Now is the time to begin preparing your home for those hot summer months. An energy-efficient home doesn’t just cut your energy usage - it can actually make you more comfortable in the heat.

Air conditioning is one of the biggest causes of high energy bills in the summer! For customers who want to keep bills low and avoid turning off air conditioning during extreme heat, AmerenUE’s Budget Billing can help by “leveling out” your monthly payments. This minimizes the effect of higher summer usage. Information about Budget Billing is available at www.amerenue.com.

UE’s website now offers customers a way to see, and then control, daily electric usage through the Energy Savings Toolkit. You will also find information on rebates for Energy Star®-qualified window A/C units ($50 rebate) and dehumidifiers ($25 rebate).

To help control utility bills, UE urges customers to keep these energy facts in mind:

· Shade your air conditioning unit. You can use a trellis with a vine on it to provide summer shade--just don't place the trellis so near the unit that it blocks the air flow.

· Setting the thermostat really low won’t help you cool down any faster. Air conditioning runs at the same "speed" regardless of the temperature setting.

· Set the thermostat as high as possible. The recommended energy efficient summer temperature is 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

· Use fans more and your air conditioner less. Ceiling fans help you feel cooler and more comfortable without lowering the thermostat. The air movement will typically allow you to raise the room temperature 3-4 degrees Fahrenheit and stay just as comfortable.

· For maximum efficiency and comfort without air conditioning, position the fan to blow air out of the house during daylight hours and pull cooler air into the house after dark. For a window fan to work properly there should always be another window open in the room the fan is meant to cool.

· If you have exhaust fans in your bathroom, laundry and kitchen, use them periodically to help reduce the humidity burden on your air conditioner.

· Your thermostat should never be placed on an exterior wall, where it would be affected by outdoor temperatures. Appliances that give off heat -- like lamps -- should be kept away from the thermostat.

· Consider placing a “heavy duty” timer on your room air conditioner or using a programmable thermostat on your central A/C. Hardware stores sell “heavy duty” timers and programmable thermostats.

· You can save energy by taking care of air conditioner coils. They won't work efficiently unless they are clean, so check them out every spring. If they are dusty, dirty or clogged with old leaves, you can vacuum them with your household vacuum cleaner. If the attachment on the vacuum cleaner won't fit between the coils, reverse the air flow and blow the dirt away.

· Don't forget to check your filter at the beginning of the cooling season. A clogged filter will use up to 5 percent more energy than a clean one. Remove the filter and try to look through it using a bright light. If you cannot see light easily, clean or replace the filter.

· Keep the heat out by drawing shades and curtains on hot days.

· When purchasing central air conditioners or window units, look for the Energy Star label to maximize efficiency.

· Weather-stripping and caulking prevents outside air infiltration. Simple things like making certain exterior doors have a tight fit, insulating between rafters, walls and floors, and in basements can make a difference.

AmerenUE, founded in 1902, provides electric and gas service to approximately 1.2 million customers across central and eastern Missouri, including the greater St. Louis area. UE serves 57 Missouri counties and 500 towns. The company's electric rates are among the lowest in the nation. For more information, visit www.amerenue.com.

Businesses looking to get an affordable, easy-to-use server anyone can administer look no further-- Ed.

Synology America Corp., a leader in network attached storage servers introduced the new DS410 DiskStation, a four-bay network attached storage server for workgroups and small businesses who need a reliable and economical solution for file sharing and backup.

Built on the company’s award-winning DiskStation Manager firmware, DSM 2.3, the new DS410 is faster than the DS409, it’s predecessor and offers many more features like encrypted file sharing, automatic backup to the cloud, desktop and network backup, multi-media streaming, surveillance, email and web hosting and more. The DS410 is the perfect solution to replace older pc servers, outdated tape backups and multiple other devices in the office or around the home.

“How well a business can manage, protect and share important data is critical to the success or failure of today’s businesses,” says Heather Morford, Director of Marketing for Synology America Corp. “Even small businesses who manage data have concerns over security and backup and their concerns are just as important as their larger counterparts. This is exactly why we’ve tailored our DiskStations to address not only data management issues but also solve the budget and maintenance concerns specifically of smaller companies,” adds Morford. “The DS410 is priced affordably for smaller businesses who have a growing need for data storage and management but also includes a ton of applications and features for businesses who want to get as much value from a single purchase as possible.”

The DS410 DiskStation holds up to 8TB of storage across four bays of hard drives. With an energy-savings design including hard drive hibernation, a smart fan and scheduled power on/off, the DS410’s eco-friendly features save money but don’t compromise the performance. “In the Synology labs, the DS410 test results show that when configured in RAID 5, the DS410 reaches 110 MB/Sec reading speeds and 54.9 MB/Sec writing speeds within a 1 Gigabit environment," says Frankin Hua, technical product specialist at Synology America Corp.

Right out of the box the DS410 supports a myriad of features including encrypted file sharing, backup, email and web hosting, surveillance, print server, FTP downloads and a multi-media server. The new DiskStation Manager 2.3 (DSM) firmware, included with the DS410 offers a new radically easy RAID and volume management called Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR). SHR makes it very easy for customers with little knowledge of RAID to grow their storage capacity by adding new disks or upsizing the capacity of disks while automatically optimizing the storage capacity all with a few clicks of a button.

In addition to providing a complete backup solution with auto notifications for network and desktop backups, the DS410 also backs up to the cloud using the integrated Amazon S3 service utility. With cloud support, the DS410 offers double protection for critical data by keeping a copy of the data on the DiskStation and a duplicate off-site backup in the cloud.

With the built-in Surveillance Station software, the DS410 can support up to 12 IP cameras* offering a comprehensive monitoring system for offices, homes or warehouses and now offers DS cam iPhone® application to view the IP camera streams from an iPhone or iPod touch.

The DS410 is a powerhouse of reliability and features. Following the footsteps of the most popular four-bay on the market, the DS409, the new DS410 offers all that and more for a very attractive price.

For all the details on the new DS410, visit Synology’s website. http://www.synology.com/products/ds410/index.php

Their long-anticipated product launch is finally here, and the iPad has been announced starting at $499, available in two months time. The notebook sized half-inch-thick device has a 9.6" screen, and accommodates all iPhone apps right out of the box. They're also bundling iWork with it, and a new all-you-can-eat data plan from AT&T for just $30 monthly. This is the "bridge" device that I think will change the way we use and work with computers casually. How big a change remains to be seen. But, the notebook and e-reader markets will be shaken up by this, to be sure. Look for e-book reader and laptop prices to shift downward-- netbooks may even drop a bit.
$499 for 16GB of iPad. 32GB is $599, 64GB is $799. 3G models cost an extra $130. $629, $729, and $829 with 3G.

The writing on the wall declares that tomorrow’s devices will combine several of today’s gadgets into one multi-functional portal—with access to the internet, streaming video and audio, telephony (cellular and VOIP), games, scheduling, contacts, applications and more. Just how big the device should be is the $64,000 question. The first company that gets it right will win the prize—millions, perhaps billions in sales—the next “big thing”.

There will be a place for the full-sized desktop/laptop convertible workstation—but the vast majority will look to these new ‘road warrior’ devices as a catch-all for everyday life on the go. Apple’s record-breaking success with the soon-to-be-updated iPhone is evidence enough that the trend is mobile, mobile, mobile. The oft-rumored, as yet to materialize ‘iPad’, as some call it may capitalize on that.

The Kindle, Amazon’s break-away best-seller shows us the public at large is willing to accept a device that is considerably larger than an iPod. Touch-screen notebook-sized computers, even though they are lacking in power and capability also sell well. With the litmus test size set at 8” x 10” maximum, we can then see the next movement in computing.

Tomorrow’s busy worker-bee will wake to the sound of the alarm on his computer-pad resting on the night table—a touch silences the buzz. Off to the shower, he grabs it and like a tent, stands it up on the vanity, listening to the news and weather while he showers and shaves—its built-in wi-fi streams the information effortlessly through the built-in antennas.

Folding the device flat, it’s on to the kitchen, where he sits and reads the front page news like a book, occasionally sliding out the stylus or using his finger to circle or highlight interesting items. He can tap into his apartment’s TV feed for local news before rushing off to work. Turning the screen over locks it into place on the keyboard for protection during the drive.

At work, he places it on his desk and opens it up like a laptop, wirelessly connecting to his workstation’s tower, mouse and large format monitor. He’s free to use the keyboard, mouse or stylus to toil away prior to the big presentation. He detaches the touchscreen and now it’s off to the conference room for the meeting.

The built-in projector shows everyone his ideas for the client. The device is also streaming a Powerpoint presentation and sharing budget figures for the campaign. The built-in microphone and camera come in handy as he makes notes, records the meeting and gets quick 5 megapixel snapshots of the other ideas presented. The stylus lets him make notes and drawings on the touchscreen—an OCR program converts his thoughts to document format. Before adjourning, the meeting’s participants exchange files and notes, synchronizing the data wirelessly.

Once back at his cubicle, our busy worker docks the touchscreen, synching all the data from the meeting, and he is free to make the revisions to the campaign before the end of the day. As he leaves for home, his carry-along is again folded flat then connected to the car’s stereo wirelessly to listen to his favorite MP3 music during the commute. A quick touch or two brings up the contact list in the car, so he can select his home and tell the family he’s on his way. Traffic reports beamed from overhead sign markers are updated on his onboard navigation system showing him the fastest way to his destination. A Bluetooth headpiece lets him take calls and answer emails through voice recognition effortlessly.

Once at home, he sets it on the charging pad on his desk where it also synchs his appointments and data with his home server in preparation for tomorrow’s workday.

Sound far-fetched? Laptops and touchscreen pads are here today and are commonplace. The newest phones offer wireless connectivity to the internet and one another, and one sports a built-in projector. Most have digital cameras built-in with at least 5 megapixel resolution. Synchronization, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and sketching software are also available readily. Wireless keyboards and mice are commonplace and video for monitors can now be streamed as well. Solid-state hard drives and new compact high-density memory chips will let the device have more than enough storage and horsepower to allow for synching with his workstations at home and the office. Sharing information with his colleagues wirelessly is easy as well. And, applications like an alarm clock, weather forecasts and news headlines can be found today on smartphones everywhere.

How big, exactly? Our computer-pad will come in at around 8” x 10”, with a removable 4” x 8” touchscreen that folds into the lower unit. It’s snap-in mount allows for swivel and tilting. A Bluetooth headpiece is used for teleconferencing and VOIP or cellular calling. Standard input/output options are onboard like USB, SD Slot, headphones, HDMI out and wired networking. How much? Good question, but the sweet spot for the detachable 2-piece keyboard base unit and touchscreen may be around $750, with the home/office workstation/charging unit with keyboard, mouse and wide screen monitor about the same. The two devices would be completely functional even when not connected to their counterpart.

What do you think? What do you see as the computer of the near future?

It's long been bantered back and forth across the Internet community that Google uses its search domination for datamining-- that is the collection of aggregate information regarding visitors to their sites-- things like where they go on the Internet, what they search for, the IP address they log in from, etc. Google has always taken the stance they are merely collecting "non-specific" user information to make their products better.

Datamining is nothing new. You are a victim of it nearly every day whether or not you use the web. Your "shoppers card" at the supermarket is tied to your name and phone number-- and quite possibly your credit or debit card-- each time you use it they track what you bought, how many items you bought, the brands you chose and more. Your credit card company also tracks your spending, the vendors, the items, etc.-- these companies and many others then sell the information to marketing firms who use it to improve their advertising approach. It's much easier to sell something when you know what the customer wants.

Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, said in an interview on CNBC: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-se ... thy-people

Apparently then, Google's discretion on mined information is less than stellar, and their position on privacy has changed somewhat. This comment and others from the interview would now lead us to believe Google will collect all information, personal or not, and do with it what they will. Security pundits have maintained all along that surfers should avoid using Google for personal purposes-- and instead restrict searches to generic terms.

Perhaps they are right-- but then again, with so many intrusions into our privacy from every facet of our lives, how are we to keep up-- let alone choose which are advisable and which are not? It is recommended however, that computer users never enter any personally identifying information into an internet page, regardless of the intended use.