MY GREEN BLOG

I thought I might be a good time to profile a few gadget’s that are out on the market that will help you make your lives a little greener.

Apple recently released its new Mac Book which boasts a battery life which is 3 times my current notebook. I can tell you that I think about that when my computer is about to die and I’m desperately trying to find an outlet in the airport. But what about its energy efficiency??? Apple boasts that their new Mac Book only uses ¼ of the power of a single light bulb. Someone had to test this and sure enough Smart Money Magazine did. Their results concluded that it used about half the energy of a light bulb. They were running a DVD but I won’t get on Apple’s case for this. Half the energy of a lightbulb??? That’s pretty good in my book. Smart Money Magazine did report that the new Mac uses 25% to 55% less energy than four comparable laptops. Way to go Apple!!!!

With that in mind I wondered how much my actual computer used (amongst other appliances) and found another gadget called the Kill a Watt. All you do is plug in your appliance or anything into it and it tells you how much energy it uses. This would be a great help in finding out which items in your home or office suck the most energy. Of course… don’t just use the info it provides, do something with it. Search Amazon for the Kill a Watt and you’ll be on your way.

The final product I found is not really a gadget but we LOVE it here at Go Green Mortgage. It’s called GreenPrint and it basically cuts out banner ads and those blank pages that sometimes print at the end of a print spool. It also keep s track of what you’ve saved. Currently GreenPrint has saved over 5 Million sheets of paper, over 3.5 Million pounds of carbon emissions and 600 trees. The best part is it’s free for PC users (sorry Mac fans, it’ll cost you 29 bucks). You can get GreenPrint at www.printgreener.com.

Till next time,

Jeff