Getting Green ASAP

The Volvo V60: all-electric, hybrid, and diesel all-in-one! | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:35:21 +0000

Fear the Turtle… AND the Trash! | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:34:25 +0000

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Magic Hat: a brewery that runs on beer | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:33:03 +0000

Magic Hat: a brewery that runs on beer

Posted on March 11th, 2011 by Daniel

The legal industry is saving trees | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:32:11 +0000

The legal industry is saving trees

Posted on January 16th, 2011 by Nick

I occasionally run into many seasoned legal professionals around the Washington DC area working on big corporate cases. In almost every encounter, there is a conversation about the massive size of files (.doc, .xls, .ppt,..) they receive from their clients. They include hard drives, cd’s/dvd’s, flash drives, and even back-up tapes. Yes, I said back-up tapes.

Some of you tech savvy people who already know what is a back-up tape, just hold on for a minute, while I explain…. All the information that is central to your job is backed up. Depending on the type of IT budget your company has allocated in preserving your data, the information you work on is saved on or off site, real-time, daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever your IT data retention policy states.

WHy is this conversation so critical? Back-up tapes can range in size that’s why. Let’s start with a 250 GB back-up tape, the standard size of a desktop hard drive these days. Let’s assume that each file on your tape is about 1/4 of a MB (250 KB), filled with all types of office files (word docs, power point, excel spreadsheet, etc..). Now you are talking about 1,000,000 files easily just off one tape.

Here is how we relate this ‘legal-tecky’ conversation to Sobuka:

If the average file is 5 pages, that’s already at 5,000,000 pages (10,000 realms – 500 pages/realm)! Try printing that out to your favorite Xerox machine. You’d be in the office for the next 20 days non-stop. RainForestMaker.org calculator estimates this as cutting down 720 trees. I am trying to figure out how may trees Noah’s Ark used up to save the world. Because for just one back-up tape, the size of a regular computer HD, all the trees on our planet (~ 400 billion) would be in jeopardy, a subtle but trend-like Armageddon.

We should be thankful that the legal industry already knows this is not practical but even more from a financial standpoint. They have utilized technology throughout the years to help take snapshots of files by producing them into tiff images, jpegs, and even ‘natively,’ thus reducing the need for paper.

Let us know how your business or industry is saving trees. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 16th, 2011 at 1:50 am and is filed under Environment, Featured Content, Green Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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A Groupon for the greenie in you – GreenDeals.org | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:31:10 +0000

A Groupon for the greenie in you – GreenDeals.org

Posted on January 10th, 2011 by Daniel

In case you haven’t heard, Groupon, a web-based coupons seller for various local businesses, is making a killing with its business model. So much so in fact, that it declined a $6B offer from Google! Its amazing success in this market has left the doors wide open for plenty of other competitors with a similar model, thus giving customers like you and I more choices for discounted coupon deals to enjoy.

The latest addition to this market comes from the good folks at Green America, a network of eco-friendly and socially responsible businesses. The site is GreanDeals.org, and it focuses on bringing customers green-related coupon discounts from the vast network of Green America approved businesses. The site was launched in November 2010 at the San Francisco Green Festival, after conducting beta testing with over 100,000 users (via GreenBiz.com).

The success of the Groupons of the world does show that customers are willing to wait for discount bargains on items that they may have overlooked in the past. From our experiences at sobuka.com, financial concerns are stated as the biggest barrier to entry when it comes to go green. If green related deals are packaged and presented successfully, there is no reason why GreenDeals.org can’t break through the barrier and move more customers to eco-friendly alternatives while shopping.

Tags: green america, green coupons, Green Shopping, greendeals.org, groupon

This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Featured Content, Green Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Go Green with recycled paper | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:30:48 +0000

Go Green with recycled paper

Posted on December 31st, 2010 by admin

We would like to congratulate Autumn from Glenn Dale, MD, our big winner of December’s Green Photo of the Month contest, with a $50 prize, and it was SUPER EASY. Here is how it went…Autumn was shopping for Christmas gifts when she realized that her Target giftcard was attached to recycled paper made from renewable energy and 100% post-consumer fiber which is definitely “green” related. So a light bulb went off and she ripped out her camera phone and went snap…snap and finally she emailed it to Sobuka’s Green Photo Contest.

Thanks again to everyone that participated in our contest! To take part in the next one, check out the details below:

Holiday Greetings From Sobuka | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing

gettinggreenasap — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:29:32 +0000

Holiday Greetings From Sobuka

Posted on December 25th, 2010 by Nick

A year in review:

We launched Sobuka by hosting an event in March, Alex joined the team in April and we documented the EarthDay Climate Rally, we went to see some politicians do their thing at the 13th annual Congressional Renewable Energy Expo in June, showed a little something on sustainable urban farming with the great guys at ECOffshoots.org in July, introduced you to the possibilities of eco-friendly construction with the Green Building Institute tour (also July), brought you the Progressive X-Prize competitors in September, exposed you to Western Maryland’s green communities in October, documented the many possibilities of green living by showing you things like how much biking you have to do to light a bulb at the DC green festival (also October), and last but not least, we showed you how to install a rain barrel with dcgreenworks.org and how DC is going solar with one neighborhood at a time (hello Mt. Pleasant solar co-op!).

After 70 blog posts, 17 videos, 3 Meet-Up events, 2 Green Photo of the Month contest winners, and a new website redesign, we just have one simple thing to say: it has been a great first year, and it wouldn’t be possible without the support and involvement of each and every one of you.
A big thank you goes out from us to you!

- The Sobuka Team

Tags: christmas, Holiday Greetings, New Year

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 25th, 2010 at 1:55 am and is filed under Featured Content, Holiday Greetings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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fun times

Dare to Live a Dream

gettinggreenasap — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:57:12 +0000

Ok, I got something to share. As I sat here, late on a Friday evening, partied out from the night before, listening to Herbie Hancock, looking through some geeky pictures from a trip for work, I felt compelled to write my feelings. I recently travele

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oldie but goodie

Dare to Live a Dream

gettinggreenasap — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:57:02 +0000

Ok, I got something to share. As I sat here, late on a Friday evening, partied out from the night before, listening to Herbie Hancock, looking through some geeky pictures from a trip for work, I felt compelled to write my feelings. I recently traveled to Houston, TX for work and I must say that it was a very humbling experience. Earthrise: A picture of the Earth taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission, right after going around the Moon. All of us have lived vicariously through the imaginations in our head from dreams we’ve had. I’m not talking about the dreams you get in your sleep, but the greater ones that don’t need sleep. We’ve ALL aspired to do something, or be someone at some point in our life. But I must admit, as time goes by, MOST of us get lost through the hustle and bustle in the game of life, and we slowly let go of those grand thoughts that kept us alive inside, thoughts that have given us sudden bursts of energy, a natural high, an urge to make things happen… just the act of remembering that we had those thoughts long ago gives us some warmth inside, even if it’s very brief. So what does this have to do with my trip to Houston? I traveled to support the repairs of the Hubble Space Telescope. Every day I watched the astronauts get out of the space shuttle airlock and get to work using all types of tools to get the job done, surrounded by the dark gaping mouth of space, with the only signature of life coming from a huge, beautiful, round blue ball, directly below them. During my spare time, I visited the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory where the astronauts trained, inside a huge pool, for every single task that they will face during the repair job in space. I visited Rocket Park, where I saw the Saturn V, the biggest, most powerful rocket ever put into operational use, which launched several missions to the Moon and actually gave us a chance to place our feet in a world outside of ours. Right there, in the midst of all those experiences, I felt it yet again. Many of us know this is simple and true, but few of us dare to live it. A space telescope, a space shuttle, a rocket that can send people to the Moon. All these things were dreams at some point in our history. Today they are a reality, ONLY because someone, somewhere, at some point in time, decided to draw a line and say “NO! I refuse to give up my dreams! Because I believe they are possible! …and I really don’t care what you think!” Someone dared to not only say that, but to actually live it. I write this as a way of pushing my own self to live my dreams. I am at a critical point in life, after working hard in school for a dream, and after being thrown into the “real world” for five years, and counting. I am at a point where I feel like there’s a war going on, and my mind and heart are caught right in the middle of it. My hands are pulling hard, but not hard enough. My fingers are clinging on, but I feel the finger tips slowly giving away valuable millimeters of space. I can’t let this happen. I must fight harder… and so should you. Let’s keep the spirit alive.

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oldie but goodie

WikiLeaks and the first amendment

gettinggreenasap — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:47:57 +0000

I was listening to a tech podcast debunking the story about how Twitter may be blocking WikiLeaks from being a trending topic, and the discussion switched to how the witch-hunt of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange is an important one to watch, primarily because it can set a precedent for the future of ethics in journalism, and more importantly, freedom of the press, a right protected by the First Amendment. I couldn’t agree more. On more than one occasion, newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and others, have published classified documents obtained from various sources. Why is it different this time around when WikiLeaks does the same? In fact, a 1971 Supreme Court ruling explicitly protected the right to freedom of press for The New York Times and The Washington Post. And since when does a statement from a senator revoke the web hosting service that Amazon provided to WikiLeaks? Why don’t other hosting companies do the same thing to revoke the web hosting services for the New York Times or some other newspaper when the papers do the same thing? Why are we having this WikiLeaks witch-hunt? Look, if Assange committed rape, then by all means let him be prosecuted. He currently made bail in the UK and will be chilling there for Christmas. But this whole conversation about bringing him to the US to face treason and being sentenced to life in prison is simply absurd. The guy didn’t perform some covert operation to break into a government office to steal classified documents. He simply provided a tool for people to leak sensitive information, the same way sources give sensitive information to the New York Times or the Washington Post. Obama ran on an “open government” platform. The administration has done a much better job in being transparent on a lot of things. If leaked documents present a threat to the administration, then the people that took these sensitive documents and dropped them off at WikiLeaks are the ones that need to face appropriate charges. The US government needs to simply say “Ok, we did say all the things in these documents, and we apologize,” and move forward. Find the source of the problem, whether it be bad policies, unhappy government employees, or whatever inside your organization stops you from sleeping at night. Stop going after a prized media tool that provides transparency to the masses on many issues that others want to keep under the rug. After all, don’t we want the First Amendment to be a right in every corner of the world?

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