Gurin Electric Compact Dehumidifier

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Gurin Dehumidifier is 9" tall and 5.75" wide at the base. Its best feature is that it very quiet because it does not have a compressor, the worst feature is that it is not very effective in removing humidity. Both are not surprising and stem from the technology used in this unit. More on the technology itself at the end of the review, but first a few examples of what I observed in my use of this unit.



1. I originally hoped to use it in the bathroom while it is used for showers to keep the air dry, and to prevent fogging of mirrors. For several day, I turned on the unit each time the shower was taken, and turned off the unit when the shower was over. In that use the humidifier tank remained empty. Thinking back to how the Peltier method works as well to our Koolatron cooler (which also uses Peltier technology) I realized that short periods of usage do not work because the unit requires some time before it becomes effective. When we go on summer trips we pre-cool the cooler in the house for it to work well during the trips.



2. Then I took the dehumidifier to the basement, where we have a standard 50 Pint dehumidifier which fills its entire bucket in several days. I turned off the large dehumidifier, and left Gurin Dehumidifier there for 24 hours. After 24 hours the reservoir of the unit had 1 oz of water. I am attaching a photo of how much water it collected. After 24 hour of use the big electric plug of the unit got rather warm to touch, so I suspect it uses a significant amount of electricity.



Gurin dehumidifier is quiet and light because it uses thermoelectric method called Peltier. This method is most commonly used in cooling. In 1834 Jean Peltier noticed that when electrical current is applied to the junction of two different metals the heat is removed from one of the metals and transferred to the other. This is the main principal of thermoelectric cooling (and known as Peltier effect). The dehumidifier has cooling unit which is constructed from tiny metal cubes made from different metals. As electricity passes through the junctions between the cubes the heat is transferred and a fan vents the heat outside, a small amount of moisture is removed from the air in this process and condensed and this is the water we see in the reservoir of the unit.



So for this unit to work, it has to be turn on continuously, and it removes a fairly small amount of moisture from the air. It is very quiet, and if you need to remove only a small amount of humidity it will do an ok job.



I was provided this unit for a review and honest evaluation.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.





AshopZones review ★★★☆☆

FRIEQ® Wide Grip Capacitive Stylus for Touchscreen Devices

This stylus is 4.7" long and 1.75" in diameter at the grip point.



I am attaching a collage of three photos (which can be located by following 'customer photos' link under the main photo) that I will be referencing in this review



I LIKE

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1. Comes in a nice looking box (Stylus shown in the opened box in Photo#1). The presentation looks nice for an inexpensive but impressive looking gift.



2. Sensitivity and performance was good. I most frequently use the stylus for typing and editing text as it gives me best precision for positioning insertion point between characters.



I DO NOT LIKE

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1. This stylus is quite heavy. It weight 1.4 oz my digital scale (by comparison the weight of this other  FRIEQ stylus  is 0.4 oz). I had two issues with this heftier weight: (1) the weight made it less comfortable to hold when used for a long time, (2) if the stylus dropped on glass surface it has potential of damaging it.



2. It has no clip to secure it while carrying it around. Given that this stylus is rather heavy it would be better if I could secure it.



3. This stylus as the name implies has a wide grip. I am a female with small hands and I did not find it comfortable to hold. Note that my husband found it comfortable. Photo #3 shows my grip as I use this stylus.



Overall, this stylus is best suited for people with large hands. It has an "expensive" look when presented in its box, so it makes a nice small gift.



You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★☆☆



Note: I was provided a free sample for evaluation and unbiased review.

Book review: The 5th Dimension Password Keeper by Michael E Pipkins

We are all familiar with a problem of trying to come with good strong passwords for various web sites we use and then trying to remember them. The author's goal is to solve both of these problems.



People have used ciphers to encode messages for ages. To decode a message you need to know a cipher and a key. A cipher is a source of letters which are used to substitute the letters in your text, and a key are the rules which use you to make the substitutions.



The authors adapted this standard encoding technique and applied it to password generation and an aid for recollecting passwords. The book contains a brief 7 page explanation of how this cipher works. It is written in a simple language which is easily understood by people who are not familiar with any encryption techniques. The rest of the book provides 104 pages which you can use to generate and keep track of your passwords. Each of 104 pages containing its own cipher and with the use of the same key (i.e. your rules) you would have a 104 different passwords. The length of the password and the position of the letters is your key. As long as you don't mark the book to expose the rules you are totally safe even if someone sees a page for a specific web site.



Once you make a commitment to his approach, you will not be able to remember your passwords without this book as they will be random strings of letters and symbols. The author of the book offers a pocket edition of the password keeper on his web site (currently $2.94 including shipping), which allows a person to keep 15 most used passwords (3 computer logins, 3 emails, 9 websites) in a wallet. The tables on the 15 pages of the pocket book match the first 3 tables for logins, the first 3 tables for emails, and the first 9 websites in the full size book. So when you create your passwords in the full size book you need to keep in mind which passwords you want to include in your pocket size guide and put them first. If you don't want to use the pocket guide, you can use a copier to copy and shrink those pages to take with you.



There are situations where this approach does not work very well. For example, several web site I use impose very strict rules on passwords. For example, some require the password to have one capital, one number, and one special character. Your key may not generate a string that follows those rules. I also ran into some website that do not allow special characters, which are included in the cipher tables, so you might not be able to use the string generated by the key. The author anticipated such situations by suggesting writing down the exception below the table, such as "replace the first character with a capital" or "replace the third character with x", which does not decrease security by much. I agree. However it makes the rules more complicated and marries you to the book even more.



This is a very secure way to generate passwords. The downside of this approach is that you become totally dependent on this book, and if you forget to take your cheat-sheet with you when you travel chances are you will not be able to get into your own accounts.



You can find this book on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review ★★★☆☆



The author provided me a review copy of this book for an honest and unbiased review.

comparison of 4 different lip balms: Burt's Bees Mango Butter, original ChapStick,Blistex raspberry lemonade and Mentholatum Natural Ice Medicated Lip Protectant

I often have dry lips and have been using ChapStick for years. Recently I got a bit bored with the old reliable choice and tried several different lip balms.  I experienced significant difference in satisfaction with them, and I thought a comparison between them might be useful to others.



The original Chapstick provides a very good moisturizer, it spreads well and provides long lasting effects.The flavor however is not exciting and that lead to this experiment. My most favorite turned out to be Burt's Bees Mango Butter. It provided a very good moisturizer for my lips, which was long lasting.  The mango flavor is very pleasant yet light.  Blistex raspberry lemonade has a strong but nice flavor. When you just put it on it taste like a burst of lemon and raspberry almost like licking a candy.  This strong flavor does not linger however, it mellows out pretty quickly.  I liked the flavor, but found that the moisturizing effect on my lips  did not last as long as some of the other balms. It also has more many chemical ingredients than the other lip balms. Mentholatum Natural Ice had a flavor that I really did not like, it was hard to spread, and the moisturizing effect did not last.

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★★★★★ Burt's Bees Mango Butter / Burt's Bees Mango Butter on Amazon

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Sunblock: None

Taste:.................Mango, light and very pleasant

Effect:................Long lasting

Stick:.................Fairly soft and easy to spread

Cost:..................2.25 per stick

Ingredients:...........helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, cera alba (beeswax, cire d'abeille), aroma (flavor)*, ricinus communis (castor) seed oil,  mangifera indica (mango) seed butter, lanolin, ammonium glycyrrhizinate, tocopherol, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf extract, glycine soja (soybean) oil, canola oil (huile de colza), limonene, linalool. *natural flavor

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★★★★★ ChapStick, Original / ChapStick on Amazon

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Taste:.................Light almost not noticable

Effect:................Long lasting

Stick:.................Fairly soft and easy to spread

Sunblock:..............None

Cost:..................1.40 per stick

Ingredients:...........Active Ingredients: Padimate (1.5%), White Petrolatum (44%). Inactive Ingredients: Arachidyl Propionate, Camphor, Cetyl Alcohol, D&c Red No. 6 Barium Lake, Fd&c Yellow No. 5 Aluminum Lake, Fragrance, Isopropyl Lanolate, Isopropyl Myristate, Lanolin, Light Mineral Oil, Methylparaben, Octyldodecanol, Oleyl Alcohol, Phenyl Methicone, Propylparaben, Titanium Dioxide, Waxes.

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★★★★☆ Blistex raspberry lemonade / Blistex Raspberry Lemonade Blast on Amazon

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Taste:.................Strong raspberry lemon, burst of nice flavor, almost like candy for a second

Effect:................Not long lasting

Stick:.................Fairly soft and easy to spread

Sunblock:..............SPF 15

Cost:..................1.21 per stick

Ingredients:...........Active ingredient: dimethicone 1%, octinoxate 7,5%, oxybenzone 2.5% Inactive ingredients: alumina, beeswas, diethylhexyl adipate, ethylhexyl palmitate, ethylhexyl stearate, flavors, glyceryl stearate, hydrogenated coconut oil, isopropyl myristate,

isopropyl palmitate, isopropyl stearate, jojoba esters, microcrystalline wax, myristyl myristate, phenoxyethanol, phenyl trimethicone, polyethylene, polyhydrixystearic acid, saccharin, silica, tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate, titanium dioxide, tocopheryl acetate.



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★★★☆☆ Mentholatum Natural Ice  / Mentholatum Natural Ice on Amazon

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Taste:.................Medicinal and Minty

Effect:................Not long lasting

Stick:.................Hard and hard to spread

Sunblock:..............SPF 15

Cost:..................1.17 per stick (note when I bought it on sale for 60 cents per stick)

Ingredients:...........Active Ingredients: Dimethicone (1%), Octinoxate (7.5%), Octisalate (5%). Inactive Ingredients:..Fragrance, Lanolin, Menthol, Mineral Oil, Ozokerite, Petrolatum.

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If I had to pick a winner in this comparison it would Burt's Bees Mango Butter.  It is all natural, great flavor, and it works well as a long lasting lip moisturizer.





You can find it on Amazon by following this link.







AshopZones review