After impulse buying, you generally get this shock of how much money you actually have spent and questions floating in your head like “Did I need this?” – well, I guess you could say I got these feelings but they were far from strong as I believe I made the right choice. This evening, after work sitting at KFC in my girlfriends car, I got an inclination to look on MSY (a wholesaler of computer equipment) on my iPhone, I”m unsure why but I did. I became quite focused on what I “wanted” to add to my technology collection at home, I actually forgot about my food! Anyway, moving forward. Looking through the PDF on my iPhone, I skipped to the LCD Monitor section, viewing what seems to be affordable prices for great LCD screens, especially top notch brands like Acer, Asus, ViewSonic, Samsung etc. MSY have always been a great provider of excellent brands at unmatched prices, not to mention I”ve been wanting to buy a LCD monitor for quite some now, it just hit me — I will buy a LCD monitor…I just wasn”t sure which one. With the clock ticking over to 6:00PM, I had only 30 mins to make a decision on what LCD monitor to buy, that means researching pricing, quality, feedback, design the whole works in a period of 10 minutes, find it on the website, review the specs then drive to MSY all in this limited time…could it happen? Well, theoretically, of course — anything can happen, however to make a proper, logical calculation, time would be needed and waiting the next day would”ve probably been ideal. However, since I like to keep things exciting, I decided then and there I will go with something I know, like and have seen much of — ViewSonic. That was figured out, so the next step was the size. This wasn”t too hard, given the fact I was upgrading from a 19″ LCD Television, so I wanted to aim around 22″-24″. From there, I picked out the ViewSonic VX2433WM which was $265. Quickly opened a new window in Safari, visited ViewSonic”s website and viewed the specs for the ViewSonic VX2433WM:

All in all, quite a good monitor, considering the fast refresh rate, high contrast ratio and a beautiful 1920×1080 resolution — with HDMI added too! For the price of $265, these great specs and a beautiful size of 23.6″, I was set. I quickly closed my Safari and directed my lovely girlfriend, Cheryl to MSY (5 mins away). We arrived at 6:15, I walked in, asked for the magical ViewSonic VX2433WM from the techno-guy behind the counter and swiped my beautiful red Westpac credit card. The transaction was now completed, I was handed my receipt and we were on our way! Now generally, any impulse buyer would know this is probably when you would start feeling regret, shame, unusual stomach upsets or simple statements in your head like “You”re an idiot for buying that.”, “Why did you buy that, you don”t need it.” – but, I didn”t. This transaction is of course tax deductible but it”s something I”ve wanted for quite a while, and probably needed too!

Sitting back as I type this long, word stuffed article, I”m quite surprised at the brightness and beautiful resolution. It really helps clear my head and with so many pixels more, it gives me that crispy background.

Nicole Kuepper, Age 23

A bright woman by the name of Nicole Kuepper has invented a brilliant idea that allows the creation of solar panels by using a pizza oven. This would eventually bring the wonders of electricity all around the world, to areas where they just can’t afford it.

Nicole, who is 23 received her first solar-energy kit from her parents at the age of 10, and has wanted to work with solar energy ever since. She is a PhD student and lecturer in the school of photovoltaic and renewable energy engineering at the University of New South Wales.

Realising at such a young age that the world needs clean, renewable and affordable energy in countries, she decided to think outside the square. “What started off as a brainstorming session has resulted in the iJET cell concept that uses low-cost and low-temperature processes, such as ink-jet printing and pizza ovens, to manufacture solar cells.”

Nicole also believes whilst it could take up to or beyond 5 years to develop the technology, it would allow many to read at night, be kept informed of the world’s news and store vital necessities such as vaccines.

Though from my perspective, I would see it as a positive not to be informed of the negative energy that surrounds the current world today, however I do believe storing vitial necessities and reducing green house gas emissions is a big step forward.

Nicole, we need young people like you to show the rest of the negative world it’s possible to live free, clean and in abundance – the right way. Keep going strong, you have my full support!