Sungevity Install

New Solar Panels installed

Yesterday Sungevity installed solar panels at our house. Last week they informed us that they were ready to do the installation since the town permit was completed and the panels were ready.

There were four installers that came around 8:30 am, and they actually finished the job by 4pm. A few additional people stopped by to help, including another person to install panels and an electrician.

They did an awesome job and was able to do the entire job in a day. Sungevity originally told us that it was going to take a couple of days to get it done. I am thinking that if we had a bigger house, or harder to reach roof, it would have been a longer installation process.

Some tips that I gathered from their visit:

• Make sure there's plenty of room for the workers in the basement. If you have a lot of things that are around the patch panel you should clear it away.
• We needed to move both our cars out of the driveway so that they could park their vans as close to the house as possible.
• If it's a hot day, have some cold water available for the workers.
• The team that did our house didn't have any power splitters so they could charge some of their tools. I have to use an outdoor power splitter to help them out.
• The electrician needed to cut the power for about a half-hour. Since we were working from home, it made it tricky to stay online, we ended up using the hotspot capabilities on our iPhones. They did give us plenty of warning on when the power was going to be shut off.
• There's going to be a lot of noise. The workers on the roof, as well as those working around the patch panel will be loud. If your working from home, avoid having any important conference calls.
• We ended up locking our cats in the guest room since the workers need to have a window open in the basement.
• I took lots of pictures of them doing the work, but not a lot of before pictures. (Seriously how many people take pictures of their roof?) It's not a bad idea to take some before pictures so you know what the house looked like before.
• Sungevity installs a small box next to the electric box in the front of the house, or where ever your electric meter is. There's another two boxes that get attached to the house just below the panels.
• We got a visit from the Sungevity sales team encouraging us to let our friends know how much we liked the installation process.
• We left the workers alone most of the time. When they arrived they just needed to know how to get access to the basement and to our backyard. They didn't need anything else from us, other than where the bathroom was.

If you have any questions about using Sungevity or any solar panels. I am happy to talk about our experience and answer any questions that you may have. Feel free to leave your phone number on the feedback form and we'll give you a call back.

My Lucky Penny

In April, I found a 1935 penny in my pocket full of change. This got me thinking a bit about how long the penny has been in circulation. The World has changed a lot since the penny was minted. In fact, most people that read this website blog weren't even born when the penny was minted.

Some facts I found about this 80 year old penny journey:

• Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States in 1935
 
• The United States was in the middle of the Great Depression.
• Average Cost of new house $6,510.00
• Average wages per year $1,650.00
• New Car Average Price $610.00 
• A loaf of Bread cost 7 cents
• 24% of the population was unemployed.
• Airplanes are no longer permitted to fly over the White House
• Bank of Canada opens
  
• Black Sunday: The worst sandstorm ravages US midwest (creates the Dust Bowl)
  
• US Congress accepts FDR's "New Deal"

I don't know how I got this penny, as I just happen to look into my jacket pocket one day and noticed a penny that had the wheat symbol on it. I knew instantly that it had to be a special penny. I know it isn't worth much since it has been in circulation and I checked eBay and found that I could buy a dozen 1935 pennies for about $10.

So where is my lucky penny now? I now carry the penny in my FitBit belt clip. I don't want to accidentally spend or loose the penny. I feel that I am lucky that I took the time to look at the change I had in my pocket and notice

Why don't you check your pocket/coin basket and see what treasures you might find.

Kindle Fire HD 7 review

Over the past few months I have been using a Kindle Fire HD 7 on my commute to and from Boston. This replaced my older Amazon Kindle Touch which I have been using off and on for two years.

The purpose of having a Kindle was to make it easy to read books on the train. Paper books were fine until I wanted to read bigger books and it didn't make sense carrying heavy books on my daily commute.

My new Kindle is very practical and allows me to not only read the latest books but with the Internet access on the MBTA I can do some Internet surfing too. I have found other Applications to be useful too.

The TED application allows me to download TED videos that I can watch on the train. The app has a cool functionality to pick random clip based on the time you have and the category your interested in.

Using EverNote, I can browse the Internet on my home computer and send interesting documents to my Evernote account. Just before I leave for the train I sync my Evernote on my Kindle to get the documents. I have a Premium account and that lets me download the full content of a notebook to my Kindle. So I don't have to be online to read the content. Which is good because Internet access in Wellesley is pretty bad.

The best thing about the Kindle is that I don't need to be tied into buying and reading books from the Amazon bookstore. I can easily read PDF documents - which was nearly impossible on the Kindle Touch. In addition, there are plenty of places online where I can get free books.

Having the Kindle HD 7 is a great education tool. I now take full advantage of my morning commute time to learn about different thing. The Kindle fits perfectly in the front slot of my Swiss Gear Backpack, so I can quickly get to it once I find a seat on the train.

Some of you know that I am a huge Macintosh fan. Why am I not using a iMac Mini? The Kindle Fire HD 7 is much better overall solution to use and it meets the simple needs for my daily commute. In the past 5 months that I have used my Kindle, I have not encountered any technical issues. It would be nice to have all the same Apps that I have on my phone, but having a Kindle allows me to stay focus.

So if your one of the thousands of MBTA Commuter Rail commuters traveling to Boston everyday and using your phone on your commute, check out the Kindle HD 7. I think it will make your commute a lot more productive.

Google+ Image Collection

Google+ unlimited uploads is great! The problem is that you may not know if the computer Auto Backup feature is working. One way to check this, if your not at the computer where Auto Backup is being run, is to check the Google+ image stats. You can find this information if you check out Google+ Account dashboard:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/2/dashboard

This page will display all sorts of stats about your Google account, including how many email messages you have in Gmail. Scroll down a bit to see the basic information on your Google+ Photos.

If you click on the word 'Google Photos' you'll see more details about your photo collection on Google+. This is a very useful page! For some odd reason, Google makes it hard to find. There's also good information on Gmail and other Google settings.

MyLife Email

According to MyLife, Hailey from Puyallup, WA and a Female from Sacramento CA has been searching for me. I don't know anyone Puyallup, WA or Sacramento. I am thinking this is a marketing ploy by MyLife to sign up for their service and protect my privacy.

I signed up for the profile on MyLife using a weird fictional name in a very small town in Massachusetts and it's amazing how many people all of a sudden are looking for that particular person.

Photo Voting Poll

Here are some simple steps on how to setup a voting platform on Flickr so that people can vote for their favorite photos. This is useful if you took a bunch of photos at a company event and want people to vote for the best photo.

• Create a Group in Flickr
• Upload as many photos as you want in the Flickr Group.
• Have people join the Group
• Vote for as many as you like by clicking on the star marked ?favorite? that appears above the lefthand corner of each photo.

CashCall

The worst financial move you can make is to get a loan from CashCall, Inc. At the end of the loan cycle, you'll be paying back a lot more to CashCall than using any other financial option.

Some examples: A $2,500 personal loan at 139.13% Max APR will have cost you $13,839.62 at the end of all your payments! Taking their offer for a Mortage loan? That $50,000 loan to update your kitchen will cost you $330,505.20 at the end of the 180 monthly payments. You'll never make up that amount in house appreciation.

Founded in 2003, CashCall, Inc. is one of the nation's premier lenders. Headquartered in Orange, California, the company employs leading-edge lending professionals, each dedicated to providing exceptional customer service. CashCall simplifies the loan process with innovative technologies to make the process faster, smarter and hassle-free.

CashCall personal loans, CashCall small business loans and CashCall mortgage loans are divisions of CashCall, Inc., each offering a variety of services depending on the applicant's credit score and needs.

If you really need a loan that bad, you should talk to a banker or consider taking a second job for a while. There's no way that taking a Max APR of 139% should even be considered an option.

UPS CMS Processing Fee

If you recently have sent any package via the UPS store, look at your receipt carefully. On it you'll see a line item for .20 cent for "CMS Processing Fee."

A quick search around the Internet shows that the fee is for using the iShip product.

The services give corporations, like UPS, Shipping Insight to make the smartest shipping decisions. Employees in any location can price, ship, track and manage important shipments over the Internet through easy-to-access iShip hosted applications. Managers and Administrators also have complete control and visibility into shipping throughout the enterprise and are able to define shipping procedures, approve carriers and rates, and set shipping rules.

Basically the UPS Store is charging you to find the cheapest way to send and track your package. There is a PDF document from flemingareaoffice.com that briefly talks about the fee impact.

Google AdWords Graphic

Google Adwords should update the default graphic on the Adwords login page. It's been the same graphic for at least a year. (I recall it got changed just before the Enhanced Campaigns came out last year.)

War Room Graphic

I modified the above graphic for a War Room that my company was setting up for some software engineers. This is perfect logo to put on a door of a conference room that your using for a War Room.

Click on the image for a 1280 x 1024 printable version, perfect for an 11 x 17 printout. I would recommend printing it on heavy card stock so that you can reuse the sign over again.