how-to

The need to educate ourselves regarding our environment has never been more urgent.  We have only recently started to worry ourselves about our environment, but we still have time to make a significant impact on the environment as well as our own lives.

Not only is it great that people are purchasing more fuel efficient cars, but more and more people are starting to read the labels on the products they buy from the grocery store.  The words “organic”, “natural”, and “environmentally friendly” are all powerful and trendy words that attracts buyers to consider their product.  But why is it that people stop being aware once they are at the check out counter?  Do they believe that they have done their part and helped the environment?  There is more to it than just trendy words.

Believe it or not, there is much more at stake than simply the environment.  Cleaning products, as effective as they are, are loaded with chemicals that are harmful to the family and the environment.  You can easily clean your kitchen with a bottle of “Zap” Counter Cleaner, but you can also do the same with gasoline but it doesn’t make it safer.

A contributor at Ezine Articles posted an article about how to “Clean Laminate Flooring” gave some good advice that isn’t too far from the truth.  A good dry mop can easily pick up dirt and dust from the floor with a few flicks of the wrist, however, he also advised his readers to pick up a bottle of store-purchased cleaner:

“But what if you have stains or a spill on your floor, then the question how to clean laminate flooring will pop back into your head again. Even with stains or spills cleaning your floor is very simple. You should start by only using a floor cleaner that was made specifically for laminate flooring. This is very important because the wrong chemical can damage or ruin your floor very easily. If you in short supply of laminate floor cleaner you can use some Windex or a mixture of vinegar and water diluted 4:1. Never use a wood polishing chemical like pledge to clean your flooring. Although these chemicals will leave a beautiful shine they will also make the floor as slick as ice and could lead to a dangerous slip and fall!”

While I agree store-purchased cleaners were made specifically to clean the floor, you should consider more natural cleaning agents that you can make from home.  The Green Guide, along with many other websites, recommends using a cup of vinegar to a gallon of hot water to clean off sticky residue without any rinsing out any soap.  Here is an extremely short list of home-made environmentally friendly household cleaners:

• Laundry Softener:  Baking soda! Add a quarter of a cup to a full load and your laundry will come out softer.  Also, try to buy non-chlorine bleach and non-fragrant detergent for those who have allergies or sensitive skin.
• Household disinfectant (Non-toxic chemical to 1 gallon of hot/warm water)
  • 16 tablespoons of Baking Soda
  • 1/2 cup of Borax
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Vinegar
• Cleaner:  Vinegar and baking soda can take out tough stains.
• Deodorant:  Everyone knows that baking soda in the refrigerator removes odor, but dissolved baking soda in water with some lemon juice can be sprayed in the air for a pleasant smell.
• Furniture Polish:  Not just good for dipping bread, but one teaspoon of olive oil and 1/2 cup of vinegar can clean and shine wood furniture.
• Mildew Remover: Dissolve half-cup vinegar with half-cup borax in warm water.

There are plenty of websites that give information regarding cleaning products.  They are a great investment (no matter what the cost) because you will be protecting your family from excessive exposure to chemicals that are harmful if exposed to over a long period of time.

Consider the following websites for more information regarding eco/family friendly household cleaners:

Discovery,  National Georgraphic,  Inhabitat, Grist, and EPP.

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This is a special edition ‘How-to” to make your Halloween, well, Halloween! Now, for any foreigners who just immigrated to this great country, Halloween is a tradition that celebrates all things scary by craving up jack-o’-lanterns, reading scary stories, and dressing up as celebrities and ghosts!  But how does one celebrate this tradition?  Where do you start?  If you drive around your neighborhood you will find that people decorate their homes with cob-webs, tombstones and black cats juxtaposed with a black light, fog, and strobe lights. It’s not that difficult to get started, but you will need to put about two hours to prepare yourself and your home.
So, here is the how-to for Halloween so that you won’t get a flaming paper bag present at your door step (that’s another how-to pranks).
How-To Halloween (on a college student’s budget):

1. Decoration:  All you need to do is make it dark.  Have a few scary props and you are done.  Unscrew the porch light bulb, put some cob-webs up and just make it look really spooky with some cheap props.  If you are ambitious, you can figure out a fun way to distribute candy that interacts with the kids.  ~$15
2. Candy: Everyone remembers the place with the best candy.  It doesn’t have to be the most expensive candy, but the most popular candy bars (kit-kat, M&Ms, snickers, anything sour, or blow-pops are all fan favorites).  Make sure you have enough candy.  ~$15
3. Costume: Here is where you can get really creative.  Depending on how funny/scary you want to be, this can cost as little as $5 or as much as $100.

It’s safe to say that this year’s winner for most common Halloween costume for men will be the Joker from the Dark Knight, and Gov. Sarah Palin our Vice Presidential Republican nominee (sorry Tina Fey, you’ll have some competition this year, but you still have my vote.)

Happy Halloween!

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Recently, a customer requested more information regarding ‘how-to” recycle foam packaging that we use to protect your item during shipping.  The foam we use, which is made from Polyethylene (PE), is preferred over protective paper products because it reduces the amount of paper packing material used and it reduces the weight of the entire package.   Since we use about a pound of foam per package (rather than five pounds of paper packing material), the weight difference reduces the chance that it might arrive damage.

I started my research on Google using the keywords/phrases “recycle packaging foam” and the company that produces the foam “sealed air”.  So I searched, via Google, “how to recycle packaging foam, sealed air” and I found the following websites that help me do some research.

These two websites give you great information regarding recycling the foam materials.

• http://www.recyclepefoam.com/
• http://www.sealedair.com/enviro/recycle_pefoam.html

Our packaging, albeit very secure, can be very difficult to open.  We have left special instructions on the outside of package so our customers can easily that it can be easily opened.  Much like a car hood, there is a specific way you can open the box so that it can be reused (for returns or exchanges) or easily recycled.  Once you have removed and separated the different packaging materials, follow the following two-step procedure:

Two-step Recycling Procedure:

1. Try and separate as much foam material from any other packaging materials like tape, plastics, and cardboard (because those can be recycled separately.
2. Box and ship using a pre-paid label to the nearest PE foam recycling facility:
   1. Please visit this link for a recycling center near you.

One special note:  “Ship “Recycle PE Foam” to any location in the recycling network. Please mark Attn: Recycle PE Foam on the shipping box. All shipments must be prepaid, COD’s will not be accepted. Polyethylene materials must be free of tape, labels or any foreign materials.”

It is important to remember that not all materials are recyclable.  Please check with the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), or other recycling organizations for more information regarding recycling.

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Searching on Search Engines: If you are not a technologically savvy person of if you think that your skill level is that of an elementary school child, you are definitely not alone. The purpose of this article is to provide you with some how-to tips on searching on the internet that, I hope, will help you search the internet better. I will keep this guide easy to understand and give you only key information to help you use search engines more effectively.  I will stray away from the nitty-gritty information because there are many articles out there that already explain search engines in greater detail.

Search Engine: All search engines provide the same service. But they all use entirely different algorithms that presents different search results. So, it really doesn’t matter exactly what search engine you use, but Google, so far, has one of the better/faster search engines that indexes (a term used to describe how many websites/pages a search engine has ‘crawled’) much of what is out there on the world wide web.  Most web-designers optimize their web-pages specifically for Google, which helps people like you and me find one website among a couple hundred-million.

Search Terms: Keywords: mustang, blue, car, 1969, depending on the order and phrasing will result in different search results.  If a website called “Greg’s Mustang Blog” writes “Welcome to Greg’s Mustang Blog: My mustang, which is blue, is my favorite antique car because of the 1969s muscle engine”, Greg’s blog might be very well ranked because of the relevancy of keywords used as well as the order it was phrased.  Alternatively, Bob’s Car Review writes, “Car Reviews:  1969 Mustang (shown here in blue)” might be very poorly ranked because the order of the words and context of the words are not favorable to the search engine.

The way your search terms displays will vary depending on the keywords you type into the search engine. By adding distinctive words that would better describe what you are looking for, the search engine will filter and display a search result that it believes you are looking for. This is probably the most difficult part to explain, but I’ll try to give you examples of different strategies you could use.

• Very Specific keywords are usually terms that offers specific criteria like model numbers and “people in the know”.  Search results will yield very be limited, but a search engine will filter out most websites that will not have anything to do with what you are looking for.  (i.e. ‘Panasonic TC-32LX85′, ‘microsoft error: This device is not configured correctly. (Code 1)’)
• Somewhat specific are keywords that might have broad search results, but still somewhat specific to a particular subject.  (i.e. Wii games, college football scores, ‘how to cook a turkey’)
• Not Specific keywords are usually single words that could be very broad.  (i.e. furniture, basketball, poker)

Search engine algorithms often rank websites on how the keywords are phrased, how the pages are structured, and how other web pages refer to the website.  Ultimately, choosing the right keywords is like choosing the right ingredients for a recipe.  If you know the right words to use the better the chances you will have finding the right website.

Search Results: Now depending on how specific your search term is, you can use quotations (”) to be specific to a phrase like in my ‘very specific’ example.  When the results show, you will have to filter through pages (sometimes a search engine result can yield 830,000,000 page results like searching a non-specific term like ‘Microsoft’)  but every search result will show you the title of the web page, the URL of the page, a brief summary of the page, and advertisements.  Here are a few thing you should look for:

• Identify the URL of the page: If you are looking for specific product, team, or personal information, the official website would be the best thing to look at first because many sales channels do not have ‘up-to-date’ information.  However, their are reputable websites out there that devote resources to bring the latest information.
• Date Created: try and read information that is the most current.
• Getting a feel for a website’s objective.  What is the purpose of the website? Is it trying to sell you something?  Is it a “fanatic’s” website, or is it data heavy.
• Advertisement: If you are looking for something to buy, it might be worth while to visit one of the site that helped sponsored the search engine.  Otherwise, you should use the natural search results for more relevant information.

Caution:  Deception is the Internets’ best marketing technique.  Some websites try and lure you into their website because companies pay big bucks if you have a well trafficked website.  People use techniques that would trick search engines into placing them among the legitimate websites.  Things to look out for when you are reviewing the results:

• Look at the URL for the website.  If it looks funny and has a lot of random words that doesn’t have anything to do with the site, skip it.
• No such thing as a free lunch.  If a site claims to give you anything for free (or heavily discounted),  be skeptical.
• First impression.  If the site looks like it was put together in a matter of days, then you might want to rethink your visit.  Try more reputable websites first like Amazon or eBay.

There is plenty more information out there that would go into much more depth than I could ever.  However, this article gives you a simply detailed picture of how people use search engines as a marketing tool and how people use search engines to find out more information.

Here is a quick list of good references if you are interested in Search Engines: Wikipedia, seomoz.org, or search ’search engine optimization.”  Also, feel free to comment with questions and I’ll try my best to answer your question from my experience.

Good Luck!

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