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Rechargeable alkaline batteries are pretty well established. You can even by them in a shop:

https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/map...

In fact all alkaline batteries are rechargeable at least a few times, although it may not be entirely safe to do so.

There are two problems with these batteries: they deteriorate faster than other rechargeable batteries, and the energy density is lower than the current Li-Ion batteries.

I found a Pi 3 with free shipping to UK: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/rasp... £35 though, that's a good $50.

Maybe you should slow down if you can't see properly.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/1000... isn't enough light for you? Mount two of them, you'll put out as much light as a car.

For some rough numbers, at 5V a raspberrypi A+ takes 500mA plus 250mA for the camera ( http://www.raspberrypi.org/hel... ). Maplin sell a 5V 10Ah portable battery pack (for charging phones and tablets) which weighs 330g ( http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/mapl... ). So off the shelf hardware gives you a 13 hour battery life.

I assume if energy efficency is your goal you could do a bit better.

Sure - I'm using a Dagu Magician 2WD Robot Chassis as the base. The motors are connected to a L298N which is in turn is connected to the Pi and a 5v mobile phone battery pack. This allows the low powered (3.3v) Pi to power the more demanding (5v) motors.

The Pis power comes from a second mobile phone battery pack, it gets it connectivity from a USB Wifi dongle and finally vision from a Microsoft LifeCam VX-5000. The bendy bit keeps the camera snuggly in the chassis without need to screws.

Software - I'm using mjpg-streamer to stream content over HTTP and a small home made Python application to provide a REST-like web API to control the motors. This is not perfect as the streaming is not designed for real time, so if it falls behind it does not easily catch up without hitting refresh.

It was a fun project, cost ~£100 in total and took less than a day to build and put the basic software together for.

The second project I want to do is attach a Robotic Arm and a bunch of cameras to a Pi as well as a small in car TV screen. Then using a better video conferencing solution than mjpg-streamer have a static robot at my daughters house which will allow me to be able to play basic board games over The Internet.

Hope that helps, good luck with your project.

ame display layout, similar fonts, same case taper as a real Fluke. Brand name in same location as is the model number and description. It was designed to look as much like a Fluke as possible.

All of those things you described are basic multimeter design:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/prec...

Holes at the bottom, a big knob in the middle, some optional buttoons and switches above, a display near the top and the brand and model number across the top. Top top it all it even has a two tone design dictated surrounding the case in nice, squishy rubber.

Gosh, some people even use yellow!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/digi...

Basically, all DMMs share a very similar layout.

ame display layout, similar fonts, same case taper as a real Fluke. Brand name in same location as is the model number and description. It was designed to look as much like a Fluke as possible.

All of those things you described are basic multimeter design:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/prec...

Holes at the bottom, a big knob in the middle, some optional buttoons and switches above, a display near the top and the brand and model number across the top. Top top it all it even has a two tone design dictated surrounding the case in nice, squishy rubber.

Gosh, some people even use yellow!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/digi...

Basically, all DMMs share a very similar layout.

They don't have a store, you can buy it from farnell, CPC(who are farnell but friendlier), RS, Allied electronics(whoever they are), NewIT(who i got mine from) and Maplin

If there isn't a single option there that offers it for less that 70 EUR with tax and shipping, i'll be a little surprised.
Charging 13 EUR for a pre-loaded SD card doesn't seem that awful, especially considering that they(the foundation, who aren't the ones selling the cards) provide you with all the tools and instructions to make your own bootable SD cards, no one's forcing you to do anything here.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/cideko-android-hd-media-player-587489

Android, 10/100 network, wireless keyboard and remote. Learn to Google and save yourself some cash.

Certainly as a leftie I've never once had a problem or felt disadvantaged when using any kind of computing device, ever...

Apparently you've never tried to use one of these...
http://www.ink2print.com/gbu0-prodshow/ergo_500.html
or these...
http://www.expansys.com/zoompic.aspx?i=160630
or these...
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=224053
or these...
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice-pointers/mice/devices/5845
or these...
http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.169418900/categoryId.35208800

Try using any of those left-handed ranges from impossible to an exercise in discomfort and frustration. The two keypads are completely unusable. The joystick is uncomfortable, and most of the buttons are awkward to reach. The mice are also uncomfortable and all the 'thumb' buttons are effectively impossible to use well.

There are some ok left-handed friendly options available...
I use a Fang keypad, which is ambidextrous
http://www.amazon.ca/ZGP-1000-Fang-USB-Gamepad-Keypad/dp/B000FRW8KS

Cheap ambi-mice are plentiful, but getting a good gaming/laser mouse is hard. Ambidextrous options are pretty limited and have fewer features, and ergo-left are non-existent. I enjoyed my ambidextrous razer copperhead, but after it died I haven't found a good replacement yet. I see razer has a left-handed ergo deathadder...that must be fairly new... I'll definitely be looking into it.

As for joysticks... Saitek used to make a pretty decent ambi/convertible flightstick... but I'm currently looking for a new stick, and can't find anything that looks decent right now. Flightsims are out of fashion for the last decade and there isn't much available that isn't either super cheap and basic or super ergo-right-only.

Agree.

I have built mine out of a end-of-line Fuji-Siemens from Maplin (dead silent): http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=228173&C=email-newsletter&U=09P10-3-B54LY

and the lowest possible spec Nvidia Quadro NVS card. It is silent and can play any SD or HD content with flying colours. I will probably plug a GigE at some point and move it to the new network segment I am building which uses jumbo frames so NFS does not need to refrag.

The UI is plain Konqueror suitably skinned to make it pretty and LIRC commanding it via xvkbd. The player is VLC. Passes the wife test. Passes the 8 year old test as well.

Works a treat. By the way, streaming is an awful idea if you have a library. If you have access to the file you are always better off _READING_ it, not streaming it. In fact the latest generation of "streaming" is doing segment-by-segment file read and simulates streaming.

Like I've explained in a previous post in much greater detail, the GPS of a Nokia phone (even with its free off-line Ovi vector maps) is almost completely useless without a data connection.

Then you have been misleading people.

I use my Nokia N85 when I go walking and it works very well. It doesn't even need a SIM card to be useful, let alone a data connection.

Combined with Trek Buddy and maps downloaded with Mobile Atlas Creator it is a competent alternative to a dedicated GPS unit.

However, no phone is as robust or waterproof as a purpose built device. Battery capacity is also a concern, though this can be alleviated by carrying chargers such as the Nexus Poerboost which can be recharged via USB or use standard AA batteries.

It should also be remembered that a GPS is a navigation aid, and does not negate the need for a map and compass, and the ability to use them.

Have you tried any of the converter solutions that seem to exist for this situation? I guess something like this would do it: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=33050

If you're in the UK, buy Maplin kits which consists of all the components you need to build the project you buy

Oh, GCSE. You're in the UK. Maplin is worth a look.

Not for sale anymore.

Here's a similar one from the same store (note that this one doesn't have ethernet).

FYI, £50 is roughly 75 USD. It will probably be at least 20% cheaper in the US than the UK: it always is.

By the way, these thing are often sold as HD enclosures by Computer component stores.
 

The greatest thing about these laptops is, if they're as good as the article claims, the fact that they're ARM processors means that there won't be a version of Windows out for them for ages/ever.

Oops....

I saw this windows CE netbook on sale in the UK: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=257308 Maplin is an electronics/gizmo store, but I have seen one or two others on sale in medium sized chains. I has been on sale for a year or so so I guess it can not be doing too badly.

I don't think the news is that people are buying turntables to go along with their records. The news is that so many people are buying records that stores are beginning to stock record players again. And that IS surprising!

In the UK, turntables never completely went out of the stores. They went out of the box-shifting stores but specialist electronics stores such as Maplins kept stocking them. What's surprising is that their website currently lists a turntable as their top product!

Maplin http://maplin.co.uk/ is an equivalent to Radio Shack and should have UK plug adaptors in stock if your laptop can take UK voltage.

A list of free wi-fi is available at: http://www.timeout.com/london/features/6187/Where_to_find_free_wi-fi_in_London.html. My favorite is the Wellcome Collection http://www.wellcomecollection.org/.

The Wellcome Collection is also an amazing museum if you're at all into medical history. And if you're really into biology (read as thousands of specimen jars), the Hunterian Museum from the Royal College of Surgeons http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums was unlike any thing I've seen. Of course the museums near South Kensington (Natural History, Science) are great bets. The nearby Victoria and Albert is nice as well with "functional art", including all kinds of centuries-old locks (including one or two wooden ones).

Avoid the British Museum on the weekends, and particularly the Egyptian section, as it is mobbed.

If you're in the area and into old engineering and/or trains, take a walk around the recently refurbished St. Pancras train station.

Really off the beaten path is mud-larking. You can walk out onto the Thames shoreline at low tide and look for old finds. We've found Roman glass and centuries-old leather. There's a high chance that you'd find 18th century china shards. A good place to go is the area around the Tate Modern on the south shore- stairs will lead down to the beach. You need to be able to tolerate the occasional drunk harassment, wear gloves, and please don't dig holes.

Actually I've seen several WinCE 'netbooks' in the wild already. Like this one. Of course we could look at existing Arm Linux laptops like this one.

Slashdot as timely as ever.

Actually I've seen several WinCE 'netbooks' in the wild already. Like this one. Of course we could look at existing Arm Linux laptops like this one.

Slashdot as timely as ever.

Bollocks !
Yes I know this is a UK site, but do you really think these won't be on the market in the US ? I've been watching digital tv in my truck for over 3 years. I have a 7" combined dvd/freeview/analogue/music playing/games tv with a rechargable battery pack and also a 12/24v 15" combined dvd/freeview/analogue tv. Not watched while moving, because that's an offence, but the nature of the tech is the limiting factor there. You can get auto tracking sat tv if you're really desperate but it will cost you a lot more. And BTW, satellite is digital too these days. I have a "satellite suitcase" with a 39cm dish which I use when out of range/sight of a terrestrial transmitter. Runs off 12v, couple of hundred channels.

These things have been hyped on trade shows for over a year now. Call me when they actually have something a consumer can buy in a store.

Does this count.. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=261613

Incidentally, WinCE is already being sold on netbooks. Pretty rarely, but it still happens. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=257308&source=1

The rarity is probably more down to the rarity of ARM netbooks than anything else. WinCE is a pile of poo as is, but if the market for it was there then I'm sure MS would pour the money into it.

Still not sure why you'd pick it over the alternatives, though.

It pretty much is the lowest specs you see on Netbooks these days (at least here in the UK anayway). The Acer Aspire One does have a 512mb RAM and 8GB SSD version but as its pretty much the same price I would think it reasonable to use the above specs as the "entry" level.

And yes there are cheaper netbooks out there (e.g. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=225532&source=1) but if you investigate you'll find that removing the installed OS is either impossible or requires a soldering iron)

If you want to make a special card which lights up, I saw this great little project close to christmas and so I made 9 cards, but instead of watch batteries that would die after a week or so I wired in resistors & USB plugs (strangely the only place I can find solderable USB plugs online/offline is from Maplins!), all the recipients loved them and most wondered how the blinking flip they were lit up.

Edge lit holiday cards (the snowflake one looks much better with a black background & two blue LEDs, one at the top & other at the bottom)

Next christmas I'm going to have to make something even better - anyone have any simple circuit designs on using an LED as a light sensor and then making some more LEDs react by blinking?

500W halogen floods are regularly used in the UK - see with any incandescent, the more it heats up, the greater the resistance becomes and so it's all kind of self limiting. Usually these are outside, but no reason why you couldn't place one in a warehouse or something. Active cooling, active bollocks more like.

This is what makes zero current standby possible.

You take a very large capacity 5V capacitor and use it to power the 'on standby' electronics. The only job of these electronics is to monitor the wakeup sources, for a TV it's the IR receiver, for a PC it would be the 'standby button', the 'Wake on LAN' and probably a timer. The rest of the TV is turned off, the rest of the PC is put into hibernation, it works and then there's no reason to power an unknown number of gigabytes of high performance RAM.

Why do you do this ...

If a switch mode supply is providing any current it has to draw a lot of power from the mains, for very low currents (like when in standby) over 99% of the power drawn by the PSU is wasted as heat in the PSU. OTOH if you take no power from the PSU you can turn it off (in fact modern ones sometimes turn themselves off). Even if you have to 'wakeup' the PSU every day or two to recharge the capacitor there is a considerable saving. But for simple electronics (an IR receiver, a CMOS clock, a 10-Base-T receiver) the capacitor can probably keep things going for weeks or months on it's own.

BTW: If you PC doesn't need to wake on lan or similar you can USE HIBERNATION NOW!

The easy method would seem to be:
1) timestamped images of the meters as often as you decided
2) image processing using good old retina/brain
3) type readings into custom software for the crunching of the numbers
4) ???
5) profit!

As to which devices are costing the most; you can get power measuring doohickeys like http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

Good luck with the money saving.

You mean like these here

Bob

> There was one reviewed on the register a little while ago.

Maplin currently sell a MIPS netbook running Linux for 170UKP:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=225532&TabID=1&source=3&C=RSS

But the battery life is only 3 hours and it runs some form of ``locked-down'' OS; not entirely sure what that means:

http://labs.pcw.co.uk/2008/09/maplin-replies.html

Specs here:

http://194.150.201.35/cnmlifestyle/specification.htm

My parents have a Sky 'freeview' card - they get all the USA/European/Asian news channels for free (CNN, Russia Today, CCTV-9, Euronews, Deutsche Welle, FR-2) while with Virgin Media Cable, you have to pay for the most expensive channel bundling option in order to get the very same channels.

Virgin media more or less has an monopoly over anyone (or any apartment block) that hasn't been cabled for a satellite dish. Of course, there are portable satellite dishes, but that depends on having a South facing window.

, a Jesus Dildo, and yes, such a thing exists. I refrain from direct linking to a page that has one. Google is your friend if you're really interested...

I remember encountering such things in the past. Oh yes, plenty of hits. http://www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php if you like it one way. Or http://www.blowfish.com/catalog/toys/symbolic_dildos.html if you like it lots of other ways.

Though I dunno who sues first, the maker of the dildo or the RC church. Afaik they claim some rights to the cross with a carpenter's corpse and all that stuff surrounding it.

I thought that Jesus ibn Joseph was a failure as a carpenter, which is why he went into the confidence trickster market? You want to be careful saying things like that, you're insulting carpenters.
"RC church" ? Is that like an RC helicopter? http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=220841&doy=2m8 Does the RC church come with self-propelled deluded victims who'll auto-navigate to be screwed at the altar? RC opening and closing of the doors to symbolise excluding the victims from Never-Never Land? Wooo, the advances of religion these millennia! I can't wait until experimental theology comes up with an explanation for lightning.

More seriously, .... nah, this isn't really a serious post.

If you rent an apartment and don't have a South facing balcony or window, then you don't have the option to switch to satellite. Although, you do have the option of cancelling the higher rate cable subscriptions, if there are any. If you do have a south facing balcony, then you can purchase a Portable Satellite Dish" and set that up. One of my neighbours had fitted a full blown satellite dish onto an old halogen lamp stand. In my university, someone actually bolted a 1 metre satellite dish on to the wheel base of a old office chair.

hi you do realize you can make this device yourself? It is not rocket science. Now I am trying to help you and your dad. From the picture it looks it just looks like 5 infra red leds with wavelength of 1072 nanometres arranged around the helmet with fans to cool them,as they must be running at their maximum rated current. you can buy 5 infrared leds easily for under $100 OR you can use a ready made security camera kit infrared flood light for about $40 to $80. The infra red flood light COMES WITH THE SECURITY CAMERA. ready made..think about it. plug and play or rather plug and heal.... look up cctv infra red LED lighting in google... Maplin Electronics,etc have loads. Maplins EVEN sells infra red leds for under 1 pound each but their wavelengh is 950 nm not 1072 nm,i don't know if this makes a difference... http://www.maplin.co.uk/search.aspx?MenuNo=80091&MenuName=Wired+CCD+Cameras&worldid=-4&FromMenu=y&doy=26m1 think about it. you could try this easily yourself on your dad with minimum risk for 10 minutes a day for 4 weeks and note any changes. THINK ABOUT IT. Or you can sit on your ass waiting,waiting and waiting and watching pop idol,waiting for santa to bring it to you in 10 years time. Now I have given you all the information to get you started and it should be easy for you to get a helmet and stick 5 leds into it as in the picture OR use use the ready made infra red led flood light that comes ready made with a security camera and stick that in a helmet.I don't know if the helmet is reflective on the inside or not....you could email Virulite for more information. You could get a geeky friend to help you in this project.

They get scratched and refuse to play. Some brands don't work too well with certain players etc. Hard drives make much more sense as long as it's easy to back stuff up. These days you can buy USB Hard drives that double as little media centres. You can record stuff off the TV and back it up on your PC if you want to. Obviously you can also transfer any films you have on your PC to the drive as well, so you can put your DVD collection on there easily (space permitting). I've seen quite a few different models and some of them are just caddies so you can put in any hard drive you like. They're pretty cheap as well. Something like this for example.. http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=221173&C=Maplin&U=SearchTop&T=usb%20media%20player&doy=17m1

I went for the openMSS2 from Maxtor,
NAS storage solution, i replaced the firmware, so 'can it run linux' yes it does and yes i've replaced the firmware with a better one, i can telnet/ssh into it, run ushare on it (so xbox 360 will play wmv/wma from it) etc etc, its pretty cool, not enterprise cool, but not bad for what i paid (about $200 for 320GB)
oh you can daisey chain a couple of other usb drives off the back, or printers too.

http://openmss.org/ is the project page

This looks to be a larger version (500GB) and i see theres a 1TB version too
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=218052&doy=21m11

i wouldn't know about any of those.

You can buy a gold-plated Toslink coupler at http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29294 . I wonder what proportion of salesmen in a store would use the word "gold" when selling this product to a customer. Quite a high percentage, I suspect.

... for $1300. Hmmm.
I'll assume that it's USD, which I'll convert to my local currency to get GBP 651.74.
Then I'll compare it to the cost of an 80W solar panel system (including an 8A charge controller) (GBP 569.99, "Specifications : Power 80 watts / Peak Output 5.0A @ 17.2V / Approximate watt-hours per day* 560 / Approximate amp-hours per day* 35 / Dimensions 1196 x 534 x 35mm Weight 7.9kg / * Based on 7 hours of average daily peak sunlight hours") ; I'll add in about GBP 30 for a reasonable-sized car battery. I might need to throw in a DC-DC converter depending on the voltage requirements of the laptop in question - I'll have to think about that when I'm specifying my next laptop but I'll allow another £30 for that. Total? GBP 629.99. What have I forgotten? Oh yes - delivery. Well, I just phone Maplin and get them to deliver it at their cost to the store at the bottom of the hill, put my rucksack on, and go to collect it. I can pick up the battery from the garage next door at the same time. Net saving GBP 21.75, which is enough for a goo night on the beer, thank you very much.
OK, Lenovo's source might have more amp-hours per kilo (NiMH cells, maybe?), but it's hardly a ground-shaking advance.

One of these perhaps. In series with the brown lead from the mains cable, and don't put any insulation sleeves over the terminals (you want anyone touching it to get a surprise or 230).

By feeding the signals from my direct-drive (it's only a 4-pole motor -- I'm saving up for a 16-pole one :) ) turntable into two of the inputs of my Alesis MultiMix 8 USB mixer using RCA-to-6.3 adaptors, panning one full-on to the left and the other full-on right, cranking up the gain (you've already lost 6dB what with it being unbalanced and another 20db from it being the jack and not the cannon, but the too-low impedance of the latter will distort things worse) and then adjusting the tone controls (treble 9 o'clock, middle 12 o'clock, bass 3 o'clock) to correct for the pre-emphasis used in recording, I can get a nice digital signal (it's a Burr-Brown A-to-D) from a vinyl record (which I already own, so it's just as much Fair Dealing as taping a CD to listen in the car and don't tell me there's a single person in this courtroom who has never done that, your honour) anyway!

Once the controls are adjusted and the record is set up to play with the needle on the edge, start Audacity, select dsp1 as source (this may be different depending how your system is set up), begin recording and start the turntable motor. Come back later, top recording, look at waveform on screen, pick out individual tracks, paste each one as a new recording, trim start and end, save in preferred format (WAV, OGG, or even MP3 -- isn't it great living in a country where there are no maths patents?). Turn over record, repeat process.

NB. Tip from bitter experience: make sure that the room is cat-proofed for the entire duration!

By feeding the signals from my direct-drive (it's only a 4-pole motor -- I'm saving up for a 16-pole one :) ) turntable into two of the inputs of my Alesis MultiMix 8 USB mixer using RCA-to-6.3 adaptors, panning one full-on to the left and the other full-on right, cranking up the gain (you've already lost 6dB what with it being unbalanced and another 20db from it being the jack and not the cannon, but the too-low impedance of the latter will distort things worse) and then adjusting the tone controls (treble 9 o'clock, middle 12 o'clock, bass 3 o'clock) to correct for the pre-emphasis used in recording, I can get a nice digital signal (it's a Burr-Brown A-to-D) from a vinyl record (which I already own, so it's just as much Fair Dealing as taping a CD to listen in the car and don't tell me there's a single person in this courtroom who has never done that, your honour) anyway!

Once the controls are adjusted and the record is set up to play with the needle on the edge, start Audacity, select dsp1 as source (this may be different depending how your system is set up), begin recording and start the turntable motor. Come back later, top recording, look at waveform on screen, pick out individual tracks, paste each one as a new recording, trim start and end, save in preferred format (WAV, OGG, or even MP3 -- isn't it great living in a country where there are no maths patents?). Turn over record, repeat process.

NB. Tip from bitter experience: make sure that the room is cat-proofed for the entire duration!

One thing thats been bothering me for a while, is every electric car or hybrid I've seen lacks solar panels. To me that makes perfect sense, quick charge battery's have a short life as well as being as it being difficult to find a charge point and cars like the above use standard connections but obviously the charge time is long enough to be annoying.
I know solar cells have a dubious enviromental advantage but a small set on a spoiler or on the roof (silicon or the new type which is less efficent) would provide a constant small charge during the day, I know most car journeys seem to be work runs or school trips where the car spends a great deal of time inactive. I know that you can buy portable solar cells like the following http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=96902 &criteria=solar%20cells&doy=8m4 ass you place three of those on a spoiler thats a steady stream of 54watts to charge your motors and is effectivily 'free' energy, adding something like that as an optional extra and I'm sure it would pay for itself in added range/costs over the lifetime of the car.

Hey, I've got one of them too; there wasn't a driver for the onboard sound in the stock kernel of the distro I was installing at the time, so I went out to buy a genuine SoundBlaster and ended up with a PCI128.

Since I recently started doing some serious mucking around with ALSA (trying to get a USB audio device to work -- and, to the chagrin of Windows fanboys everywhere, succeeding first time; now I can play two different audio files at the same time, one through my monitor and the other through my Alesis Multimix), I found the 1371 apparently has two DACs. Or rather, two pairs of DACs (since they're stereo). Seems that anything I try to send to the second one still comes out of the first, though ..... which is probably a good job actually, since there doesn't seem to be anywhere else for it to go (no second output socket)! Is this just a design quirk, or have I really got two sound cards in one there? And if so, where do I extract the other output?

One reason to go for an aftermarket sound card is the disappearance of the analogue line in port (about 100mV sensitivity, and stereo) from modern kit. I'd seriously recommend an external, USB solution for that. Static and power hum seem almost non-existent.

I'd describe PC World nowadays as 'tolerable'. Overpriced, but they do have a bunch of bricks-and-mortar stores and employees to pay for.

Try Maplin for all your cabling and general electronics needs, if you need to go to a physical store instead of the net. They're usually better, with more choice and lower prices in a store 1/6 of the size. They deserve to be rewarded with custom.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=46290 &doy=20m2

Fits a standard 240 volt halogen downlighter socket.

Things like this, http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=42501 &criteria=WIRELESS%202.4ghz&doy=9m1 for £29

Interesting. Personally, I tend to use low voltage dichroic halogen spotlights in my house, as they throw off a more pleasing spectrum and the direct-ability / control of the beam is also easily used to create lighting zones and moods that can please your tastes. Finally, they're dimmable. I also noted though, that in the UK at least, LED based spotlights to fit straight in your existing LV halogen light sockets (G5.3) were indeed beginning to become more common: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?TabID=1&criter ia=halogen&ModuleNo=98199&doy=3m1. As a matter of interest, a 1.3W LED LV dichroic is said to be equivalent to a 20W halogen LV dichroic, and has a life expectancy somewhere in the region of 40,000 to 50,000 hours (if you believe the manufacturers) yet a price tag of slightly less than double the 20W halogen dichroic - not bad at all.

How does a 20W 12V dichroic stack up against a 13W 110V CFL? Using good old simple Power equation, "Power (Watts, or W) = Current (I) x Voltage (V)" then for the bulb itself we get a currrent of about 1.7 Amps!! - in comparison the 13W CFL runs at 110V so the current draw at the bulb is indicated at about 0.12 Amps (significantly less). But I suspect it's not that simple - what is the actual draw that the LV transformer creates, and how does that really stack up against a CFL or old school incandescent? Would love to know.

Lastly, I read a few of the comments and I must admit, for the bathroom, I'm just about convinced to go out and buy 4 CFL's to replace the 4x100W incandescent bulbs I have above the mirror - if they now come with instant on, and throw a plain white spectrum (fine in the bathroom) as opposed to the horrible flickering spectrum flourescent bulbs threw out in my youth, yet they run at 12 or 13W, I think that's gotta be good for me, my wallet, and the environment. But you can be I won't be buying them at Big Box Mart http://www.jibjab.com/originals/originals/jibjab/m ovieid/122 - I'll be buying them at my local old-school pokey-aisled hardware store http://www.colehardware.com/

Two meters of this came in a tube that was 1.5 meters long.

On receipt I wound it round my fist and shoved it into a small bag.

I also love the way some tools and bike parts are packaged. I one bought an avid disk brake rotor and mech. They could have delivered the the parts by firing them out of a cannon and they would still work. But no, they packaged it in a plastic tray , in a box, inside bubble wrap, inside another box, inside a waterproof bag.