California Shows It’s Solar Hot Spots
March 17, 2008
Issac from Cooler Planet dropped me a line to tell me about a new map they created that depicts the concentration of solar installations (both number of systems as well as the total watts) in California, USA.
It charts the growth of solar power over the last few years, only for California, but it’s quite interesting. In 2002, only 1,675 grid connected photovoltaic installations were registered with the California Energy Commission. Now in 2008 there are 29,628 installations recorded, which is a 17 times increase in just 6 years! In the last 3 years alone total installations have more than doubled.
Take a look at the map here.
The Ultimate Guide To Online Video Updated
February 13, 2008
Just a quick note to say the latest version of The Ultimate Guide To Online Video has been posted, with updates, corrections and a couple more video sites added. It now looks at 61 online video sharing and editing websites, looking at ease of use, compares their video encoding quality, and summarizes their features - enjoy!
UK’s First Non-Profit Price Comparison Site Launches
January 8, 2008
We’ve previously talked about donating to charity whilst you search, however you can now donate to charity whilst you compare prices.
NeverGreedy is a non-profit price comparison site that tries to make it simple for consumers to reduce the environmental impact of their online purchases while saving money. When you buy a product (not just search for one) via the NeverGreedy site, retailers pay NeverGreedy a commission. 80% of this is then donated to projects that promote sustainable environments and livelihoods around the world through technology and education.
Currently they have over 1,000 retailers to choose from (in the UK only at the moment), including Amazon, John Lewis, M&S, British Airways, Dell, Apple, HMV and The Body Shop as well as the main UK Gas, Electric, Telephone and Broadband suppliers.
According to themselves, NeverGreedy is:
- An effective yet simple first step in reducing the impact of online shopping.
- Unique in donating 80% of all revenue generated.
- An effective way for consumers to signal to retailers that the environment is important.
- A new way for ethical and eco friendly retailers to promote themselves and their products.
Examples of how NeverGreedy works.
i) A £829 Apple laptop is purchased via NeverGreedy, earning 2.5% or £20.73 in commission.
ii) A person signs up for 12-month contract with BT Broadband via NeverGreedy, earning £30 in commission.
iii) A £79.95 kids toy from John Lewis is purchased via NeverGreedy, earning 5% or £4 in commission.
The final donations for the above examples would be i) £16.58, ii) £24 & iii) £3.20.
This money would then donated to a project that would use the money to conserve land / plant trees (nearly 1 acre could be purchased for the combined total of the above three examples).
If you’ve tried NeverGreedy then why not let us know what you think?
Carbon Neutral Web Hosting Is Here (With 10% Off)
December 7, 2007
A new web hosting company called Solar Energy Host is offering carbon-free web hosting. Based in Salt Spring Island in Canada and the first of its kind in the country, Solar Energy Host offers 100% carbon free web hosting that generates zero green house gas emissions.
It’s not carbon neutral but carbon free.
Company founder, Aaron Handford, said: “By using solar power to host the sites I saw an opportunity to make a difference in a real way. Instead of using the “carbon neutral” system where companies purchase carbon credits to offset their green house gas emissions, we offer a cleaner solution – websites powered by solar energy – nothing comes from the grid, it’s carbon-free.”
It’s a good idea as I often think trying to be environmentally friendly is at odds with the fact I’m using a computer to write about it on.
Some more details below, please let us know if you’ve had experience of using it. At the moment if you sign up with the code ’solarrules’ you’ll get 10% off.
What makes it possible is a state-of-the art server that is part of the only solar powered professional web server system in the world. The servers and technology are based in California where solar powered solutions are cropping up in dramatic fashion. A Salt Spring Island based company; Solar Energy Host presents a great hosting solution – and another way to make a difference in the fight to stop global warming. For more information please visit: www.solarenergyhost.com
Product Review: BadBuster Browser Plugin
December 5, 2007
BadBuster is two things - an online search engine and a browser plugin. The difference is that is scores companies on their environmental credentials. I downloaded the free browser plugin which works in a similar way to the website. Instead of you entering a company’s name in the search box, the plugin underlines certain words on your web page - either in green, yellow or red - highlighting that there is an environmental rating for that company.
Hovering over the underlining brings up a box giving an environmental score out of 100 for that company and clicking the box leads you to the BadBuster website to find out more.
Simple stuff and pretty neat. It was easy to download and I didn’t even need to restart Internet Explorer, never mind my computer, for it to start working. It works for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on Windows XP or Vista when I tested it but by the time you read this there should be a Firefox version and more in 2008.
The system works pretty unobtrusively, it does take some getting used to at first, having words underlined all over the place, but the traffic light colour coding is effective (red=bad, green=good, yellow=hmmm) and I found myself hovering and clicking through to find out more. BadBuster uses a 0-100 scale rankings based upon various sources include Climate Counts, BusinessWeek, KnowMore, and the Carbon Disclosure Project and also lets you compare the particular company with similar firms in the field.
All well and good. I found it quite nice, but not something I can’t live without. There’s the novelty concept and the fact I’m interested in the environment, however I’m not sure how useful it would be for the average user. The BadBuster website is a handy resource for people who want to find out more about a company to make their business/shopping choices based on their environmental rating so having it on every webpage only saves a bit of time. For the moment I’ve left it on my computer to see if I don’t mind all the colours and pop-ups, otherwise I’m taking it off and will just search using the website if I want to learn more.
61 Online Video Sharing Websites Reviewed In The Ultimate Guide
July 11, 2007
Life Goggles’ Ultimate Guide to Online Video, Video Quality Comparison page, Video Comparison Matrix and Free Video Sharing eBook continue to be linked to on the internet, as hundreds of new online video sharing websites have started up since they were last published.
We intend to keep updating them with the major video sharing sites only, else it would be a never ending task. Add in all the video sharing intermediary, online video search, editing, streaming, ecommerce, advertising, and professsional broadcasting sites and there are literally thousands of online video sites available to the user. If all you want to do is watch TV online, check out the Online Video Guide.
We have reviewed 48 of the major video sharing websites (with a brief look at 13 video editing sites) and rated them for quality and ease of use. What BigBrainBoy called “easily the most useful thing we’ve seen online in a long time“.
So far we’ve looked at (in alphabetical order):
AOL Uncut, Blip, Break, Brightcove, Clesh, Crackle, Cuts, Dabble, Daily Motion, Dave.tv, DivX Stage 6, eefoof (VuMe), Eyeka, Eyespot, Fliqz, FlixYa, Forscene, Google Video, Gotuit, iFilm, JayCut, Jumpcut, Kewego, Kiwivid, LiveVideo, Lycos Mix, Metacafe, Mojiti, MotionBox, MyHeavy, MyNumo, MySpaceTV, Nelsok, Ning, OneTrueMedia, Photobucket, Revver, SevenLoad, Soapbox, Spymac, StashSpace, Sumo, Twango, Veoh, Viddler, Vidilife, Vidszoo, Vimeo, Vmix, VodPod, Vsocial, Wat, Webshots, WeShow, Yahoo Video, YouAreTV, YouTube, Yurth, Zeec and Ziddio. If you wish to be added to this list, please comment or contact us here.
There are three parts to our guide:
Video Quality Comparison
Our video comparison page currently compares the video quality of 51 of the most popular video sharing sites.
Video Comparison Matrix
Our Online Video Comparison Matrix quickly allows you to see what features are offered by each of the 55 video sharing and editing sites and what rating we have given them for various aspects of their service.
Free Ultimate Guide to Online Video eBook
Our various online reviews and ratings have been gathered together into a Free Ultimate Guide to Online Video eBook. The guide:
- Quickly looks at the registration process
- Simply compares their ease of uploading your own content
- Looks at the quality of the video
- Rates the services of 50 of the top video sharing websites
- Is FREE!
Get your free eBook! Simply fill in the form below and a link will be sent to you.Please note this will also sign you up for our weekly Friday newsletter. If you wish to unsubscribe from this, instructions are in every email. But why would you? It’s great! Or you can get the link via our RSS feed or email (What is RSS?).
Please add newsletter [at] lifegoggles.com to your safe/white list 
More video sites are currently being added, so check back for the latest version. To be alerted when another version is released please subscribe to our RSS feed or weekly email updates.
There are lots of other great posts on Life Goggles. As we are primarily a green entertainment site you could read 100 quick and easy ways to save the planet. If you have even less time, try our top 10 tips to reduce your carbon footprint.
Praise for The Ultimate Guide to Online Video
“Easily the most useful thing we’ve seen online in a long time.” - BigBrainBoy
“A well-written how-to.” - Bnox
“An extremely handy comparison.” - Art-For-Hire
“If you want to put your videos online and quality is an issue, you should definitely check it out.” - Download Squad
“While starting a online video company your guide to online video was really The Ultimate Guide” - JayCut
“An interesting comparison.” - Da Vinci Planet
“Good guides/reviews on a number of different video hosting sites…. worth a look.” - EyeSpyFX
“Here’s something real interesting.” - Inside Google
“A nice comparison page.” - WebZappr
The Online Video Editing Revolution
April 6, 2007
Life Goggles can already hold claim to The Ultimate Guide to Online Video, but what about online video editing?
With the launch of Adobe Remix on Photobucket imminent, there are a host of other sites that offer video editing tools.
Essentially video editing sites try to provide the basics and most used functions of a desktop video editing application, online. They usually allow imports from video sharing sites be imported and edited. To varying degrees you can cut, loop, skip, mix with other videos, add audio and/or other images.
Sites which currently provide at least some of these features are Cuts, Gotuit, Eyespot, Jumpcut (now owned by Yahoo!), MotionBox, Veoh, Grouper, Webshots, Fliqz, GoFish, Lycos Mix, Mojiti and Dabble.
There is a detailed comparison matrix showing what features are available from what sites. The Ultimate Guide to Online Video has now been updated looking at all these sites. Please let us know of any corrections or omissions below.
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