Best Lawn Mower - Bosch Rotak 43 ?

Well here we go again - what's the best lawn mower - my discussions in the pub are getting more and more pensioner-like every day ! I guess we're all of a certain age and anything vaguely electronically that we have to use counts as a gadget for gadget talk.

I was always told Hayter where the best lawn mower you could get - but that doesn't stop my extremely expensive one sitting in my garage being unable to start grrrr.

So I would have to say my Best Lawn Mower is the Bosch Rotak 40 a wonderful lawn mower which weighs nothing cuts the grass brilliantly and doesn't cost that much - of course if you had a bigger garden than me the cord could become a real pain.

So in that case you'd have to splash out on the wonderful Bosch Rotak 43 . It's exactly like my Bosch Rotak 40 apart from using a lithium battery which means it doesn't need a power cable - cuts brilliantly for a rotary mower and a spare battery is included to give you enough time to cut all but the biggest lawn in one go.

So there you have it forget all the super expensive lawnmowers - if you live in an ordinary house with an ordinary garden buy one of the Bosch Rotaks - get the Rotak 43 if you're feeling flush and the Bosch Rotak 40 if you don't mind the power cord and would rather spend the cash on something more fun.
As for our pub argument they wouldn't listen - the prize for the best lawn mower goes to a 'goat'.

welshgadgets

Oh dear I must be getting old

A disturbing series of events happened this week - I was whizzing off to a client site to do some computer wizardry (it's important I make it look like that as I get hired again)

It was a long drive and I listened to a story about Eco driving - basically driving more efficiently could help environment and save money. Well both of these are good for me - soo I tried it - I'm going to find some more details of what it actually involves - but I did quite well I increased my MPG to 42.8 from 36.4 - not bad huh.

I just kept to speed limits, accelerated gently and tried to keep momentum up when possible - there's definately something in it and the wierd thing was it actually took about the same time as when I try and go flat out (don't really understand why though!)

My friends told me I was sad driving to my cars Trip computer mpg thing but 6 extra miles per gallon haha.

I did spoil it completelt on the way home though - 40 miles of ACDC Back in Black buggers up your fuel consumption - you try driving 1t 60MPh to "It's a long way to the Top" or "Hells Bells" next time I'll get some Gregorian chant music instead.

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Well that's a title that could mean anything. I guess it all depends on who Derek is and what he's a master of. Well I'll tell you

Derek's Mastery Guide

Anyone one who has the social, personal and work life hugely manipulated by that crack cocaine of a game name World of Warcraft might well have heard of Derek's Gold Mastery Guide. It is of course one of the many guides you can buy to help you earn gold in World of Warcraft. Now at my current rate of earning (tragically not unlike my real world experience) I should be able to afford all the gear I want in World of Warcraft shortly before my 60th birthday (by which time I would hopefully have escaped Azaroth for ever !!).

So I know I'm doing something wrong the fact that other people seem to have loads more gold than me demontrates that.

The phrase Derek's Mastery Guide I have heard is apparently the answer to my problems. Maybe this will solve my cash shortages at least in a virtual world :)

Well I can't say for sure it works yet but it's definately looking that way - my muppety gold making methods pale into insignificance compared to some of the methods in Derek's Mastery Guide (btw he has now given it a better title "Warcraft Riches" )

I'm actually making some gold now and there's a few methods mentioned which look very exciting !!

My missus has just told me to get a life again - I've already got one that's why I'm off to Azeroth armed with Derek's Mastery Guide ( it really does sound like some sort of BDSM guide to me though!)

If you want a look at a couple of other guides - there's some info here on two other good ones
World of Warcraft money

welshgadgets

Empty Toner

Well my last entry was about how to solve the dreaded Empty Toner feeling. It is quite depressing - it signifies shelling out more cash on that little printing machine. Why do we have to print out everything - I cleverly bought a laser printer with a network card and connected it to all the PCs in the house.

My laser behemoth is uber-efficient (until the Empty Toner message appears) - but it takes 2 minutes to warm up and sounds like a Sopwith Camel starting up until it's ready to print.

I sit in my Office and hear the thing start up - 'chocks away fellas' , "stand back boys and girls" - a trifle irritating when

a) you didn't send anything to print
b) you're trying to concentrate on a pointless redesign of a DNS infrastructure
c) it's hot in your office and the printer makes it hotter.

Finally it finishes after beeping - empty toner at me again and making me press enter to continue.

At last my super fast laser printer leaps into action and prints out 120 copies in full photo-quality colour of Thomas the Tank Engine next to Gordon. briefly half way I toy with the idea of cancelling the print or whipping out the paper tray ( but I now what happens then!)

But no - Empty Toner it told me it will stop in minute - not bloody likely it had just enough toner to finsh the last blue smoke stack on Gordons beautiful engine - excuse me - arggggggggggggggggggggggg!

So now I really am in Empty Toner land - so back I go to my good friends at-Toner top up

I do wonder why those two engines really need so much colour - I mean what's wrong with black and white.

Welshgadgets,

How To Refill a Toner Cartridge

The art of how to refill a toner cartridge is lost in time - your friendly printer manufacturer doesn't want you to do this because you will upset their profits.

I used to go through stages 1-5 regularly.....

1) Swear at printer as the ink fades half way through your vital 200 page report.
2) Your laser printer beeps annoyingly reminding you to refill the toner cartridge.
3) You search desperately for the spare set you promised you'd buy (but didn't)
4) You search in mounting horror on the internet as you discover that to replace the toner cartridges is going to cost a fortune.
5) you realise why Lexmark where knocking £200 off this laser printer!
6) This time you visit Toner Topup
7) Speak with chap who seems to know an awful lot about refilling toners (and wonder if he gets asked to parties a lot)
8) Order kit with replacement ink for about 35% of cost of new cartidges
9) Next morning follow - How to Refill a Toner cartridge instructions.
10) Ten minutes later finish refilling the four cartridges.
10) Sucks to you Lexmark - back up and printing again.

Thanks Toner Top Up guys !!!
TonerTopup

Viral Blogging

For those who want to tap into the viral blogging craze this might be of interest.

I've just downloaded a report Ultimate
Viral Blogging System For Webmasters and have to say it looks pretty interesting to say the least. If you want to virally grow your web traffic, and boost your search engine rankings with a ton of backlinks, this report is definitely for you. I managed to get a free copy of the 50 page report, and you should be able to get it from the link above, but hurry as it's going to return to it's regular $67 price tag at any time!


welshgadgets

Acer 57157Z

I was in PC world the other day and heard another poor sap being talked into buying a £1100 laptop by a aherm PC world laptop expert. This old chap would take home his laptop and eventually get it onto the internet and browse the BBC and Times web sites. Few months later he might search for a holiday or type up a few notes.

And that's it - using approximately 2% of his laptops power and no the argument of future proofing doesn't work either - because the specs of laptops consistently rise.
A few years ago even the bottom of the range laptop would cost you about a grand.

If you only want to surf the web, send the odd email don't be suckered into buying something you don't need.

Thsi little machine from ACER is perfect for browsing the web and basic computing stuff - sure it's not tough enough to be lugged around trains, planes and offices - but if looked after and used to surf and type emails at home it's fine.

Acer 5715Z

A few years down the line it will be outdated and you can buy another one if need be - still saving hundreds of pounds !!

welshgadgets