Me: I live in Silicon Valley with my wife, child and cat. I have worked at Microsoft since I graduated from College, both in the Macintosh Business Unit on products such as Outlook Express, Entourage, IE, and Virtual PC and in Windows Live on Hotmail, Calendar and People. I am currently a Principal Lead Program Manager on the Windows Live Social Networking team. I basically manage a team of Program Managers responsible for delivering features to support our web and client applications. I've been blogging since 2001 and like to play around with .NET in my spare time working on projects such as dasBlog (the blog that powers this site) and Send to SmugMug (an application for uploading photos to SmugMug). I blog about a number of technology and productivity related topics.
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© Copyright 2010, Omar Shahine
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For at least the past year I've had "blog about rechargeable batteries" on my list.
When we had Sarah, the number of things we own that use batteries increased an order of magnitude. I also noticed that rechargeable batteries have gotten CHEAP. Also, regular batteries, like CFL bulbs, contain heavy metals and need to be disposed of properly. If you throw them in the trash, well, you are breaking the law in California.
Up until February 8, 2006, California residents were allowed to throw away any 'spent' battery in the trash. However, Since February 9th, all batteries have been prohibited from every solid waste stream in the state due to those toxic materials.
I first purchased my rechargeable batteries in 1999 on my first trip to Japan. I marveled at the compactness and convenience of the Japanese Sony rechargers. More specifically my Sony recharger had a "wall plug" and could work anywhere in the world. Here in the US we were stuck with huge contraptions that barely worked. I picked up 8 AA batteries and a charger and still have them. In fact the only two gadgets I purchased in Japan (in Akihabara) were this charger and batteries and 2 sets of Sony headphones.
One of the items we used heavily for the first 6 months of Sarah's life was the Fisher-Price Nature's Touch Baby Papasan Cradle Swing. This thing ate D batteries at a rate of 4 per 3 days in some cases. I was not about to make Duracell and Energizer a big part of my monthly budget.
That's when I loaded up on lots of rechargeable batteries. I power every single battery operated device in my house now with rechargeable and I have about a dozen spare batteries waiting to replace others. There is no reason not to.
Well there is really no point in writing a post now, because Jeff Atwood has done it in his usual awesome kick ass style that you can only admire as a geek.
It's posts like these that keep his blog at the top of my list. It feeds my inner geek.
I plan on purchasing the La Crosse Technology BC-900 (use the link on his blog to purchase) right now. I have been looking for something like this. Thanks Jeff!
PS - Speaking of batteries, what ever happened to the "A" battery and the "B" Battery?