Soft Water Supply for Humidifiers

Introduction
Using hard water directly from running taps often kills the electronic ultrasonic humidifier. This is because hard water will form scales that will eventually damage the ultrasonic vibrator of the humidifier. This article will describe a method where one can obtain reasonably clean soft water for proper humidifier operation.

What is Hard and Soft Water ?
Water is said to be "hard" when it contains minerals such as calcium carbonates and other derivatives or metal oxides. Hard water usually comes from the ground water that contains a lot of minerals. One can turn hard water into soft water simply by boiling. The other way is to use reverse osmosis machines. But these methods will use a lot of energy. The other method is to find soft water sources. One of the many sources is rain water but it is not clean. Yet another method is to use condensate water.

How Do We Get Condensate Water?
One can get condensate water from cooling the air. When air is cooled to its dew point temperature (around 25 degree C depending on where you live), moisture in the air will condensate into water. One can get this water from a special water making machine.

or simply from any air-conditioning unit. This article will concentrate on how to obtain clean soft water from our normal air conditioning units.

Condensate Water from Air-Conditioner Units

Every air-conditioner unit will have a condensate water piping running from the cooling or evaporating coils to the nearest drain. This water is usually clean except for some dust particulates that are also collected together with the air that passes through the evaporator coil. Dirty water tray and piping can also pollute this water. To get clean condensate water, one must prepare the air-conditioner unit and install a water filter to receive and store the water. To filter and store the water, one can use the common mineral water filter shown as follows:-



Preparing the Air-Conditioner Unit

Every air-conditioner unit has a plastic water tray underneath each evaporator coil. This tray is always connected to a drain pipe. One must always ensure that this tray and the drain pipe are always clean and free from algae forming. One must also change the air filter at least once every month, depending on the usage.  Additional secondary air filter can be added to the evaporator coil for cleaner water to be produced.

Preparing the Mineral Water Filter

Mineral Water Filter (MWF) has a dome shape ceramic filter on top and a plastic cylinder that is filled with various mineral sand and stones.


To ensure the water remain soft, one must remove the cylinder of mineral sand or stones or replace them with silica sand that has no mineral content.

Making Water Overflow and Drain Pipe

One would have to make additional holes in the MWF for inserting overflow pipes in the top plastic container as well as the storage container as shown. The existing drain pipe should be cut and be diverted to fill water into the MWF. The new overflow pipes should be connected to the existing drain pipe as shown with a T-joint.

To facilitate the plumbing work, one could use 6 mm diameter PVC pipes as they can be easily cut and bent to shape for proper installation.

What about Water Borne Diseases?Legionnaire bacterias and algae pores are often found in water of cooling towers of the air-conditioning system; however, legionnaire bacteria will not thrive in air conditioning condensate water because the water temperature are usually below 16 degree C. One may found certain type of algae pores in the condensate water system if the system has not cleaned regularly. Nonetheless, legionnaire bacterias and algae pores are usually more than 3 microns in size. They will be filtered out by the ceramic filter of the WMF which has pores smaller than 0.5 microns. Should some algae or bacterias pass through the ceramic filters, it would not have survived because:

1. There isn't much nutrient in the filtered water to feed the bacterias/pore;
2. The ultrasonic vibrator of the humidifiers would have killed these bacteria/pore as it has some sterilising effects.


Other Usage of Soft Water
Soft water can be used in many areas where scaling is always a problem

a) in steam irons

b) in steamers


c) In Automobile as battery distilled and radiator water.


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How to Make XP Run Fast again

IntroductionOften heard people complaining that their computers have been running very slow lately; sometimes, the computers may re-start itself for no reason. Running the virus scanning software did not detect any viruse. Some people resort to reformatting the harddisk which will clean the harddisk but will require one to re-install all the programs and application.
This article will describe some steps to solve some of these problems and keep the computer in tip top condition again.

Why Run Slow?Top of the list has to do with computer viruses. The other has to do with computer parasites. Besides these problems, the computer may not be as healthy. For example, the harddisk may have a lot of bad sectors or the CPU performance may be affected by faulty CPU fans etc.

Step by Step Solution1) Repairing the HarddiskIt is always good to start the troubleshooting process by checking and repairing the harddisk. Many problems are associated with bad sectors or media in harddisk. When computer encounters some read/write problem in the harddisk, it will slow down the computer; sometimes, the computer may just re-start itself without any reason. The bad media would also corrupt the master boot sectors or boot files and prevent the computer from normal startups. Once these problems are cleared, the computer should work faster and better to perform the other steps.

To check and repair the harddisk, please refer to this article.

2) Restart the computer
3) Clear the computer virusesRun whatever virus or spyware scanning software available, making sure one's computer is free from these nasty viruses.

4) Clean the rubbish and get rid of parasitesAs we use the computer, we build up rubbish and cultivate computer parasites. They are stored inside the harddisk. Computer Parasites, such as internet temporary files, are not only occupying harddisk space but also reducing the computer operating speed. These parasites are often loaded onto the computer memories without one's permission and they often takes up computer bandwidth. To clean the rubbish and get rid of the parasites, please follow the following step by step procedure

Cleaning the HardDisk
Step a: Backup the Registry and System State
It is advisable to backup the registry and the system state before carrying any modification to the registry. Follow this article to back up the registry and the system state.

Step b:Download CCleaner from this website, install and then run it (note: this cleaner is safe to use; no viruses or spyware ever detected). After starting up, one will get to the following frame:-


Uncheck the necessary checkboxes; for example, if one prefers to keep the “cookies” that store the various passwords or userids of the frequently visited website, just uncheck the “Cookie” checkbox. One would be surprised how much files that CCleaner will be able to get rid of and disk space freed up.

Alternatively, one could also use the file and cookie cleaning functions of the Internet browser; for example, in the Internet Explorer, one could use Tools/option in the menu and then select to delete the cookies or the Internet files. The other way is to use the “Clean Manager” function of the Window.

Step c: Clean the Registry
To get rid of the unwanted registry entries and entry parasites. This cleanup will make your computer run faster and smoother.
a) First, create a restore point of the registry (important). To do so, go to the restore page by clicking "start" then "All programs/accessories/system tools/System Restore" and then follow the instruction to create a restore point. Alternatively, on can click "start" button and then "run". In the drop down box, enter "%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe" (without quotes) and click ok. The system restore point would enable one to restore the computer to its original condition when the registry is written over or damaged.
b) In the sidebar of the CCleaner, click "Registry". In the new window, click "Scan for issues". When prompted for saving, click yes. One may have to do at least 3 registry scanning before one can completely clean the registry.
Step d: Re-start the computer

5) Done. Your computer should run as fast as new.

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Installation Failures in Windows Live Messenger

5 November 2008

Introduction
MSN Live Messenger is a free to use product that enables one to use internet to talk live over a webcam. Once installed, it is relative free and easy to use. However, the installation program is quite sensitive and a re-installation may not always be successful. One can try all tricks; cleaning up memory caches, internet temporary files, clean up Registry, clean all the files and all methods precribed, it just failed. This article will describe a method that has been successfully used under such conditions.

What happened?
There are many versions of what went wrong. One would get error code messages such as 0x80070643 or 0x80070057 or 0x8000ffff with scaring warnings such as "catastrophic failures", "major system failures" and other messages like "Windows Live Suite was not installed". After one has fixed all these errors, then come the sickening part; waiting for half an hour to get another “X Not installed” message, this time without any good help.

According to some forum discussions, the cause could be due to some parts or information of an older version still left in the harddisk or in the registry. Some said it had something to do with the "Windows Validity Checks" problems. The Live Message installer just could not get rid of these problems for some reason.

What to do next?
Carry out all the recommendation/advice given by Live Messager Installer
a) Making sure that one has the required capacity in the hard disk
b) Clean the internet files by using Internet Explorer's Tools/Internet option, then click "delete files"
c) Clean the harddisk by clicking start/run, then in the dropdown box, enter "cleanmgr"(without quotes) and select the default drive (C:) and clean all necessary files
d) Go to Control panel and click icon "Add/Remove program" and remove all the files associated with "Windows live" or "Live Messenger" programs
e) Download this Windows Installer CleanUp Utility program and run it. If the program does not self start, run it by clicking Start-> All Programs-> Windows Install Clean Up.

After starting up the Windows Installer CleanUp, delete all the programs that are associated with Windows Live Messenger, be it mail, tool bars, photo gallery or any other program. Search through the program names; sometimes, "Windows live" are used and hidden behind some program names. Go through the program lines one by one.
f) Download and run this full version Windows Live Messenger 8.1 from the MS website or this site (18 MB). This full version program will bypass most of the checks required normally.
Note:
1. If one were to fail to install the Windows Live Messenger using the full version installer, try to reboot the computer after having cleared the check boxes temporary in the startup tab of the MSconfig program. Thereafter, install the full version Live Messenger installer again after the starting up. There is a possibility that some 3rd party drivers or the old messenger programs could have started up during booting and could have affected the installation process. To uncheck the boxes in MSconfig:

• Click Start/run and in the dropdown box, enter "msconfig"(without quote) and click ok. In the Startup tab, note down and remember which check boxes have been ticked and untick those check boxes.
• Remember to replace the ticks of the check box after the successful installation of the Live Messenger

2) If the installation fails again, search through the program files folder (c:\program files) and delete

• Messenger folder
• Windows Live Messenger folder
• Any other folders e.g Live Messenger Toolbox
• if necessary, use Regseeker to clean up registry that has named after "Windows live" & "MSN Messenger" or "Messenger". A free copy of the Regseeker can be downloaded here.
Re-install the program again after a fresh startup.

3) One can try to install the following Microsoft Windows Live Messenger Full Version also:

a) Microsoft Window Live Messenger 8.0 from here
b) Microsoft Window Live Messenger 2008 (8.5.1) from here.
c) Microsoft Windows Live Messenger 2009 (9.0) from here.

Nuclear Power Generation in Singapore

5 November 2008

IntroductionSingapore is a small country state. It has only about 700 sq. km of land area. It is in close proximity to Indonesia and Malaysia who are always sensitive to any development in its neighbours. The building of a nuclear plant on land or at sea will be out of the question; however, there is a good chance that we can build a nuclear plant in a rock cavern, deep inside a piece of large rock located underground.

What is a Cavern?Cavern is just an empty space in a piece of rock or some solid rock materials. Three quarters of Singapore is presently sitting on pieces of big granite rock. There are also rocks of different structures and materials underneath Singapore. Some rocks are so big that one can build swimming pools or warehouses or even an Olympic Stadium in them. They can be used to house many facilities. A nuclear electricity generating plant can be one of them.

Presently, Singapore has an ammunition storage cavern somewhere underneath Bukit Timah hill. It will soon have oil storage caverns in Jurong Island. These caverns are large enough to store a few warehouses of ammunition and also storage tanks bigger that those we have seen presently on the Jurong Island.

an inside view of oil storage cavern

Why Cavern ?
1. Safety and security

• It is not exposed to military attack from the air
• It is not easily accessible because it would be rather hard to drill another access inside a rock located underground; hence, it is easy to keep facilities away from suicide bombers or the enemies.
• It is self contained. It can be built such that it will withstand and contain any nuclear disaster. There would be no need to remove any nuclear fuel or assemblies or debris. Monitoring would be minimal.

2. Storage and Transport of materials

• Caverns are good for storage of nuclear fuel. Spent or used fuel if any need not have to leave the caverns. Such fuel can be stored and sealed in other caverns forever with minimum effort and maximum security. No radioactive materials would need to be re-handled on the surface.

4. Waste and decommissioning

• When the reactor reaches the end of its useful life, the whole facility could be sealed, complete with the spent fuel. This will avoid the many problems of handling and re-handling of the nuclear waste and the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. The sealed cavern will need only minimal remote monitoring until it is ready for safer disposal.

5. Environmental impacts

• The nuclear plant can be designed to have no serious impact to the environment above ground. The vulnerable materials will be located inside the caverns. The use of the surface footprint would be limited to the accesses for the cavern, the electric power lines, the secondary cooling and other non-radioactive secondary circuits.

Example Overseas
1. Switzerland

• The country, one of the Europe's smallest (but still 50 times larger than Singapore), began its experiment with nuclear energy in 1957. Now, it has 5 nuclear plants supplying 40% of the electricity generation.
• They have a nuclear reactor constructed in 1962 located inside a rock cavern but it was decommissioned in 1969 due to an accident. It is recommended that Singapore understudies these developments in Switzerland.

2. Other Countries
Norway, Sweden and some other countries has constructed power plants in caverns. But all of these are not nuclear plants.
3. Words from the Experts
Jan A Rygh, a former director of a consulting company responsible for the overall planning of the Gjøvik Rock Cavern for the Olympic Stadium said that "we can easily create caverns big enough to put nuclear reactors .. and we would never experience another Chernobyl"
Problem and Concerns
1. Water seepage

• Water seepage can be a problem for caverns as no wall sealants will be permanent forever. The advent of membrane and the rock-engineering technology for sealing and draining would help. However, caverns can always be pressurized just like a balloon so that equal pressure will keep the water away. A well designed facility would need no real water pumping facilities that would otherwise required to contaminate the surface and environment.

2. Protest from Neighbours and Citizens

• Our neighbour and Citizens will protest. They will be very fearful of "what if". There should be efforts spent to educate them.

3. Danger of a total collapse

• The careful selection of a piece of rock to construct the nuclear plant is very important to ensure its success. Singapore has very good granite rocks underneath. We should be able to construct a good cavern that can withstand the catastrophic failure of a nuclear plant. We could always select a piece of good rock underneath the sea bed.
• There was no report of a total collapse of caverns in operation although there were reports about collapse of underground tunnels during the construction stage. The construction of space in cavern and underground tunnels are totally different in nature. The more than 30 times construction cost difference between them could give some prospective although the former involves taking out solid rock materials and the latter involves removing of the soft earth materials that will normally settle in time.

4. How deep? Will it affect Shipping?

• In Sweden, nuclear fuel are stored at about 30 metres below sea level. They have plans to store spent fuel finally 500 metres below. If the nuclear cavern is to be located under the sea bed, it should not have affected the shipping lanes as the seabeds are only of depths around 20 metres.

5. Will the Switzerland Failure Repeat?
The Swiss failure was due a burst in one of the pressure tubes, causing the reactor to malfunction. It is not quite related to the use of cavern for nuclear operation. More than 30 years have since passed, the advent of technology must have a solution to prevent a recurrence. This is a good example where Singapore could learn much from the Swiss before embarking a similar project.
6. Will the Cavern Be Able to Withstand Nuclear Blast?
There was no report of any nuclear test carried out using caverns although there were underground tests carried out as shown in this video. The blast at Chernobyl of Russia was said to be 50 Kilotons or 2.5 bigger than the 20 Kilotons shown in the video. But the following report indicated that underground nuclear test of more than 1 megaton had been carried out in the US. It is believed that caverns can be made to contain the nuclear catastrophic failures.
Other Alternatives
Other possible alternative is to construct a nuclear plant on floating platforms and float it 100 km away in Pacific Ocean. But this idea may be too risky as a nuclear power station is not only expensive with long submarine cables but also subject to security risk and many other legalities with Law of the Sea.
Conclusion
Singapore is a small nation that has no natural resource. It depends solely on fossil fuel for its electricity generation. It has no other alternative energies that can be harnessed in big quantities to alleviate the shortage of electricity supply. It will have to resort to building more and more fossil fuel plants in the future until it can find an alternative. Nuclear Power Plant built inside a cavern can be one of such an alternatives. The Government should spend efforts not only to carry out research and development work but also to educate its neighbours.

Construction work inside a rock cavern

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