In a perfect world, devices that apple deem end of life should have the option of easily selecting any older version of iOS depending on a users needs. On iOS 9 my iPad 2 went really unloved. I wouldn’t turn it on for weeks on end as it was too slow for even basic web browsing. If apple had any sense they would allow downgrading on older devices as standard. I guess it’s a good way of making us keep upgrading. But I couldn’t live with the fact that this machine which was ludicrously fast only a few years ago was no obsolete.

Up until iOS 8 I was a fanatical jailbreaker. I had the ATV 2 jailbroken & running XBMC, I had my iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS jailbroken along with my iPad 2. I liked being able to run homebrew tweaks & software, especially XBMC/Kodi. I’m glad I used to jailbreak as it got me thinking about downgrading. I have all of my old SHSH blobs backed up so I looked at older versions of iOS. Due to the changes made in the way apple sign ipsw’s post iOS 5.1.1 it looked increasingly difficult to downgrade to iOS 6,7 or 8. I therefore decided to go for 5.1.1 which looked like the most straight forward thing to do.

Luckily redsn0w supports downgrading of the iPad 2 easily so long as you have SHSH blobs for iOS 5.1.1 and any version of iOS 4. I downloaded the correct iOS 5.1.1 ipsw and also a 4.3.5 ipsw and let redsn0w retrieve my SHSH blobs from cydia and start the restore. The restore itself was painless, let redsn0w do it’s thing, throw the iPad 2 into DFU mode and let it restore first to iOS 4.3.5 and then to 5.1.1.

A word of warning, a few apps will not run at all on iOS 5.1.1, most notably Instagram and BBC iPlayer.  For other apps an older version will install but I’ve found all the apps I need, to work in one version or another, including Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, Plex etc.

The next step for me was to head back to redsn0w and jailbreak. The jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1 is so simple. It’s known as Rocky Racoon and takes a matter of minutes. Once installed & cydia was setup, I added the Kodi iOS repository to my list of sources and installed Kodi.

This iPad 2 now has a new lease of life. It’s so fast. I will admit it takes a little getting used to after using iOS 9, but it’s so fast it’s worth it to resurrect your old tech. Kodi works a dream on this thing, with incredible battery life it’s the best portable media centre by far. The fact mine has 64GB of storage means I can keep loads of media locally on the iPad and playback using Kodi. The facebook app is an older version but so much better. The content is concise and not cluttered like modern facebook.

Safari is super fast & I’ve installed Adblock via Cydia to block ads iPad wide, not just in Safari. This means no annoying ads in videos. All in all I’m really impressed. I also love the fact that I can now airplay any video to my Kodi media centre running on the Raspberry Pi. The latest iterations of iOS changed airplay encryption & broke airplay to Kodi for everything but Audio. However on 5.1.1 I can airplay any video, meaning I can use safari based TV catchup services such as Quest TV and airplay the video to my Kodi media centre. I can also airplay the video from the YouTube app which is a huge bonus.

All in all I’d say this is the best decision I’ve made for the iPad 2. Whilst I do lose some functionality, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. The difference in speed is incredible and it’s now a device I use daily again. If you have one I would recommend running a backup and trying this, you can always restore back to the latest version if you aren’t happy. I for one will be sticking with iOS 5.1.1 on legacy devices.

I’ve also got my eye on an iPad Air. The price are pretty good for a huge leap in technology. Speeds are now much better and even weight has been drastically reduced.

1. The North Face e-tip lightweight gloves
2. 2000mAh Battery Bank
3. Mulberry Wallet
4. Oyster Card & Amsterdam OV-Chipkaart
5. Compact umbrella
6. Oakley (4+1)2 Polarized sunglasses
7. Notebook & Parker Jotter pen
8. Nixon – The Sentry watch
9. Multi-tool
10. Huawei E160 3G dongle
11. Sandisk 16GB Flash Drive
12. Apple iPhone 6
13. Apple iPod classic 5th Generation U2 Special Edition Black/Red (30 GB)
14. Keys on Element Lanyard
15. Apple EarBuds
16. Retractable iPod cable
17. Micro USB short lead
18. Apple lighting cable & power adaptor
19. Spare GiffGaff sims
20. Integral SD card reader

I’ve been meaning to do an Everyday carry post for so long but I keep putting it off for various reasons. I recently saw the Mitch Altman post over on Everyday Carry and decided to finally lay out all of the contents of my Backpack and take some photos for my Everyday Carry post.

I must start with the thing that isn’t actually in this picture. It’s the backpack itself which is a 12-year-old Jansport backpack. They guarantee these things for life & I can only speak highly of these backpacks. I’ve had one since I was 16 and Only bought this one 12 years back when someone burgled my apartment in Manchester whilst I was out celebrating my birthday & escaped with the contents of my DVD collection & my mini-disc using non other than my own backpack!

Anyway onto the actual contents of the backpack.

The first item I carry is essential in Britain. They are pretty old now but perfectly serviceable, The North Face e-tip gloves. They are designed for use with a smart phone and have rubbery grip pads on the fingers & palm & a special conductive coating on the finger & thumb to allow you to use a smart phone without taking off your gloves. In a country like the UK this is vital as answering calls & checking emails can be miserable in cold, wet weather. With these gloves I can use my smartphone fairly well for basic tasks (as much as you would want to in the middle of wind & rain) without the need to take them off. Absolutely essential in my kit now.

The second item I carry is a cheap & cheerful 2000mAh battery bank. This bank was only a few pounds from a high street retailer & allows me to charge my phone to 100% from empty off a single charge. This is vital when I’m out & about in the city, listening to music, taking videos & photos & generally hammering the cellular connection. If I stop for a coffee or a meal I often try to charge from a wall outlet but having this backup is vital when I’m on the go. Also great for traveling as an emergency backup. It includes a handy torch & can charge any USB device.

The third item in my backpack is my Mulberry wallet. This wallet was extremely expensive & not something I would have purchased myself. It was a special gift from my wife for my 30th birthday & I absolutely love it. The leather is amazing (the smell is still as good as it was when new) and the craftsmanship is beautiful. I see this lasting many years and the internal layout is ideal for me.

The fourth items are mass transit cards. I also have Berlin & New York cards but I tend not to carry them with me all the time. I love RFID technology & these cards are great talking points when people see them. It always sparks interest from similar geeks. The OV Chipkaart is from Amsterdam & is always loaded with about €40 as it saves time when we get into Amsterdam Schiphol. We can get straight onto the train into Amsterdam & then directly onto buses or trams. I hope to collect even more RFID cards from around the world. Do you know of any cool looking cards & the cities that use them?

The fifth item is my trusty Hema compact Umbrella. This has kept me dry on many  wet Amsterdam/Manchester day and it so small it sits in the bottom of my backpack. A pretty boring item but essential.

The sixth item from my backpack are my Oakley (4+1)2 (fives squared) sunglasses. These sunglasses are pretty indestructible. Before them I went through 4 pairs of Bollé sunglasses & they all fell apart. I’ve had these for 4 years now and they look just as good as the day I got them. They have seen so many cities & are used daily. No scratches or marks or signs they are about to give up. Sunglasses are important as I wear contact lenses so squinting just creates issues. Not to mention the fact I like to protect my eyes, especially when driving.

The seventh item in my everyday carry is a notebook & trusty Parker gel ink pen. I’ve got a selection of these pens, all the same style & they are brilliant. They never dry up. The notebook is for jotting things down before I copy them to my calendar or notes on the phone. Always good to have an analogue backup.

The eight item is an everyday carry item that doesn’t go in my backpack. It’s my Nixon ‘The Sentry’ watch. I’ve had Nixon watches for about 17 years now and this is only my second one (I Still have the first which is a Nixon ‘The Key’). This watch is amazing. It takes an absolute beating, I’ve hit it against pretty much everything imaginable and it survives completely in tact. It has a slight raised metal bezel around the glass so almost impossible to scratch or break the face. Looks as good as the day I got it 3 years ago and still on the original battery. I’m not one for flash watches but I like to use well made things. Nixon are amazing & just what I need.

My ninth item is a simple multi-tool. This has a really thick cover with velcro so it doesn’t damage other items in my bag. It converts into a handy pair of pliers and also includes three screwdrivers, a knife, a saw, a file and a bottle opener. I like this over a standard pen knife as the pliers prove invaluable & have got me out of a few sticky scrapes with PC builds, servers & with the car.

The tenth item is my Huawei E160 USB 3G dongle. This doesn’t see too much love nowadays since I tend to use the personal hotpost on my iPhone 6, but it’s always loaded with a prepay sim & ready to topup if it’s ever needed. I always travel with this & used to use it a lot with a laptop.

The eleventh item in my backpack is my SanDisk 16GB flash drive. I tend to carry an empty flash drive everywhere I go. It’s small & compact and this one is retractable so can be thrown anywhere in my bag. From years as a sys admin & server bod it’s nice to know I can copy files to it wherever & whenever. Got me out of a few scrapes & 16GB is a great size.

The twelfth item is perhaps the most important item I carry. It’s my iPhone 6. I only recently upgraded from my 4-year-old iPhone 4 but I rely heavily on my smart phone nowadays. I’ve taken steps to allow me to work as much as possible away from my desk. Be this on an iPad at home or on a smart phone on the go, it’s nice to be able to email, tweet & interact with the world from wherever I am. The iPhone has now also largely replaced my iPod. I use iTunes match for my music and stream my own HQ AAC files over 4G to my phone. This means I can have my entire music library with me at all times. I still carry my iPod in case coverage is poor or non-existent but I have now largely replaced the iPod with my iPhone. It’s also handy because if a call, text, tweet or email comes in while I’m listening I get an audible notification. I reply to loads of emails each day so this helps me keep on top of things. Not much else to say about my smart phone other than the fact it’s unlocked, bought outright & currently using GiffGaff. I love GiffGaff & I have a real hatred of mobile tariffs & contracts so the prepay route gives me flexibility & choice. It also means I can pop in a local sim when travelling to save on excessive roaming charges.

The thirteenth item in my backpack is my trusty Apple iPod classic 5th Generation which I got in San Francisco in June 2006 from the original Apple store. This has served me so well seeing almost daily use for years & traveling all over the world with me. I’ve recently changed the battery inside the iPod but it’s still as good as the day I bought it. I’ve got this iPod stuffed to the gills with great tunes & take it with me just in case. Sometimes I prefer to listen to music on this. The sound quality is excellent. This was a limited edition U2 model. Not particularly a fan of U2 but loved the black & red.

Number fourteen is an easy one. It’s my house keys & the keys to my storage unit & a few family members houses all on the end of an Element Lanyard. I’ve used Layard’s for about 18 years on my keys. They help make sure I don’t lose them and the lanyard itself often comes in handy. Just a  personal preference but you will always spot this hanging out of my back pocket.

Fifteen are my Apple Earbuds. I’ve used Apple earphones again since my first iPod in 2006. This is actually only my third pair (I still have the other two pairs working). The first pair came with my iPod, the second with my iPhone 4 and these ones with my iPhone 6. Again these are great sounding & indestructible. Seems to be a common theme but I hate things which are flimsy & need constant care & replacement. I do have some Sony studio headphones but only wear this at home or on flights. I absolutely adore apple earbuds & they are one thing I wouldn’t want to be without.

Number sixteen is a retractable iPod sync cable. It’s the old style apple adaptor and I used to use it to charge my iPhone 4 and my iPod. I carry it now for my iPod & because it’s so small & handy if someone needs to charge an older device in an emergency. Also my wife still rocks an iPhone 3GS so she uses it too.

Seventeen is a short micro USB cable. I carry this to charge the battery bank and also it’s handy to charge micro USB devices. Comes in handy when messing with Raspberry Pi’s and is so small I’d be silly not to leave it in my pack.

Eighteen is an official Apple charger and lightning cable. The lightning cable is for charging & syncing newer apple devices, including my iPhone 6 and the charger is used to power everything on the go such as charging in a coffee shop or venue. Pretty standard but again I always have one of these in my bag & they are indestructible.

Nineteen is  bunch of GiffGaff sim cards. I carry standard, micro & nano sims. I’m always singing the praises of GiffGaff and have successfully converted many people. If they use one of my sims we both get a referral bonus of airtime credit. It also means people can get up and running there & then while I can help if needs be.

Finally number 20 is an Integral card reader. I carry this so I can get images off my camera at any computer. It’s ideal for traveling & when you are on the go. It’s a basic device but one I really use.

I thought I would also include the photo below of my trusty Jan Sport backpack & an item I completely forgot to include in the above post, my Bobble Bottle. Bobble Bottles are superb. They feature a carbon filter in the cap which filters as you drink. It means you can fill this up at water fountains or anywhere you can find a tap safe in the knowledge that the water is filtered as you drink. It saves an absolute fortune on bottled water & is much better for the environment too.

So that is my Everyday Cary people. Do you carry any of the same items? Anything you think I’m totally missing out on by not carrying? Leave a comment below & let me know.

Safari loads faster and multi tasking is improved noticeably. Still having issues with gsm not working so I’m limited to wifi only but I’m glad to have a usable iPad 2 again.

Also, a bug in tumblr which prevented you from saving pictures seems to have been addressed. Before, clicking and holding the picture would fail to bring up the context menu for more options. Now seems much better.

Furthermore apps in general seem snappier. It feels like they have cleared up some code allowing more to be unloaded from memory. These devices are limited to 512MB of ram so any improvement in he underlying OS is noticeable.

Great news for everyone rocking an iPad 2. I’m told that it helps on the 4S also but don’t have one to test. Please do let me know.

This standpoint is reflected in my current lineup of tech. My one & only phone is an iPhone 4. Not a 4S, a humble 4. It’s jailbroken & locked down to ios 7 as apple no longer allow it to be upgraded. With the jailbreak tweaks its perfectly fine speed wise, I actually prefer the smaller form factor and the battery life hasn’t really degraded from the day I bought it.

The same goes for my iPad which is a 64GB iPad 2 with GSM. This cost the best part of £700 on release (when i bought it from the apple store in Exeter) and has seen daily use ever since. I depend a lot on my ios devices. I run an online business & manage a few social media accounts, both personal and business and I do this perfectly well with my current lineup.

This isn’t the end of our legacy hardware setup though. My wife has a 32GB iPhone 3GS which again is jailbroken and tweaked to hell. She only takes this on the odd day out or meeting, the rest of the time she simply uses her iPad mini (which is the newest device we have) and finds a wifi hotspot. People are shocked when they find out she only carries an old iPhone a few days a year but our setup works perfectly well.

My main computer is an early 2009 24 inch imac. I got a pretty good spec at the time with the uprated pci-e nvidia GT 120 and to be honest, with 8GB of ram this machine kicks the arse out of most other macs I’ve come across, including my brother in laws 2012 iMac. This is largely down to the fact that I care for my hardware & software and have everything setup & tweaked perfectly. I’ve not even been tempted to upgrade to a newer imac, with the exception of airplay & hardware decoding/encoding of video this thing does the lot.

I have a real problem with this forced obsolescence of hardware. I know that companies like apple need to keep the market moving forward, they are in the business of selling hardware and software, but it just seems so wasteful. I’ve had these devices so long & the only time I wavered was when I bought a Google LG Nexus 5 on release date. I only kept it for 3 weeks and returned it to google. It was shocking. So many issues, fragile build quality, terrible audio, pretty poor ecosystem, jittery sound recording on videos due to faulty noise cancelling mics. It was a bad experience.

I do quite fancy a fairphone, but again I have the problem of upgrading an item which is perfectly fine & does everything I need. I know that marketing teams are very good at making older devices feel inferior, but for a smartphone I really don’t see the point of having all of that power in your pocket. After all most of us only email, lookup random things on the web and use a handful of apps, all of which work perfectly fine on older handsets.

By keeping my iPhone for so long I really feel like I’ve got my moneys worth. I’ve had this handset since mid 2010 (over 4 years) of daily hard use and it’s still fine. It’s not on a contract so with giffgaff for £12 a month I get all the minutes and texts I need and unlimited 3G data. To upgrade to an iPhone 6 for cash is a small fortune, the contracts have eye watering monthly costs.

The financial costs aside, there are huge environmental costs to all of this. Many precious metals and other materials go into making these devices. The sad truth is so many of these handsets sit in drawers for years after they are taken out of use (most people have a drawer full of old handsets & chargers) and are eventually disposed of when they have no perceived value. This is sad & wasteful.

The problem as I see it are two fold. People have the new handsets marketed at them with subtle differences. Enough to differentiate between the new and the old model and enough to make the old models look inferior. This is a good motivator for people to upgrade. Then comes the contract trap. Apple and other vendors know the prices are high and most people will opt for a monthly contract to obtain the new handsets. So people sign for a 24 month contract at £42 per month and over the two years their phone is superseded by two or three new models. During the course of the contract this shiny new phone becomes the old phone that users can’t wait to get rid of when their contract is up, so the cycle starts again & the marketing teams have a very simple job of selling the new hardware to you.

Lets take the £42 a month contract I found as an example. With a small payment upfront of around £60 you pay £1068 over the 2 years minimum. That is without any extra costs such as outside of tariff calls/texts/data or roaming charges. If the carriers advertised that costs I doubt most people would upgrade. Compare that to my £12 a month over 4 years which is £576 and not a penny more. Add to that the price of the handset which was £499 and i’ve paid the same over 4 years as most people will pay in two. So for each month I get out of this handset I make a killer saving, I’m not tied into any contract and I’m free to put any sim I like into the phone when I go abroad.

Maybe this is an old fashioned way to look at the world, but I don’t like items such as phones and cars and other consumer products to be paid for monthly. I’ve always owned my cars outright. The same with my tech. Difference being, they don’t change the way roads work or make fuel different each year so I can continue to use my car as long as it is useful. Not so with tech.

I’m not ignorant to the fact that new operating systems are too demanding for older hardware, but support for hardware shouldn’t cease after 4 years. I’m now being told I can’t upgrade apps on the phone as they are iOS only. Eventually this will force my hand but I aim to get another 6-12 months out of this phone. I will keep the iMac for years to come and our other devices will be in use as long as possible. At the end of their life they will be repurposed. The iPhone will make a great mp3 & internet audio player in a dock or in the car. I still have my 4th Generation iPod classic (the U2 limited edition i bought at the Apples tore in SF) and it still sees a lot of use.

Comment back if you have similar views on this. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I can’t be on my own with this view. Tech should be used until it no longer functions, not because a manufacturer decided it’s time to spend more cash.

The aim was to get all of our belongings into one short wheelbase transit. We managed to get it down to two loads in said transit but we still have some things to sell so the goal in achievable.

To put it into perspective, we are now staying in one room in a family members home. It’s a fairly big room and we have access to the rest of the house but we have all of our work stuff, along with our bed & a sofa in one room. It’s like a crash course in downsizing but we have adjusted to it in less than a week & the benefits are already clear. I’ll highlight a few.

1. Heating costs – As we are in a small space and the computers & even our bodies give off heat we have no need to heat the room. None at all, in fact it’s cold in Britain and we have the window open.

2. Electricity – We only have a macbook pro using around 20 watts, an iMac using around 40 watts and a lamp using power. The lamp has a 7w bulb so our combined electricity usage is around 70w per hour. Our old house used to idle at around 700w. We got rid of the TV and just use the iMac as a TV to catchup on all of our TV & youTube.

3. Cleaning – Daily chore but takes 5 minutes.

Now we won’t be living like this forever, only until we find the perfect place with a good balance of workspace & living space. So far we are dealing well with it & the savings in the short term are phenomenal. Really looking forward to finding a really efficient and well thought out space to live in. We are so suited to European style apartments, surely we can get something similar in the UK.

This has served me well, but there have been occasions, especially when travelling or visiting cities that I simply can’t keep charging it. I only ever lost power completely once in London, and had to go into the apple store on regents street and charge it in an iPod dock for 30 mins, pretending I was testing the dock. It was tedious to say the least.

Enter the external battery pack/battery case market. These are often expensive & quality can be hit and miss. There are plenty of cheap Chinese ones on eBay but I’d rather not trust them charging plugged into the mains, or sat in my pocket for extended periods. Spontaneous combustion has been recorded in the press.

I finally decided on the mophie juice pack air. For one all the reviews are excellent. The build quality & protective properties are immense. I can’t separate the phone from the case the fit is that snug. And lastly they are endorsed & sold by apple. I figured if I bought it from the apple store if it did blow up or damage my phone I’d have some comeback.

Well I’ve been using it for a month now and I’ve got to say I’m very impressed with it. Given a full charge the juice pack will top up the charge from around 2% into the high 80% to early 90% full range. This essentially almost doubles the battery life of my iPhone. It also means I can tweet, film, photograph and work without fear of running our of battery. I use the iPhone 4 a lot. I now use both the built in charge and most of the juice pack each day. But it does mean I can use the iPhone even more without anxiety.

The mophie juice pack air isn’t cheap at £60 but it is a great addition to my mobile office. The iPad and the MacBook pro both hold hours of charge, enough to get through any day. Now the iPhone can keep up.

The case is quite bulky but you very quickly get used to it, and it actually enhances the ergonomics of the iPhone 4, much easier to hold onto.

The air has cutouts for volume, power, headphones etc and moulds perfectly to the shape of the phone. There is also a micro switch on the bottom controlled by an inline button which when pressed will show the charge level of the juice pack with white LEDs, much like the MacBooks.

I opted for the red version in matt metallic red & silver, but you can get black or white.

I really can’t praise this product enough, and recommend them to all iPhone users.

The only downside is that you can’t easily dock the phone. Charging & docking is done via a micro USB cable supplied. I have loads of them lying around so have one in the car and one on my desktop, but it would have been nice to have some sort of pass through to allow it to be docked in an iPod dock. Given that the case is so hard to remove this is my only niggle.

It is available online from apple & other retailers.

So we invested in an energizer accu recharge. It came bundled with a set of 1300mah batteries and cost £5.99 from asda on offer. We also opted for some heavy duty 2300mah batteries to power things such as our digital camera. The 4 2300mah where more expensive at £10 but they are well worth it for high drain devices. Now here is the fun part. We spent £16 in total. We have been buying disposable batteries in packs of 4 for £1 each and buying maybe 8 packs a month. So in two months this will have paid for itself, and these are guaranteed for 100’s of charges so they will essentially save us hundreds of pounds over the coming years. The Eco benefits & the cost benefits make this purchase a no brainier and I really hope all my readers will switch to this much greener & cheaper way of powering gadgets.

The charger does AA and AAA batteries so we will be getting more packs of batteries for all our remote controls and clocks. Wonderful.

Battery life has so far been great, with the 1300 mah batteries in my iPod dock far outlasting the previous disposable batteries, and the 2300mah giving 3 times the battery life in our Panasonic lumix digital camera.

Anyway I recommend this gadget to everyone, see the pics below to familiarise yourself with the product before buying.

Many people live in suburbs, its the way communities have developed since the introduction of cheap vehicles & fuel. Now these people, myself included, are being squeezed for everything they are worth while inner city dwellers feel little of the pinch with regards to fuel. They may complain about small hikes in public transport costs, but this is nothing compared to the costs of fuel.

3 years ago when I bought my diesel car, diesel was sub £1 a litre. By Easter this year it is expected to hit £1.50 a litre. It now costs me £40 to drive 170 miles, not factoring in the cost of my car, insurance, road tax, servicing, mot. Now city dwellers will claim that there is no need for a car, but they would, public transport is very convenient and often leads these people to be better off. Have you seen the cost of the London congestion charge & the cost of parking?

Rural folk have access to terrible public transport, bus routes are being cut or stopped completely & train fares have become extortionate. Looking at my own running costs, I am about £400 a month to use my car. Inner city folk will pay nowhere near this amount in public transport and yet complain about fares and service non stop.

This has left me in a huge pickle. I currently drive an old but very well maintained land rover Freelander. Anyone who has lived through a Scottish winter will attest to the need for a 4×4. It is the most economical car I could find in this class of vehicle averaging 32mpg on a run and 24mpg around town. I would never part with my land rover, it is my hobby, I am however seeking out a daily driver to save money.

I see two options available to me, the Nissan leaf 100% EV which is ludicrously expensive to buy at £25k plus, but cheap as chips to run or the toyota Prius hybrid.

The leaf has a 24kwh battery which if charged on an economy 7 tariff at around 4p per kwh would cost 96p per 100 miles, or simplified less than 1p per mile (compared to my current 25p per mile in the land rover). The only limiting factor is the 100 mile range but I could either run up and down the country using fast charge stations, or visiting friends & family along the way, or use the Land Rover for the few long journeys a year and use the leaf daily for everything else. The only barrier to me doing this is getting the car itself. I am self employed as is my wife, in the current climate finance companies will not touch self employed people unless they are on a very healthy income. We are on a good wage but it’s not astronomical. We were recently declined finance on an £11k car due to our self employed status so £25k is a long shot. I would love to go out and buy a leaf today, I would even entertain a lease but they are also hard to come by.

The second option is a Prius. Again a used Prius can be picked up for around £6-10k used, but I’m struggling to figure out a way to finance it. Lenders aren’t lending so I’m kind of stuck in limbo until I either save for the Prius, or wait until finance picks up and finance a leaf. It seems a bit daft to buy a Prius whilst keeping a land rover for the winter or long journeys, so the leaf is definitely the way I would like to proceed. If anyone has any ideas how I could finance a leaf please get in touch.

Sorry this has become somewhat of a rant, but I’m really exasperated by the whole situation. I want a leaf, I want to do my bit & save money, but the barriers to entry are pretty great. I would love to lease or finance the car if someone would give me the opportunity, until then I’m stuck with a car I own outright with no way of making the situation better until the economy improves. Welcome to Tory Britain in 2012.

The monitor itself consists of a live cable clamp, a battery powered transmitter and a mains powered monitor. The live clamp clips around the live feed cable on the house side of the electric meter. Small magnets detect the current running through the cable and the transmitter broadcasts this to the desktop monitor. We have put our monitor in the kitchen so we can keep an eye on our consumption.

These units are a great way to reduce you consumption. Giving you live data about your usage and spiking when you turn on a device shows you how much electricity everything in the house uses. I was surprised to find with everything on standby the house still consumes 120w of power. With the iMac and MacBook pro on also this jumps up to 290watts. I’m fairly happy with that.

Another live indicator is how much the power you are using is costing you. Ours is 12p a unit so we can see that on idle the house uses 2p per hour and around 4p per hour with the computers on.

Other menus include the greenhouse gasses our consumption emits and the energy consumed in a given timeframe from 1 hour to 100 days.

The live data is the best deterrent and really makes you go around switching things off to reduce consumption. Simply putting the macs to sleep when you step away from the computer will save a small fortune over a year. I’m going to put timers on the major sockets to turn everything off standby at 1am until 8am which will probably save another small fortune over a month or year.

Below are some pictures of the monitor showing the various modes. Watch how the consumption rockets when cooking on an electric oven/hob with the water heater on at the same time. It jumps from 333watts to around 6.5kwh