Why do the really cool green gadgets tend to just be prototypes or some design student’s thesis project? Seems like something like this FlowerPod should find a ready market with the sky high energy prices and increased eco awareness.

The FlowerPod is a digital flower that blossoms when it reads your home is using electricity the way you should be. But as soon as you start to disregard your usage, leaving the computers and TV’s on all day and night, your beautiful flower will wither into a dead one. You will do all you can to show you really have a green thumb…and house!
Check out the details at the GreenerGadgets competitions website

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) is the latest in screen technology that is getting ready to become the next big thing in flat-screen technology. It can be manufactured much thinner that the LCD and Plasma ones, because there is no need for the heavy duty backlighting. And the screen produces a clearer, truer image in the process. Plus, it uses a lot less electricity to run so that can be a good thing. The bad thing, very bad perhaps, is that eventually millions of people will toss their old monitors and TVs into the vast heap of toxic electronic waste flood that we already have.

Despite our best efforts Mosquitoes resist our efforts to do them in. They return every year to bug us and also to transmit serious disease. This will undoubtedly worsen as Global Warming heats up.

Bug Zappers, especially the “eco-friendly” solar powered ones, might seem like a good way to protect your back yard from these pests, the satisfying pop and crackle while meeting their doom seems worth the price alone. But studies have shown they are rarely effective against mosquitoes, of bugs killed maybe 4% tend to be mosquitoes. Mostly, it kills beneficial moths, beetles and other bugs who may actually eat other harmful insects. These bug zappers not only kill off good insects but may contribute to ruining an important food source for songbirds. So, in other words, they are a total rip-off.

So what is the best Green solution to mosquitoes? Mainstream repellents containing DEET diethyl-meta-toluamide tends to be the standard of effective repellent but many people are understandably wary of putting this chemical stew on their skin. One site, Journey to Forever.org,
gives a great recipe for Handmade Organic Mosquito Repellent (HOMeR), that they claim is a very effective means to naturally repel mosquitoes using lemon grass. Another natural repellent that you can buy is oil of lemon-eucalyptus, sold as Repel. Here is a great site, Mosquito.org which has a wealth of info on all things mosquito. Finally, Ecogreentips.com has some good info on some helpful solutions to the mosquito problems for you and your back yard.

Phonophone II from CharlesandMarie.com $500.00

The Phonophone II is not only a wonderfully designed object but also a great device that can transform your iPod’s earplugs into a mini-amplified speaker - without having to plug it in, insert batteries or sit waiting for the sun. All you have to do is hook up your iPod earphones to the adapter, and natural science will do the rest. The horned shape of the ceramic phonophone will capture and emit the music throughout the room (as long as the room is pretty small and no other competing sounds anyway)

We applaud the desire to save electricity but in this case the amount of power it takes to run an amplifier and speaker is extremely low, so the real appeal is its novelty and coolness factor. For me, at $500 there are quite a few items higher up on my coolness generating gadget wish list. But for the person who has everything or for rich iPod fanatics this might be a great addition to their desk. Then you can start looking for a tiny ceramic Jack Russell dog to sit listening next to it.

SUNWHISPER/24 SOLAR POWERED MULCHING LAWNMOWER $695.00 from Freepowersys.com

Gasoline lawn mowers are slowly on their way out. Not only are they loud and obnoxious but are also a significant source of air pollution. According to one study, cutting grass for an hour with a gasoline powered lawn mower is about the same as that from a 100-mile automobile ride. The 50 or so million people mowing their lawns each weekend in the US with gas-powered mowers can contribute as much as five percent of the nation’s air pollution, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It would be great if everyone would come to their senses and get rid of their gas-powered mowers today in favor of a push mower, which is the ultimate in green mowers, which not only doesn’t pollute but also gets folks to exercise more.

Sadly, we may have a bit of a wait before that happens. However, many of the new electric mowers are not only significantly less polluting but are about the same pricing as a good gas-powered mower. Better still, check out the solar powered electric mower from Freepowersys, their sunwhisper model, which is in essence a cordless electric Black & Decker mower modified with a small solar array to turn sunlight into power. It is claimed to be easy to use and set up, is quiet, can use anytime of day, has a rear bagger for mulching lawn clippings and best of all uses solar power.

If you are inventive and good with tools you can convert one of these rechargeable electric or even a gas powered mowers to solar power on your own. Here is a good link that can explain how.
Here is another link that explains how someone converted their electric mower to solar - also here a link to a video by the same person that goes into great detail. Finally, we wrote an article last summer on green lawn mowing that is worth a peek.

If you spend all day spelunking in some deep cave and never see daylight this LED headlamp may not be your best choice as you need to recharge the solar cells for at least 2 hour in full sunlight to get 6 hours of full brightness. But for the rest of us it seems like a great source of light that doesn’t require batteries that you can use camping, hiking, or emergencies. It could even work for spelunking but considering how fragile most caves eco-systems are it is probably better from an environmental view to do some urban exploring instead.

For an extra $12.00 You can also get optional charging devices that will allow you to charge you cellphone or iPod.

Everlite Solar Headlamp from Gaiam $59.00

The new web browser Flock’s Eco-Edition offers interesting possibilities in Green Computing.

It is a free browser that focused on helping people connect, share and explore contemporary websites that have a community emphasis. The Flock Eco-Edition browser comes pre-loaded with carefully selected green content from a variety of sources such as Grist, Ecorazzi, Treehugger, PlanetGreen, National Geographic, Sprig, Environmental News Network and many more. They offer daily updated environmental news, interviews, video, and other rich media. If you find something that is particularly useful, interesting or disturbing you can share it with a built in Flock sidebar that connects your friends from Facebook, Flicker, You Tube and other such sites.

The Flock 2.0 Beta version is built on the Firefox 3.0 browser and takes advantage of the various performance and security enhancement improvements offered by Firefox 3.0

In the Eco-Edition - the Flock people state that “Flock believes in providing users who download the Flock Eco-Edition a means to give back by donating 10% of search proceeds to the environmental charity of choice, as deemed by the voting of the community of Flock’s Eco-Edition users at the end of this year. Flock makes money when people search through the browser. So the more you search via Flock Eco-Edition, the more we’re committing to give back.”

Maybe they are just painting one of their “editions” Green so as to persuade people into switching to their browser but the fact they are promoting Green causes and giving some of their money back to environmental causes can’t be a bad thing. Might be worth giving them an investigation.

I am always on the road with my current job. I never had a travel-involved career before this one, and I don’t know why I still do it now, but I keep telling myself it is for the benefits that come with it that keep me showing up every day. With twenty eight years until I can retire, it is going to be a long time of telling myself this. One of the biggest hassles that the travel brings is the packing. And not just the clothing, but the laptop bag, the work briefcase, it adds additional things to carry. And of course, everything in the office nowadays has a USB connected accessory that is required to do my job, adding the need for wall chargers and car chargers and airplane chargers. I swear I need a charger to charge the chargers. How much more electricity and energy can we waste in one trip?

Anyways, I think I have found the solution to at least the power supply problem. This USB Solar Mobile Charger gives you the power to all of your needy devices through the energy of sunlight. Never have to pack fifteen chargers again, because not only does the charge come from a free source, the kit also comes with every possible USB adapter known to man. You can power up your digital cameras, iPods, portable printers, wireless mouse, cell phones; there really shouldn’t be a single thing you can’t power up with this one. And if we hit a cloudy streak where we get nothing but storms all week, there is an option to power the charger through your USB port or AC charger so you’re not totally stuck.

I am trying to convice my office to purchase a few of these, at least one per travel bag. But it is only priced at $37, so if I had to fork up the money I would. It makes sense to have one of these readily available, especially with the short life spans some of these accessories have. I have thrown on my iPod numerous times while on the road, only to find that after four songs it is showing low battery. I know Free Bird is a long song, but it still shouldn’t kill the meter that quick.

If you have children, you will know where I am coming from. I walk through my house, and literally turn off radios, lamps, TVs and other devices that my kids forget about each and every morning. I realize the morning rush for the school bus is hectic, but you have to hear the iPod docking station blaring as you walk out your bedroom door, right? Is it that easy to tune out? Or that big giant TV screen (we have a 57″) that they walk past, knowing that they were the only ones in the room watching it. It gets a little frustrating, but rather than get into a parental rant in Bill Cosby-style, I figured I would come up with a plan of attack to try and reason with them. I know, common sense is the last merit badge of life earned before the passage into adulthood, but it has to be worth a try. And my first tool of the battle is the Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor.

All you have to do is connect your devices to the meter, and it will display exactly how many kilowatts it eats up. With roughly 98% accuracy, you know what the large LCD screen is saying is pretty correct. This information is very valuable, because it allows you to start calculating just how much damage is done when each device is plugged in and running, say over a 12-hour period. You can also pinpoint those older appliances that aren’t so energy efficient, and use it as an arguement with the misses to justify purchasing a new one. At least that’s the case in my if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-replace-it household. You can even use this baby to monitor voltage, line frequency and power factor. If used effectively, you could potentially reduce your costs by such a significant amount, your electric company will start knocking on your door wondering if you disconnected their meter.

I am hoping to win the war at my home by threating to withhold allowances up to the amount of kilowatts each child is wasting. I will go into each bedroom, then into the shared rooms, and using the average daily dollar per kilowatt figure I will try and reason with them. It has been my experience as a dad to get through a child’s mind with money. So far, so good. Be in the know, and know what to keep turned off or unplugged, it could really save you tons of dough in an economy that has produced high priced energy.

Recycled 45 rpm Clock $30.00 at gigglefishgifts.com

Even if your Dad isn’t old enough to get nostalgic over sock hops or rhapsodic with Elvis singles he can appreciate the trend to give new life to old.
These clocks are available in a variety of rock and soul titles, made by Vinylux who have recycled about 200,000 records in a variety of forms including coasters, bowls, ornaments and more. This record clock is made with laser–cut out numbers, aluminum hands, acrylic stand, requires AA battery.