How to Use Your Phone as a Wireless Webcam

How to Use Your Phone as a Wireless Webcam: "You don’t have to buy a webcam to do a video chat, all you need is your camera phone and  you’re on the screen!
All you need is wwigo, a Bluetooth enabled camera phone and a Bluetooth device on your computer. To see whether your phone is compatible...

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11 Years of Google in 2 Minutes

11 Years of Google in 2 Minutes: "Google UK's YouTube channel posted a video that highlights some of the most interesting events from Google's history. 'From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.'

If you look closely, you'll spot at least one error in the video. Can you find it?


For those who want to learn more about Google's history, check this interactive timeline, the list of milestones and John Battelle's 'The Search'.

{ via Blogoscoped Forum }

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Better Posture Means More Energy at Work [Health]

Better Posture Means More Energy at Work [Health]: "

The art of sitting or standing up straight might seem like something out of a 1950's etiquette class, but it actually plays an important role in staying energized and efficient throughout your day at the office. Here's why:

Photo by joelogon

Health and home weblog Real Simple claims that by slouching, our body takes in as much as 30% less oxygen than we'd take in with good posture. When we sit slumped over (which is easy to do if you spend a great deal of time at the computer), we aren't just harming our posture, but our bodies' ability to keep our energy up.

Next time you you're feeling a little down in the dumps or need a little boost at work, check to see if your chin is up and your shoulders are back (or try other methods to fix your PC posture). It could mean the difference between making your workday frumpy or fabulous.

9 Energy Boosters [Real Simple]

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Microsoft bets on Windows success

Microsoft bets on Windows success: "More than 500 people queued outside a computer store in central London to be the first to get their hands on Windows 7."

Real-time search rivalry hots up

Real-time search rivalry hots up: "All public Twitter message streams will soon be searchable via the Microsoft and Google search sites."

Still No Internet or SMS Allowed in China's Muslim Region

Still No Internet or SMS Allowed in China's Muslim Region: "Internet access and text messaging are still blocked in China's Xinjiang province, nearly four months after deadly ethnic riots there.











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Report Says China Ready for Cyber-war, Espionage

Report Says China Ready for Cyber-war, Espionage: "China is probably spying on U.S. companies and government, according to a report commissioned by a Congressional advisory panel











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15 smartphone apps you shouldn't live without

15 smartphone apps you shouldn't live without

Six SEO Techniques Which Will Destroy Your Website

Six SEO Techniques Which Will Destroy Your Website: "

1) Buy (or Sell) Links.  OK, this one is tricky.  If Google catches you buying links, you’re sunk.  But couldn’t you just do it all sneaky so Google doesn’t notice?  Probably, but keep in mind Google still hates it and will blast your site if they find out you’re doing it.

SOLUTION: Create awesome and compelling content so that people link to you naturally for free.  It works, but it’s easier said than done.

2) Free Giveaways/Promotions.  That’s right – Google will also penalize you for asking other blogs to link to you in a free promotion or giveaway.  In their eyes it’s just like buying links. I’ve done it, and I’ve seen it.

SOLUTION: Ask any blogger doing a promotion or giveaway for you to nofollow their links.

A former Google Quality Rater writes “If you publish a product review or giveaway and you don’t no-follow your links, Google will penalize both you and the company that sponsored your blog post.”

3) Uncloaked Affiliate links.  Why does Google hate affiliates?  It seems Google hates just about anything commercial – if it makes you money, Google doesn’t like it.  Unless of course you’re paying Google, as in buying Adwords for PPC.  Then they love you.  Not cloacking your affiliate links can cost you in the SERPs.  I’ve done it, and I’ve seen it.

SOLUTION: Cloak the links — 301 redirects work great — and nofollow them.

4) Linking to Spammy and Shady Sites.  Watch those commenters you allow to place dofollow comments on your blog – if you get enough people linking to sites which sell Viagra and pr0n via hacked links you’ll get slammed for linking out to bad neighborhoods.

SOLUTION: Moderate your comments, nofollow links, or both.  Others more experienced than I have blogged about it.

5) Inactivity.  The search engine landscape is changing all the time – if you’re not constantly working on promoting or building your site chances are it’s going to slip in the SERPs. You can’t just put up a 5 page brochure/pamphlet site and expect visitors to find you.   You have to work at it.

SOLUTION: Work at it.

6) Duplicate Content.  OK, this one won’t destroy your site, but it’s not going to help it any.  If your site suffers from internal duplicate content issues search engines may not be returning the pages you want visitors to see.  If your site has duplicate issues with content previously published on other websites, you may not appear at all.

SOLUTION: Nofollow links to duplicate content, block it in robots.txt, and/or use the new Google Canonical tag to specify the authoritative source.

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EGNOS ‘Open Service’ available: a new era for European navigation begins today

EGNOS ‘Open Service’ available: a new era for European navigation begins today: " During a press conference today, Mr Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice-President for Transport Policy, announced the official start of operations for EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service. The EGNOS ‘Open Service’ is now available."

28 Innovative Green Web Hosts

28 Innovative Green Web Hosts: "

Photo by xtylerclub.

This post is part of the Blog Action Day 2009 over climate change.

Green web hosting is something that has started to become quite popular among many web hosting companies. Even some of the big players are starting to turn to alternative energy sources to power their servers, or to try show that they don’t have a negative impact on the environment.

Why does this matter? It matters because of a little study on server energy usage conducted by Stanford in 2007. Thanks to the explosion of video, VOIP and an increase of broadband Internet services, energy consumed by data centers from 2000 to 2005 doubled. And it’s only been getting worse over the past 4+ years since the study.

Every effort web hosts can make to consume less energy and become more environmentally friendly is a very important thing as we use more and more energy to power our websites.

How Does Green Hosting Work?

There are a few ways that web hosting companies and server farms have figured out how to become more environmentally friendly in how they power their servers.

Carbon Offsetting

Because changing to a more eco-friendly setup is expensive for web hosts, the most popular way to become more eco-friendly is to do carbon offsetting to reduce (or eliminate) their carbon footprint. Companies will do things like plant trees for new accounts and do general energy conservation.

Carbon Credits

Buying carbon credits means that the company is purchasing credits to fund another eco-friendly project, which in theory cancels out their carbon usage.

Renewable Energy Certificates

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs or Green Tags) show that the energy used by the web host is from a natural source like solar energy or wind energy.

Energy-friendly Servers

There are lots of different types of servers that can potentially cut down on power and resources used. “Speed stepping” is a technology for servers that reduces the amount of voltage and heat a server uses.

Better Data Center Layouts

Data center makers have figured out ways to optimize their server farms so that the least amount of energy is used. The less air conditioning a server needs, the more eco-friendly it is.

Other Eco-Friendly Options

Some companies use propane instead of diesel gases for backup resources. In some cases windmills power the servers, or there are paperless offices. There are any number of ways that a web hosting company can make their company more environmentally friendly.

Now that we’ve got a bit more knowledge about how web hosts can become more green, here are some hosts that are doing their part to make a more environmentally-friendly hosting company.

Major Players

While typically greener initiatives are for smaller hosting companies, there are a handful of the major players in the hosting industry that are “going green”.

A2

A2 has started with an initiative called FutureServe, that utilizes carbon offsets, eco-friendly employment practices (renewable office supplies, telecommuting, etc.), and energy efficient servers.

Dreamhost

Much like A2, Dreamhost has become a carbon neutral company (with a carbon neutral certificate. Dreamhost uses eco-friendly office products, employees who telecommute, and they purchase Renewable Energy Credits.

Hostgator

Hostgator prides itself in using 130% wind energy by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits and using wind-powered servers. In theory, they’re actually reversing their environmental impact.

1&1

1&1 relies solely on renewable energy to power all of their servers, and utilizes renewable energy to power two of their large office buildings. 1&1 also uses highly-efficient power supplies with less than 20% heat loss.

Rackspace

Major hosting company and reseller Rackspace has partnered with NativeEnergy to become a greener company. Also, they’re helping customers become more environmentally-conscious by providing a carbon calculator that lets business learn their carbon footprint and gives information on how to reduce it.

Here are some lesser-known web hosts who are doing their part to reduce their impact on the environment.

Ecological Hosting

Ecological Hosting is an environmentally-friendly and ethical hosting provider. They use their own solar energy to power their data centers in the UK.

Acornhost

Acorn is powered by green energy and and is carbon neutral. The servers are low-voltage servers and recycle their hardware equipment.

Aiso

Aiso is an incredibly innovative company that has tons of green initiatives within the company. The company’s cooling is done with collected rain water, and the office and data center has a “green roof”, or a roof with grasses on top that cools the buildings by 20 degrees. The offices use solar lighting, and the servers are powered by solar energy. If that weren’t enough, they also use alternative air conditioning that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels to cool the servers and offices.

ecoSKY

ecoSKY uses wind and solar energy to power their servers.

Solar Energy Host

Solar Energy Host is a “beyond carbon neutral” web host. Instead of buying carbon credits, Solar Energy Host’s servers produce zero emissions.

Green WebHost

Green WebHost plants a tree for every new account, and also utilizes solar power to run their data centers.

HostPapa

HostPapa is a Canadian web hosting company that is powered by green renewable energy sources.

Ilisys

Ilisys is a green-powered company based out of Australia. The energy they used is created from water, wind and waste, in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

iMountain

iMountain powers their servers with the solar panels on the roof of their data centers and office.

Lightbeing Creations

Lightbeing Creations is a web host that uses solar energy instead of Renewable Energy Certificates.

Planetmind

Planetmind uses solar-powered energy from a grid to power their Colorado-based servers.

Sustainable Websites

Sustainable Websites run their sites from a green data center in Atlanta, and the electricity is generated by wind power. On top of that Sustainable Websites purchases RECs.

ThinkHost

ThinkHost uses wind and solar power to manage their data centers, and each of their plans is covered under their carbon neutral green program. Also, they’ll plant a tree for each hosting account.

WebHostingBuzz

WebHostingBuzz is a carbon-neutral host that runs energy-efficient servers and computers in their company. They’ve also partnered with the International Tree Foundation to help plant trees in developing countries.

GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks bills itself as the “World’s #1 Green Webhost”. They won the Best Green Hosting award in 2009 and 2008. They use energy efficient servers, carbon-neutral energy and they buy back 3x the amount of energy they pull in RECs.

Treecentric

Treecentric is a Green e-certified program that purchases Renewable Energy Credits to offset their energy usage.

Super Green Hosting

Super Green Hosing uses “Green” Dell servers that produce 20% less CO2 than the average server. Super Green Hosting also provides ways for customers to purchase RECs and plant trees.

Taproot Hosting

Taproot Hosting uses only wind power to run their servers out of Portland, Oregon. The employees all telecommute, and for every new customer they’ll plant a tree with the Plant a Billion Trees project.

Beanstalk Solar Hosting

As the name implies, Beanstalk Solar Hosting uses solar power from the roof of the servers.

Sustainable Hosting

Sustainable Hosting is a carbon neutral web host, and they go well beyond common in their quest for sustainability. Sustainable Hosting uses e-certified renewable energy certificates, the office is paperless, and they even use a socially responsible bank.

Fat Cow

Fat Cow uses only wind energy RECs to power their servers and office.

Integritive

Integritive web hosting has solar-powred hosting plans that run their green data centers and offices. Integritive also utilizes AMD Opteron servers that use 60% less energy and generate 50% less heat.

Green Web Hosting by Lush

Lushtech servers are powered by clean, renewable energy. They recycle computers and computer parts, and participate in many other green practices, like using bamboo flooring in their offices.

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