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13 must-have apps for the business traveler

by Melissa Hincha-Ownby for MotherNatureNetwork The proliferation of smartphones, and the accompanying applications, has made life a lot easier for business travelers. With hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from, though, how do you know which apps will be useful and which apps will simply clutter your phone? Over the last two years I’ve taken dozens of business trips and based on my first-hand experiences, I’ve narrowed the list down to 13 must-have apps for the business traveler. Travel Apps 1. TripIt: TripIt was the first travel app that I downloaded because I had a hard time keeping track of both my travel accommodations and my husband’s. TripIt is a free app that creates an itinerary for your trips based on email confirmations. You forward your email confirmation to TripIt and the app creates an easy-to-use itinerary based on the trip. With one tap you can look at your flight information, hotel reservations and car rental information. No more digging th…

The Anti-Wood Woody

By Kimbriel Dean for Igniteme Woody Harrelson was my first crush. As a kid, all it took was a cute face and a big smile to make my heart flutter. As a naïve, sweet but not-so-bright bartender on Cheers, Woody was right up my pre-teen alley. Today, it takes brains, passion and heart to win me over. (Though a cute face and a big smile certainly don’t hurt!). Once again, I have a crush on Woody Harrelson, for all the right reasons this time around.In this day and age, we form opinions of celebrities based, in large part, on their lives outside of work. Whether or not that’s fair to them (I don’t think it is right for us to judge based on what we see in the media), it may be a good thing for the future of our world. Celebrities know how we expect them to behave with the money we give them in the form of movie tickets and music downloads. We know there are plenty of celebrities who pay lip service to their cause of choice, but some of them appear to live their word with integrity.…

The Big Book of Building Energy Data, 2008-2012

Jeff St. John for GreenTechMedia The past four years have seen the flowering of energy efficiency in the commercial and industrial sectors, with new technology, new financial models and old-fashioned bottom-line cost-cutting pressures driving the trend. But what’s the big picture that emerges from this broad shift toward cleaner, greener buildings? Last week, nationwide energy management firm Ecova released a white paper that helps answer some of those questions. Ecova, a subsidiary of Spokane, Wash.-based utility Avista, manages about $20 billion a year in energy bills for Fortune 500 companies and others, with a client base that adds up to about 8 percent of the country’s power demand, making its big data repository a pretty good benchmark for what’s going on in the energy management sector. Here are some highlights from the report, which covers changes between 2008 and 2012, along with charts that help explain where the trend lines are headed. Consider it yet anothe…

BMW New Sporting Hybrid: “Concept Active Tourer Outdoor”

by Nino Marchetti via Earthtechling BMW, even as it prepares to debut the i3 as its first ever electric car under its i brand, continues to tinker with concepts envisioning the use of green vehicle technology in different scenarios. It previously brought to public light the Concept Active Tourer, a plug-in hybrid crossover, and now refines this design study in the form of the Concept Active Tourer Outdoor. Described by BMW as a “fresh route to combining sporting aesthetics and style with sustainable drive technology, compact dimensions and functionality,” the Active Tourer Outdoor’s drivetrain system marries a transversely mounted 1.5-litre petrol engine with front-wheel drive with an electric motor that offers total system output of over 140 kW/190 hp. Performance specifications of this hybrid are fairly decent, going to 100 km/h (62 mph) in under eight seconds and hitting a top speed of around 200 km/h (125 mph). Average fuel consumption comes in under 2.5 litres per…

8 Rules of Electric Vehicle Charging Etiquette

By Brad Berman · July 14, 2013 A fresh article on electric vehicle etiquette for electric vehicle drivers recently got our attention. Simply because one drives an electric car, does not make one a master of “pure energy.” However, it is a starting place, and with a little care, one can follow through on all levels. Applying social graces at charging spots is one nice way to ensure using clean energy vehicles remains positive on all levels — personal, family, and in community. 1. EV Spots for EVs It’s absolutely never acceptable for an internal combustion car to park in a spot designated for a plug-in car. That’s a firm rule, no matter how crowded a parking lot is, and no matter how infrequently the charging location is used. 2. No Nasty Notes Electric car drivers should never leave nasty notes. If the charging spot you counted on using is ICEd—the term referring to a charging spot occupied by an internal combustion engine car—by all means, the plug-in driver should …

Yesterday’s Thomas Edison and J.P. Morgan To Solar Power Today

This article was first published on Medium. By Billy Parish, Co-founder of Mosaic The first person whose home blazed with electric light was J.P. Morgan. The financier also owned the first business lit with incandescent bulbs. In the latter case, Thomas Edison himself was on hand to flip the switch. Edison needed funders like Morgan, and later the Vanderbilt Family, because he was launching an endeavor that required huge capital expenditures. He was establishing the groundwork for the electrification of a planet, and to accomplish his goals he needed big finance. Fast forward to the present: J.P. Morgan Chase is now the world’s second largest financial company, General Electric is the world’s third largest company of any kind, and the U.S. electric grid is the largest machine ever built. Our energy system and our financial system have always run in tandem. The two grew up together and they have played off of each other to become history’s largest and, arguably, mos…