Going Green: Keeping Your Home Environmentally Friendly

We understand the importance of the environment.  We’re the first to appreciate the aesthetic look of the intercostal as waves crash on a harbor, or the setting sun burrowing into the horizon.  To maintain that sense of beauty, we all participate in making the world a greener place to live.   By lowering emissions and using environmentally sound products, we can all make sure to keep our planet green.  In today’s blog, we discuss some easy ways to maintain these same principles in your home.

1.    A Green Home is a Clean Home

Green homes allow for bill slashing, efficiency boosting, and the ability to minimize leakage.  One example is dual-paned windows.  They keep cool during the summer and warm during the winter.  One other great feature is a low-flow toilet, as well as tankless water heaters and solar energy systems. 

2.    Watch the Temperature

A lot of energy consumption is used during heating and cooling.  Turn down your thermostat in cold weather and keep it high in warm weather.  According to MSN: “Each degree below 68°F (20°C) during colder weather saves 3%-5% more heating energy, while keeping your thermostat at 78°F in warmer weather will save you energy and money. A programmable thermostat will make these temperature changes for you automatically.”

3.    Save Water

Just changing some of your routines can yield efficient water usage.  For example, try using a broom instead of a garden hose to clean your driveway, it can save you 80 gallons of water!!  Turn off the water while brushing your teeth will yield 4.5 gallons.

4.    Energy Efficient Light

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) use 66% less energy than a standard incandescent bulb, lasting up to 10x longer than the standard bulb.  Replacing a 100-watt incandescent bulb with a 32-watt CFL can save $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb.

5.    Use More Efficient Paint

The average paint contains solvents, toxic materials, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can cause smog, ozone pollution, and indoor air quality problems, according to the EPA.  Try zero-low-VOC paint, made by most major paint manufacturers.

These are just a few quick pointers to get you started, for more tips visit your nearest hardware store for more info and visit http://www.greenamerica.org/livinggreen/greencleaners.cfm

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Automotive Advertising

Making Music Integration Easy

Driving is a fundamental tool for getting from point A to point B.  That’s a given.  In most cases, we need something to cut the monotony of driving day in and day out.  Listening to music in the car has always been a great way to pass that long morning drive in traffic.  If your favorite song is blaring through the speakers, it’s hard not to remember a nostalgic memory tied to a rock ballad from the 70’s, or a classical piece of music that rivets the soul.  In today’s blog, we’re going a step further.  We’re going to provide you with some innovative ways to listen to music in your car.  Feel free to read below and add your own comments.

Cassette tapes, CDs and if you’re ‘seasoned’ enough, 8-tracks were always a distraction in the car.  Now, with the emergence of mp3 players like the iPod, you can hold thousands of music files in one small device.  You can connect your iPod four ways:

1.    Aux-in connection: this is a common feature in most cars and only requires an Auxiliary cable (which you can pick up for about $2 on Amazon) to be plugged into a car’s aux-in jack on one end and the music player’s headphone jack on the other.  Then, just select AUX on a car’s stereo and viola!

2.    USB Port: most carmakers offer a computer-style connection.  You can plug in your iPod/iPhone using the computer-sync cable it was supplied with.  This allows you to control your device easily.

3.    Proprietary connection: This relies on a cable supplied by the automaker that plugs into the iPod’s 30-pin connector on one end, just as a USB cable does.  The other end plugs into a connection that's unique to the vehicle. Another connection setup uses a two-pronged cable that has to plug into both the aux-in jack and a USB port.

4.    Bluetooth Audio: allows you to transfer a conversation from a mobile phone to a car’s stereo that also let you wirelessly stream music between compatible devices.  Typically, the only features available are pause/play. 

These are just some of the ways music technology is making waves in the auto industry.  Choose the most convenient for you and run with it!

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Automotive Advertising

TwitWipe: An App that Deletes ALL of Your Tweets

Mischief.  Trouble.  Mayhem.  These three words can accompany a questionable decision you’ve made, a night of unwanted remembrance or a tweet that you regretted as soon as it left your tech savvy fingers.  We’ve all made questionable decisions in our time, that’s obvious.  With the emergence of social media, it’s easier to broadcast your debauchery via tweet, text, message or photo...in an instant.  It’s an immediate blast to the online world, forever etched in the Internet’s repertoire. 

Have you ever posted something you later regretted?  In most cases, you can delete a post fast enough to avoid detection.  However, once you push ENTER and one person sees the post before you delete it, they can share it with their friends in an instant.   I.e.  Anthony Weiner, the disgraced Congressman who infamously tweeted a private picture, was the center of a huge scandal.  It’s also hard to forget the tweet by Ashton Kutcher, regarding the Sandusky scandal that read: “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a Hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.” Before he knew about the scandal…the list goes on. 

For the impulsive Twitter junkie, there’s hope. A new app called TwitWipe is able to delete ALL of your tweets in one go.   This might be a little drastic for most Twitter users, but if you regret most of the things you’ve said on Twitter, this is definitely the ideal road to travel.  Utilizing TwitWipe will let you start fresh on Twitter without losing your followers, the people you follow or your favorites.  It’s more beneficial than deleting your account because you still hold on to your followers, who you follow etc…   

There is a downside, however.  TwitWipe takes time to perform deletion and once done, there’s no turning back.  If TwitWipe is the right thing for you, click: http://twitwipe.com/login.php

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Automotive Advertising

Finding a Fresh Christmas Tree

It’s days weeks before Christmas and you’re running around frantically.  The gifts are unwrapped, the food is unprepared and your Santa hat is nowhere to be found.  Stop.  Take a deep breathe and relax, we’re here to help.  Though we won’t be able to cook your holiday dinner, (we can make a mean roast, by the way) we will be able to help you with one of your dilemmas: finding the perfect Christmas tree. 

Finding the perfect tree starts with one simple rule: look for the green! According to Elwood Christmas Tree Farm owner Lee Itzler, the best way to test the health of an evergreen is to grab a branch of your Christmas tree-to-be and lightly scratch the stem. "If you see green, the tree will keep its needles longer."

Trees between 6 and 8 feet are always in high demand, taking between 8 and 10 years to grow 6 feet tall.  Once you pick out your tree, it’s best to put it inside of your car as opposed to on top.  Why? Itzer says: "Strapped on the roof, the trees get really beat up, wind burned, and desiccated. If you're a local delivery it really doesn't make a difference, but if you're going on the highway, then it should go in the car."  If you do have to put it on the roof, put the trunk facing into the wind.

Once your tree is home safe and sound, it’s time to get a good stand with heavy water retention.  The tree will soak up a lot of water over the course of the next couple days, so make sure to keep the stand full.  Viola! Your tree skills have improved this year! 

How do you retain your tree over the holiday season?  Let us know below!

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Automotive Advertising

App of the Week: Carticipate

Social media has continued to bring us closer together.  Through an emerging channel of information, we’re able to provide each other with a constant feed into our daily lives.  Carticipate, an experimental app that takes social transportation to a new plateau, has taken advantage of our constant need to always be connected. 

Carticipates purpose is to bring commuters together in a large social network, helping them save money on fuel as well as contributing to the environment by emitting fewer fumes.  It allows users to search for ride locations near their cities, near business travel, and even outside of the US. You’re also able to coordinate driving plans by indicating where you are going, when, and post your ride.  

Carticipate will match you up to local carticipants going your way.
The new scheduler feature allows you to create and manage multiple trips where you define the "From" and "To" locations.
Carticipate comes with a list of pre-loaded default destinations, which you can edit, delete, or add your own custom locations.  The choice is yours!  Check it out here: www.carticipate.com/

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Automotive Advertising

The Text & Drive Debate

 

When cell phones were introduced more than a decade ago, no one knew the scope of influence they would have on modern society.  Now, in 2011, the cellphone has morphed into an extension of our person. Need sport scores on the go? Got it.  Need to update your Facebook or Twitter? Got that too.  What about the temperature for the upcoming week? Yup! 

Having a small item that performs so many tasks at you fingertips, it’s difficult to not want to pick it up any time during the day and be spoon-fed a plethora of information. Even if that means you’re behind the wheel.   Texting and driving is the worst possible thing you can do while driving.  It slows your reaction time and attentiveness to a halt.  Below you’ll find some disturbing statistics…PLEASE drive safely:

• Distraction from cell phone use while driving (hand held or hands free) extends a driver's reaction as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (University of Utah)
• The No.1 source of driver inattention is use of a wireless device. (Virginia Tech/NHTSA)
• Drivers that use cell phones are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (NHTSA, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
• 10 percent of drivers aged 16 to 24 years old are on their phone at any one time.
• Driving while distracted is a factor in 25 percent of police reported crashes.
• Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent  (Carnegie Mellon) 

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Automotive Advertising

Consumer Tips For Staying “Green”

   

    As 2011 comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to look back on the year.  For the auto industry, it was a tad rocky, but we’ve managed to bounce back.  In other aspects, it was a great year for hope and prosperity, instilling a feeling of pride for what we do as a whole.  As Americans, we have been able to navigate a recession and emerge victorious.  One aspect that should be addressed is the environment.  As individuals, we have a responsibility for the vegetation surrounding us and in today’s blog; we delve into options for staying “green” in our current economy.  Feel free to add your own in the comments section below!

According to Compatible Green Energy: 

1. Use cloth instead of paper: Try trading in your paper napkins, paper towels, paper plates and paper shopping bags, in exchange for more earth-friendly materials. Save the trees! People have been using cloth napkins, rags and shopping bags for centuries, not to mention that reusable, washable plates date back to the beginning of eating.

2. Grow something green: Plants use up CO₂ and release oxygen. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Oxygen is good – plain and simple. You can’t get much greener than that.

3. Make a compost pile: Instead of tossing your left over food in the trash, or sending it down the garbage disposal, make a compost pile. Anything that once came from a plant can be composted – fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, etc. Decomposed plant matter contains nutrients that make it a great natural fertilizer.

4. Trade your wheels: It’s no secret that cars produce pollution. In the name of health, try biking or walking instead of driving. Even using public transportation such as buses or trains is better for the environment than driving your personal car everywhere.

5. Recycle: Ancient civilizations recycled their metals and we’ve been recycling ever since. Now, with a modern twist, we can recycle metals, plastics, glass and paper. Recycled materials are broken down and then processed into new products, such as high-grade paper being deinked, pulped and then repressed into more paper.

6. Reuse: Before you recycle, look for ways to reuse empty bottles, old newspapers or plastic containers. You can use empty containers to store food, cleaning supplies or household materials. Not only is it good for the world to reuse your old materials, it might save you some money too.

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Automotive Advertising