Elemental

It’s that time of year again. Time for me to do a clear out of half drafted posts and round up the scraps of paper I’ve been scribbling on, and attempt to write a blog post every day for the next month. I’m cheating, as no-one ever reads this blog on a weekend (some people have things called ‘lives’ where they don’t feel the need to google ‘breeam 2008′ on a Sunday morning – that makes me happy), and only commit to 21 posts, Monday to Friday. And as I already have a regular Friday round-up post of my links on a Friday, I’m really only adding 17 posts. But that’s a fair number more than I’ve written recently (I’ve been doing exciting domestic things instead, like moving house, as anyone who has been following me on Twitter with be painfully aware of). Topics I intend to cover in the next few weeks:

• critique of Passivhaus
• BREEAM AP
• BREEAM vs. LEED
• window u-values
• energy masterplanning

Anything else you want to see tackled? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll try my best (I might need inspiration by post 6!)

admin Housekeeping blog, Google, nablowrimo, twitter

Firstly, apologies for the hourly del.icio.us posts – I think I’ve fixed the problem now and there should only be one a day now at most. We shall see…

Broadband services have resumed and I’m back on my old computer. After a year of being mothballed, it’s behaving remarkably well and I’m poking about at all the extensions and add-ons I previously used on Firefox and around my PC.

Some of these are real time savers so I thought I’d share my top list of productivity tweaks for Firefox.

1. Use Firefox as your browser. Seriously, why use IE? Plus all of these add-ons and tweaks are for Firefox, so this list will be of no use to you if you don’t start there
2. Use del.icio.us and the Firefox browser button to post interesting articles and then publish to your Wordpress blog using Postalicious. A massive time saver for comments on articles under 255 characters.
3. For longer clips from webpages, try using the Google Notebook extension, which allows you to clip direct from the page into Google Notebook (including a link to the original article). As I’ve said before, Google Notebook can then be used to draft up blog posts. There is then the option to send to Google Docs and blog direct from there, or use your favourite blogging platform (I tend to work inside Wordpress). You can find the download for Notebook extension once you have set up for account.
4. As part of the peripatetic lifestyle, I have fully embraced the Google mothership, as you can log in from any computer and everything is only a few clicks away, plus the search functions are awesome. So, it’s no surprise that I use Google Reader as my RSS feed reader. Once you have over 1000 posts to read, you get a message which says 1000+, which is a bit depressing. Better to know exactly how many posts you have not managed to read (and let’s face it, it might force you (well, me) into culling a few feeds which have outlived their stay), so I use Google Reader Notifier Firefox Extension. It quietly sits at the bottom of my browser and updates at set intervals to tell me how many unread posts there are. I like the fact that I can set it to be unobtrusive – I check it when I want to, not when something happens (it’s on my terms rather than forcing me to be reactive – I’ve turned off Google Mail notifier because it intruded into my workflow too much).
5. My two favourites add-ons for Firefox are both for links within webpages. The first is Linky. This is an outstanding add-on and I’m sure I only use a fraction of it’s functionality. I use it to highlight lists of links on a page and open them all at once, each one in it’s own tab. It saves me hundreds of mouse clicks and enables me to power through research. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The second one is a similar idea and allows you to download multiple files (pdf’s, mp3’s, .docs, etc etc) which have been linked to from a single webpage. It used to be called Download Them All! but has now changed to Downthemall (which I read as Down the mall – shopping on my brain). Again, a great timesaver.
6. And to keep track of all this time I am saving, I use a wee add-on called time-tracker which allows you to track how much time you are spending online. Useful for those times when you say “I’m just popping online for 10 minutes” and 6 hours later you wonder where the day went.

Feel free to add any others you find useful in the comments.

As I’m back at my desk now, I can now try out such goodies as Google Earth and SketchUp, Second Life and Twhirl. I forsee vast chunks of time disappearing forever…

mel starrs Geekery delicious, downthemall, firefox, Google, linky, wordpress

What I’ve been reading about:

• Google SketchUp – Go Green – Many people use Google SketchUp in the early stages of their designs, when decisions they make can have the greatest potential impact on the way their buildings perform. We wanted to create a place to showcase some of the innovative work that folks are do

mel starrs News Architecture, CAD, conceptual, design, Google, green, sketchup

The guys over at HBR green have an interesting article on how business is evolving:

The once unassailable notion that corporations exist solely to maximize their shareholders’ returns is crumbling. Without a doubt, the dramatic scale and scope of the challenges presented by climate change will require the next generation of business leaders to adopt a more socially oriented professional identity.

Of course, there are leaders in this already – Google’s “Do no evil” springs to mind, but that’s on a company basis, rather than industry.

I know that either CIBSE or the engineering council have a clause in their membership which covers some of what HBR are talking about, but I can’t find it at the minute.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Unrelated, but I found a CIBSE blog whilst looking – the CIBSE membership blog by Fiona and Bobby can be found here.

mel starrs Opinion Bobby, CIBSE, Fiona, Google

I opened up my Google Reader this morning to find this post by Michael over at Phil’s blog. Michael’s take on Greenpeace and the broader issue of activism is summarised by his remembering of AS politics:

it was the oppositional nature of our bicameral system that led to the fractious nature of politics in this country. It was not just for increased MPS that the sensible and progressive Liberal Democrats dreamed of proportional representation. But it’s not just in the Commons that oppositional politics reigns.

This awoke something in my synapses and I flicked through my trusty notebook (how very GTD of me) and found scribbled “Gen X not Monbiot or Mark Thomas – not radical“.

It’s something which has been cooking away in my brain for some time. The George Monbiots and Mark Thomases of this world are of a slightly different generation to me and I’ve never been able to get behind their views on the how of changing the world (I tend to agree broadly with the why and the when and the what ). Now George and Mark (both being born in 1963) may disagree with me here – they may view themselves as Gen X rather than baby boomers, but they are still both 10 years older than me and I think it shows in our attitudes.

I believe activism of Gen X and Gen Y today is less about sabotage and more savvy when it comes to corporatism and mainstream messages. This must be a disappointment to Greenpeace and other activists. Is activism as Greenpeace see it dead?

mel starrs Opinion Activism, Gen X, George Monbiot, Google, Greenpeace, Mark Thomas, Now George

…I’ve been tinkering with the site, waiting for WP2.5 to be released so I can find yet another new theme. In the meantime:

• added Twitter as obviously I do not belong to enough social media networks – will be handy for ‘blogging’ live from events though…
• added Lijit which my friend Cathy recommended aeons ago. Should act as a better search (one reason I want to change my theme – I can’t get on with the search box at the top of the page). Seems good so far but…
• …still added back in the google search bar
• added a link to my Blogher page
• updated my Blogroll to include all my sustainability, economics and business feeds. Also stripped a lot more pages using Feedity , so some feeds which don’t even exist are now there. As this is a direct link to my Google Reader, it will change on an almost daily basis, as I find new feeds and ditch old, broken and boring ones…
• added a new page which gives a little more detail of who I am, as I recently updated my LinkedIn profile

OK, that’s enough tinkering for now, back to proper posting after Easter as I have dicovered the joy of blogging from Google* Notebooks (move sections of text around, insert links, export to Documents and blog direct from there…)

*my current love for Google comes from being constantly on different computers in different internet cafes. Perhaps it will want when I get back to my own machine…

mel starrs Uncategorized Easter, Google, google lijit linkedin twitter blogher, internet cafes, search bar, search box, social media networks

Can it be true? Yes, I have the proof:

click image to enlarge

I have managed to read all the items in my Google Reader. I’ve also got the number of feeds down to about 250.

A huge weight has been lifted from my mind. Of course, I’ll open it up tomorrow to a new slew, but it’s nice to see at zero for the first time in ten months…

p.s. Happy St Patricks Day. I may be drowning a shamrock or two tonight in honour…

mel starrs Geekery Google

What caught my eye today, March 12th:

• Pay Your Air Share – via Freakonomics, libertarian carbon tax site from The Prometheus Institute in California.
• The best of Lifehacker in Upgrade your life – More lifehacks than you can shake a big pointy stick at. 107 tips with links back to the article. Or you could buy the book (but why when you have the list?)
• Pigouvian Taxes and Equity – Mark Thoma on perceived inequity of carbon tax re: rich and poor. The argument being that as a percentage of income the rich would be better off than the poor.
• Thoughts on Google’s 20% time – great article from Scott Berkun on Google’s famous 20% time. Note: Google do not have timesheets! The 20% is not actually recorded – but still seems to work

mel starrs News California, Google, libertarian carbon tax site, Mark Thoma, Prometheus Institute, Scott Berkun

What caught my eye today, March 8th:

• Google Calendar Synch – Synch your online Google calendar and work Outlook calendar.

mel starrs News Google

What caught my eye today, January 15th:

• Weather Data – For use with Google Earth – loads of weather data in EnergyPlus weather format ? 295 locations in the USA, 71 locations in Canada, and more than 800 locations in 100 other countries throughout the world.
• Lyons-Dubai – via BLDGBLOG, news that “The Arab emirate of Dubai will build a replica of Lyons” – why???? And how does this fit into their sustainability push?? I’m confuddled…
• USGBC Publishes Catalog of LEED Innovation & Design Points Online- 1/14/2008 9:01:00 AM – Building Design & Construction – Building Teams pursuing certification under the USGBC?s LEED now have the opportunity to view the Innovation & Design Credit Catalog ? a listing of proven green building strategies that have been submitted and utilized by LEED Certified projects.

mel starrs News Canada, Dubai, Google, United States