Browse and be green!

In my last post I talked about Ecocho, but really wasn’t that convinced by it! Well today I came across something that I am totally convinced about; Eco-Flock.

I’ve been using Flock as my preferred browser for quite a while now, not only because it’s based on Firefox, but also you can blog directly from it (as I’m doing with this post) as well as keep up to date with all your social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. It also ties in nicely with YouTube and Flickr. All in all I’ve been very happy with Flock, it’s not the speediest browser I’ve tried but it’s far from the slowest and seems to run rings round IE7.

Today, in honour of Earth Day, Flock have released the Eco-Edition of Flock, which is basically the same as the great normal edition but with a green slant coming pre-configured with many green sites to keep you informed of global changes as they happen.

But the really great thing about this new browser is the fact that Flock will be donating 10% of its revenue generated by searches to green organisations. So the more you search using Eco-Flock the more money they will donate. At the end of the year the Flock community will then vote on which environmental charity the money goes to.

Installing the browser is a sinch and importing your current favourites etc. is simple, in fact as I was already using Flock I didn’t even have to go through this process.

So go ahead and use the Eco-Edition of Flock from today and make a real world of a difference.

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Tags: Flock, Eco-Edition, green browsing, green searching, environmental charities, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr

Ecocho: bless you!

Despite my last post , and my promise to make more of an effort here I am again nearly a month gone.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. This is just a heads up to a new search wrapper that I’ve heard about, Ecocho. This is a great place to search in either Yahoo or Google, but for every 1000 searches they will grow up to two trees (not sure I like the up to!). They also say that they will try to donate 70% of their revenues to carbon offsets.

I’m not entirely convinced by this, is it just a start up business trying to use the green banner to get a leg up, or is it a genuine attempt to try and help the environment?

You decide!

Tags: searchengine, yahoo, google, ecocho, carbon offsetting

Happy Birthday Sam!

Well it’s been a while since my last post. I’m not sure where time is going! I really should try to make more of an effort.

This is just a quick post to wish Sam, Happy 1st Birthday today!

Hopefully the next year will see as many exciting changes as the last.

Love dad xxx

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Building Nostalgia!

One of the great advantages of having kids is that you get to play with all those toys that really you’re too old for. One of my favourites is LEGO!

Well, today the humble LEGO brick celebrates being 50 years old.

In those 50 years how much pleasure must this simple little toy have given many generations? It helps develop the imagination, dexterity skills and problem solving. All to help design the correct shape from a fairly uniform looking plastic brick.

I’ve never been to LEGOland, but I know a few people who have and it sounds fabulous. I just know the kids would love it. In fact I think I’ve just found somewhere to go in the next school holidays.

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Tags: lego, legoland, anniversary, 50 years, imagination, dexterity, problem solving

Piggin’ ridiculous!

My wife and I are just going through the minefield that is school admissions at the moment and trying to decide which primary school we should send our almost four year old daughter to. Trawling through some education websites looking at Ofsted reports and other things I came across this story.

I cannot believe this, but apparently a government agency’s awards panel (Becta) has decreed that a digital book based on The Three Little Pigs is offensive to Muslims. Supposedly the use of pigs raises cultural issues! The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.

Now is it just me? Isn’t this whole thing a bit ridiculous? Books are meant to be read not eaten. How can a story that uses everyday animals be deemed offensive? These stories are designed to help teach kids to read using memorable images to reinforce the words.

If anything I think it should be the wolf that is offended as the book suggests climbing down a chimney which may go against several Health & Safety regulations, with not a warning sign in site! Could he sue? And I’ve seen no sign of a risk assessment for the building and destruction of property!

 
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Tags: education, ofsted, three little pigs, becta, primary school

Forum one person to another

Just a quick post! I’ve been meaning to put something up about this for the past few days and keep forgetting. You know how you turn on the PC to do something and then for the life of you can’t remember why? Well I did this time!

Anyway, a good friend of mine (Wolfieb) has started a forum about, well anything you want! It’s fairly new at the moment, but that’s the good thing. Get in there and help shape the way the forum goes, make it your place.

So, see you there!

 

Tags: forums, one to one, your views

Let’s go digital!!!

Or, at least that’s what those poxy adverts on TV keep telling us to do.

Apparently, you need to go out now and buy a digital TV, with the digital tick and a whole host of extra digital stuff. If you don’t buy one of these new TVs now, you’ll never be able to watch TV again, and probably limbs ‘ll fall off and everything.

Well, it’s all a crock!

Even if you do want to go digital now rather than wait until 2012 (the official digital date) your current TV will be fine. All you need is either a satellite receiver (such as Freesat – £150ish installed) or a Freeview box (£25 – self-install), both of which will connect to a normal TV. It doesn’t even need to have a SCART connection, both of the options can be connected using a standard RF aerial. The picture and sound quality will be fine, the programme choice the same mix of unfunny comedies and repeats.

The choice of going digital or not is entirely up to you. So don’t be bullied into buying a new TV, it’s just not necessary and if anyone tells you it is they’re lying!

I realise that certain areas can’t get digital TV yet but this is just a rant because I’m really getting cheesed off with untruths being told to us just to increase TV sales. Here’s an idea, ‘why don’t you switch off television sets and go and do something less boring instead’!

That brings back memories.

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Tags: digitaltv, satellite, freeview, digital change over, why don’t you

The Christmas Cake is finally iced

Back at the end of August, we decided to make a Christmas Cake, not in itself an unusual thing, but since then we’ve been adding capfulls of Metaxa, my favourite Greek brandy every couple of weeks! Boy does it smell gorgeous every time we take the lid off for the next instalment of brandy.

Well yesterday saw the final addition of the marzipan and the icing, after of course the last couple of capfulls of Metaxa

Yum yum, I think I’ll have to lock away the car keys for the next couple of days!

 

Tags: metaxa, christams, cake

School Kids get more energy!

One of my local Junior schools (in fact the one I went to) is about to become one of the greenest schools in the country. All thanks to a great new scheme from the Co-Operative. The National Green Energy for Schools Scheme will give a fund of £1m to up to 100 schools nationally. This pot is then match funded by the Governments, Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

The Photovoltaic (PV) panels are worth about £20,000 for each school and as well as providing clean, renewable and sustainable power, it is hoped that it will help educate the children. It is planned that each school will also receive leaflets and information to distribute to the children. The panels should generate about 3,240 kWh of electricity per year and reduce Carbon Dioxide production by about two tonnes, as well as help move away from the schools reliance on fossil fuels.

A monitor screen will be placed in a main area of the school so that teacher and pupils alike can see how much electricity the panels are generating and also how much carbon dioxide they have saved to date. There is also the facility to access the data online. This might be of particular interest in the summer holidays when the school is not in use but electricity is still being produced, especially if they have done a deal with their energy supplier and excess energy is sold back to the national grid!

Ocklynge Junior School is set to be one of the first schools in the country to use this scheme, so a big well done to everyone involved and lets hope this help influence the whole community.

Tags: Solarpower, photovoltaic, co-op, low carbon, renewable energy, school kids

Do the Green thing!

I was talking to a good friend of mine earlier today, just shooting the breeze and we go onto the subject of green issues and I told him about this blog!

He seemed quite impressed but also told me about a new Green Community that he’d just come across, called ‘Do The Green Thing‘. This a new green community that basically sets a monthly task for everyone to do. The idea I guess being to show how little things can make a big difference if enough people do it. It also possibly gives people some alternative ideas as to what to do!

This months task is to switch off the lights earlier and perhaps do something different, like look at the stars!

Go on give it a go, I did an actually it’s quite fun (even got the kid involved!)

Tags: green, community, fun, stars, astronomy