Energy efficiency if followed, could return handsome savings all-round the year. Some benchmarks have it pegged at around an average of 30 percent. Anything less than that is also welcome. Let’s check out ten informative web resources that can help you save energy (summers and winters) and keep that ‘green’ smile.

Energy Savers

The US Department of Energy website is a one-stop comprehensive website if you want to start off with small energy saving habits or go big with alternate energy. Go with the Tip section and the scour the site for tools that can give you information on approved energy efficient appliance rebate programs and other things. The blog is also a good read with a large categorized list of energy related posts.

Energy Star

We stay with the US Department of Energy and its well-regarded international standard for energy efficiency. The standard and the practices that lie behind it enable consumers to make energy efficient choices for their homes and the planet. You can take advantage of tools like Store Locator, Rebate Finder, Energy Star Builder Locator, and more. Listen to the podcasts and other home improvement tips to build your energy efficient lifestyle. Give your kids an early start with the section that’s devoted to them.

Low Impact Living

The focal point of this well designed site is its Impact Calculator. The quiz-styles calculator helps you get a fix on your energy goals and design it around your lifestyle with the aim of reducing your total environmental impact. The calculator uses regional default values and gives you a customized profile that reflects the specifics of your home. The other resources on the site are on recommendations on green products and services. One of my favorite sections is Lowdown which tells us how people are living in green homes around the world.

Wattbot

This energy conservation site works for both consumers and service providers. Consumers get valuable tips and free personalized energy recommendations depending on the address. You can edit the default values and fill in your details to get the good word on how to go about saving energy and money. You can fine-tune the data to get better recommendations and breakdowns. Each idea is accompanied by text and videos to better educate you about them.

Home Energy Saver

Another US Department of Energy website works similarly to the other energy savings calculator by using your location to setup an energy profile. With your location, you get an estimate of what a typical and what an energy efficient home spend on energy. Comparison estimates are detailed and show where (and how) you can redesign your home to start saving on energy costs. Even if you don’t upgrade, it’s a great learning tool to see how you can make a difference.

Earth Aid

Earth Aid (Beta) tracks your energy usage by linking to your online utility accounts (gas, power, and water). Ideas on how to save are offered on the site as well as the community on it. Tracking your usage could help you visualize your energy spends and what more you need to do to lower the graph. The tips on ways you can save is neatly arranged and described with icons. You can check out incentives available, environmental benefits, and costs. Earth Aid takes a community approach as you can share your spends and savings with other members.

Microsoft Hohm

Microsoft and energy savings? That’s what I thought of this unusual pairing but Hohm (beta) does exactly what it advertises. Quite similarly to the other sites above, it starts with your energy profile and then offers ideas on how you can save. It also has a support community that can give you further insights into real world examples.

All the energy savings calculator here are US specific. But the tips alone could lead to small savings or at least some major dollops of awareness that infinitesimal steps can lead to energy savings. Do you think about your home energy use? Why not head over to the web or check our directory for some more apps and see how you can save energy, the Earth, and money all year round.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Printing multiple pages on one sheet of paper has uses beyond saving paper and toner of course. For example, you can check out a large document’s layout, create handouts of slides, create little booklets, send out drafts, put cheat sheets on paper etc.

There are a few ways to print multiple pages on a sheet of paper. We will take a look at the most obvious one via Microsoft Word and then with the help of a free printing software.

Print Multiple Pages with Microsoft Word

MS Word (Screenshots are from MS Word 2007.) makes it real easy to print as many as 16 pages on one sheet of paper.

Click on the Office Button and select Print. Use the dropdowns under Zoom to select the number of pages per sheet.

Like any other print job you can set the size of the paper from the Scale to Paper Size dropdown. Zoom automatically scales the pages on the sheet without changing the layout or the formatting. Keep in mind that readability will depend on the number of pages you have set per sheet.

Print Multiple Pages with iPrint

iPrint 6 is a virtual printer driver and a 7MB download compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7. iPrint is a completely free printing management solution that does five important tasks for any print job –

1. iPrint lets you setup multiple pages (maximum of four)to be printed on a single sheet of paper. Pages are automatically scaled down and fitted on the sheet.
2. iPrint works for any document of any format.
3. iPrint scans your document and can delete empty pages (without content) with a single click.
4. iPrint enhances productivity by letting you group together print job requests from multiple applications into a single iPrint session. From there, unwanted pages are automatically removed and any additional changes can be made.
5. iPrint saves you tons of paper if you regularly print out reams of documents.

If we talk about iPrint as a virtual printer driver that may not allow you to print more than two or four pages on a single sheet but it has the added advantage of letting you delete unwanted pages from the printing job. If you consider readability, four pages on a single sheet is just about ideal. Let’s put it through a print job and see how it turns out.

iPrint installs as a virtual printer driver, so you can access it from any application that has a Print command. My screenshots show our PDF manual on MS Word – Writing Professional Reports & Documents.

Go to Print and select iPrint from the list of your Printers. Set the Print Range if you want to. You can also set it from within iPrint.

iPrint Preview displays the document in the standard one page per sheet format. Use the menu commands to select the option you want – a 2 page per sheet layout or a 4 page per sheet layout. You can use the slider at the bottom to zoom in and out for a better view.

Now, you can go through the pages and select the pages you want to delete. Use CTRL+Shift for selecting multiple pages. Deleted pages are highlighted in red.

You can manage your print jobs using the first three buttons on the menu. Clicking on Print sends the document to be printed.

The final touch is given by green button which when clicked shows a report on how much you have saved using iPrint.

The iPrint website says it can save you 30 – 60% on printing, paper and ink costs. That could translate into a few trees, and who knows perhaps a part of our planet too. Here are a few more printing solutions for the guy who wants to go green on his computer -

- 3 Easy Bookmarklets To Print Nice Looking Web Pages Without Craplets
- Save Paper By Formatting & Printing Your Files With Govert’s Imposition Tool
- Manage Printing Costs & Cut Paper Waste By Setting Up A Print Server with PaperCut

Do you think iPrint and printing apps of its ilk help to reduce waste and help us become more eco-friendly?

Here at MUO, we’ve always looked for ways to conserve printer resources. Karl covered PrintWhatYouLike, which helps to save paper and ink. Tina also offered an excellent article filled with tips to extend the life of your print cartridge.

One of the most effective ways both businesses and families limit wasted resources is by trying to find alternatives to using printed copies. One of the strategies to accomplish that is by assigning a value to every page printed, and limiting each user to a certain number of printouts over a certain period.

Any application that does this is essentially print server software. While it might be possible to find free printer server software, it’snot always easy to find an app that effectively manages print volume by specific users or groups. One application I found that does this well is PaperCut, available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Installing PaperCut

PaperCut is actually a high quality, professional print server application, but it offers a fully-functioning free version if you have no more than five users configured in the system. If you’re setting it up for your family or have a small business, then you can use this app for absolutely free.

The setup routine configures your print server for you and you set it up by accessing http://localhost:9191 in your browser. Your first option is whether you want to install the app on your PC as the primary print server, a secondary print server, a web print server or as an Internet proxy server.

Set up your administrator account and choose a good password. If anyone can get into this account, they can pretty much modify the account balances to whatever they like, which would defeat the entire purpose of having the server.

In the next step, when you set up default costs per page, remember that this doesn’t necessarily have to be real money. If you’re setting this up in some public spot where patrons do pay, then this would reflect a real cost per page. But, if you’re setting it up in a home, this simply defines how many pages per “dollar” that your user can print.

So, if you want to limit your kids (or staff) to something like 50 pages a month, you would set the default cost per page to $0.10 and set the user credit in the next step to $5.00. However, if you’re only using it strictly as a print server that you can use to monitor and log printer activity, then set it up with all zeros.

The final step is to import users from your network. If the software is running in a corporate environment, it has the capability to import from a system using Windows Active Directory or LDAP. Most home users will just use Windows Standard.

Using The Software

Once you’re set up, you’re ready to start exploring the system. User management is pretty simple and straightforward. The User List displays a quick history of all balances and a tally of print jobs for each user. In one glance you can spot your heavy hitters.

If you’re interested in identifying peak printing times of the day, week or month, just click on one of the user names and scroll down to “Statistics & History” where you can review a historical trend for the last 30 days of print jobs.

If you want, you can also group multiple users into one account with a shared balance. This is probably most common for businesses where printing costs would come out of the department budget.

You can add as many shared accounts as you like and assign a shared balance per account. Just keep in mind that with the free version you’re allowed 5 users, so the shared account many not be quite as useful in the free version. However, if you wanted to be creative you could use one user per department and have employees log in under the department “user” account.

Finally, you’re going to want an overview of all of the printer activity. The best place to do this is in the “Reports” tab. On this page you’ll find a list of all sorts of summary reports like per-user activity, a list of the most frequent users, and a lot of other summaries sorted by account or group.

You can export all of these reports as either CSV, HTML or PDF format. Overall the application is probably the quickest and easiest way to set up a print server that not only monitors all printer activity, but also gives you a simple way to limit users from “over-printing.” Hopefully this will lead to your users coming up with more innovative and creative ways to use data rather than printing it to hard copy.

Give PaperCut a try and let us know what you think. Do you know of any other similar or better free print server apps available for multiple platforms? Share your ideas in the comments section below.

Image credit: Lotus Head

And the word is that although the web is contributing something to global warming, it’s also the loudest bugle playing in support of it. Even Greenpeace has a website after all. But this post is not about demerits of technology, but the meritorious ways it can be put to use for the environment. One way is to promote recycling or reusing stuff like electronic gizmos instead of making them fodder for landfills or a rag pickers livelihood.

If your eco-conscience starts to prick, then head out to any of these ten web resources. They can lend a green hand to help you recycle or reuse old stuff and protect our environment.

Story of Stuff

Let’s start by puncturing our consumerist grandstanding by some scenes for thought. For instance, The Story of Electronics is a voice against the electronics industry’s “˜design for the dump’ mentality and advocates product take backs to spur companies to make less toxic, more easily recyclable and longer lasting products. The educational clip asks the community to petition companies for responsible recycling.

eCycler

If you give away stuff, then this site can be of help because it connects you with others who may be willing to take them. So, you can extend any stuff’s appointed date with the landfill by listing all your items and giving them away to others in your local area. You can also participate by picking up stuff and selling them to recycling plants for cash. Going green takes on a different meaning! (See our directory mention).

Freecycle

Freecycle is a large mailing list with 7,603,875 members around the world. The not-for-profit group aims to connect givers with receivers via local groups. You can join one in your area and see the items that are being given away. You can mail across your own stuff.

Recycle Bank

Recycle Bank follows the principle of 3 R’s ““ Recycle, Redeem, and Reward. It rewards households for recycling stuff by gifting RecycleBank Points that can be used to shop at over 1,500 local and national businesses. Points are earned according to the material that gets recycled. Recycle Bank collaborates with the local municipalities on one hand and retailers on the other. According to Wikipedia, Recycle Bank is in 125,000 households in the United States in over 35 municipalities (the UK has a separate login site).

Call 2 Recycle

Cell phones and batteries get dumped by the dozen every day. They not only consume landfills but the compounds used in their manufacture are a long term source of toxicity. Call2Recycle tries to lessen the impact as the only free rechargeable battery and cell phone collection program in North America. The program is run by a non-profit. The program covers 30,000 collection sites in the U.S. and Canada where you can drop off any cell phone with or without batteries.

Recycle Now

This is a UK based website that seeks to promote recycling through information and promotion. You can educate yourself by watching videos on how some household stuff is recycled. Find out if certain products can be recycled easily; and where. Then a small section promotes learning about recycling at school.

Gigoit

The name stands for “˜Garbage In, Garbage Out’. The site covers the US, Canada, and UK in its reuse and recycling efforts. There’s a small search box which is locates reusable stuff people may be willing to give away. You can specify the distance and the search for the stuff. Similarly you can list your own stuff and save it from reaching the landfills. Gigoit distributes all sorts of reusable items.

Selling Bin

You can tap into a network of recyclers and sell your old stuff via a buyback offer by these retailers. Electronics to things like books, movies, and even jewelry are covered. The idea is simple – instead of one recycler, you have many who email you a buyback offer after you send in an email with the product details. The reply lets you know the offer and shipping information.

Take My Mac

An Apple gizmo is a lifestyle device and it’s safe to say that when the latest version comes out, you wouldn’t be caught with one that’s a couple of generations old. Takemymac.com takes back your old Apple device in any condition and even pays you for it. If it is of no use, then the service recycles it for you for free. They even offer to wipe the data securely from your device. The site also has a rewards program if you refer others. This service is for the US only.

Greener One

The product information web service helps out by providing a green index for lots of products on its roster. As a user you can also contribute to the knowledge bank. The green index looks at factors like – are the materials used harmful to the environment? What kind and how much waste is created in making the product? Can the product be recycled? Does the manufacturer have a recycling program? Is the product bio-degradable?, etc. Consumers can make informed decisions and decide on reuse or recycling or not even buy an environmentally sensitive product in the first place.

The sheer numbers of web resources that talk about recycling, reusing, and environmental safety prove that the green movement is well and truly on. Eco apps like these and many more that you will find in our directory are setting the pace. We have to give it just a push more. Would you agree on the virtues of recycling to protect our environment?

Image: Shutterstock

What would you do with old computers? Tina wrote about some cool uses for old computers and laptops. Tim Lenahan showed you 3 things you can do with old monitors.

If you’re like me and you have an old desktop or laptop computer in your garage, or one that is taking up space like an antique clock in your office, you should consider donating that old computer to one of the recycling programs describe below.

Best Buy

Perhaps the most accessible place for recycling your computer is through Best Buy”˜s e-cycle program. Best Buy accepts all old/unwanted consumer electronics, including desktop and laptop computers, for free. However, it does charge $10 for computers with a monitor of 32″ and under. Best Buy says that consumers will “instantly receive a $10 Best Buy gift card in exchange for the recycling fee.”

Best Buy delivers the recycled items to one of its third-party logistics, which in turn determines if donated items can be re-purposed or recycled.

Before you take your computer the store, the contents (all files and personal data) of the hard drive must be erased. You can pay a Best Buy Geek Squad agent to do this for you, or you can do it yourself. Check out this Geek Squad tutorial video about disposing of your hard drive, and also this MUO article on “How to Completely & Securely Erase Your Hard Drive [Windows]”

Best Buy also partners with other recycling programs for other e-waste and electronic equipment, including TVs, CDs/DVDs, appliances, inkjet cartridges, and rechargeable batteries.

National Cristina Foundation

If you want to make sure that the computer(s) you denote finds a new home for reuse, check out the non-profit National Cristina Foundation, which “directs donations of used computer equipment to registered non-profit organizations, schools, and public agencies throughout the United States,” for purposes of job training, at risk students, people with disabilities, and economically disadvantaged people.

This Foundation does not charge for accepting donations, but it does have some specific requirements for what it will accept. It particularly wants Penitum III and Higher CPUs, and complete hardware systems for PCs and Mac Desktops. Specific requirements are listed here.

Silicon Valley Recycling Used Technology

The Silicon Valley Recycling Used Technology program accepts desktop and laptop computers, monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, hardware components and other related items, which it repairs and in turn provides to K-16 schools for use and learning purposes.

You can drop off your computer at their center or make arrangements by calling 510-979-7479.

Dell Reconnect

Dell Reconnect “accepts any brand of computer equipment in any condition from consumers and recycles it for free.” More information about what it accepts can be found here.

Similar to Best Buy, Dell Reconnect has over 2,000 donation locations in the U.S. for which you can drop off your equipment. Dell Reconnect insures that donated, environmentally sensitive material is not hauled off to landfills. It works with Goodwill, which provides reusable computer equipment to its “job training, employment placement services and other community-basd programs for people who have disabilities, lack education or job experience, or face employment challenges.”

World Computer Exchange

If you, your company, university, library, or organization has a significant amount of computer equipment to donate, World Computer Exchange works to get such equipment to “570 of Partner organizations in 71 developing countries.”

How you can help, and the specific computers World Computer Exchange is looking for are listed here. It currently has 25 chapters throughout the U.S, which can be contacted to accept your donations.

The above programs and organizations are making it easy for us to not simply haul off our unused, idle computers to landfills or even to our basements or closets. If you know of other programs that accept donations of computers and related equipment, let us know about it.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

With the right eco-education, we can hope they will hit the ground running. A lot of schools and educational institutions are doing their bit by including the environment as part of the curriculum. Words like “˜carbon footprint’ and global warming’ comes to them as easily as the name of any present-day rock star.

That’s cool. But who said that ecological or environmental education needs to be bookish or donnish?  Thanks to online games, it can be brought out from textbooks into the fun world. Online environmental games games that teach kids about animals and conservation make the task interactive.

Children can immediately learn that each action has a contributing effect. Plus, these interactive educational websites on the environment make both the teaching and learning enjoyable without losing out on the lessons.

Here are ten games and game websites that teach kids about the environment and the world around them.

Planet Science

The Planet Science games cupboard is a collection of online interactive games and other fun activities like quizzes. Try your hand on Planet 10 and see if you can create a perfect world. It’s not that easy because you have to mix and match the building blocks to create a perfect world.

Or you could learn a bit about energy and its conservation from the lighter games like Energize.

BBC Climate Change

Here’s your chance to see if you can do better in the hot seat. The game tests your decision making skills while holding the top job of President of the European Nations. You must tackle climate change and stay popular enough with the voters to remain in office.

Clim’way

The Clim’way game is again about helping the larger community reach some specific climate goals. You have to create a climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage in a certain time frame. Your plans can include setting up alternative energy sources, reducing human consumption etc.

Web Earth Online

How would you cope in the environment of today if you were an animal or bird? Use this multi player online game to find out. Pitted against you will be species which may be friend or foe. Then you have the natural world to deal with too.

You will get to play through the entire life cycle of the animal you choose. Like all animal species, the objective is to survive and thrive. The basic game is free.

Earth Day Games

Earth Day has passed us by, but the games that were set up to promote it endure on many sites around the web. Kaboose.com has a small collection of simple Flash based environmental games like Clean Up Your World. The games are simple enough to introduce the youngest of the lot to the need for environmental cleanliness.

Recycle City

Continuing in the same spirit of cleaning up the litter around you, head for Recycle City. In the Dumptown Game, as the Dumptown Manager, you can create your own scavenger hunt and learn what it takes to help protect the environment.

World Wildlife Fund

As WWF says, these are games with a message. Nine games listed on one page and a tenth one on Facebook (that’s about looking after a polar bear). My picks are the blaster games. For instance, in the Toxic Blaster, I am piloting a jet-sub into the insides of a polar bear, a whale, and a man to blast away toxic molecules. But be warned, those contaminants can destroy the sub too.

Ecokids

The Canadian website Ecokids has quite a list of little environmental games arranged in categories like Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, Water, Waste, Land Use etc. The learning based environmental games are also bunched up according to age levels. For instance, in The Journey of a Wildlife Photographer you have to become a wildlife photographer and check out how animals and birds have adapted to the environment.

The Adventures Of Vermi The Worm

Go along with Vermi the worm and learn the basics of vermicomposting and its benefits, plus other waste management strategies like recycling. Along the way you will meet other characters like Bubba the Worm, Hugh Hammer, Sunny Flower, and Trashcan. While learning you have to help your buddies too as they reduce, reuse, recycle what’s waste.

Environmental Education On The Internet

This huge list of environmental games and related learning activities is thanks to the North American Association For Environmental Education. From the Second Life based NOAA Virtual World to the educational Astro-Venture from NASA where you have to design a habitable planet, the web resources cover quite a lot of environmental ground.

Thanks to online games of various hues, learning need not be a chore anymore. So finish all that homework fast. There’s lot of interactive fun to be had on the World Wide Web. And tell us if you have a favorite environmental game that you would like the world to know about.

Image Credit : woodleywonderworks

Whatever you do, there are a few things you must check before giving away, trashing, or recycling a computer. Backing up information and securely deleting private data is one major concern. You may also be able to reuse parts or the entire computer. This article provides a quick overview of your options when it comes to disposing of old computers.

1. Backup Data

Obviously, you will want to keep a copy of your data. Here is a quick list of information you should not forget to backup:

• Personal Files
  Pictures, Music, Movies, anything entertaining you have on your computer, don’t lose it. Same goes for any documents or files you have downloaded.
  The Best FREE Backup Software for your PC
• Browser Data
  This includes bookmarks, saved logins & passwords, extensions, and other personal settings. It’s much easier to transfer the data than to set it all up again, don’t you agree?
  Backup & Restore Your Internet Explorer Browser Settings
  Back up your Firefox Profile with MozBackup
• Email
  If you’re using a desktop eMail program like Thunderbird or Outlook, do backup your profile and take your conversations and your address book with you.
  5 Easy Ways To Back Up Your Microsoft Outlook Data
  Archive Your Browser & Mail Settings With MailBrowserBackup
• Program Data
  Did you create databases, make specific settings, or save other data with any of the programs you’re using? Think of calendars, bibliography tools, image editing software, games, or music playlists. Any of that information can be backed up and transferred to your new computer. Usually, these data are saved under documents & settings or in the respective program files folder. The easiest way would be to backup these two folders entirely.
• Fonts
  Have you downloaded and installed any additional fonts? They are likely compatible with your new computer, so save you the time of tracking them down again and just backup the fonts folder. In Windows, it’s found under C:/Windows/Fonts.

Is your computer no longer booting or is the hard drive dead? Check out the following articles:

• How To Back Up Data From Computer That Won’t Boot
• How To Get Data Off A Dead Hard Drive

2. Serial Numbers & Registration Keys

This point deserves special attention because losing a serial number or registration keys can actually cost you money. If you’re not sure where you stored that information, retrieve it before it’s too late:

• 3 Ways To Recover Serial Numbers In Windows

If you purchased software online and downloaded the installation file, rather than having it on a CD, be safe and back that up, too.

3. Wipe Private Data

If you seriously don’t want to keep your hard drive or can’t be bothered to remove it from your old computer, make sure all your private information is gone. Your data in the wrong hands could result in humiliation, financial loss, or worst of all: identity theft.

Neither deleting files, nor emptying the trash, or formatting your hard drive is enough! To be on the safe side, you must shred and overwrite your data. Follow the steps described in this article: How To Completely & Securely Erase Your Hard Drive [Windows]

Some great suggestions on how to delete, shred, and terminally wipe your private information are also given in the replies to this question on MakeUseOf Answers: How can I clean a laptop before donating it?

4. Strip Out Useful Parts

Basically, all parts of your computer, if still functional, may be useful for you or someone else. So think twice before you trash anything. If computer parts are alien to you, read this article first: The Basic Parts Of A Computer & How To Upgrade Them [Technology Explained]

• Monitor
  Keep it as a backup, set up a dual screen if your graphics card supports it, or hook it up to your laptop for a better screen.
• Cables and External Devices
  Keep one set of everything as a backup. Nobody wants a used mouse or keyboard anyways.
• Hard Drive
  Put it into a USB case and use as an external hard drive, hook up internally to your new computer, or wipe it clean before you give it away.
• RAM
  If your old RAM is compatible with your new computer’s motherboard, you may as well use it. However, never mix different RAM modules. Read the answers to this MakeUseOf Answers questions for some leads: How can I upgrade my RAM and hard drive?
• Power Supply Unit
  An often searched for replacement part.
• Motherboard & CPU
  You won’t need that with your new computer. But someone else may use it as a replacement.

• CD / DVD drive
• Card Reader
• Floppy drive
• Graphics Card
• Sound Card

Try to sell the parts you can’t use yourself on eBay, and give away leftovers via your local FreeCycle.

5. Re-Use Entire Computer

This may be the most important point! Maybe you can actually still use your old computer. So check out the possibilities before you submit it to the trash.

If your old computer is still running, it can serve many purposes. If it can connect to the internet, you could donate the CPU time. Your could also give it to someone who needs it or turn it into an entertainment center. These and many more ideas are summarized in my article Top 10 Cool Uses For Old Computers And Laptops. Finally, if your machine is really old, maybe the local tech museum is interested in it.

Can you think of any more uses of old computers or parts or alternatives for disposing of old computers? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Image credits: speedy2, forwardcom, drizzle, Vyolett