosquito_md.php

I’m under the impression that ceiling fans in an air conditioned house in the summer will actually raise your cooling bill.

In all cases your taking hot air off the ceiling and mixing it with the cooler air below. Now instead of having 90 degree heat next to your 120 degree attic you are putting cooler air up there. This higher differential means that more heat is going to move from the attic to your living space.

So skip the fan and keep the heat on the ceiling where it belongs.

Also. I find that people obsess over the direction of their fan rotation but it makes almost no difference. “I’m pulling the cold air off the floor” they’ll say. Yeah right. Your circulating the air in the room resulting in a fairly even temperature. Direction doesn’t change the end result much. The only difference is if you want to feel the breeze.

With Earth Day approaching I figured I would share something I have been doing recently. A few times a day I goto all the coffee machines near my work cube and steal the used coffee grounds. I’m not really stealing them since they are heading for the trash. I’m rescuing them! They make good fertilizer and compost. I take about 1 lb of grounds home each day for composting and fertilizing. I use the Tupperware I brought my lunch to work in. You don’t want to put them in anything that may spill in your car.

Recently we all received some Goody cans at work with various stuff in them. I think people have been throwing them out. I’ve been snagging unwanted cans, filling them with coffee grounds and planting stuff in them. Every little bit helps. I need to take a picture of one of my creations and put it here.