Continue reading »]]> What can I say? It’s a Friday… the week has finally dragged on and there isn’t much longer until the weekend officially starts. Rather than writing on one topic, I thought I’d share the best of what was going on today, in the world of tech and software at least…

Chinese Schools Spurred Online Hacking
Remember the series of cyber attacks not too long after Google first threatened to pull out of China? Although it was never proven at the time, China was highly suspected of launching those attacks. It’s recently been discovered that two schools in China may have been responsibly. According to the New York Times, “a series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military.”

Google Goes (and Gets More) Green
The Federal Regulatory Energy Commission has given Google the power to “sell energy, capacity and service at market rates,” according to Wired. And now, it can start going green like they’ve been hoping… In the summer of 2007, they had 9,212 solar panels powering their Mountain View headquarters. With the FREC order, the entire Google-polis could be solar powered and maybe even your home! Of course, consumers will have to pay for service… Again, another step in taking over the world.

Photoshop Turns 20 (and transforms into an iPhone app)!
Okay, it’s really not that much of a headliner… but I thought it was cool. There’s a dedicated 20th anniversary site that Adobe created, complete with an informative and interactive timeline. Who knew, layers didn’t appear until five years after the birth? A specially created iPhone app was also given out to a group of selected attendees at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals 20th Anniversary Event. “I really wanted to do something special to commemorate 20 years of Photoshop, and the best thing I thought of was a nostalgic iPhone app,” says Russell Brown, Adobe’s Senior Creative Director.

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Continue reading »]]> A few days ago, Intel announced new contracts in place to incorporate “approximately 2.5 megawatts worth of new solar power projects at eight U.S. locations.” These eight locations spread over four states: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Oregon. Brian Krzanich, vice president of Manufacturing and Supply Chain for Intel tells us, “Intel is committed to renewable energy to reduce our own carbon footprint as well as to spur the market and make renewables more economically feasible for individuals and businesses to deploy.”

Intel has also increased their renewable energy credit purchases by 10 percent. This green feat has again stabilized their hold as the “largest single purchases of green power,” as named by the EPA. “These announcements represent our broader commitment which includes diversifying our energy portfolio through solar and other clean energy investments, and this will continue to be a priority for us around the globe,” says Krzanich.

Granted, Intel is an enormous company, hence enormous consumption, but they are highly dedicated to the greening business. They have invested more than $125 million in clean tech companies. Since 2001, the corporation has saved over 650 million kilowatt hours with their green initiatives and invested more than $30 million to fund those efforts.

Yay for big corporations like Intel and Adobe. More information about can be found from the Intel press room.

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Continue reading »]]> Powerhouse Adobe just installed 20 wind turbines at their San Jose headquarters! Pretty awesome… I love that giants like Adobe, Google, Dell and Intel are taking huge steps in the green movement. Green is good. Green is great. Green is also sexy. Okay, maybe I can’t pull off that last one without a giggle and smirk…

Anyway, since Adobe headquarters isn’t exactly located in an open field, there was a bit of improvisation. You know those gigantic, white, pinwheel wind turbines? Adobe didn’t install those. Rather, the company installed vertical generators called Windspires. These turbines feature a propeller-free design, which, in turn, allow easier integration amongst tight areas (such as metropolises). Although wind may be difficult to harvest in the city — with all the tall buildings and what not, Adobe installed these turbines on the 6th floor rooftop garden to take advantage of a wind tunnel that was created after a third tower was added to their San Jose campus.

According to NBC Bay Area, the Windspires at Adobe are only enough to power 10 average-sized homes. That’s nowhere near the amount of power needed for Adobe headquarters, but it’s a great start. Some of the energy generated by the turbines will even be powering the electric cars in the basement!

More information about Windspire can be found on their company website, http://www.mariahpower.com. Ha, I know… Mariah Power; it’s a rockin’ name. The company takes their name from the song, “They Call the Wind Mariah.” Mariah Carey was also named after that song — it’s from the Paint Your Wagon musical. Fancy how I know that, eh?

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Are you feeling the economic squeeze around your bank account? Are you feeling the polluted air contaminating your lungs? Are you feeling the fat build on your body?

Stop paying for that car. Stop contributing to carbon emissions. Stop letting those calories store into fat. And start commuting more economically. Start doing more for the environment. Start burning off those undeniable cravings. Start bicycling!

And do it with style by utilizing the latest technology… The Copenhagen Wheel, a product designed by MIT’s Senseable City Lab, was presented at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change yesterday. A device that adds a boost to your ride, the product could be thought of as a hit of nitrous mounted to your back bicycle wheel. It’s the latest in the Biking 2.0 revolution, a movement to customize  bikes through electronic mods.  Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, explains, “[The Copenhagen Wheel] can be plugged into any bike without requiring additional electronics or wires.”

“The Wheel uses a technology similar to the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), which has radically changed Formula One racing over the past couple of years,” says Ratti. In other words, the Wheel stores energy from braking and cycling for when you need a boost — it’s sort of similar to hybrid technology in cars. When I read about how the Copenhagen Wheel works, I think of the happenings on the energy monitor display in my friend’s Pruis…

The Wheel can also be turned into a speedometer, odometer, compass and real-time traffic or air quality hub. Packed inside the product lies a GPRS (general packet radio service), torque sensor and sensor kit measuring carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, noise, relative humidity and temperature. Control the wheel and utilize the sensors via Bluetooth technology. Just sync your iPhone (or other smartphone) and use the Copenhagen Wheel Application to secure your bike, change gears, control your energy boosts and view real-time information (distance traveled, average speed, calories burnt, pollution levels, air quality and traffic conditions). The application also allows the user to share the information with friends or social networks.

I couldn’t find a price for the product, probably because they haven’t gone into production just yet, but it’s said to be on par with standard electric bikes. In case you open an new tab to do the same, a rough Froogle search for “electric bikes” gave me products ranging from the low $100s to a few grand. Um. I totally want one… even if I don’t know how I’ll afford one. Ritt Bjerregaard, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, seems to want  many…

“Our city’s ambition is that 50 percent of the citizens will take their bike to work or school everyday. So for us, this project is part of the answer to how can we make using a bike more attractive.”

Copenhagen is a fairly prosperous city, right? Maybe the city will buy one for everyone! Seeing as it is one of the most livable cities in the world, I could totally move there. Then after I receive my Copenhagen Wheel (from the bulk inventory that the city purchased), I’ll probably need a smartphone too. I could probably find some way to fund the phone and coverage. I suppose I could…

It’ll be definitely be an investment (especially if this Copenhagen move doesn’t end up working out), but it’s comforting to know the lock also uses advanced technology — it has a smart lock. Associate director of the Copenhagen Wheel Project, Assaf Biderman, explains the lock a bit further.

“If somebody tries to steal it, it goes into a mode where the brake regenerates the maximum amount of power, and sends you a text message. So in the worst case scenario, the thief will have charged your batteries before you get back your bike.”

In the future, the Copenhagen Wheel hopes to incorporate customization. “Be able to spec out your wheel according to your riding habits and needs,” mentions the website. More power for those in San Francisco. Perhaps an altitude sensor for those in Denver. Maybe some sort of lighting device for night owls? And blind spot warning sensors for the sometimes otherwise occupied?

Does the Copenhagen Wheel encourage you to bike rather than drive to work? Would you be interested in attaching it to your bicycle? Share you thoughts – hit that comment link!

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Continue reading »]]> I sometimes cringe at the output of paper being printed these days. Did that really have to be printed? Did it really have to take so many pages? It couldn’t be cut down somehow? I snickered when I heard the ghosts of carbon footprints whispering their guilt to me as I discovered  PrintWhatYouLike.com’s bookmarklet.

What the devil is a bookmarklet? Well, it’s a small application disguising itself as a bookmark in your browser. Wikipedia explains it further and with more detail, if you’d like.

Anyway, PrintWhatYouLike.com developed a smart bookmarklet that skims down web pages for print. I hate printing web pages because of the useless surrounding images, ads and text that are just too much effort to cut out. But, with my new find, it’s not too bad anymore…

PrintWhatYouLike.com’s bookmarklet allows you to decrease the font size, select specific items, remove or isolate specific items and much more, all in the name of greener printing. This interactive demo runs through each of the features.

Normal Web Page: Web Page On a PrintWhatYouLike Diet:

PrintWhatYouLike also comes in other flavors: button for Google toolbar, Ubiquity command, Firefox extension or a simple URL. These other flavors support the über cool Ecofont. Which… will make printing even greener according to Ecofont’s findings, an estimated 20% less in printer ink consumed.

Ecofont?! Whaaaaa? Okay, imagine solid text that’s been punched with numerous tiny holes. Holes that are tiny… tiny… tiny. You only see those tiny holes if the font is enlarged enough. That’s Ecofont. Make sense?

Ecofont in action:

Oh, did I mention PrintWhatYouLike is free? Just another article to follow our free theme (three recent articles make it a theme now, right?). If you are interested in further greening, Treehugger has a few more free greener printing recommends here.

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Continue reading »]]> Brad Pitt is doing it with houses and architectural design. Rachel McAdams is doing it by bike. Australian singer-songwriter Missy Higgins did it while touring the US. Now, Microsoft is doing it with it’s latest Windows release. More companies are also getting their IT departments to jump on the bandwagon, and there’s proof!

A recent study conducted by CompTIA found that green IT is a mid to high level priority for 67 percent of organizations surveyed. In spite of the study also finding that a majority (80%) of organizations find quantifying the return on investment (ROI) of green initiatives to be a difficult task, Tim Herbert, vice president of research at CompTIA, says, “survey data suggests many organizations are willing to invest greener IT products even when the return isn’t realized immediately.” According to the study, over 75 percent of organizations expect to have a comprehensive green IT strategy within the next five years. Here are a couple of ideas to get that ball rolling…

Start with a more energy efficient server manager:
1e’s award nominated NightWatchman now comes in Server Edition, a product that puts “drowsy” computing to work. By analyzing active computing (the typical work done by computer users) and background computing (highly inefficient activity that server software performs such as antivirus updates or indexing checks), NightWatchman gauges servers to run at the lowest energy setting possible.  CEO of 1e, Sumir Karayi, mentions that “one of the largest causes of energy and IT operational waste in data centers are servers that are simply not being used.” “It’s still working,” he says, “it’s just working slower, like it’s drowsy.” Dell, for instance, saves over $1.8 billion annually by using NightWatchman across a board of 50,000 computers. Perhaps a solution where the ROI on this product could equal less than one year?

Then, update to a greener Windows:
From the greenest neck of the Windows woods comes Microsoft’s newest release, Windows 7. Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist, highlights a server and client interaction that “allows IT [departments] to run a power-efficiency diagnostics chart.” The chart is then used to adjust computers for the most efficient operation. By removing certain drivers that would prevent the processor from running optimally, Windows 7 “has become much more aware of the power management capabilities within the processor and chip set.”

Well, there’s a start. Just a few thoughts to flow the green thinking again.

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Continue reading »]]> Recently there has been a lot of debate surrounding the issue of turning your computer off at night. USA Today ran an article stating that US companies waste almost $3 billion a year in energy costs by leaving PC’s on when nobody is using them. That’s about 20 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, or the equivalent of 4 million cars driving for a year.

The USA Today article is based on a report by 1E, and energy-management software company that consults with companies like Dell to save them millions every year in energy costs. Their report says that if every unused PC on the planet was shut down for just one night, it would save enough energy to power the Empire State Building for over 30 years!

An article by Monte Enbysk on the Microsoft Small Business Center website says that companies can save as much as $90 per computer, per year by simply setting their PC’s to “Hibernate” at the end of the day. When you’re talking about companies with tens, hundreds, or even thousands of computers, the savings can really add up.

A recent article on BNET debates the true cost savings of turning computers off at night by factoring in lost productivity due to boot-up and shut-down times. This argument is irrelevant when it comes to pure energy savings and environmental concerns. In this era of global responsibility and planetary awareness, simply saving energy from being needlessly wasted should be motivation enough. Not to mention, most employees waste more time grabbing the morning coffee than booting up their computers, so I doubt any real productivity is lost.

Monte Enbysk in the Microsoft article also states that setting your PC to “Hibernate” reduces your PC energy usage to about 2.3 watts, virtually the same as turning it off. This will reduce your boot-up time to less than 30 seconds, since you don’t have to do a “hard” re-boot. In combination with turning off your monitors, this may the perfect energy saving solution. Just make sure you use the hibernate setting instead of “sleep”, which uses much more power.

Energy Saving Tips:

-Ask your IT department about setting PC’s to automatically hibernate after an hour of inactivity.

-Set your monitor to turn off after 20 minutes of inactivity. Screen savers can suck quite a bit of energy.

-Set all group printers to enter standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity.

Judging by the feedback on some of these other articles, this tends to be a very polarizing issue. Do you turn off your computer at night? Do you care about your employer’s energy costs, or are you more concerned with a speedy boot-up in the morning? Do environmental concerns play into your decision at all? Have you never considered the ramifications of leaving your computer running at night?

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Continue reading »]]> Today I had the opportunity to try out the new Home & Landscape Design Suite by Punch! Software. I am an experienced CAD user with a background in many technical, engineering based software platforms, so I know how much time it takes to learn a new modeling software. I was definitely curious and a little skeptical about the Home Design Suite and its claim that you can model the basics of a house in 59 seconds.

The newest version of this award-winning series features a completely new way to get your project started quickly. Its called QuickStart, and it’s designed to get your dream home ideas from your head to your computer in a few easy steps. QuickStart launches as soon as you start a new file, and it’s basically a blank grid, ready for your room shapes.

To start my newest home creation, I just clicked on a room type and dragged the rectangle to the grid. The room types are color coded and sized appropriately, making it even easier to start. Once my blue 12′x14′ dining room was in place, I dragged in a green Kitchen box and resized it to 15′x14′. The color-coded boxes automatically snap to adjoining rooms and resize with a click of your mouse.

About 3 minutes later I had my floorplan completely done. I then hit the “Continue” button and the rudimentary floorplan was transformed into a 3D rendering, complete with a stylish roof! It took about 2 more minutes to add custom windows and doors all over the house, and my basic home was done in under 5 minutes. Not too bad.

Once your basic house is ready, it is super easy to modify, delete, or reshape walls. Then the fun begins: adding wall textures, flooring, furnishings, and landscaping. I will be experimenting more with the Home & Landscape Design Suite later this week (including its new “Going Green” features), so stay tuned for a more in-depth review.

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