Posted by Jackie Ewing on April 22, 2010
Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the celebration of Earth Day. While the Ewing family continues their own recycling program – from separating the trash into various recyclable piles to reusing printed paper for school projects – I searched for other ways to expand our efforts and reduce our carbon footprint. Today seemed like a good day to do that!
I found some interesting, novel and completely crazy ideas in my search, but I also found a couple of things that we, as a family, can implement right away and add to our lives. Add a comment below to tell me about your own Green efforts, what’s working, what’s not and of course, fun stories are always welcome.
Here are some of the most interesting links I found. Hope you can find something interesting or crazy here for you!
Ten Ways to ‘Go Green’ and Mark Earth Day
Our favorite – Reduce Your Carbon Footprint. Great topics to get the kids interested and actively working toward making their future more Green.
10 Ways to Mark Earth Day at Your Company
Our favorite – Take a Look at Your Windows. Inspiring story about the windows in the Empire State Building and energy saving.
‘Avatar’ Strikes DVD on Earth Day
Our favorite – this was purely a ploy by the kids to get me to buy the Avatar movie today. Will it work?
Rocking in the Green World – 7 Songs for Earth Day
Our favorite – Megadeath: Countdown to Extinction. Some good headbanging music with great lyrics.
Google Doodle Celebrates Earth Day
Earth Day 2010 by Google
There is only one Google and the Doodle Artists have done it again. Something very cool and very Green for Earth Day. Makes me want to find Sean Connery in the rainforest!
Posted by Jackie Ewing on April 9, 2010
As an entrepreneur with limited funding, I have found some really great tools that I use on a daily or weekly basis. The best thing about them, other than that they work really well for me and my workspace, is that they are FREE – no cost me!
1. Logmein.com
Logmein.com
This fabulous software allows me to log on to my workstation from anywhere with internet access. I needed something that didn’t require me downloading my emails to different locations and then trying to synchronize so I didn’t have to read, delete or answer emails more than once! Using Logmein accesses my PC remotely, similar to PC Anywhere, but with super response time, clear graphics and very rare log offs. I use an Acer notebook when I am out and about and it runs so fast because I don’t have to put any software on it. I just connect to my PC via Logmein and have access to everything.
I also load this software on certain computers for clients that I do work for. I can access the information I need without having to drive over to their offices. It’s especially useful when working with big databases. They sometimes don’t copy too well and then copying back to the original location can be a nightmare.
Simply put, Logmein allows me the freedom to log me in to whatever remote PC I need access to. I LOVE it and highly recommend it to all and sundry! Click here to get the software download and instructions for use.
2. Cute PDF Writer
Although I really want to get Adobe Pro, I just cannot afford it right now. So between Adobe reader and cute PDF writer I have managed to do very well without it. This software is loaded like a printer so when I need to convert a document to PDF, I “print” it to this PDF writer – cute, huh? Click here to go the site and look for the Cute PDF Writer, Free Download.
3. Mozy.com
Mozy.com
I have a small backup drive attached to my main PC but I have way more data than it can store for me. My IT guy told me about Mozy which is a remote back up
service. They offer a certain amount of storage for free, and as you grow you can increase for a pretty nominal fee. It works well for me and I have been able to access my data when I want. Click here to access this nifty tool.
4. Pandora.com
As anyone that does any kind of writing or data entry can tell you, sometimes music just helps the process along! Pandora is different to your regular radio stations in that it learns from your music choices and tries to find you more like that. You can save your music types as radio stations so that your favorite music genres are ready when you log on. You can connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts if you like and share a song or an entire radio station. There are some ads, but not enough (yet!) to tick me off. Of course, I could pay the whopping $36 for a year of ad-free music, but that would spoil the fact that I can use it for free! Click here to access Pandora.
So, there you have it. 4 Free Tools for Entrepreneurs. Would love to hear about it if you try them and like them, or not! If you have any of your own faves that you’d like to share, please comment.
