The Solar Decathlon Team visits Orange County, Sunny Southern California, where a new record for photovoltaic panels will be set as the U.S. Department of Energy prepares to host the 2013 Solar Decathlon. For a change and for the first time in history, the said event which was commonly held in Washington DC, will be held in the Orange County, CA.

About 20 Collegiate teams will be expected to build and designed their own Solar-Powered homes at the Orange County Great Park starting from October 3-13. Each team will be focusing on these following criteria : efficiency, consumer appeal and architectural excellence. In preparation for the said event, all the representatives visited the Orange County recently to take part in workshops and briefings that were prepared for the participating teams.

For this years Solar Decathlon event, all the participants will travel to Irvine, California to take part in a series of measured events. As an early preparation, each team spent two years on their projects to compete in ten contests. Their homes will be evaluated according to these aspects : affordability, market appeal, engineering, architecture, aesthetics and design inspiration.

In addition, the 20 participating teams will also take part in a weekend workshops which will be held in the Orange County Great Park to be led by the officials from the US Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The finished structure will be available to the public from 11am - 7pm daily and that's free of charge.

All the succeeding entries or rather homes from the past competitions were located in different sites around the world primarily within the US. This event helps to reduce the environmental impacts by encouraging aspiring architectures and builders to commit on designing advance houses with improve and greener aspects. If you can't afford to convert your houses into something more environment friendly, then furnish it with eco-friendly materials and supplies, thus making your home a much better place to live. Also don't forget to reduce you waste and use recycled products like eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges, as well as your daily commodities.

A particular group of tinkering students from Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam initiated a project from which Jaan Evart, Julian Hagen and Daniël Maarleveld have torn apart an old inkjet printer at their creative printing workshop. They replaced the printer's ink cartridges with different colored felt pens.

Through their successful printer tinkering project, the group was able to create a hacked printer that can produce a naive printing rhythm and style which actually imitates the old times when dot-matrix printing was the only technology available in printers.

It's not easy to bypass a printer's ink level sensor just to make it work further even with low level ink cartridges installed. But it wasn't a hindrance for this group to hack the inkjet printer in order to fool it that its cartridges are full enough. Aside from the fact that they made it successful hacking the printer's sensor, what's more surprising is that they even replaced the cartridges with colored felt pens instead.

Hagen explained, "The tricky part of this project was to kind of pretend to the printer that it had a full cartridge, and also that it didn’t try to completely destroy the paper with too much pressure of the felt pen, or with the way the paper is sucked in."

This newfound idea is undoubtedly one of the amazing alterations a geek could ever done to a printer equipment. Complex yet niftily done that's just some of the words an amused viewer would probably describe the printouts. Who would have thought that aside from using alternative printer consumables such as eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges with your printer. You can even take it to the next level by configuring or rather tweaking a few hardware components of the printer.

In order to cut down our electricity bills, we often push ourselves to reduce the machines and appliances we use daily, and if we can't avoid to use them, we tend to reduce the amount of time the machine was used, which in a way helps us to save energy. Everyday we been accustomed to a habit that can supposedly be changed in order to save on our bills. One way we can do is to monitor how much electricity a room consumed for a day, this can help us determine which can be deducted or limit in that particular area of the house.

Regulate the energy consumption of particular household appliances that are used daily. Light bulbs, either they're turn on all throughout the day or just being lit up at night, these bulbs can be replaced by LED lights. These green picks are energy-efficient which makes them less expensive to use in the long run and works for a much longer life span. If you're familiar with a power strip, a block of electrical sockets that allow multiple electrical devices to get power from a single outlet. Why are these power strips important, simply because each includes a circuit breaker that limits the electrical current flowing through it. By centralizing the power source of some of your appliances, you can shut these machines off easily.

Another ideal way is by getting an Energy Audit for your house. This can help you detect the leaks in every corner and spot of the house that causes your electricity bill consumption to rise more than what you expected. According to David Johnston, an energy expert, "air leaks account for 25-30% of an average energy bill". It would be better to pinpoint the areas from which air leaks. Why do you have to this? Air leaks causes your appliances particularly air conditioning unit, heater and thermostat to work harder in order to regulate the proper heat and cold air throughout the house.

Switch to household appliances that consumes less power or called as energy-efficient machines. This will literally drawdown your current electricity bill. If you can't afford to replace all the bulbs then it would be better to invest on renovating your windows. Natural light that comes from the sun is way better than fluorescent lights, plus the air outside may be better for your system. Just make it sure that your new windows is built with insulation to prevent any discomfort during different seasons.

Of course, aside from cutting down your electricity bill will not generate that much savings, so try to think of ways on how to cut down your other house bills. Don't forget to use environment friendly products and consumables with minimal negative impacts on the environment like eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for your printing needs. Avoid using plastic materials as much as possible and reduce your own waste. Control your daily habits and think of ways on how you can reduce your carbon footprints.

Since we are focusing on reducing our environmental impact this year, maybe we should start using materials and equipments that are more environment friendly, power-efficient and less expensive. In addition to our goals and resolutions to live a greener life by eating healthier foods, lose some weight, be more conscious for the environment, save more by using recycled material and so on, we should also focus on reducing the negative impacts that we may bring to the environment.

Now in order to make this goal move and progress, we should learn what materials and commodities we should be using to reduce our daily environmental impacts. Well of course if you can't afford to purchase or convert your household equipments into these greener machines, it would be better to start with doing the basics like recycling and upcycling. By doing these two things you can reduce your accumulated waste, you utilize materials and supplies that are still reusable, plus you save a lot by refraining yourself from buying new supplies.

There are things to consider when buying supplies and all other stuffs is the products energy consumption, materials it composed, its environmental impact, and last would be the price. Cut down your energy consumption, that would greatly save you some money that you can spend on more important things. Consider checking the materials from which the product was made of, as well as the impact it could bring to the environment. Products with less carbon footprint especially recycled consumables are way cheaper and sturdy compared to branded ones. Here's a list of some good choice equipments that will help you with your goal to have a greener year.

First on our list is the Solar Charger Kit. Houses nowadays can be powered by a photovoltaic system, but the option to completely sustain your house with solar energy can be a bit expensive. So instead, you can use solar powered charger kit that features a V60 battery capable of supplying enough energy for your laptops, tablets, mobile devices, digital cameras and handheld devices. It's even lightweight that you can bring it wherever you wanted and use it just when you need it.

Next would be the Programmable Thermostat. We often spend much of our hard-earned money from paying our electricity bills. And it's a fact that half of our bill comes from the household equipments we used for cooling and heating. That's the reason why it's a necessity to install a Programmable Thermostat. Through this device, you can monitor your house's temperature remotely with the use of your smartphones or iOS devices. It's more easy, more convenient and much effective.

Last and one of my favorite is the HoneyComb Shade from Lutron. These wonderful DIY shades "are made of fabric that have air pockets that trap heat during the winter and shut out solar radiation in the summer, providing for superior insulation while still allowing natural light to permeate." And what I love the most with this product is that it comes with a remote controller, deducting the wires and strings that can be found on conventional blinds from which kids love to tug and tangle.

You can also opt for recycled or re-manufactured products and consumables that are cost-efficient and are good for the environment. For example, your printer consumables particularly the cartridges can be replace with eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges, they're way cheaper and provides the same quality of par with the original products. There are lots of recycled products in the market that will definitely suit your style and daily routine, you just have to find what's best for you.

What things could there be more for us to know the possible changes and improvements in order to have a better and greener world to live. According to Eric Corey Freed, the Author of 'Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies', he said "the change is overdue." So true, yet still this words doesn't come to the senses of many people who are actually aware of what's happening to our world.

There are three things Eric Corey Freed mentioned from an article posted in Inhabitat. First is Transparency, second is Resiliency, and last is Carbon. These three things are what we should be focusing more this year  in order to improve our world's status in terms of environmental aspects. Below is an excerpt of his own statement from the article posted in Inhabitat.

TRANSPARENCY: Manufacturers will be forced, either by consumer demand or regulation, to disclose the environmental impact of their products. New approaches, such as the Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) from UL Environment or SCS Certified, and new open standards, such as the Healthy Product Declaration (HPD) from the Healthy Building Network, have paved the way for a transparent future.

RESILIENCY: Hurricane Sandy, the storm that crippled New York and Philadelphia, (and leveled Atlantic City), highlighted the extreme vulnerability of our transportation and electricity infrastructure. To millions this past November, climate change suddenly just became very real and very expensive. When the Governor of New York suggested we build walls around Lower Manhattan, you know resilient design is an important topic for the year. In fact, BuildingGreen’s Top 10 Products for the year focused on resiliency.

CARBON: The profession of design is about to change drastically. If you’re an architect, engineer, planner or builder, the way you build is about to undergo some radical new transformations. 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record, with some 40,000 temperature records broken in the US alone. We can no longer ignore or procrastinate about how carbon is treated.

Based from what these statements convey, environmental concern will be given more importance and that's what it should be. Vulnerability was also highlighted, the weakness of a few infrastructures, their flexibility and sturdiness had been tested through several natural disasters which only brought casualties due to insufficient resiliency. Carbon reduction, particularly our carbon footprint emissions as well as the greenhouse gases that affect our ozone layer. We've been setting records from the recent years, but the more we reach a new record doesn't mean we should rejoice, it's actually the other way around. If 2012 was recorded as the warmest year, are we expecting to set a new record this year?

Always bear in mind these things to live a greener life, reduce your carbon footprints, prefer house materials that are energy-efficient, promote environmental awareness, support environment-friendly products and consumables like eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges or practice paperless printing, recycle and upcycle materials, reuse consumables that can still be utilize.

Based from the recent years, we've been setting or rather climate researchers had been setting records in our climate history. In fact there could be a higher chance that this year 2013 will become more significant in the climate history. This idea comes from Bill McKibben, an Environmentalist, Green Journalist, President and Co-Founder of 350.org.

According to McKibben, "We’re seeing record temperatures, record melting, record storms, record everything: it’s clearly not the same world we thought it was even a few years ago. But we’re also finally seeing record dissent. In the U.S. for instance, students on more than 190 campuses are fighting to demand the divestment of stocks in fossil fuel companies. They’ve peeled back the layers of the onion — they’re not demanding new lightbulbs, they’re demanding systemic changes in the balance of power, trying to weaken the forces of the radical status quo, the ones systematically altering the chemistry of the atmosphere."

Definitely I must agree with the fact that this world we are now living is clearly different from what we had not just with a few years but with almost a hundred years ago. I may not live in that time but based from what the old folks have told to a many, the world particularly the climate we have now is surely not the same anymore. The atmosphere we are living right now, is more damage that it used to be, and continuously getting weaker and weaker as the year passes by. 

Bill McKibben also added, "It’s a hard fight, of course, because those forces are led by the richest industry on earth — the oil, coal, and gas tycoons. So I don’t predict the outcome. Only that the choice for the powerful is going to get harder almost by the week, if we keep building the movements we need to build. We’re not as powerful as Exxon yet, but we’re closer than we used to be, which is the only good news I can think of."

The richest industry, indeed they bring fortune to the country from where they're built, to the people who are making a living through their business, and to all who are benefiting from it. But there's only one thing that this said industry leads us, and that is to the gradual destruction of our own planet. Signs and outcomes are very much visible that we can't even hide the real deal, but still more and more oil/gas facilities and factories are being established.

We've been dealing to a lot of waste management problems, garbage reduction, plastic elimination, and improving our waste stream. And climate change is one of our biggest problem that we need to face and resolve in order to at least diminish or reduce the impacts that it bring to our world. Though there's certainly a point to consider why this oil and gas factories are to blame, there are several factors that form a bigger scale from which we should also be aware.

Recycling is one of the method we could greatly rely on to improve our waste management system. These products that are claimed to be made from recycled materials are way cheaper and also durable just like those eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges, they're one of the examples to site with. We reduce our own waste plus getting enough savings, two great things are truly considerable. As for the oil and gas plants around the world, I'm pretty sure they know what they're causing to our world that leads to abrupt climate changes.

We've been used to take pictures with our smartphones, iPhone, iPad or tablets cause it's more convenient. Also when you're at some place wherein you want to take pictures but you forgot to bring your camera, a high mega pixel camera phone will do the trick. But given these facts, would it also be nice to have a photo printer that allows you to create printouts on the go without the hassle of wires and inks.

What could be the possible benefits of using this printer? Aside from the advantage that it prints on the go, plus its wireless functionality, it can also help environmentally by producing less chemically infused paper materials. We all know that inks and toners from printer cartridges may cause harm or a possible treat to the environment when not properly disposed of. Paper waste are gradually reducing and it would be better if as much as possible we try to utilize materials that could affect our environment the positive way.

If you're fond of using smartphones and other devices that can take, store and manage photos, this printer will surely suit your style and needs. Hammacher Schlemmer built a printer that is capable of wireless connectivity and can print photos without the requirement for ink, the Wireless Smartphone Photo Printer. It is specifically built for smartphones and mobile devices that can transfer photos and images through their phone's wireless functionality to the photo printer. With the presence of a wireless network, either at home or at the office, you can pair your smartphones and mobile devices to the wireless printer to be able to transfer photos. If you're using iOS devices such as iPhone or iPad, you cans imply connect your devices directly to the printer with the built in dock connector located at the top of the printer.

Now if you're wondering how this printer can produce quality images without the use of inks, then here's the trick, it uses a special photo paper that has dye crystals with all the three colors (Yellow, Cyan, Magenta) you can found from a typical printer cartridge. To start playing with this wireless printer, you need to install an accompanying application required to pair up your iOS and smartphone devices to the printer.

It may seem as an expensive way of printing your special captured photos with the printer's price tag of $219.95. But if you still prefer using your conventional photo printers and you want to save some money while being environmentally conscious at the same time, you may opt to use eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges for your printer. These printer consumable helps to cut down your printer expense, while keeping your printing experience greener at the same time.

Howdy everyone, since we have a new year to create more memories and of course photographs of all the happenings that will come in our lives this year, let's all start with a good vibe and nothing but all the goodness and of course green things to talk about.

Pictures, I'm pretty sure you've made a lot of it from the past holiday. Though we can keep it on our laptops and PCs as digital copies of our precious moments, still there's the urge to have it printed and framed as a perfect souvenir of the past events of our lives. But how about our green resolution of paperless printing? I'm pretty sure you're thinking of having it printed on wood or stones instead, but you can't trick me cause we both know that to be able to transfer an image into the wood, you still need to print it on paper.

You can use a printer that comes with an erasable ink just like the Re-Printer, that way you can save paper materials in as much as 50 percent. But well since not everyone is capable of purchasing this type of printer just like me, I have no other choice but to use my regular printing buddy. I guess there's always a consideration, well it's just a once in a year celebration, maybe printing a single copy for a family portrait wouldn't hurt that much.

Just make sure to choose the perfect shot that you wish to print to avoid any problems that might cause you to reprint the image. Remember it's not just the paper you're wasting but the also the ink from the cartridge that it consumes. Printer cartridges are too costly nowadays that if you want to waste some hard earned money then go buy a dozen of cartridges and print anything as long as you want. But that's not what PrintGreen is promoting, only the green, money saving, environment beneficial topics are to be discuss on this blog.

It might help if you could put a sticky note in front of the printer panel reminding everyone who will use it to be more cautious when printing, that they should only print what they need to reduce your printing expenses and most of all cut down your paper usage when printing. And since it's new year, you might as well consider opting for the green products that will help you save on your printing expenses without compromising the quality of printouts, just like eco-friendly toner cartridges and ink cartridges, these printer consumables will surely satisfy your printing needs considering that you have a trust worthy retailer.