For those of you with a high speed connection

[Royal]

I just bought something that seems to work great.

I use Skype for all my long distance calls. I pay 30 dollars a YEAR for all my calls, even local if you want. My problem was I had to go to my computer and put on my headset to make calls, there is no way Mary would do anything as complicated as that. Much like Sunny I guess

I saw this Skype Phone http://www.von-phone.com/keyspan_cordless_skype_phone.php and thought for the price I would try it.

I ordered it and set it up and it works great. My computer is in the basement and all I had to do is plug the dongle in an available USB port and run the software. The phone I keep on my counter in the kitchen. I have used it on my deck and it is normally clear as the regular phone. I have not had a bad call yet but it will happen with any web assisted call, including Vonage.

You do not have to go to your compter to make a call, just pick up the phone and dial, you can even see when one of your contacts is on their computer and with a button dial their computer.

I just thought I would pass it on. The only problem I have has is with the screen. Dang thing is too small but I manage to live with it. There are other phones available.

That is 30 dollars PER YEAR unlimited

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

Re: "My computer is in the basement." We do not have a basement. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)

 

[Royal]

n/t

 

[George-CT]

I would think it would be a cool spot to go into with out AC, more storage, giving you more room upstairs. Few homes up this way don't have a basement. I was thinking maybe high water table, but it looks pretty dry to me. Geo-CT

 

[Royal]

in the hot summer days I would turn on my attic fan and open a basement window and the door leading up stairs and it would cool the house pretty well. Not like air conditioning but cheap and cool

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

I suspect it is to keep the selling price of the home lower...less construction cost. When I was growing up, we did have a small semi-basement that was called a root cellar where we stored potatoes and other vegetables. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)

 

[Royal]

Or ANYWHERE there are a lot of tornados! It is cheap square footage and a great place to build a storm shelter. I see people going to bathrooms to protect them from tornados and it amazes me they have no cellar. They will have a nice car and a other toys though

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

However, they seem to be a thing of the past....seldom see them anymore. When I was attending college up in Oklahoma, I always reserved Wednesdays for exploring the country side, looking for arrowheads and etc. I always made sure that I had no classes on Wednesdays and that was my day off from my part time job too! I remember going to an old home site that had a storm cellar that was full of the old mason jars with the glass lids. I left them because I did not know at the time that they were valuable to jar collectors. I remember that the walls were lined with concrete cinder blocks, but the floor was dirt. There were lots of good things that I left at that old home site because I just did not know that they had any value...some old toys, a picture frame mirror in the house, an old ice box and other old things. I did find a nice arrowhead out in the field behind the house...it is in one of my frames hanging on the wall of my study. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)

 

[George-CT]

When we were in Zion National Park, in Utah, they had one of those in the Information center and it did a great job of cooling, but they were saying they don't work back east here because of the humidity. Do they use them where you are? Geo

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

It is too hot and dry down here in the South Texas brush country to have any swamps. Up in the Hill Country, at one time you would find some old houses with what we called a "Spring House" where folks would cool the milk, beer, water melons and other things. My Uncle Clayton had a "Spring House" and the water was cool, even on a hot summer day. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)

 

[George-CT]

seems to describe what I saw in Utah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler It looked like a big chimney in the center of the room and somewhere in that it was wet. It had slow but large circulation vents like your would do in a solar home, It sure made it comfortable.... Some areas of Florida they use a fine spray of water, more a mist, to cool you off in long lines while your waiting.

They have some like what your talking about, the Spring cooler up this way. They would build a small building in the middle of a wet area and keep the milk from the cows there. Tell ya, some of these all ways were very creative. I wonder as the cost of electrics keeps going up, food etc, that many of these old tried and true ways will not come back. Most were based on what nature could do and not on man made power. I used to subscribe to a book called Mother Earth. It had some interesting stuff in it for living off the land and is pretty much how this house started out. My problem was, the zoning people, would fight you every inch of the way. Its not to this code or that code and you can do that, but this needs to be in also, so it was like having to install 2 seperate systems. I finally gave up and went with their standard building. This was going to be wind powered and while I could do it, I still needed power lines to get my OC to occupy the house. The windmill, and diesel generator were not to their satisfaction. DC power for lighting or gas was also out.
Because it started out being a bermed home, with 3/4 of the walls being under ground, just like any cellar is up this way, it was a big problem. This was to make it easy to heat with large high roof line to capture sun for heat and heating solar panels for water. Nope, they had not seen one, so it was a battle in zoning each month. I ended up this contemporary house on it because it fit the basement size in the plans. Sold off the windmill to a guy in Maine with the solar also.

I'm wondering into days world if they might be more reasonable.

George

 

[Royal]

an evaporitive air conditioner. Lots of them out there

 

[Micheal_R]

n/t