Wednesday 25 May 2011

Selected innovators at 2011 Sustainability Live

Lontra Blade compressor () first uses: waste water aeration, oil free industrial air compressors and automotive superchargers.
PyroPure (), Ethos Energy () also Mitie has published paper on potential (); for hazardous waste pay back can be only c. 2-3 years.
Oxford Photovoltaic's solar cell technology uses cheap, abundant, non-toxic & non-corrosive materials screen printed on glass. ().
KiWiPower helps companies remove stress in National Grid by reducing electricity consumption when most polluting & expensive. National Grid pays for service as reduces peak demand ()


Oxford PV and Lontra certainly looked quite unique; the former still working to finalise details; improve efficiencies (today 5% but aiming for 20%), scale up and guarantee a 25 year life span or something equivalent to the glazing facade in which they will be placed etc. Very exciting though the range of applications and colours etc..


http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.main

Thursday 21 April 2011

China's 12th Five Year Plan: A Preliminary Look

Jonathon Porritt (forum for the future and Guardian) gave an excellent lecture and kick to do more, entitled City, Nations and Global Capital: Turning Sustainability into Reality, at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) on 4 April. 
Among other issues he did point out that this plan was worth reading and that it had a great deal of the right direction and leadership in it and as a better example of what needs to be planned and done than democratic countries are currently managing to show. So I thought I would read into it a little..
China's 12th Five Year Plan: A Preliminary Look
From article in Opinion Maker Feb 25, 2001. http://goo.gl/HVKuj

Friday 1 April 2011

Experience and tools for setting up new UK private company

Well I can say it has been fun and there is so much help out there is appears to be quite straightforward (so far). 
The Business Link support webpages have been and continue to be really helpful; so far I've used the governmental portal link, the comprehensive schedule of applicable regulations based on questions about business and created a timescales for VAT and company reporting etc.
Pipeline Deals - work status end March 2011




Pipeline Deals - work status mid-April 2011
Still looking for the more effective way doing accounts/invoice in the cloud without paying for large sums of money. I think it'll be excel spreadsheet for the time being - perhaps an accountant if I get any work!! 
Also need to do a little work on the stationary and branding but it is early days yet.


Friday 21 January 2011

I've discovered the YouTube leanback function - Sweet!

The system is great for reviewing YouTube subscriptions quickly - to be honest I couldn't be bothered with looking through the subscriptions at all before (a bit like Twitter in fact). I've used the free Android YouTube Remote app - which is very intuitive to use. 
Screen capture of leanback host machine controlled by phone - Panther's Dash - the go! Team

Subscriptions
The German subscription channel Deutsche Welle is particularly good and there is always something well produced and interesting (http://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish).
The main Deutsche Welle website is also great and has free online language courses. I suppose the British Council does something similar but somehow it didn't seem as industrious as D-W!? The British Council's presence on YouTube seems to have more of a country focus for example http://www.youtube.com/user/britishcouncilhk and http://www.youtube.com/user/BritishCouncilUK

...I'd almost forgotten that feeling/sound - icradio // Android radio streaming

I also discovered that the Android TuneIn Radio app from RadioTime is excellent not only for streaming this radio but also various BBC live radio stations that my otherwise brilliant Dolphin Android browser won't let me listen to.