Money Green Life

The truth is we are currently living in personal hand-held gadgets era. If you own a cell phone, you own a personal hand-held gadget. If you own an ipod, you own a personal hand-held gadget. If you own a Playstation PSP or Nintendo DS, you are an owner of a personal hand-held gadget. If you own a kindle, yes you own a personal hand-held device. The truth of the matter is wherever you go, you will see dozens of people carrying their own personal hand-held device. Sometimes, people even carry their own personal laptops wherever they go. Admittedly, I am a proud owner of iPhone and I carry it around with me everywhere I go. Without it, I feel so lost and confused and empty. If you own an iPhone as well, you probably know what I am talking about. One of the worst thing that could happen to me is running out of battery on my iPhone when there is no charger nearby to be found. I’ve been in countless situations when my phone died and I couldn’t charge it back up. It’s just an awful feeling. It’s those moments when I wondered about the battery inside my phone that allows me to take advantage of its many features.

iPhones, like most of the modern hand-held gadgets are juiced by lithium ion batteries. Because of these batteries, gadgets nowadays last more than a few hours with just a single charge. Nickel Cadmium and Nickel Metal Hydride batteries have come and are now pretty much gone. The properties of lithium ion batteries are just more superior than these other counterparts and thus have dominated the rechargeable battery market. Because the average consumer have gone through so many technological generations of rechargeable batteries, we are often confused about how lithium ion batteries work.

How many times has someone told you to drain your batteries completely before recharging because it’ll last longer? Do batteries really last longer when you drain them completely? Unlike NiCd and NiMH batteries, Li-ion batteries have no memory effect where discharging completely is recommended to prolong its life.

Li-ion batteries last about 2-3 years from their birth independent of use. So make sure that when you buy these batteries from the store, the batteries are brand new and fresh and has not been sitting on the shelf too long. These batteries also can hold their charge much longer than their nickel based counterparts. Li-ion batteries will only lose about 5% of the charge in one month as opposed to 20% from nickel batteries. Moreover, the battery life can be maximized when stored in cool temperatures, such as inside a refrigerator. At higher temperatures, the batteries will tend to degrade at a faster rate.

So, now that you know how lithium ion batteries work, you can take advantage of this knowledge and make maximum use out of your batteries. However, due to the make-up of these batteries, along with every other batteries, practice of proper disposal methods are recommended to protect the environment from hazardous chemicals that may leak from the batteries. Please check with your local recycling center and inquire about their recycling programs for batteries. You may also go to your local stores to drop off you batteries there. These stores include Batteries Plus, Best Buy, Black & Decker, The Home Depot, Radio Shack, Sears, Staples, Target, and Wal-Mart. If none of these retail stores are available to you, you may visit Call2Recycle.org website for more information.

If you’re like me, I hate getting sick! I always cringe when people are sneezing and coughing, and blowing their nose near me. The last thing I want now is to catch whatever they have! If my coworker is feeling ill, I want her to stay home and not spread whatever she has onto me. Getting sick sucks and I hate every aspect of it.

I have been able to avoid getting the flu for the past 3 years…that is until this year. I know the rampant growth of the infamous Swine Flu, or H1N1 virus is on everyone’s mind these days and I’m sure you’ve already researched at least a little about it to become more knowledgeable of it. That’s a good thing since we’re right smack in the middle of the winter season. For the past several weeks now, it has been the coldest of the season so far here in the suburbs of Maryland and learning ways to stay healthy this summer is not a bad idea. I’ve already been sick with the flu earlier this year and I do not want to catch it again. Here are some of the extra precautions I practice whenever I am outside or in public area:

1. Always Wash Hands: When I arrive at work, I will wash my hands. Before I eat anything, I will wash my hands. After using the restroom, I will wash my hands. When I come home from work, I will wash my hands. When I’m out to the grocery store, I will wash my hands when I come home. When I shake many people’s hands, I will wash my hands. And when I don’t have a chance to wash my hands in between these activities, I will never touch my face with my hands. I will never eat any food with my unwashed hands, unless I’m using utensils. See where I’m going with this? Wash hands whenever possible. I also keep a bottle of hand sanitizer on my work desk. That helps too.

2. Wear Gloves: I don’t just wear gloves outside when it’s cold, I wear them indoors too. I try to wear them when grocery shopping. The shopping cart is used by dozens of different people every day and I doubt the shopping centers sanitize the carts at all. So by using my bare hands to push the carts, I’m contracting all kinds of germs on my hands. If I accidentally rub my eyes after pushing the cart, the chance of contracting those germs into my body becomes very high. If i’m wearing gloves, I will minimize that chance. I also wear gloves when riding on the bus or the metro. Those handrails are full of germs and holding onto them bare hands is illness waiting to happen.

3. Wear A Hat and Scarf: My mom always told me to wear a hat and scarf when going outside when I was a kid. I hated wearing them because I got too sweaty too quick. But my mom knew what she was talking about. Most of the body heat escapes through our neck up, so by covering our necks, faces and heads, we retain heat in our body. Being exposed to cold itself won’t get you sick, but your body’s immune system becomes more vulnerable at chillier temperatures and you become more prone to contracting germs and viruses. So keep warm and keep germs out!

These are a few simple tips that I practice everyday. You can also exercise more to become more healthy and drink lots of citrus juice to boost your vitamin C intake. They’re good tips as well. So stay warm, stay clean, and stay healthy and avoid getting sick this winter!

When I first started my blog Money Green Life, the direction of the blog I was hoping was to write articles about saving energy and saving money at the same time. Since I have extensive knowledge about saving energy, I figured it was a good match. I still have visions of carrying out such hope as I will continue writing about the topic. However, I also have been having visions of expanding and writing about other topics that I am passionate about. I love the topic of energy, I’m always in the lookout for money saving/making opportunities, and I love playing poker. If these topics were to be combined together, you get a single common denominator in personal finance.

In this new direction of the blog, I plan to write about tips, advice, and reviews of products that help save energy thus saving money as I have been doing currently. In addition, I will also write about poker strategies that I have learned over the course of a few years I have been playing. With the money saved and money earned from saving energy and playing poker respectively, personal finance will come into play and I will write about tips and strategies that help to optimize money savings.

I am very excited with this new direction of this blog. I hope that you will find it useful.

I have been in the market to buy me a new laptop and I need some help. Currently, I have a 12.1″ laptop from Lenovo. Although I love the portability and battery life of the laptop, I find the keyboard too small which cramp up my hands. Every time I use it, my hands act up. This is not good because I have been diagnosed with cubital tunnel syndrome, slightly different from the infamous carpal tunnel syndrome. I basically want a new laptop with the same features, but with slightly larger screen with fuller keyboard pad. After doing some extensive research, I have narrowed my selections to two laptops.

ASUS UL30A-X5 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop: This laptop caught my attention for its claim of 12 hours of battery life! I know it will probably never get full 12 hours during normal use, but according to the customer reviews on Amazon.com, it gets a lofty 9-10 hours after normal use. It is also equipped with the new LED HD display, which is becoming more popular. With 4 GB of RAM memory along with 500 GB hard drive space and 1.3 GHz processing speed, it should be plenty powerful to use for my everyday computing activities, including blogging. The only negative aspect I notice is the 0.3 megapixel webcam integrated with the laptop. 0.3?? Why even have a video camera then? It also doesn’t come with any optical drives, but I guess that’s OK since I don’t plan on watching DVDs on this laptop. It will get annoying trying to install new software to the machine however. $699 is a little pricey per specifications, but it’s still affordable.

Acer Aspire Timeline AS3810TZ-4925: This laptop is $100 less expensive than the ASUS above. It’s listed at $599 at Amazon.com and the specifications are very similar to ASUS. However, it only claims to have 8 hours of battery life, which still is very respectable. Hard drive space is 320 GB and has only 3 GB RAM memory. This one also does not have an optical drive. At $100 cheaper, I have to consider it.

What do you think? ASUS or Acer? Right now, I’m leaning towards the ASUS but I’m not 100% sold on it yet. If you have any personal experience with any of these laptops, please leave a comment. I appreciate it in advance.

12/14/2009

Sometimes, when we put items in our recycling bins, we don’t even second guess ourselves because it’s obvious. Paper, plastic, cardboard boxes, and aluminum cans among many others are common items that we recycle everyday. However, if we’re not careful, we may be doing more harm to the environment by recycling items that are not recyclables. I’ve compiled a list of everyday household items commonly mistaken as recyclables.

1. Shredded Paper and Paper Towels: If you thought whole paper and shredded paper were alike, you’d be wrong. Shredded paper are less valuable because longer fiber lengths can be recycled to be made into stronger higher grade paper as opposed to shorter fiber lengths. For the same reasons, paper towels and napkins have very little recycling value due to short fiber lengths. Also, paper mills that buy recycled paper sort according to quality. When the paper is shredded, it’s becomes impossible to determine quality and is tossed into the lowest quality paper pile. Recycling facilities also use a filtering process to weed out all the non-fiber contaminants and small bits of shredded paper often becomes filtered out. For these reasons, many facilities do not accept shredded paper. If you must recycle shredded paper, bag them separately in a clear plastic bag so the recycling personnel can see what’s inside the bag. Many recycling centers train their employees not to open any bags unless it can be clearly seen what’s inside them. Otherwise, they are tossed into the landfill.
2. Plastic Bags: Plastic bags can be recycled but recycling trucks won’t collect them. Plastic bags are the top nuisance at recycling facilities. They get caught in the machinery and they eat up valuable staff time, since workers have to remove them one by one. Instead, most of the plastic bags that are at the recycling facilities end up at the landfill. However, most grocery stores these days offer plastic bag recycling. Just bring in your extra plastic bags with you next time you go grocery shopping and drop these bags in. When these bags are handled properly, they can be easily recycled. It takes about 90% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than to recycle a pound of paper.
3. Plastic Bottle Caps: Plastic caps usually are not recyclable due to a different melting point than the bottles they come with. Most plastic bottles are made of polyethylene which are easily recycled. However, the caps are made of different material that may not be deemed recyclable. What you can do is remove the caps from the bottle and then toss the caps in with your normal garbage. Another available option is to collect them separately and recycle them at your local Aveda stores. They will recycle these caps and reuse them for new Aveda products. They only accept polyproplyene plastic for recycling (plastic #5). You will usually see a number on the the side of the cap or inside the cap. If you don’t see #5, toss them away.
4. Frozen Food Containers: Although common sense tells us that a simple food cardboard box can be placed in our recycle bins along with other recyclables, frozen food boxes should not be placed in the bin. Actually, they cannot be recycled due to a thin layer of plastic liner sprayed onto the box/container to prevent freezer burn. The extra coating prevents the paper to break down properly for recycling. Another carton that cannot be recycled are soy milk cartons. They also contain an extra layer of plastic coating that prevents the carton to break down prooperly. Next time, don’t think twice and just throw the frozen food box and soy milk cartons away along with your everyday garbage.
5. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: These compact fluorescent bulbs contain mercury so placing them in your recycling bins can be very harmful to the environment. Instead, place all unbroken bulbs separately and drop them off at your local recycling center. They will properly handle the bulbs not to release any mercury toxin into the atmosphere.

When in doubt, it’s best to check with your local recycling center and ask them if the item in question is recyclable. Usually, even if it’s not recyclable, you may still be able to drop it off somewhere where it will be properly handled that will be environmentally non-hazardous.