The White House: Taking the Trash Out…...keeping organic waste in! The Obamas' garden has been the topic of conversation of many Americans. Now, here’s another topic to chat about during your lunch break: The White House is installing three compost bins in its garden! Read this article The Greenest Governors of the USA: Did Schwarzenegger made the cut? Greenopia’s «Top 50 greenest governors», is one of the best green rankings of the summer. Curious to find out what is the rank of your State's governor ? Read this article Tips for a Green Wedding Weddings are usually very conventional; red roses, white dresses and enormous banquets. Why not bring a little novelty to your wedding planning, like serving sustainable cuisine or opting for a natural décor. Find morewedding tips on our blog Alternative Channel now on Twitter Follow our every moves! Alternative Channel is on Facebook Join our group! To subscribe to this newsletter, please contact Joanie Bergeron Poudrier.

The White House: taking the trash out… …keeping organic waste in! By Joanie Bergeron Poudrier For the past few months, the Obamas' garden has been the topic of conversation of many Americans. Now, here’s another topic to chat about during your lunch break: The White House is installing three compost bins in its garden! (Ecorazzi.com reported last week). Why composting is such a good idea? If Michelle O wants her garden to be bigger and eco-friendlier next year, the best way to start is to make her own compost. For this year’s garden the family ordered a shipment of compost from New York celebrity chef Dan Barber. Compost is the most natural nutrient for a healthy garden, but if it needs to travel 227 miles to reach the garden, the benefits are not as good for the environment as if it was made on site. Up to 30% of an average household's waste is organic and can be turned into compost. Imagine how many organic waste the White House can produce in a year? I have no exact numbers but it has to be loads! If the garden and kitchen staff do their job; those 3 composting bins could help divert 30% of organic waste from the landfill, which means 30% less garbage! The First family is a good source of inspiration for every American, now it is our turn to do the same at home. Composting can be a little repulsive, (I agree!) but with some good tips, you’ll get the hang of it quickly, without getting your hands dirty. Combine with your daily paper-plastic-glass recycling, and after only a few weeks of composting, you’ll be surprised with the small amount of garbage you'll need to take out each week. Instead of 1 garbage bag you’ll probably end up with half of one. For good tips on how to start composting visit Howtocompost.org and watch the Sierra Club's “How to compost in your backyard” video. Source :Ecorazzi.com Photo Credit: This graphic was created by Roger Doiron in support of the Eat the View! campaign to replant an organic garden on the White House lawn. Visit EatTheView.org

It’s been a few days since Apple released its 2.4 software update. Time to sum all the rumours up! But first, let’s take a look at new features that come to our ATV devices:

Remote app directional control: Control your Apple TV with simple finger gestures via the Remote app. This feature requires Remote 1.3 running on an iPhone or iPod touch with iPhone OS 3.0.

Flickr Search: Search Flickr photo tags to find recently updated photos of interest. Save searches to quickly find new photos or use as a screen saver for Apple TV.

New view options: View movies By Genre, By Movie, or Unwatched. View TV Shows and Podcasts By Date, By Show, or Unwatched.

Updated transport and chapter modes:During video playback, click right or left to fast forward or rewind. Additional clicks increase the speed. Click down to show chapter markers.

Updating Apple TV software is more than easy. Check it out here.

Certainly the most important feature is a support for controlling Apple TV from your iPhone or iPod. You can control audio or video playback by flicking left or right to rewind or fast forward. Flick down to show chapter markers when watching video and then flick left or right to skip. You can also tap the screen to play/pause either video or audio.

As TUAW reports, their in-house Apple TV geeks, Megan Lavey and Christina Warren, both installed the updates and gave them a try. “Megan indicated the gestures were quick and responsive, and coupled with the ability to use the iPhone/iPod keyboard to search for shows, the new versions made it much less tedious to navigate through your shows¨.

This video seems to confirm these observations.

The main question for many ATV users was if boxee will be running on the device after updating? Boxee quickly responded to that kind of doubts, tweeting: “if you upgraded your Apple TV to 2.4: run patchstick again, update launcher, download latest boxee and you’ll be back boxeeing” (http://twitter.com/boxee). They also reposted a short tutorial ‘so how do i get boxee on atv?’ on their forum.

On various forums users confirmed the full boxee functionality on ATV.

According to awkwardTV, 2.4 update works fine also with XBMC Media Center 9.04, NitoTV Take 2 0.7.6+ (but isn’t able to install Perian) and LaunchMore. But they also reports some problems:

• Divx (Perian) has no audio when installed like this or by this article “Install_Perian” (it’s maybe related to “fooled” files);
• SoftwareMenu right from atvusb-creator (mac b10) causes Finder to crash, had to ssh and remove frappliance, then downloaded latest version and it is OK now;
• ATVFiles (Version 1.2.0 (479)) crashes when browsing files.

We’ll be following all 2.4 update-connected news and will inform you immediately.

Guys from boxee certainly don’t waste their time and can be now proud not only of boxee’s high popularity but also of its fast-growing community. More than 40 apps were developed in response to their App Dev Challenge. The apps are being successively incorporated into boxee. If you still haven’t tried it out on your TV, you can take a look at some of them on boxee´s blog and vote for the best one in each category. Polls are open till June 22nd.

Winners will be announced at boxee event in San Francisco on June 23rd.

Windows 7's support for SSDs will not do much to boost sales because the price gap with HDDs is still too high.
That's according to a report in Digitimes, which spoke to sources at notebook vendors.


Continue reading Notebook Vendors Not Hopeful Windows 7 Will Boost SSD Sales

Originally appeared on Storage.biz-news.com :: Latest Storage Business News on 03/07/2009

Intel is to implement the projected doubling of its SSD capacities earlier than expected - possibly as soon as next month.
The current X18-M and X25-M solid-state drives (SSDs) use a 50nm process and have 80GB and 160GB capacities with 2-bit multi-level cell (MLC) technology.


Continue reading Intel Advances Roadmap to Double SSD Capacity

Originally appeared on Storage.biz-news.com :: Latest Storage Business News on 03/07/2009

*Use your camera to show up the so-called“digital divide” and participate in Iwith.org's summer 2009 contest. A great way to get a massive audience for your photos and give a meaning to your vacation



Continue reading Iwith.org's Third Edition Summer Photo Campaign: Expose the Digital Divide This Summer

This summer, around 120 young Europeans from 15 different countries will participate in Creativity.cat. Act for Interculturality, which is the main artistic meeting for the youth at a continental level. Neagènia Intercultural, partner of iwith.org, is going to coordinate this meeting, which gathers participants aged from 18 to 30 years, with the aim of encouraging creativity, interculturality and public-spirited participation.




Continue reading The main European artistic event for the youth in Girona and Vilanova is getting close

On May 9, 2008 Platinum Blue's hit prediction service was a central part of the story line on the CBS television series Numb3rs. As we've seen before in the NBC series Studio 60: On The Sunset Strip, Platinum Blue makes for good and interesting drama. Music Xray is not always portrayed accurately but that's part of the dramatization. In this episode of Numb3rs (called "Pay To Play"), a music label president is paying radio stations to play songs from one of the artists signed to his label in spite of the fact the public isn't buying while on the other hand he refuses to sign an artist whose Music Xray? scores are very high. The label owner is even paying the radio stations not to play his songs. It results in murder and intrigue. Thankfully, in this case fiction is stranger than truth.

Platinum Blue Gaining Mainstream Awareness – Part of Studio 60 Script

Much to our surprise and delight, for the May 31st, 2007 episode of Studio 60: On The Sunset Strip, Platinum Blue was written into the script.

The plot is that the show within the show is taking a ratings beating and the head of the network, Jack Rudolph (played by Steven Weber) walks into head writer Matt Albie?s (played by Matthew Perry) office and announces he?s invested in a company created by the people behind Platinum Blue! Well as it happens, we know them! Click on the video below to see the brief clip.

Medications commonly prescribed to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are associated with an increased risk of sudden death, according to new research. Children and teens taking ADHD stimulant medications were seven times more likely to die suddenly than their peers.

As many as 2.5 million children in the United States take ADHD stimulant medications, such as amphetamine, dextroamphetamine (Adderall), methamphetamine or methylphenidate (Ritalin). In the early 1990’s, several reports of sudden, unexplained death in children taking these medications began to raise concerns. Read the original article.

Continue reading ADHD Drugs Linked To Sudden Death in Children

Indoor air pollution often makes the air inside homes more unhealthy to breathe than air outdoors. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that indoor air can be two- to five-times more polluted than the air outdoors. And while the EPA is responsible for cracking down on outdoor pollution -- the smog, ozone and other chemicals that spew from tailpipes and smokestacks -- protecting the air indoors is largely the responsibility of homeowners. Read the original article.


Continue reading 6 Surprising Sources of Air Pollution in Your Home