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6 Alternatives to Traditional Air Conditioning

posted on February 16, 2019 by in Best

Willis Carrier, a 25-year-old engineer born and raised in New York, worked at Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company of Brooklyn in the summer of 1902. Every summer, intense heat caused ink not to dry quickly, resulting in runs of ink spreading across book pages, and paper enlarged during hot times, causing type font to look different whenever it had left the sweltering-hot facility.

Tired of dealing with these common issues, Carrier invented the modern air conditioner shortly after. Four years later, in 1906, Carrier got a patent for his air conditioner and began selling it.

Over the past century-plus, air conditioning has advanced tremendously. Still, however, plain air conditioning just doesn’t satisfy many of our needs from time to time. Plus, leaving air conditioners on full-blast all day isn’t good for electricity bills, though it is effective in dropping behind a sizable carbon footprint for planet Earth to deal with.

For these reasons and several others, many of us seek alternatives to traditional air conditioning systems. Let’s check out six popular alternatives to traditional air conditioning networks and learn a little bit about each of them.

1. Air Conditioners Don’t Always Need Ductwork, Believe It Or Not

Ductwork refers to the network of flexible ducts spread throughout spaces in between walls, ceilings, and floors to distribute heated and cooled air throughout homes that have central air systems. In some cases, especially for renters who don’t have permission to carry out full-fledged home improvement projects, ductless air conditioners are the best means of staying cool during spring, summer, and the first few weeks of fall.

Traditional air conditioning systems, those that consist of bulky HVAC units stationed outside of homes, are far bulkier than their ductless counterparts. Also known as mini split air conditioners, this effective alternative to the traditional air conditioner is connected to a not-as-big condenser located outside of the home.

2. Who Needs Central Air When You’ve Got Its Outdated Brethren?

Window-mounted air conditioners, also known as portable air conditioners, used to be the most popular form of air conditioner in the entirety of the United States. The simple, boxy design of effectively hang the business end of the unit well outside of the window frame. As such, exhaust can freely drip to the ground.

Although these units won’t work unless you have them properly mounted in windows, they are a suitable alternative for cooling one to three normal-sized rooms per wall-mounted air conditioning unit if your home’s central air unit is out or you’re not in a place with one.

3. The Higher The Humidity, The More Heat Remains In The Air

Humidity is a term that refers to the saturation of water vapor in a body of air. The higher the humidity, the hotter a body of air feels.

Even though the swamp cooler, also referred to as the evaporative cooler, doesn’t have the power that the two air conditioners listed above have, it is still effective in environments that does not have much water vapor present in the air.

Swamp coolers work by releasing water vapor into a closed environment. First, the operator soaks a pad or sponge with cold water. The swamp cooler circulates air via a fan, causing water to spread all throughout homes. To keep a house cooled by a swamp cooler feeling A-OK, quickly cracking and closing windows as a means of waving goodbye to unwanted heat was the go-to move.

In short, swamp coolers are effective in dry areas. Humid areas and swamp coolers simply don’t mix.

4. The Least Powerful Tool On The List

Are you familiar with the round, spinning, metal things affixed to many homeowners’ roofs? These devices are known as attic fans, which are essentially a dumbed-down version of the aforementioned swamp cooler.

Attic fans cool homes by pushing stuffy, hot air out of homes and making a constant breeze blow inside. These tools are great for temperatures that don’t get higher than 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

5. The Poor Man’s Air Conditioning Unit – The Box Or Rotating Fan

White plastic box fans and rotating steel fans are arguably the two most popular styles of home ventilators. Although these fans don’t actually cause the temperature of nearby air decrease at all, they deceive the brain into feeling more comfortable.

A good way to take advantage of these fans during tough times is to place the fans as close to the ground as possible. Next, face them upwards. The coolest air in the room, the air nearest the ground, will be circulated throughout the upper tiers of the room, regulating temperature and causing people inside them to feel better.

6. The Ground Can Work Wonders, Believe It Or Not

Geothermal heating and cooling use the power of the Sun and the cool ground. First, a wide network of plastic or rubber tubes is buried about a foot underground. When homes need to be cooled off, this water can absorb heat from houses that use these systems.

To heat homes up, hot water, which is made hot by carefully, neatly coiling one or more hoses on a black shingle roof, is circulated through hoses inside the home. This is the hardest system to implement but is cheaper than a new A/C Unit, but is the best for the environment.

Amazon AWS Alternatives EC2 / Rackspace Cloud VS Linode Web Services

posted on February 13, 2019 by in Top

Top 5 Amazon AWS Alternatives

The future of all businesses lies in the cloud. It is a smart move to move your business from shared web hosting to cloud. Amazon web services or AWS is one of the preferred cloud service providers. AWS offers the consumers a wide range of hosting options with solid infrastructure, favorable pricing and an excellent support system backed up by some of the best Information Technology (IT) experts in the cloud services market.The exponential growth of Amazon’s AWS alternative(s) has been a topic of much mystery and discussion. But in mid-2015, Amazon released information on the profit it reeled in with AWS.

Amazon AWS Statistics 2022-2015

• The company earned $1.8 during the second quarter of 2021 from AWS which was an increase from the $1.6 billion it made in revenue for the previous quarter.

• AWS made $391 million in operating income in the second quarter of 2022 which was an increase from the $265 million pulled in the previous quarter.

• The $ 265 million made in the first quarter of 2015-2021 was up from $77 million made in the third quarter of 2014, making it a massive 407 percent increase.

With such statistics, it is evident that usage growth is outdoing revenue growth in the cloud computing sector which is a good thing for innovation.

Of late, many developers and companies are looking for a viable alternative to Amazon’s AWS cloud services for web hosting and e-commerce. If you are one of those people who no longer feel the vibe of Amazon AWS Cloud services, you can turn to these five stellar Cloud Hosting solutions.

1) Google Compute Engine

The Google Compute Engine is part of the Google Cloud Platform that offers IaaS and cloud computing services. Since its release in mid-2012, GCE has steadily grown to compete with Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud.

Google Compute Engine runs large-scale workloads on virtual machines hosted on Google’s infrastructure as well as worldwide fiber network. The tooling and workflow service offered by Google’s IaaS allows for scaling from individual instances to global, load-balanced cloud computing. The Compute Engine can be managed via command line interface, Web console or RESTful API.

Google Compute Engine’s application program interface (API) provides users with DNS server, load capabilities, and virtual machine. The VMs are accessible in various RAM and CPU configurations as well as Linux distributions like CentOS and Debian. Administrators running Microsoft Windows and Linux can use their system images.

GCE allows users to choose the region and location where specific data resources will be stored and used. The IaaS provider currently supports three regions; the United States, Asia, and Europe.

2) Microsoft Azure

Previously known as Windows Azure, Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s platform that provides SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. It offers an array of cloud services that administrators can choose to develop new applications as well as run existing applications in the public cloud. The cloud services offered by Azure include storage services, compute which offer virtual machines, media services, mobile services, content delivery network (CDN) and machine learning (Azure ML).

Microsoft Azure supports different programming languages as well as tools and framework such as those specific to Microsoft and third-party software and systems. Unlike Google Compute Engine, Microsoft guarantees availability as it has Azure data centers situated across the globe. Currently, Azure services are available in 22 locations around the world including the United States, Australia, Europe, Brazil and Asia.

3) Rackspace

Rackspace is well-known for its great technology and integrated tools. The great thing about Rackspace is that you can create virtual cloud servers in minutes and pay per usage. There are no long-term contracts; choose a server and pay for the storage and outgoing bandwidth you use.

Users connect to it with the RESTful API as well as an online control panel. This way they can easily so mold their server(s) however they like.

4) DigitalOcean

This cloud infrastructure provider delivers the fastest and simplest way for businesses and software developers to create and manage any applications running on multiple computers in the cloud. DigitalOcean servers use SSD, providing high performance for hosted websites and applications.

The provider also offers command line utilities and an intuitive API that allows developers to run large-scale production workloads. The API also allows administrators to manage resources and Droplets within DO cloud in a simple, programmatic way by use of the common HTTP requests.

Every DigitalOcean hypervisor has a 40Gbps and fault tolerant network to guarantee developers uptime and throughput. One of the unique features of this provider is that developers can easily manage their cloud with their team members by inviting them and setting access permissions.

5) Linode

Linode is one of the leading cloud hosting providers and virtual private servers. The provider hosts infrastructure to more than 400,000 clients across the world from its eight datacenters located in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.

The Linode Shell acts as an invaluable rescue tool, allowing developers to have out-of-band access all of their Linodes. The developer’s API allows task automation and even development of custom applications in the cloud. Linode offers its users a Command Line Interface which serves as an open-source command line for managing alternative Linode services. Additionally, administrators get access to distribution templates which can be customized through the StacksScripts tool.

Wrapping up

So if you are in need of a powerful alternative to Amazon’s AWS, the ones discussed in this post are all great choices. They all offer a variety of hosting plans, so finding one that suits your budget won’t be a problem.

Sell My House Fast Alternatives

posted on February 13, 2019 by in Best

Many people come to us wondering how they can find freedom from the encumbrance of the weight of an unwanted mortgage. To Sell a house fast for cash may not always be a practical solution because there are many factors to consider, including the value of the home and the mortgage amount. That being said, there are other practical options available. One alternative, known as the Subject-To property transfer, is a worthy consideration as it offers advantages to both the buyer and the seller.

Subject-To agreements mean that the purchaser is subject to the seller’s current mortgage. The seller transfers the deed to the property to the buyer who takes over the mortgage payments rather than offering a cash remittance. The buyer benefits from this type of transaction because he assumes possession of a property without having to procure a loan. The homeowner profits because he is no longer hindered with an unwanted mortgage payment. The homeowner can sell their home quickly and be free of the financial strain of home repairs and upkeep. Because the buyer continues to make payments on the mortgage, the most salient benefit is the improved credit score that results for the seller.

While a Subject-To agreement offers appealing benefits for both the buyer and the seller, there are a few risks that should be carefully evaluated. The mortgage lender could demand full, immediate payment of the loan upon learning of the deed transfer. In addition, untimely mortgage payments from the buyer could result in foreclosure or repossession of the property by the lien holder. In this case, the seller’s credit rating would substantially decline. While these circumstances occur relatively rarely, these risks should be considered.

This type of transaction does invite a small degree of risk, but it also offers a favorable alternative for a homeowner threatened with foreclosure or who owes more than their home is worth. This solution also provides the seller with the possibility of a more financially secure future.