Posts Tagged ‘Home’

Hohm Sweet Home – Analyze Energy Costs and Save

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

If I told you that I could give you detailed instructions on how to save $1,000 or more per year, would it be worth an hour of your time?  No, this is not a pitch to get you trapped in a room with time-share vultures.  This is legitimate information on saving money on your energy consumption and it is 100% FREE!  That’s right, thanks to a BETA service from Micorsoft called Hohm, you can begin analyzing your energy consumption and saving money almost immediately.  All you have to do is invest the time and supply Hohm with the necessary information about you residence and past consumption.

Before you jump in and begin entering information, lets take a look at this service.  According to the press release issued by Microsoft (June, 2009), Hohm is a “new online application that enables consumers to better understand their energy usage, get recommendations and start saving money.”  Recommendations are tailored to the individual home, based on house features, usage patterns and appliance information provided by the user.  As a user, you can also compare your usage to neighbors and gain access to the community of participants online to share ideas and compare savings.

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FollowFriday – Friday April 23, 2010 – ORGANIZATION

Friday, April 23rd, 2010
FollowFriday : On any given Friday, thousands upon thousands (maybe even millions) of Twitter users enter the hashtag #FollowFriday (or #FF), followed by one or more “mentions.” The idea is for users to share the names of other “interesting people” that they follow and think you should too. These recommendations serve as positive comment cards for the digitally inclined.

JumpstartMyPC.com has decided to bring FollowFriday to our blog. Read on and, if you are so inclined, add these “interesting people” to your own list.

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With Location-Aware, Thieves Know When to Move In

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

With all of the social networking tools available today, it is easy to get wrapped up in the fun of it all and forget about the basic rules of life.  One of the biggies – Don’t announce to the world that you are not home.  Unfortunately, people are happily volunteering this information (along with plenty of other personal tidbits) to the entire world without understanding the potential dangers of doing so.  Social media sites/tools are making it increasingly easier for thieves to track your moves and know when you are not home.  A great new site PleaseRobMe.com pokes a bit of fun at the phenomenon and aims to educate the masses by showing what NOT to do.

“Listing all those empty homes out there” is the tagline for PleaseRobMe.com and categories like “Recent Empty Homes” are used to demonstrate the dangers of location-aware services.  Location-aware services is a broad term that basically means any software, device or site that allows you to share your current geographical location with others.  There are a lot of advantages to sharing your location (mostly social) but users should understand the dangers associated with broadcasting your whereabouts.  Mainly, telling people you are at point X means you are not at home, thus making your home a target for thieves.

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