Friedbeef's Tech » green http://www.friedbeef.com Solving Everyday Problems With Simple Technology - Freeware, Productivity, Useful Tips & More Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:09:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://www.friedbeef.com http://www.friedbeef.com/favicon.ico Friedbeef's Tech 3 Tech-Savvy Ways to Actually Do SOMETHING About Climate Change http://www.friedbeef.com/3-tech-savvy-ways-to-actually-do-something-about-climate-change/ http://www.friedbeef.com/3-tech-savvy-ways-to-actually-do-something-about-climate-change/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:29:35 +0000 James Yeang http://www.friedbeef.com/?p=1032 running out

In conjunction with Blog Action Day, here are 3 tech-savvy ways to help with one of the most serious issues of our generation – Climate Change.

1. How to have fun while saving the world

carbonrally

Carbon Rally is a eco-community where people can discover and commit to small, positive actions over time. People on the site could propose great ideas for saving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and the community would choose the best ideas to pursue as a team.

The collective impacts are tracked, and it can show the power of many people getting the job done together.  You can ‘compete’ with friends or people from around the world to take up these small challenges and see how you can make a difference.

2. How to easily find green products

ecoseek

Ecoseek is a search engine for eco friendly and green products. Their mission is to connect consumers with eco-friendly products, manufacturers and local earth-conscious retailers.  Here you’ll find everything from baby products to furniture. 

All items listed are tagged to show how it’s eco friendly.  For example, you’ll be able to gauge whether it’s recycled, manufactured in a sustainable process, organic etc.  All so it’s much easier for you can make an environmentally conscious purchase.

3. How to easily find carpool buddies on facebook

carpool

Carpool is a facebook app which allows you to cut down your carbon emissions by sharing rides.  It’s quite robust in functionality and allows you to:

  • view rides in your network
  • search them
  • manage your frequent locations using Google Maps
  • determine how far a detour you need to drive to pick someone up
  • Track all the rides you’ve shared, and the miles you’ve traveled and calculate your reduction in CO2 emissions

Always a useful green app if you want to help cut down your carbon footprint when you travel.

Remember, green vanity apps are important, but they don’t mean anything until you do something about it.  Go out, and change the world, and Happy Blog Action Day!

Are you participating in Blog Action Day?  Tell us your blog post in the comments!

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]]> http://www.friedbeef.com/3-tech-savvy-ways-to-actually-do-something-about-climate-change/feed/ 5 How to Save Ink and Paper When Printing http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-save-ink-and-paper-when-printing/ http://www.friedbeef.com/how-to-save-ink-and-paper-when-printing/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:35:41 +0000 James Yeang http://www.friedbeef.com/2008/02/15/how-to-save-ink-and-paper-when-printing/ greenprint

Printing web pages can be very ink intensive when you’ve got a fancy page at hand.  Yes, there are some basic measures you can take to save ink using selective printing- but here’s how you can automate the process!

Greenprint is an interesting piece of freeware that scans through whatever you want to print and helps to optimize the print layout.  With just a few simple clicks you can eliminate extra pages, remove selected images, and just tweak it so that you’re not wasting paper and ink.

Here’s WSJ tech guru Walt Mosberg running through a quick review of the product so you can see it in action.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When it was first released it was paid software only, but now there is a 100% free version available for download, so not only will you be saving money from your pocket, but saving the environment as well.

Still not certain about optimizing your printing? Consider this:

  1. 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly)
  2. Global paper products consumption has tripled over the past three decades and is expected to grow by half again before 2010
  3. Production of 1 ton of copy paper uses 11,134 kWh (same amount of energy used by an avg household in 10 months)
  4. Making one single sheet of copy paper can use over 13oz. of water– more than a typical soda can.
  5. 4281 acres of rainforest are lost every hour worldwide
  6. If you filled an Olympic-size swimming pool with ink it would cost $5.9 billion
  7. A single mature tree can release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings

What other ways do you save ink and paper? Tells us in the comments!

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