Miles Mendoza's Website of the Day ... and more!

Yahoo Finds 2007

>> Yahoo Finds 2007
Search engine Yahoo's selection of the most innovative and interesting sites of 2007 includes several past Website of the Day selections:
>> Move Me
>> Doggy Snaps (and Catster)
>> Do The Green Thing

Do The Green Thing

>> Do The Green Thing
I’ve featured plenty of sites devoted to tackling climate change - All of them are admirable, lots are highly interactive, but too many of them can be a bit po-faced. So I was pleased to find this green site which manages to convey an environmental message with a good dose of fun and creativity:

Green Thing is for those of us - and there's a lot of us - who don't get turned on by the tree-hugging thing, the guilt thing, the scientific thing or the world-is-at-an-end thing. Green Thing is an easy thing, a fun thing, a creative thing and a community thing

So the site asks you to do a different green thing each month, and encourages you to do that green thing with help from a little video clip, or game or audio download. November’s green thing asks you to ‘turn your lights off early and have some fun in the dark.”

Friday Quick Links

>> World Car Free Day
>> Walkit.com
Tomorrow is World Car Free Day – so a good time to remind people about this excellent walking route planner. It currently covers London, Birmingham and Edinburgh with the rest of the UK to follow by late 2008.
>> Read Miles’ original review

>> Rugby World Cup on Five Live
>> Five Live: Drop Kick Rugby Trivia Game
Choose which country you compete as to determine the difficulty of the questions you encounter in Five Live’s new animated rugby trivia game.

>> How to activate the secret Flight Simulator feature in Google Earth
>> Marco’s Blog: Google Earth Flight Simulator >> Download Google Earth
>> Read Miles’ original Google Earth Review

Video Clip of the week: Virtuoso Scratching Demonstration

Greener Offers

>> Greener Offers
We’ve talked about charity shopping portals before on the programme, but Greener Offers is one of a new breed of shopping sites which lets you offset your carbon emissions while you’re doing your online shopping.
Think of a shopping portal as an online equivalent to Bluewater or an Arndale Centre. You find a large range of familiar retailers under one virtual roof, and if you’re not sure which site to visit to buy a particular item, you can shop by category.
If you already shop online from sites like Amazon, Toys R Us, Next, Wickes, Dixons, Expedia or Eurostar, you can still make your purchase from your chosen site (and at no extra cost to you). But if you access that site by following a link from Greener Offers, you’ll ensure that your chosen retailer pays a commission which gets passed on to an organisation called Climate Care to spend on CO2 reduction.
On average, every £75 you spend offsets 1 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions.

Can changing your search engine save energy?

>> Blackle: Energy saving Search
>> Google Blog: Is Black the New Green
>> Blackle.com explained by Wikipedia
>> Blackle: Energy Saving Tips
Earlier this year, a post on envrionmental blog called EcoIron pointed out that CRT computer monitors require more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen. EcoIron went on to suggest that a black version of Google could “potentially save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine”.
The creators of Blackle used Google’s own search results to create a customised black search engine which aims “to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy."
There has been some criticism of the site’s premise (Read more on Wikipedia), but it remains a well-intentioned and thought-provoking exercise – which deserves praise for putting enviromentally-aware web browsing on the news agenda.

Friday Quick Links

YouTube Clip of the Week
>> The Worst Police Dog in the world

>> Tour De France: Official
Available in 5 different languages, with video, news, history, games, reviews and more.
>> Tour De Fromages
This site follows the same route as the cyclists but focuses on the different cheese of the regions the race passes through. Includes a good cheese-catching, cow-avoiding Tour De Fromages game

>> Live Earth Webcasts
>> Live Earth Official
>> Live Earth on the BBC
>> Live Earth on Radio 2
>> Climate Change on the BBC
All 7 of this weekend’s global concerts are being webcast, offering 24 hours of online video starting with the Australian leg at 2.30 tomorrow morning.

BBC coverage starts with Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 live from Wembley at 10am, BBC Two coverage starts at 1030 and Russell Brand will be backstage on Radio 2 from 2000.

>> T in the Park
Promising video of 40 acts from 4 stages, and the chance to create and share your own custom video channel . Headliners include Lily Allen, Snow Patrol, Arcade Fire, Razorlight, Avril Lavigne and Scissor Sisters

Friday Quick Links

>> National Flea week
Improve your flea awareness with extensive flea factoids, or sign up for free email or SMS reminders to de-flea your pets

>> Change Your World
Pledge to make one less car journey next week … If all UK drivers do the same car traffic will be reduced by 10%. The aim is to show that even small changes in behaviour can make a big difference

>> Shrek the Third: Shrek Sudoko
Why play with numbers when you can play with ogres, donkeys and pusses-in-bootses?

>> YouTube Clip of the Week: Fainting Goats
According to Wikipedia, a fainting goat is a breed of domestic goat whose external muscles freeze for roughly 10 seconds when the goat is startled. See them in action here.

Act On CO2: Carbon Footprint calculator now working!

>> Act On CO2
The government's new CO2 emission calculator has now overcome its teething problems and is available to all users. It surpasses expectations with a beautifully designed site that shows you exactly how much CO2 you produce as an individual or a household. You can see your results in relation to the national average, and the site produces a detailed personal action plan to help you reduce your emissions.

Act on CO2 Calculator

>> BBC News: UK 'must act first to cut carbon
>> Defra: David Miliband's blog on the launch of the Goverment's CO2 Calculator
Talking about the Goverment's new Act on C02 Calculator on his blog, Environment secretary David Miliband has that 'we had teething problems with the calculator due to the frankly huge demand.' In practice this means that in spite of continued attempts to improve capacity, most users are currently unable to access the calculator. I'll hold off from posting the direct link to the calculator now, to avoid disappointing more listeners, but watch this space - we'll add the link as soon as we know that the site is fully opeational for all users.

Live Earth

>> Register for the ticket ballot for Live Earth London
>> Live Earth: Official site
>> Live Earth on MSN
>> BBC News: Madonna heads UK Live Earth bill
Live Earth is a massive international musical event taking place on 7 continents on 07 July 2007 as away of highlighting awareness of climate change. While the TV coverage is expected to concentrate on the London concert, web users will be able to watch the entire global event online at MSN http://www.liveearth.msn.com/ The London concert at Wembley Stadium features Genesis, Keane, Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers among many others. Tickets for the London gig will be allocated by an online ballot which runs from midday tomorrow (13 April) until noon on Monday.
The Live Earth official site has information about the event’s aims and one of the most extensive pages of links devoted to climate change that I’ve seen to date.