Handy Utility for Printing and Saving …

Happened on this great utility while reading my daily dose of Web Worker Daily … featured this super handy print utility that is web based and also a tool for web sites you may have …  printfriendly

Picture the common problem of web pages with so many headers and links and all you want is the content (printing a web page has always been a big problem) … this first shot show a blog that I commented on in a previous entry …

This is the normal view you get and try to print while browsing … by copying the url into the printfriendly web page, this is what you get …

Notice the buttons allow you to print the cleaned up copy or save as a pdf … the pdf copy allows you then to print to other things or archive the work … for those of you using google docs … you can then take it all back up to the web and save it in your cloud space …. neat …

This is a shot their web page and notice several other cool items … you can embed a printer friendly button on your own website to provide this to your readers … and you can also put a button on your browser so you don’t even have to go to the site to do this … very valuable resource for all the time and resource challenged among us …

Reverse Globalization …

Fascinating thought … REVERSE Globalization … this was the topic in a recent entry by Tyler Hamilton in the Clean  Break Blog in the greenliving network … Tyler commented on the idea that the global energy outlook was being driven by our present financial crisis causing decreased demand, lower investment in needed infrastructure, and the drying up of funding for alternative fuel sources … this will all contribute to an even larger crisis developing when the global economies pick up … by the way, the pickup happening is simply a question of when and not if …

Former CIBC chief economist Jeff Rubin, whose new book Why Your World Is Going to Get a Whole Lot Smaller hit the market this week.  He proposed that peak oil production has already been  reached and the world situation in the near future is getting increasingly dim because of the introduction of the $2000 car by Tata of Indian and the insatiable appetite of the Chinese for automobiles.  Rubin further believes that the scenario will be playing itself out in the near term … fuel prices going back to triple digits, inflation putting pressure on the economy like the 70’s, and a shift towards urban living with collapses in housing in the suburbs.  Proximity supply will be the only answer to the skyrocketing costs of transportation.  The shift will occur that will effectively become the deathblow for the globalization that has run rampant for the last 40 years … no longer will the cheap production rule the pricing as the shipping component becomes the dominant driver.

“Oil prices are destined to once against skyrocket into triple-digit territory, and the impact will be inflation on everything, including our food and the fuel we use to drive our cars and heat/power our homes. In fact, gas prices will become so high that people will be forced to ditch their cars, housing prices in the suburbs will plunge, urban areas will grow more dense, and there will be a renaissance in local agriculture and urban farmers’ markets …”

Next topic … urban farming …

Fertilizers and Dead Zones ….

Much has been written regarding the modern problem of “dead zones” in our waterways … eutrophication or excessive plant growth and decay is the cause of the dead zones, and it has been proposed that excess Nitrogen and Phosphates are the key nutrients or the root of the problem.  Up until some landmark studies, it was thought that the P component was the culprit, but it has become evident that N is also problematic … in a recent article in Science Daily, this study was highlighted.

The photo at the right shows how the eutrophication can create excess algae and plant growth that chokes off normal growth (Credit: Copyright Michele Hogan).  This problem is prevalent in coastal waterways and ponds that are subject to runoff and leaching from agricultural and yard fertilization.  Increasingly problematic, this man-made problem can be reversed with careful planning.

The dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the highly polluted Lake Okeechobee in Florida are highly visible examples.  Small ponds and waterways are susceptible also.  We need to take a look at how we can mitigate this problem.  We will introduce ideas in next few blogs that may help solve this problem ….

Taking Skype to a New Level …

 

YuuGuu is a service that integrates with skype (my favorite VIOP client) and brings a shared screen for conferencing… some of the magic resides in the seamless integration of the client with the skype service … when you download the client and run it, you will see you skype clients and you simply tap the share button and it will create a link that your collaborator clicks and voila … instant white board, shared screen, collaborative editing … you name it .. you got it … this is one of the few services that not only delivered, but doesn’t require downloading or anything else on the other side … the window is opened in a browser window and you can continue the conversation in skype while working on your desktop …

We used a mindmap and I created and deleted, added and annotated, all reflected quickly on the browser on my colleagues screen … I can see where this will be valuable for many things … there is a free account for up to 5 person sharing … $15 a month for up to 30 … if you are sharing the screen without your counter parties downloading the client, then you are limited to 100mins per month on the free plan … unlimited on the paid plan.  Give it a spin … pretty cool and something that could prove extremely useful in a pinch ….

From the Cloud to the Desktop and Back …

Got notification of release of beta download for a new service that truly could be a game changer … OffiSync

This was the missing link for me as I like using Google Docs as a basic file repository … problems sometimes crept up with funny formatting, etc and I always came back to my desktop … well this new service is an addon that adds a section to the top ribbon (see below) … I had created this document on my google docs account and then used the MS Word application on my desktop to load it … the neat thing is that you can now save the document back to the net, to your computer or both … If you are using a netbook with limited storage (SSD equipped units) or simply would like to have your work available from anywhere, this is an incredibly powerful option.

 

The service allows this to be carried to any Office 2003 or 2007 file and application … one big thing that is extremely valuable is the Google Docs collaboration feature …  by hitting the

collaboration button on the ribbon, up pops the collaboration screen where you simply type in an email and you are good to go … I use the collaboration feature a lot, and this is as seamless as it gets … by being able to operate entirely in the clouds, entirely on your desktop or somewhere in between … that is the potential and unrealized power of a seamless experience from the desktop and beyond ….

 

Using Waste to Make Fertilzer …

Today Converted Organics announced that they are supplying to Whole Food Stores their all-natural fertilizers.  They have previously announced supply to Home Depot and with these high level associations have created a market for a new line of fertilizer products that are not dependent on oil and chemicals.  I believe this is a giant step in the right direction.  In the next few installments, I will outline what I perceive as the ultimate answer to the use of fertilizers and our food.

Our vision has long been that using natural fertilizer products will produce better and stronger plants that provide more nutrition and taste better.  Countless studies have shown the validity of these claims …  at the right here are actual photos from Biochar Info showing graphically the effects of one of the ammendments from our process. 

The photos show the difference in growth between plants grown in plain soil and with the simple addition of the Biochar.  The second photo is a comparison of growth using Biochar and NPK fertilizer vs what is most usually employed now … Chemical NPK fertilizer.

What is this magic ingredient … BIOCHAR is simply carbonaceous material that we commonly refer to as charcoal.

Simplistically, this readdition of carbon directly back into the soil creates a carbon sink that also allows for greater health in the soil (obvious in the way the plants are flourishing) …

Biochar was “discovered” when researchers started looking into super soils in the amazon that are called Terra Preta soils … rich black in constitution, the soils provided the ultimate in crop husbandry as the production to this day of soils dubbed terra preta are unmatched.

Next we will look into natural nutrients ….

Added Utility to Google Apps …

Just happened on this addition to Google Calendar that really shakes things up again.  One of my favorite items was using Remember the Milk with Gmail … it worked really great for me and provided a todo list that was always there to be used … enter google tasks …. I noticed the little item that appeared on my left navigation pane … and when I hit the button, look what appeared on the lower right hand of the screen …

 

Surprise surprise … you all know how I love mapping and outlining, so this fit my wheelhouse as the entries can be nested in outline fashion so I can put info and expand and contract as I need … it also allows you to create multiple lists … this gives you the freedom of segregating entire lists of things, I intend to use this feature to manage projects and processes that do not need to be on the main list, but can be referred to when I am working on them ….

Now here is where the fun really starts … I saw on google calendar the same button appear … could it be?  could they have really given me the ability to span my email and calendar functions …  check it out  …. 

 

Here it is right on the right pane of my calendar when I hit the magic button … “tasks”  … it gives me limited ability to manage projects, etc and create items on the task list on on the calendar …

 

Here is a shot of an entry I just did that shows an appt on the 6th of June … by creating this, it automatically inserted a check box in my calendar that referred to the task list item …. you get the idea, this is super handy for items that are due or things that are driven by deadlines …

This addition changes the flow of work … remember that all of these items are embeddable both in iGoogle home page and in a MindManager Map that will give you your workflow dashboard ….

Handy Utility

Thanks to our friendly Lifehacker bloggers, they showed a simple utility today that I come to take for granted using a tablet pc, but something all could use ….  when dealing with long documents or reading, the new widescreen orientation is not the best for reading, so a simple means of rotation (like a tablet pc) greatly simplifies things …  here is a link to the entry and you can download from the link at the bottom …. good stuff …

Evolution of the Mobile Path …

Today marks an evolutionary step in the Mobile Musings blog … the path to integration of software and hardware for mobility will be expanded to include the integration of technology and solutions for environmental problems … rather than start another blog, there are times that the roads converge and usefulness of either path can be combined to create a better path … ie, the presentation technologies (like pptplex) can be employed by those interested in presenting non linear ideas to a multi layered audience …

On the other side, newly emerging technologies and creative ways to solve environmental problems are a path we must all examine as to create positive change to our increasingly fragile planet …..

Watch this space for the first blog entry to be put up this weekend …