As mentioned previously, one of the perks of having a reasonably well-known eco blog is that we’re occasionally offered the opportunity to test out ‘green’ products.
Back towards the end of September someone approached us to see if we were interested in testing out a new Solio solar gadget charger. I jumped at the opportunity since…well…it just looks like a cool toy! In our defence, it DID take a long time to arrive, although certainly not so long as to warrant a mid-December review!
Anyway…
Now that we are up and rolling once again, I figured I might as well test this puppy out. We only have a limited trial period (unless we feel like buying it), and Steve and I agreed to each spend some time with it and share our thoughts here on the blog.
The unit looks very slick, there is no doubt about it, but alas it does not seem to be quite as “truly universal” as it claims on the box. I’ll admit that I’m not as much of a gadget hound as some, but I tried to use it with four different cell phones and a blackberry, yet still had no luck finding one I could actually charge (two of the cell phones and the blackberry are somewhat older models, likely explaining the issues with them). I am hopeful that Steve, being the hip dude that he is, will save the day and actually find something we can test this out with, since it DOES indeed look like really nice system.
According to the box it works with “most common mobile phones, MP3 players, and GPS units”. I was hoping I could use it to charge my laptop, but I now realize that would be a bit of a stretch given its small size. Interestingly enough, you can however charge it with your laptop - so if you are out and about and there isn’t any sunlight available, you can simply plug it in to your laptop via a USB connector and charge it up so it can then be used to charge your other gadgets.
Anyway, I’ll definitely pass it along to Steve when I see him next (planning for next week) and hopefully we’ll be able to provide everyone with a semi-useful review!
Back in August I wrote a post announcing that Patti ‘Garden Girl’ Moreno was once again back on the green gardening scene (she seemed to be MIA for a number of months), and was partnering with Farmers Almanac for future editions of her Urban Sustainable Living video series.
At the time, her website was looking a wee bit rough around the edges, but she was in the process of planning out a completely new design (which looked very promising).
Long story short, her new website has now officially launched - and I must say it looks AWESOME! Way to go, Patti! I highly recommend that you pop by and check it out: http://www.gardengirltv.com. There is a link down at the bottom that will take you to a preview of her upcoming series on the Farmer’s Almanac site - definitely should be interesting! I also highly recommend signing up for her newsletter - aside from providing updates on her progress, Patti always includes interesting blurbs about her urban mini-farm and what she is up to in general.
I wrote about this year’s extravaganza back in November, describing some of initial steps I had taken in order to get the bin ready for winter. Since then winter has arrived in a BIG way and we are certainly off to the races as far as this year’s cold weather composting goes!
I recently made a YouTube video outlining my efforts (see above), but also posted a much higher quality version on my Worm Composting Videos page (at Red Worm Composting). You’ll likely be relieved to learn that volume is NOT required in order to get the full benefit of watching the video, and in fact some may feel that MORE benefit is actually derived when the volume is off!
As mentioned, primary coverage of the Extravaganza will be provided on my other sites, but rest assured I will still be providing plenty of updates here as well, just in case anyone is interested in following along!
I mentioned last month (ie in one of my most-recent posts! lol) that main coverage of my Winter Composting Extravaganza is going to occur on a ‘secret‘ website - which of course was only ’secret’ because I wasn’t ready to make it public yet. I’ve been slowly working on it in fits and spurts for months now, and I’ve finally decided to share it. There is still considerable work to be done, but I’ve decided to just ‘let go’ and launch it as-is (which will provide me with lots more incentive to make time for it from here on out).
In case you haven’t figured it out, the site is called Compost Guy - not unbelievably original, but still a very fitting title given my passion for the topic.
I decided to launch the site in the hopes of reaching a much broader audience than is possible via Red Worm Composting, yet a somewhat more targetted audience than our readers (or former readers, haha) here at EcoSherpa. I’m going to be talking about a lot more than just composting of course, but there are plenty of eco topics I won’t be discussing. I’m confident that the three blogs will tie together very well, and I certainly don’t mean to imply that I am abandoning any of my current projects.
If you happen to be keenly interested in topics such as composting, aquaponics, eco-gardening etc, and have enjoyed my coverage of these topics here, then perhaps you’ll want to add Compost Guy to your feedreader as well (but no pressure - haha!).
That being said, Steve and I will still be talking about ALL aspects of sustainable living here at EcoSherpa.
Anyway, I won’t say more than that for now, but rest assured you hear more about it in coming months!
Note to self: STOP saying that EcoSherpa is going to be a lot more active “soon”!
Sheesh! You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now. It seems as though every time I apologize for our inactivity on the blog and promise things will be getting better, we actually head in the opposite direction!
Oh well - hopefully you know I only say those things because I care!
Anyway, I’m not going to bother informing you that there are some new blog posts coming your way very soon. Nor will I mention that you’ll be very likely learning about my new site today. There is probably no point in providing you with an update on my winter composting experiment either!
Ok, I’ll stop being annoying now! Let’s get on with it!!
