Gardening

Another garden update

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The garden’s doing well – a quick produce update:

  • All our Lapland potatoes have sprouted and will get buried under another layer of soil and manure compost this week
  • Our cucumber plants are flowering!
  • We’ve germinated a couple of yellow courgette plants, which will go in soon
  • Our chilli seeds aren’t coming up yet, but we’re still vaguely hopeful
  • We’ve planted aubergine in the greenhouse, and strawberries in the strawberry pot – both shop bought rather than from seed
  • Carrot seeds have gone in the ground – no joy as yet
  • We’ve relocated the rhubarb as it was too shaded where it was. It’s struggling to thrive.
  • The other courgette plant is coming along
  • The potatoes in the planter are growing like crazy!
  • The tomatoes are getting tall, but no flowers as yet
  • Tonnes of nascent blueberries, apples and plums on those trees
  • The olive tree is growing but not fruiting as yet

We’ve got another batch of seeds that need to go in and I have to patch and plant some new grass to help the garden recover from the Fiskars session, but on the whole its really all coming together nicely.

Technology

Are rechargeable batteries worth the money?

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DIY Light Tent

I should probably have done this before I bought the rechargeables, but here’s some quick maths working out the ROI on some rechargeable batteries – are they worth investing in for your house?

8 batteries and charger  cost £17 – thanks Duracell / Amazon.

1 pack of four regular batteries costs, let’s say, £1.50 and I’d use one per month (principally in a baby monitor!).

Let’s say I have to recharge twice as often as I’d replace the batteries – twice a month – and that they would last for two years, after which I’d have to spend another £9 on fresh batteries. So let’s work out the total cost of ownership over 2 years for a comparison.

How much does it cost to charge the batteries? Well, this site gives me the maths. I can’t find specific power usage for my charger  but let’s assume its the same and do the maths on that basis.

First, EON’s local electricity cost for my postcode is about 23.3p per kwh. Actually, it’s slightly less as I get direct debit and dual fuel discounts of around 8%, but let’s call it that.

Then – I apply the maths – 9 hour charge * 300ma * 12v = 32.4 watt hours (from the Protog website above)

32.4 / 1000 * 23p = 0.74p

x2 (as assume 50% efficiency) = 1.49p per charge

In two years, that would be 52 charges minimum = around 77p.

TCO in two years of the charger, batteries and charging – £17.77. And assuming the charger lasts longer… the next two years would cost approx £9.77. Of course, I’m not modelling for energy price increases (folly!).

Buying the 24x packs of 4 AA batteries I’d otherwise need? Around £30 at least, if I buy in bulk, and more if you go on the £1.50 per pack price. So it’s about 100% cheaper to buy rechargeables (not to mention environmental impact, other types of batteries and devices etc).

In summary – good household ROI!

I’m not sure about all my assumptions, though – is the assumption of rechargeable battery life fair? Is the assumption of 48 recharges reasonable before performance degradation kicks in? Is the assumption on charging costs accurate? Is the assumption of the power capacity right, such that they’ll last us a couple of weeks of typical usage?

Interesting exercise – much as I’d like it if all consumerism could be evaluated for returns, I can already hear my wife making her geek noise at me….

Technology

Should I wait for an iPhone 5 to renew my contract?

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iPhone 5 PreviewNo! Renew your contract now if you’re out of the contract term! Negotiate a rate on your tariff equivalent to the iPhone subsidy you were hoping for – and start it now so you can work off some of those tediously long contracts ahead of the phone’s release.

Then, when you buy an iPhone5 outright whenever they come out, you’ll already be achieving the savings you needed to afford it via your mobile tariff reduction, and you’ll be ‘locked in’ for a shorter period.

Inspired?? I think so! Would try it myself, but am tempted by the ludicrously cheap monthly rolling 3 SIM only iPhone tariff – at £15 a month for enough minutes, 1GB internet access and 3000 text messages, I’m unlikely to top it irrespective of my negotiations with O2, especially now they think they’re the top mobile broadband provider in the UK… Just need to do the maths on the subsidy…

Food

A real barbeque…

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Weber family
Weber family, complete with pig

In Denmark, in addition to banning marmite (!!!), they seem to be pretty passionate about barbecuing – at least as far as Amanda’s family is a benchmark.

However, there – as in here – the hugely convenient gas barbeque is looked on as something of a second class citizen. An important part of the BBQ-ing game, to be sure, but definitely not the preference if time and weather allows.

And so when they want to ‘grill’ proper, they get out the charcoal Weber – the kettle BBQ’s so popular there (and here) practically synonymous with excellence in barbecuing. And after three years with a gas Weber, I finally bit the bullet and got a proper kettle one.

It gets trialled soon, weather permitting. My little Weber family is growing.

Food

Innocent smoothie sugar content – not so innocent?

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Innocent Smoothie!!Damian was round the other day, and with his tired hat on (as much as his business journalist hat) he was commenting on the sugar content of an Innocent smoothie. He referred to it as a great ‘sugar hit’ — which didn’t feel right to me, not when compared with the sugary soft drinks I’ve made a cursory study of. After all, there’s a heckuva lot of sugar in a can of coke.

So I looked into it.

By my estimations – natural sugars or otherwise – there is the equivalent of a can of coke’s sugar in the same volume of strawberry and banana smoothie – around 8 teaspoons. Of course the smoothie bottle is marginally smaller than a coke can – but it’s still pretty high! Innocent describes this as:

The amount of sugars in a 250ml serving of our smoothies averages at 29g or a third of your daily requirement. Or, put more simply, the same amount of sugars that you’d find in a banana and another portion of fruit (which makes sense, as smoothies are two of your 5-a-day portions).

Which makes it sound much better, but this is one of those things we in the trade call ‘positioning’. Not sure it helps that much here, or if there’s anything they can do about it given that they pulp fruit straight into the bottle (apparently).

So chalk this one up to one of those occasions when Damo is bang on about something, and take a care when next you hit up Innocent for a smoothie. Those things are sugar-tastic, and probably not great for diabetics.

Shopping

Amazon packaging – the environment is overrated

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Amazon packaging with tiny productStraight up – let me tell you – I love Amazon Prime. I’ve been a customer for years and the convenience that £50 a year or so gives you is phenomenal – next day delivery on EVERYTHING they sell themselves. Amazing.

And often I’ve been impressed at the ‘limited wrapping’ options available on some products – where they’ll tape a USB key to the inside of an envelope or something before they post it to you. Great stuff there, guys.

But something went wrong this weekend. I ordered a ‘food umbrella’ – one of those things you put over the fruit bowl when the weather gets warmer to keep the flies out. At £2.25, it was not an expensive purchase, and as a folded up piece of lace doily, essentially, it wasn’t heavy or bulky.

So I was a little surprised at the box (pictured). Not sure what in Amazon’s P&P system went wrong there but  we were couriered a box that you could probably have squeezed about 100 of the umbrellas into – in which sat a single, solitary, lonely food umbrella.

D’oh! I’m suddenly curious as to whether this was an automated error or if someone actually went to the time and trouble to package that in there. I think I’ll ask Amazon UK on Twitter and will keep you posted! I’ve also submitted the picture via Amazon’s packaging feedback website – hopefully help make the service that little bit better!

Technology

A week with the HTC Sensation

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HTC Sensation: A1 bringt erstes Dual Core Smartphone von HTC =A week after giving up on the the Blackberry Torch as a clunky not-quite-there-phone, my brother-in-law has given up on the dual-core Android 2.3 megadevice, the HTC Sensation. He much preferred it to the Torch, but, as I suspected it might, the iPhone has ruined him for even marginally less intuitive mobile devices, and the freedom of choice on how to customise the platform was more than he wanted. His thoughts below; which chime neatly with my own thoughts on the Android platform. Powerful, but not ready yet.

Bil’s review:

So, the htc phone…. Well, perhaps the reason I’m writing this note on the iPhone probably says it all……!

Sure the bigger screen, amazing camera & great graphics will win you over, plus the speaker phone is also strong but as an everyday practical device there are still too many minor flaws. Writing a simple note, a reminder, a calendar entry all involve too much ‘faff’. It’s just slightly tedious, your thumb precision is really tested (ok, sure you can rotate the phone for a wider grasp but that requires readjustment and hassle). Perhaps the htc is overengineered? Flexible gingerbread platforms and custom home pages allow you to create and personalise the phone to fit your preference. Fine. But then what?? If it doesn’t do what you want it to do what good is a sexy layout?

iPhone 5 or whatever it’s going to be labelled, will bring something new to the Market…. again, so i’ve decided go reacquaint myself with the iPhone platform ahead of what’s round the corner.

So, here’s to Apple and their product, it’s good in all areas rather than being spectacular in some and letting itself down in others…..

Sent from my APPLE mobile device

Dadblogging, Media & Marketing, Miscellany, Social media

Baby social media management services

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Chris (and Tom and Damian) came to visit this weekend, and as is inevitable when {heavy irony} social media gurus {/heavy irony} come together, we brainstormed new business concepts.

Well, maybe not entirely new, but ‘Baby Social Media Management’ seemed a concept worth exploring, so we checked if http://emi.ly was available (it wasn’t, already registered to some doting Bavarian dad, apparently) and considered other stratagems for maximising my 7-month-old daughter’s social graph. Knowem seems particularly well named for my daughter’s use…

As part of this discussion, Chris pointed me at this case study – which, needless to say, is dynamic, interactive, synergistic, integrated social media success.

Pink pony integrated marketing campaign ftw
Technology

Should I buy an iPad 2 for my commute?

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This isn’t something I’m considering, needless to say, but a question I was asked by an old friend, who predominantly uses Google Apps to run his own business. The short answer is – no if you plan to work on your commute, yes if you plan to play. This is what I told him in more detail:

I have an iPad and I do like it, but I recently switched to a Macbook Air for working on the train (plus 3G card). It’s not the most elegant solution but there’s a few reasons why it made sense for me.

1) Any substantial typing on the iPad is mediocre at best. It’s accurate as you could hope for a touchscreen but you just get tired tapping into a smallish screen if you use a full-size keyboard the rest of the time. You can fix this with a (pricey) keyboard accessory, but this diminishes the elegance and portability of the iPad.

2) File conversion and ‘offline access’ to documents is patchy on Google Docs (not sure there’s an easy way to make it work), and conversion of other people’s docs (Spreadsheets and PPT especially) is generally awful. Depends on the app you use, but there it is.

And why the Macbook is better, although still not perfect.

1) Offline access – quick to get started with offline apps for drafting stuff if 3G is patchy – I use Evernote as well as the more traditional offline productivity tools to draft stuff

2) Full keyboard!

3) Good battery life

Cons

1) No built-in sim card slot

2) Expensive

3) Slightly more clunky (although an 11" Macbook air is still pretty sleek)

Overall, though, if you’re using Google Apps bear in mind that Apple and Google are at slight ideological odds – the native iPhone and iPad apps from Google are rarely as good as they are on their Android equivalents. Although there is a Mac Gmail client – Sparrow – that is a thing of awesome beauty and power.

I love the iPad as a media machine – books, TV, etc., – but the Macbook is my true workhorse these days. Well, my personal workhorse – still all PC at the office.

Have you read about Chromebooks? If you’re running Google Apps they might be a better bet for you, I’m not sure.

Food, Shopping

The supermarket lottery of life

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OcadoWe’re trying a different online grocery service – Ocado. After years of using Tesco.com and finding that it had by far the best online experience of all the online grocery stores (I’ve tried Sainsbury, Iceland and Ocado in years gone by), a friend who worked for John Lewis’ consistent evangelism and a couple of vouchers, coupled with a persistent desire for us to eat healthy, provided the push we needed to give it a another go. Over the years they have revamped their website and their delivery service is superb – slick and seamless where Tesco’s is clunky and fiddly. One example of this is that they bring the groceries in bags which they collect on their next delivery, ensuring they can walk straight to your kitchen and not faff around with trays or pallets and you’re still empowered to be moderately eco-friendly as far as the bags are concerned. Also one-hour booking slots, etc.

It struck me that online delivery services free you from the supermarket lottery of life. Whilst proximity to good groceries was an important factor in us choosing our home, we weren’t specific about the grocer, and as it happens we’re in a Tesco catchment area – the nearest Waitrose is 15 miles away, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s about twice the distance of the local Tesco. This means you get accustomed to a certain level of mediocrity from your shopping after a while, and you get constrained by the choices Tesco imposes on you. One massive bonus of the village we’re in is we have two local butchers, so at least for meat we have some extra choice… and of course our garden will hopefully soon provide some veg.

That said, the delivery charges on Ocado are steep and we’re not sure yet if we’re going to set up a recurring shop (which gives you free delivery) as there is a certain joy and satisfaction in actually going to a shop and getting inspiration for meals that way. OK, it’s not Rick Stein wandering through the markets of a Mediterranean town, but it’s less sterile than hitting a virtual checkout…

Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.