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Tesla Solar and Powerwall Review

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With the summer months in our area getting warmer each year, we are finding that our power bill ramped up significantly as we started running the air conditioning for more hours each summer. Our power bill 7 years ago was peaking at $280 / month in August, last year it peaked at $490 in the same month.  Our electric bill for 2020 totaled about $3500 - I was able to download .csv file formatted usage data from the PG&E website to look at this data. This drove me to consider investing in solar as a way to mitigate this electrical expense, and even have a small return on that investment down the road.  We decided to put in 2 Powerwalls  Gen 2s, 10kW of solar production, plus the smart power Backup Gateway and a string inverter with power optimizers. Estimated annual production 12539 kWh, which is very close to what our usage was the previous year. Layout on a roof of an outbuilding that is about 22' x 42': This is not one of their standard packages, so I was surprised that the
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Windows 10 Update Fails ... and a fix!

I ran into a pretty strange issue today. A windows 10 machine on build 1803 refused to update to 1903. I tried running the Windows Update Troubleshooter, I tried deleting the update cache in the Windows folder, I tried downloading the Media Creation Tool and creating an ISO file and running the upgrade from there ... no joy. I got errors like "There was a problem running preinstall.cmd scripts error for Windows Setup", Error 0xc19001e2, and Windows Update showing that it was trying to install update 1903 over and over again in a loop but never succeeding. Finally I discovered that this was a Dell PC that had Dell Encryption software installed on it. There wan't an entry in the Programs and Features control panel to remove the software, but it was sitting there in the system tray running every time the computer booted up. Since I wasn't using Dell's encryption solution, I found a way to remove it, using the Dell Data Security  Uninstaller program found here .
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Amazon Echo Alexa - with home automation

When combined with the Samsung SmartThings Hub and zWave light switch controls, the Amazon Echo, i.e. "Alexa" has become a very often used home automation interface at my house. My kids love being able to turn the lights on an off in various rooms in our house using just a simple voice command. And I must say, being able to turn the lights off at night by voice command after you lay down in bed is pretty sweet :). There are some limitations still however -- Alexa gets a bit confused if you have a thermostat labeled "upstairs" and you have created a group of lights called "upstairs" as well. So you have to name things pretty specific prior to setting them up with Alexa ... and then the limitations of the human brain become the problem, because not everybody can remember those specific names you gave the devices!
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Amazon Echo Review - pretty cool

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We just received our new Amazon Echo a few days ago. I signed up about 2 months ago for an invitation to Amazon's beta program, and finally received it, about 20 days earlier than Amazon's original estimated ship date. So far it has proven to be quite entertaining. My 5 year old and 3 year old kids love playing with it, asking things like: Alexa, tell me a joke! Alexa, how much does the earth weigh? Alexa, how old are you? Alexa, play kids music! We placed it in the kitchen, since the initial supported feature set seemed well suited for that location. The music playback sound quality is pretty good. Not good enough for people who are crazy about bass response, but not bad. Certainly good enough for some background music in the kitchen. It's always interesting to see what children do with technological products - in this case, I wish the Amazon engineers could watch my kids interact with it, especially on their first few days. After Alexa told a joke, they wante
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