The world of energy saving is a complicated one, there are probably about a million different ways that you can save energy in your home. You could turn down your thermostat a degree, you could install thermostatic valves on your radiators, or number one choice of all is to install energy saving bulbs.

The most common (and cheapest) type is the standard compact fluorescent. You know the ones, the twirly ones or stick shaped ones that take about a year to warm up once you turn them on. I really don't like them that much, they are better than they used to be, but they are not great. My new preferred type of bulb is the LED bulb, they offer great lighting and massive energy savings.

CFL vs LED

The main difference between a compact fluorescent and an LED is energy consumption. Your average compact fluorescent will use about 11W or so, an equivalent LED bulb that produces the same amount of light, will use about 3W. An LED bulb will also last longer, in most cases about 30,000 hours of use. Assuming you use your bulb for about 4 hours a day, that equates to 7,500 days of usage, that's 20 years before you need to get a new light bulb.

The other main advantage of an LED bulb is that it's instant on, no more warming up, an LED is on and working at full brightness in milliseconds.

And finally, you can get a wider choice of colour temperature which means you can choose to have the nice warm orange like colour of a normal traditional incandescent without the energy consumption. No more harsh white lights of an energy saving bulb (once it warms up of course!).

Cost

I know what you're thinking, aren't LED bulbs expensive? Yes, they are expensive. In fact they cost probably 10 times as much as a compact fluorescent. But they also last 10 times longer so perhaps it's not so bad if you spread the cost out.

In my mind though I have to spend some money on the bulbs sure, but once I've spent it the money is gone, unlike a business I don't really care about RoI, what I'm interested in is the bill from nPower being less each month. If you do the math it will be a long time before I see a return, but a month after buying the bulbs that purchase isn't in my mind, the bill being lower is in my mind, and a lower bill means for a happy me.

If you have some spare cash, say £30-50 then swapping the main lightbulbs you use each day could result in a 60% or greater reduction in energy usage from lighting. And most your energy consumption will be from lighting most likely.

Complicated to install?

LED bulbs are simple and easy to install, nothing special at all to consider really. Like a compact fluorescent type, you just buy the correct fitting, so bayonet or Edison or even small Edison and just swap the bulbs over. If you have a dimmer switch you just need to make sure you buy a dimmable (sometimes called dimmerable) bulb.

And finally, make sure to buy quality. LED bulbs like the one in the picture should have a fairly big heat sink, it should feel heavy for a bulb, if it doesn't feel heavy and have a big heat sink then it probably isn't very good quality, so don't buy it. Do yourself a favour, buy quality bulbs.

Conclusions

I really like LED bulbs, I think that the prices are going to come down, and the quality is only going to improve. Only 12 months ago LED bulbs wouldn't have been considered suitable for a home, but today I can buy any of hundreds of available types and they are great quality. If you want a quality light in your home with superb energy savings then LED is definitely for you.

I've been using multiple monitors on my desktop computers (except my iMac) for years and years, and I think that the use of multiple monitors is probably one of the smartest upgrades you can do to your computer to increase productivity. However, on Windows the thing that annoyed me most was backgrounds.

In Linux the background is stretched across all your desktops, which is great because you can choose some stunning panoramic backgrounds, but in Windows I always found it just repeated the single image individually on each screen rather than stretching across them all.

However, there is a way around this and I'm going to document it first in these simple steps. So to stretch a single panoramic background across multiple desktops in Windows follow these steps:

1. Download a nice background, www.interfacelift.net has got a great selection and you can search by double or triple monitor images. Make sure the image you choose is exactly the right resolution, so if both your monitors are 1440x900 then you'll need a 2880x900 image.
2. Right click on your desktop and select the option to change the preferences, this is called "Personalisation" in Windows 7
3. Select your panoramic background image.
4. Change the background type to tile
5. Voila! You're background is now stretched across all your desktops.

So, if you're one of those people who sees the sign on the left and don't know what to do then click this link and figure it out.

For quick reference, if you seen that sign it means that the previously stated speed limit no longer applies and you can assume the national speed limit for that road. On a single carriageway road this means you can do 60mph maximum. If you're on a dual carriageway then you can do 70mph.

Just a tip, if you have two lanes only on your side of the road, this means you can still only do 60mph. A dual carriageway has two lanes on both sides and typically a central reservation or barrier of some kind.

There we have, learn your road signs and hopefully we'll all get to work quicker!

For the first article on this website I'm going to tackle the easiest thing you can do to save money; change your energy supplier.

All the big energy companies have increased their prices recently, my own supplier nPower has increased my prices by 15% for electricity and British Gas have also increased prices recently, there is nothing you can do to escape rising prices, prices will continue to rise as fossil fuels become more scarce. But, you can take steps to avoid the biggest increases and minimise the impact it has on your pocket.

The first thing you need to do is get yourself onto a price comparison website and see if you can change your supplier to a cheaper tariff. A lot of people don't bother with this because they think it's a hassle, but in most cases changing energy supplier is quick and simple and you can make some substantial savings compared to the standard tariffs. And as we approach winter with prices rising all over now is the perfect time.

I've got a few tips for you so keep reading for a few things to think about when it comes to selecting your tariff.

• Do you really need a paper bill? If you're prepared to have an online only tariff you can make some good savings. Do you really need the paper bill, surely all you are going to do is throw it out anyway so why have it sent in the first place? With a lot of suppliers the online only options tend to represent a good saving compared to standard tariffs.
• Do you really need an energy monitor? A lot of the energy companies have special tariffs which are advertised as environmentally friendly tariffs and you can save up to £100 or something a year on your bill. Often though the amount you're paying for units of electricity or gas is more than a tariff that doesn't have a fancy smart meter. That saving per year is based on you using that smart meter display to then be more conscientious about how you use energy and turn some things off. But let's face it, you probably aren't going to look at the mater after the first day so you are probably better getting a lower price tariff and get your own smart meter for £30 (www.electricity-monitor.com) if you really want one.
• How do you feel about fixing your prices? You often have a slightly higher price for units of electricity when you elect to fix your prices for a given time period, but you can sleep easy knowing that you aren't going to be hit with any 15% price hikes like I was with nPower. We all know that energy prices are going to continue to increase as fossil fuels become more scarce so fixing now does make sense, especially before winter. The downside of course is that at the end of the fixed period you're going to likely have a price increase as your tariff assumes the current market rate at the end of the fixed period. Personally I don't like the idea of being tied in for an amount of time, but for some it's worth considering, particularly if you're a heavy user of energy where a 15% increase is more noticeable.
• What do you want to save, money or the planet? You're going to be paying a lot more if you elect to be a carbon neutral or renewable tariff, but you can sleep better knowing your being good to the planet and saving the environment. But, if you're out to save money then this is not the way to go, these eco-tariffs are a lot more expensive and probably not making much difference to the take up of renewable energy anyway.

So, there we have it, some good questions to think about. The key thing to do though is to go onto a comparison website, type in your energy usage data (can be found on your latest bill) and see whether someone else can do it cheaper. Generally you're only going to be interested in the smallest number so at the very least go check out what there is available to you.

Personally I compared my current supplier nPower with others following the latest price increase and surprisingly nPower are still the cheapest option for me. This is probably because I'm a particularly low energy user, I pay only £6 per month for gas and £19 per month for electricity. But if you're in an older, or bigger house then it will be different for you so get on the comparison websites and see what you can save.

• www.moneysupermarket.com
• www.uswitch.com
• www.comparethemarket.com
• www.gocompare.com