Eco Friendly Hosting $3.75/mo.

With Earth Day right around the corner, you might be wincing at the idea of paying a web host that uses electricity from a coal fired power plant to run the server that hosts your blog or website. Then, to add insult to injury, it draws more coal burning electricity to cool the server racks so the circuitry doesn’t melt down. Something just doesn’t feel right, especially if your mission involves being kind to the Earth and its residents.

No need to compromise your values when you can get eco-friendly hosting services for under $4 a month. Why, those inconsiderate global warmers probably charge more than that!

The service you are looking for is called Dotster. It’s a company with a catchy name and a great value in domains and web hosting services. Can you believe that basic web hosting is just $3.75 a month? Would you further believe that Dotster has an entire eco-friendly agenda? Let’s take a look at their green hosting program and then see how much you can get for so little money.

The reality of business is that not every location has room for those huge windmills that generate massive amounts of power at competitive rates. But, every business can buy their power from alternative energy sources if they wish. That’s what Dotster does. They purchase enough renewable energy credits to offset 150% of the energy it takes to run their hosting services. That’s half again as much as they’d need to just to claim green hosting. Those credits come from Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) that restores watersheds, puts solar panels on schools and builds small scale solar and wind projects.

The model is that if you can’t generate or use power directly from wind or solar feeding your location, then pay to build those resources elsewhere so they can feed the grid and displace dirty generation facilities. If every business did this, we’d be awash in clean energy and be busy recycling fossil fuel generation equipment for other purposes.

Dotster goes beyond just paying for green power. They actively work to reduce the power they consume by upgrading their hosting infrastructure with high efficiency servers. That’s a double win because every kilowatt not used is a kilowatt that doesn’t need a generator at all. On top of every thing else, Dotster will plant a tree for you when you buy a hosting package. Those trees come from Trees for the Future, which as a 2012 action plan to plant over 17 million trees. Yours could be one of them!

Now, let’s see what this incredibly affordable hosting service really gives you for your $3.75 a month. First of all, you get Linux hosting, the industry standard, with 10 GB of website disk space and 300 GB of bandwidth. There are few websites, indeed, that can blow through that much storage and bandwidth for a single domain. That’s what this plan is tailored for. It’s for hosting one domain, be it a website, blog, or some combination of the two. Note that you can have unlimited subdomains if you wish to subdivide your domain into smaller units.

You also get 100 email accounts, 5 FTP logins, 10 MySQL Databases, and a SiteBuilder that lets you easily create a website with up to 15 pages using your only your web browser. Yes, the server runs PHP5 and Perl/Python, with free applications that include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, PHPMyChat, Classifieds, Post-Nuke, TikiWiki and a bunch of others.

As of this writing, Dotster is also offering a free domain name for a year with any of the hosting plans. Look for the grey offer box on the Linux Hosting or Windows Hosting pages. Windows hosting? Yes, you can also get Windows hosting for a little more money ($4.75 a month) if that’s what you would prefer. Both Linux and Windows hosting are available with larger resources that scale to unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space if you really need that much.

Is there any reason to go with some smoke belching legacy hosting service when you can get eco-friendly webhosting that you can be proud of at such a great price? Well, what are you waiting for? Learn more and get your eco friendly hosting for $3.75 a month right now. You can lock in for 1, 2 or 3 years to know in advance how much your hosting budget will be down the road.

Every Home And Business Is A Battery

As part of Blog Action Day 2009, we’re dedicating this week’s posts to the topics of global warming, climate change and alternative energy. Yesterday’s installment presented the case that alternative energy is a fairy tale no more. It’s mature technology that only needs a little national fervor to make it the power of choice. It’s pretty hard to argue with the “shovel ready” nature of solar and wind when there is already so much installed base and even smaller scale units showing up for sale in hardware stores. But skeptics still cast a suspicious eye. Often that suspicion is voiced by the question, “So what do you do when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow?”

That’s a fair concern. After all, the sun still sets every evening and winds blow sporadically in most locations. If you don’t want your lights getting brighter and dimmer, you need something to smooth out the fluctuations. That something is energy storage.

Coal, nuclear and natural gas fired generating plants don’t need storage. The energy storage is built into the fuel. There is also a short-term energy reserve in the steam boilers that only heat up and cool down so fast. Not so with windmills and solar panels. They have no fuel. They extract energy that is directed at them and only while they have access to that energy source.

At first glance, this appears to be a show-stopper for alternative energy. But it’s really not that bad. The sun doesn’t shine at night, but most of us don’t either. When it gets dark, we go home and shut down offices, factories, schools and stores. The biggest energy demand is during the day. That’s also the biggest demand for air conditioning, because the same sun that makes it bright outside and lets solar panels tap it for electricity also heats everything up. The wind doesn’t blow all the time either, but it’s usually blowing somewhere. That’s the value of an energy grid. Sources that contribute energy feed the grid and users that need energy tap it.

Some of the difference between supply and demand can be handled by base load generators. These are things like nuclear power, geothermal, and natural gas generators that can produce at a steady rate regardless of what’s going on with the weather.

But really making good use of clean energy sources that may generate too much power some times and not enough at other times requires storage. Users that are so far “off the grid” that it’s too expensive to string wires to their cabins often use lead acid storage batteries. Wind and solar generators charge up the batteries when they can. The user draws power from the batteries as needed.

Batteries are a good idea, but the automobile style lead acid batteries have some limitations. You need a lot of them to store much energy, so they take up a lot of room. They emit nasty gasses that need to be vented. Battery life is also more limited than we would like.

Nickel-metal hydride batteries are more energy dense and are the battery of choice for today’s hybrid cars. Lithium ion batteries can store even more energy per cubic foot and are the batteries chosen for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. They’re a bit pricey when you get to the capacities needed to run a home or business, but that’s soon to change. As Li-ion batteries get into mass production in vehicle sizes, the prices will plummet. How soon before they’re reasonably priced for fixed location battery backup?

What I’m talking about is a unit about the size of a furnace that will have a battery, inverter and control circuitry suitable to run the entire electrical load of a residence or small business. Power outages will be a thing of the past. Feed one of these from solar panels on the roof or a wind generator out back and you can go off the grid any time you want and avoid paying the electric company for power. Or, better yet, let them pay you for power.

Rather than round up all the batteries and put them at the generating station, why not distribute both generation and storage of electrical power? The grid still makes sense for sharing power among users. Those who are power rich can sell their excess capacity. Those who have demanding needs, like steel mills, street lights, and buildings without generation or storage will just pay the electric bill like today. The difference is that most of the generating sources can be green. The system will be more robust because a million small resources aren’t as likely to go out of service at the same time as one or two large generators.

The availability of reasonably priced generation and storage may give rise to a new era of energy entrepreneurs. Savvy producers will want to sell as much as possible during the heavy-demand daylight hours to get the best price possible. At night, they could even draw off the grid at lower prices to run their own lights and recharge their batteries. How about the family energy farm? A field of windmills and solar roof panels augmented by fields of corn for ethanol between the wind generator towers may offer the kind of income that makes independent rural life really attractive again. Factories and warehouses with large flat roofs offer ready real estate to load up with angled solar panels to eliminate power bills and become a revenue source. Ever shrinking payback periods are making this type of investment more and more practical.

Alternative energy is a key piece in putting the brakes on climate change before our environment degenerates into something that we’ll really hate dealing with. If you share our interest in this important topic, you’ll be interested in the huge collection of articles being posted on blogs worldwide as part of Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change. The official event is October 15, but we’re participating all week with articles on this subject. Come back tomorrow for our feature on banishing power vampires that suck your “juice.” Say, isn’t Halloween just around the corner?

Blog Action Day For A Less Toasty Tomorrow

Hey, you in the server room. Is it hot enough for you? No? Well, just wait until tomorrow.

Global warming is upon us. All the dire warnings from Al Gore, the reports you hear on TV and read in magazines and newspapers, and everything on the blogosphere isn’t really about heading off some future climate change. It’s a hope and a plea that we can keep it from becoming catastrophic.

Make no mistake about it, things are heating up. Not just the discussion, mind you. It’s actually getting warmer outside. As a resident of that rustbelt tundra known as the Midwest, I know that’s a hard concept to buy when your toes get frostbit just running for the mail in mid-January. This last winter in Northern Illinois was a cruel and bitter joke after a couple decades of frequent El Nino moderation. The summer has also been more temperate than any in recent memory. But look at what’s happening in the Arctic Ocean. Shipping companies are downright giddy about that pesky sea ice disappearing to reveal a shortcut for hauling containers of “stuff” between trading nations. The Russians made a big production out of planting their flag from a submarine below the North Pole. Nobody wanted that forsaken wasteland before the lucky confluence of massive oil reserve discoveries and rising sea temperatures. They are now anxiously awaiting the day when Santa’s workshop sinks like the Titanic, clearing the area so that drilling projects can proceed unimpeded.

Like flying in a cloud bank, your senses are inferior to instruments in knowing which way is up, or whether global warming is real when your eyeglasses are frosting over. Perhaps this is why the term climate change is easier to swallow. One’s intuition tells you that something strange is going on when California is burning to the ground and polar bears are taking over the sport of synchronized swimming. What’s it going to feel like when Bedouins relocate to Iowa because that’s where the sand is?

If we really are going to hell in a CO2 handbasket, though, where is the panic? You don’t see middle-age men stapling thermometers to fishing hats and screaming their lungs out at town hall meetings. There are no organized “ice baggers” with their Isn’t Cool Enough movement demanding that the government lower temperatures. How come there’s no Hot News Channel with multimillionaire cheerleaders riling up public emotions?

That day is coming. Right now climate-everything is on the back burner as we’re preoccupied with punching each other in the face over government versus insurance company death panels and which failed bankers deserve the biggest of the billion dollar bonuses. Eventually, all this will pass and someone will pipe up, “Hey, how ‘bout that climate change?”

But why wait for the deck to clear before we start dealing with the inevitable? Not everyone is prepared to hold indefinitely for the Gosselins to reconcile and clear some column inches and television news segments so that there’s room for a serious discussion on how we can ameliorate a thermal meltdown. Blog Action Day 2009 on October 15 is perhaps the kickoff event that nudges the focus of public discussion toward the universal challenge that is climate change.

What is Blog Action Day? It’s a coordinated effort to engage the power of new media to “change the global conversation.” The idea is that bloggers worldwide join forces on one day of the year to all write on a particular topic of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 is dedicated to the subject of climate change. Thousands of blogs, including at least 11 of the world’s top 100 blogs, will all be presenting thoughtful posts related to emerging technology, health issues, poverty and conflict, eco-friendly consumerism, financing, government policy and sustainable design, among other topics. The focus of each participating blog will related to the subject of climate change on that particular day, which happens to be this coming Thursday, the 15th.

As you might have guessed by now, T1 Rex’s Business Telecom Explainer is participating in Blog Action Day and will be presenting a special article on banishing power vampires as the October 15 post. But I’ve decided that this initiative really deserves more than a single day’s effort. So every post this week will be in some way related to climate change and our focus of technology. I hope that you enjoy these articles and will participate in the discussion with your considered comments.

If you also write a blog, will you join us in this special project? Your voice is both welcome and needed. You can participate by registering your blog for free at the web site for Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change. While you are there, pick up a badge for your blog, like the one shown on this post. Leave a comment here with a link to your Thursday post, as I’d love to read what fellow bloggers have to say on this important and timely issue.

Green Your Cell Phone For St. Patrick's Day

Ah, it's St. Patty's Day - a time for the wearin' of the green. But these days "green" means a lot more than shamrocks or tinted beer. Green means good for the environment as well. How about doing a little something green for good green Earth before you get too caught up in the day's festivities?

Now don't worry. This will only take a few minutes and you can be on your way. First, you'll need to find that old cell phone you tossed somewhere when you got your brand new one. Did you know that there are something like 100 million cell phones set aside each year? If you piled them all up, you'd find enough gold inside to make a respectable pot at the end of the rainbow. Before the leprechauns get wind of this, you better retrieve that unused phone and see how you can profit from it.

Got your phone? Good. Now see how much your cell phone is worth to a company that recycles them. New model phones can be worth hundreds of dollars. Take it in cash or donate your proceeds to charity. It's up to you. Older devices or broken phones can still be recycled to keep them from polluting the landfill. So send them in as your good deed to honor the day.

Now, didn't that make you feel good? You're just getting started. In addition to selling or recycling cell phones, you can also get cash for your old digital camera, MP3 player, PDA, laptop computer, gaming console, GPS device, camcorder, satellite radio, external hard drive, video game, LCD monitor or even Blu-Ray movies. You get the great feeling of cash in your pocket and the landfill gains a little breathing room. Eventually, everyone will be doing this and there may not be much need for landfills.

Sound interesting? Then take a few minutes to see how to get cash or recycle your old gadgets. There's a short video to watch that explains the process. You can learn what happens to your stuff once you're rid of it. There's an easy search bar so you can quickly find your particular device. Then check off a couple of boxes about condition of the unit and whether you have the AC adaptor and manuals or software. All of these have some effect on how much you'll get. You can even view a chart that shows the price history of your gadget, what it's worth now, and what it may be worth in the future.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and best of luck to you!

Drowning in a Sea of Cell Phones

The latest estimates I've seen put mobile subscribers at about 3 billion around the word, with 1 billion new cell phones sold each year. With a 2 to 3 year churn factor, that means that roughly a 1,000,000,000 mobile phones go obsolete each year. That's a billion with a "b". Where do they all go?

Right in a drawer at home, that's where. Actually a new survey says that only 44% actually wind up just sitting around the house like a boomerang college graduate. (Ouch, I was one of those). Another 25% get passed on to family and friends. A full 16% get sold. But only 3% are recycled.

Frankly, I can't see why you'd recycle a device that could be sold. But only 16% of those billion sales opportunities are turned into cash. That's hundreds and hundreds of millions of phones and dollars wasting away.

Well, perhaps there's not enough money to make it worth bundling up the old cell and driving it to the post office. I took a look through the listings of a company that re-purposes used cell phones for application in third world countries and as emergency phones in the U.S. They give you a mailer and send you a check for each cell they receive in good working order.

How much can you get? Most models seem to be in the $4 to $20 range, although there are a lot of newer models and smartphones that garner $25, $50 and more. Got an old iPhone you want to unload? You might get $150 for it.

What about phones that have collected a layer of dust because you sat them aside - a few years ago. Blow it off. Then send that junker in for recycling using a free mailing label. It will be out of your way and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing it isn't adding to the mounting tonnage of old electronics that will have to be dealt with someday.

Whatever you do, resist the urge to drop it in the weekly waste along with all the old pizza that's gone dried and wrinkly. Nature will reclaim pizza. The nasty arsenic, cadmium, plastics and other environmental degraders will live on to poison future generations. Some cities have electronic recycling days where you can drop off your circuit board laden trash for proper handling. If not, get that free mailing label and send it to a recycler specializing in cellular phones. They'll reclaim any valuable chemicals and metals and make sure whatever is left gets dealt with appropriately.

So now that you've unloaded your prized vintage mobile collection for cash and recycling, there's only one thing left to do. Go shopping for the latest and greatest mobile wireless devices.

Save the Cell Phone, Save the World

What toxic waste that you don't think about is piling up in our landfills? What source of gold is being tossed in the trash? What is it that people throw away that they could exchange for money?

Give up? It's cell phones. Cell phones are an environmental threat, a potential source of valuable minerals, and a marketable commodity all in one. Let's have a look at this underestimated resource and see what we've been missing.

A cell phone doesn't seem like much. It fits in the palm of your hand or tucks neatly into a pocket or purse. In its plastic or metal case a cell phone certainly seems chemically inert. Nothing leaks out and it doesn't stain your hand. So what's so toxic about a mobile telephone?

While in service or even left for decades in a desk drawer, a cell phone won't be damaging the environment. The problem is more subtle than that. The magic that gives a palm sized communicator the power to reach around the world lies in the materials and processing that create the electronic circuitry. These things aren't made out of renewable pine trees. They're made with lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury. They also have their share of plastic and glass. Toxic metals can leach out of the circuit boards and batteries once the phones are attacked by water and various liquid chemicals that also find their way into landfills. On day one an obsolete phone is just buried there with the kitchen wastes, old shoes and industrial refuse. On day 1,000 or day 10,000 nasty processes are at work, dissolving captive chemicals and adding them to a slurry of toxins that will work their way into the water table, if they can.

One cell phone will destroy the Earth? Of course not. The one tossed here and the one tossed there represent a minuscule problem. It's when they are joined by hundreds and hundreds of millions of their ilk that the problem grows too big to ignore. The thing that's unique about cell phones is that they are on a 2 or 3 year cycle. People sign up for cellular service, activate their spanking new wireless device, and proceed to glue it to their ear for the duration of their contract. Some people just keep using their phone past the contract date. But most can't wait to get either a new model phone or a different carrier, who will also insist on a new phone. Since the phones are subsidized by the carriers in order to hold onto customers for a least a year or two, the cost to the consumer is low. So what do they care if they toss the old phone and get a new one free or at a small cost?

It is estimated that 11 million otherwise working cell phones are retired every month. Some are immediately dropped into the dumpster, but many more are simply slipped into a desk drawer or box in the basement. You might not want to keep using the old mobile, but it seems too good to just throw away. So an estimated 500 million of them are sitting in distributed landfills, otherwise known as people's homes, right now. Some day, maybe on moving day, one family member is going to decide that this unwanted device will never be used again and should go in the trash along with broken toys, worn out jeans, and everything that wouldn't sell at the last yard sale. Some day all 500 million and probably many times that number of cell phones will be slowly decaying in our public landfills and private dumping grounds.

What makes this situation even sadder is that those same consumers could have mailed their unwanted phone to a recycler at no cost. The recycler disassembles the phone, recovers plastics and metals for reuse in other applications, and sends nothing to the landfill. That's right, nothing. Who pays for all this work? The value of the materials in the phone are enough to cover the costs of recycling. What might seem like worthless materials are actually in demand. That includes minute amounts of gold used in chip and circuit board manufacturing. A little gold plating here and there and you're talking a mine's worth of the stuff spread over millions and millions of phones.

Many cell phones don't even have to meet the crusher so soon in their young lives. Recent model cellular phones are quite salable in bulk to third world countries clamoring for affordable technology. Many can also be repurposed as emergency phones for people living in shelters. Some can be refurbished as offered as pre-paid phones. All of these possibilities mean that the phone you were going to toss in the trash might be a $10, $20 or $100 bill in disguise. If you took a few minutes to order a pre-paid mailer and sent your usable but unwanted surplus cell phone in for evaluation, you could be getting a check in the mail instead of a guilty feeling from contributing to the waste problem.

Do you have one or more old cell phones hanging around your house awaiting their demise? See how much your cell phone model(s) are worth and then send them in for recycling or reuse. You'll feel good and might wind up with some unexpected cash in your pocket.