Tips on using a different charger for my laptop

Yesterday I left my charger at my friend's place, and it was a frustrating experience as I had to go on without my daily staple of anime. It struck me that I had an old Compaq laptop lying around in my house and immediately I thought of using the Compaq charger for my Toshiba laptop to satisfy my craving. But the question is, can I use a charger of a different brand for my laptop?

Well I did some research and browse through a number of sites. It seems like there is a few points to take note of:

1) Physical

Make sure that the size and shape of the connector of the charger fits snugly with your laptop

2) Electrical

The voltage and polarity of the new charger must be the same. The current can be higher than your old charger.

My advice:

Dude, do you really want to take the risk!?

When I was contemplating to use my Compaq charger on my laptop, a few questions went through my mind.
1) Do I really need to use my computer so urgently?
2) What happens if it blows and I can't use it anymore?
At the end of the day, can I really not wait so badly that I really want to take the risk? The alternative could be waiting for a day or two to retrieve your lost charger, or swing by the electronics store for a new laptop charger for US$20. Anyhow, they sound better than a dead laptop to repair/replace anytime.

Thus I would advise even if you could find a charger of a different brand that fits both criteria, don't take the risk, you never know what nuances each company have that might damage your precious laptop.

The ultimate cost-saving FAQ for cars

Many have said that the car is a liability rather than asset. Whether it’s a liability or an asset, here are some money-savvy tips that you must know to fully utilize your money spent on your precious car. Precious, I used this word because if you haven’t heard about the outrageous price to drive a car here in Singapore, you should definitely check it out (hint- it’s USD 6-figure).  Here is my attempt to compile The ultimate cost-saving FAQ for cars.

What is the expected mileage per litre?

My dad’s Nissan Latio goes around 12-13 km per litre of petrol. 

If you suspect that your mileage is going low, some tips that you can do

·         Make sure your tyres are adequately pumped

·         Drive smoothly rather than jamming on the accelerator and breaking adruptly

·         Have you modified your car with any add-ons recently that can cause the inefficiency?

·         Check your odometer whether it is running on mph or kph? (no kidding)

·         It might be traffic conditions – consumption is higher in start-stop traffics as opposed to smooth driving on the expressway.

·         Aircon consumption.. speaking of this, this begs the question

How much fuel does air-conditioning consume?

We all should have some extent of knowledge that turning up the airconditioning in cars consumes petrol. Is this a substantial cost of concern? Should we go with natural wind to save money?

In a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the use of Air Conditioning can add fuel consumption depending on the type of vehicle, by at least 35%.

Then again, opening the windows does not seem like a feasible alternative since incoming wind will causes drag forces and requires the engine to work harder to go at the same speed.

Should I warm up the car before driving, or just drive?

You might have heard some advice from your friends or family to warm up the car for a while before driving to prevent complications on the car. There are also some arguments that idling in the parking lot to warm up the engine wastes fuel and does nothing to prolong the life of the engine.

The possible reason to warm up the car could be bring the engine up to operating temperature, as well as to heat up the oil to get to proper flow viscosity.However, under Singapore's sunny climate, the need to warm up isn’t really as necessary as in countries during winter seasons.

That said, the cold engine indicator still bothers me. What I would do is to let the car crawl slowly for the first 10 minutes out of the car park before really stepping on the accelerator

Lamb, Sheep, Goat – What's the difference?

We are familiar with lambs, sheep and goats, but then again there are so many things we are not sure of them. At a mealtime conversation, the curious case of mutton came up and after some research, explained.

Firstly, what is their meat called?

Loosely speaking, all 3 can be considered as Mutton.

Depending on your place, only sheep meat is considered as mutton, while lamb meat is known as lamb meat. Goat meat can be called mutton but is technically not correct. It is known as chevon in countries like France and Belgium.

If they are all called mutton, what’s the difference between their meat?

Age.

The lamb is the young of the sheep (12 months and below). The meat is much more tender than mutton, and probably reasons why we have lamb chops rather than mutton chops.

Mutton on the other hand, is much tougher than lamb meat, and has a stronger taste. They are used for stews and soups.

Whats the difference between lamb, sheep and goat ?

As previously mentioned, the lamb is the young of the sheep, and thus we are actually looking only at the difference between 2 animals here – the sheep and the goat.

Biologically, the goat has 60 chromosomes while the sheep has 54 chromosomes. 

Goats are hardworking, they eat twigs, leaves from the top of the plants. Sheep on the other hand are grazers. 

Interestingly, we refer goats as start-ups - being agile and hardworking, while sheep are the lazy man on the streets. 

Another key difference is that the tail of the goat often goes up unless stressed, while the tail of the sheep is always down.  

The goat goes “baa” while the sheep makes the sound “meh…”

.... For more interesting trivia like this, check out my other posts


[Update Jan 19 2014 BY POPULAR DEMAND: Whats the difference between the Ox, Cow and the Bull? Discover the answer here!]

3 Tips to book the cheapest flight ticket

Getting the cheapest flight ticket would mean more money to spend on other stuff during your vacation.
Recently Kayak published a survey that revealed the best time to book your air ticket for the best price, which got me very interested.

I recall that while preparing for my graduation trip (Yes, sadly I will not be qualified for student deals anymore), I spent a lot of time over a span of two months trying to get the best deal. The experience was long, repetitive and sometimes painful, but at least I could blog and share about some of the tips to get the cheapest flight ticket and feel better about this.

1. Book early

The most straightforward tip of all is to really book early. Honestly, I am not sure what algorithm or rule flight tickets are priced with. There are just too many explanations out there. But after 2 months of scouring and even to the extent of awaiting the launch of a new budget airlines (Scoot), together with my previous trip to America and within America, I realized that the ticket prices that I've seen on the very first day are often still the very best price I could get.

So here is my tip, if you are someone like me who value your time a lot, go ahead and book the ticket should the price point is somewhat in your comfortable and expected price range. You will come to appreciate that the time you save from settling the booking early would be more worthwhile than the money you could potentially save if you continue to scour for deals in the following weeks. Furthermore, in the unlucky scenario, prices go up...

So.. once you made the decision, just go ahead to book your air tickets and save yourself from all the trouble and wasted time. The best tip, is still , to book early.

2. Use flight ticket aggregators

A common knowledge when booking flight tickets is to use services like Expedia, which offers choices from different airlines so you can immediately have a sense of how much the air ticket should cost. Furthermore , there are flight ticket booking aggregators like wego which allows you to do searches at different flight booking websites and compile the options. You can be doubly sure that the deal you are getting is the best price with such websites.

One tip that I saw somewhere is to clear the cache if you see that ticket prices have suddenly gone up. Such websites and airlines could track your search history and trigger a raise in price to induce panic buying.

3. Budget airlines deals

To outsmart their competition, some budget airlines like Jetstar offer a price beat guarantee, in which they would offer a 10% cheaper price than any competitor for a similar flight. I shared some tips on this previously.

Further, unlike normal airlines, you need not pay a higher price when booking one-way flight tickets with budget airlines. From here, two opportunities to save money arises via:

• Airline options
  Scour the different budget airlines (air asia, scoot, jetstar, tiger) separately for their cheapest tickets in the period you are travelling. Just select the cheapest flight.
• Currency options
  In my last trip to Taipei, I realized that booking one-way separately in TWD currency would be slightly cheaper(~$10)  if i took the round trip option. So instead of booking round trips, no harm checking whether individual trips will amount to a cheaper flight. (Keep in mind the exchange rate is via your bank's rate)

For the poor student, budget airlines are the best business model inventions in the aviation world. If money is your top concern, the best way to fly is most often via budget air!

Hope this was useful to you
Eufass