Get the gunk out

Day 2: Environmental Working Group – Americans are gradually waking up to the chemical bath that is their daily existence, and EWG is their greatest ally. EWG helps you find out about the nasty stuff in your moisturizers, toothpaste, deodarant, cleaning products, and food. And they’re starting to turn the tide, as even my father, a man whose foreign policy approach can best be described as “nuke them all”, has switched to a lichen-based deodorant rather than the pore-suffocating aluminum in mainstream brands.
They’ve led the way on toy recalls, Bisphenol A, and agricultural reform. Check out their cosmetics database and guide to saving money on organics.

Honorable allies: Wired’s “What’s Inside” section, Seventh Generation, the granddaddy of the clean green category (and still the only green brand, I think, that actually lists their ingredients on the back of the bottle).

A Nonprofit a Day: Getting in the Giving Spirit

It’s December, and just like retailers, countless nonprofits are counting on the donations from this one month to fund them through most of next year. The economy continues to tank, but hopefully that won’t lead to a major decline in giving. Say what you will about Americans, but we give to charity.

I don’t usually donate much to nonprofits…I’m usually the “root silently for their success” type. But this year, I somehow raised $4,600 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and then the President-elect smooth-talked further online transactions out of me.

So now that the floodgates have been opened, I’m going to give to (and feature) 30 cool nonprofits for the next 30 days. I realize those aren’t very exact standards, but they all fit some of these factors:
-not too well known
-offer common sense solutions
-working on unique problems / little overlap

Nominations are welcome. Preferably some obscure nonprofits that don’t get as much attention.

We’re already two days behind, so let’s get started!

Dark Sky Foundation – I read about this one a while ago, but it was also recently featured in a (way too short) National Geographic essay. We city-dwellers like to believe that we’re more advanced than country folk on many issues, but the occasional trip to a dark place with less cellphone service and more intergalactic reception quickly reveals how much of the big picture we’re missing.

DSF focuses on quick fixes, like streetlights that only project light down, as well as long term education. And as a bonus, less light blocking our stars also means less electricity wasted into space.

Some of the effects of light pollution:
-Energy waste, and the air and water pollution caused by energy waste
-Harm to human health
-Harm to nocturnal wildlife and ecosystems
-Reduced safety and security
-Reduced visibility at night
-Poor nighttime ambience

That last one is the least tangible, but in my opinion, potentially the most important. Let’s turn off the opening-night spotlights and reclaim our awe of the universe.

Picasa 3 released. Only kind of Googley.

I have the highest respect for Google’s products, their usability, and what they’re trying to do as a company. But I’m starting to see some warning signs that as they mature, offering me free, fast, ridiculously useful tools may not always be their number one priority. With that in mind, here’s my review of Picasa 3 and its online photo sharing companion, Picasa Web Albums. I’m only going to talk about the new features, because overall, Picasa is the best free photo program I’ve ever used.

Googley:
-Easy to upload and store full resolution photos to Picasa Web Albums, so that if someday I want to make a print of a friend’s photo, I don’t have to track them down and have them email the high res version, as is the case on Facebook.

-Slick slideshows, great collage templates, and neutral print providers

-LOLcat feature lets you easily add text over images

-magic retouch brush means your friends are about to get prettier

-Picasa already pretty great

Un-Googley:

-Google tries to get you to set Google.com as your default search engine during installation process. They already are my default, but it’s because they provide the best services, not because they pulled Microsoft-like tricks to get me to use their stuff.
-They killed Hello, an extremely useful but little known photo sharing tool, to encourage a) more uploads to Picasa Web Albums and b) more upgrades to profit-generating hosting plans. Really? The company that revolutionized web mail with a gigabyte of storage is going to nickel and dime me on uploading full resolution photos?

-the “Download full album” button is excellent and will hopefully spare you the days of going through your parent’s Snapfish albums, right-clicking on each image. But it only works in Internet Explorer on a PC. You have to have Picasa installed, and even then Firefox won’t do the trick. This isn’t very clear in their help files, either.

-They flat out copied Facebook’s face-tagging. It’s a creepy feature on Facebook, which at least gives you granular privacy controls, but I don’t know how I feel about Google itself storing this info directly.

-Still no Mac support! Maybe they’re worried about iPhoto, but they shouldn’t be. Picasa’s way better.

-Picasa Web Albums is the second least inspired name in the Google Universe, trailing only iGoogle.

Get Unplugged

Neat video and related viral campaign by Meetup to get people to escape their many screens and go meet in meatspace. After planning said meeting online for $19 a month, of course.

And if you’re looking for a Meetup to attend where we’ll at least TALK about computer screens, check out my group: NetSquared DC.

Fratelli Boy

The Fratellis – Chelsea Dagger

Even besides the catchiness of the song, I like the new Amstel Light commercials, which make Amsterdam look like a super fun and zany place without a single shot of prostitutes or drug lords. Now if only they’d export Amstel Gold!