Windows that open: A common feature of modern office environments has been the complete sealing of windows in order to better control the internal climate. But the downside to this has been the complete reliance on heating and cooling for maintaining a desirable office temperature. To avoid such a dependence, stick to office spaces that include windows that can be opened. That way you can take advantage of fresh air as much as possible.

Close proximity to public transit: For the sake of reducing the amount of fuel you and your workers will burn through for your business to exist, opt for office space near bus lines or other forms of mass transit. Go the extra mile by encouraging your workers to use these means of transportation by providing them with monthly passes.

Natural sources of light: In addition to windows that can be opened, look for windows that get a strong exposure – mainly those that face east and west. This reduces your dependence on artificial light, which will lower energy costs as well the size of your company’s carbon footprint.

Shower facilities: It may sound a little silly, but on-site showers are critical in the promotion of a green corporate culture in that they encourage employees to ride bicycles into work. If they know they won’t have to sit at their desk drenched in sweat for the first five hours, your workers are certain to choose cycling instead of driving whenever possible.

Solar paneling: This is the one feature everyone looks for when scouting for green office locales. While not the end-all-be-all of what constitutes an environmentally sound office, solar panels are important and should certainly be something you look for in your potential office space. With that said, do the math before embracing extra rent on account of an office being solar powered. It’s good for Mother Nature in any case, but it may not always be optimum for your wallet.

A green (or white) roof: This one is a bit fun to do since it requires some spying via Google Maps. When you get the address of a potential spot, plug it into Google Maps and zoom in to get a glimpse as to whether or not green roofing materials were used. A “green” roof, while most commonly appearing white, is one of the easiest ways to reduce energy usage in a large complex. If the owners of an office building haven’t taken this step, you can safely say it isn’t the location that’s right for you.

When looking for green office space to place your new company, don’t just settle on whatever a realtor wants to tell you or give into charming copy. Go to these locations and see for yourself whether or not they’re “up to code” as far as going green is concerned. That way you can be assured that your efforts to create an eco-friendly business are not in vain.

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Six Things to Look for When Scouting for Green Office Space

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to make businesses more eco-friendly. Take these tips back to work with you and implement them in your office to help make a lighter impact on our environment!

1. Go Digital – Printing wastes paper, so try to do so as little as possible. Send documents via email instead of using hard copies—there are even programs that let you sign documents online so you don’t have to print them out.

2. Recycle Old Carpet and Flooring – If you or your company are planning on remodeling your office, consider participating in the Carpet America Recovery Effort (C.A.R.E.). C.A.R.E. aims to reduce landfill waste by providing recycling and reuse options for removed carpet and padding. Every 10 million pounds of recycled carpet saves 50,000 yards of landfill space, which helps to
decrease dangerous toxic emissions.

Empire Today is one of multiple retailers that offer to recycle old carpet and flooring after new installations, making it easy for your business to contribute to a cleaner environment while enjoying fresh new flooring.

3. Choose Green Products – Another environmentally friendly remodeling option is to choose sustainable materials for new floors and windows. Empire Flooring offers natural, eco-friendly floor materials like bamboo and cork. Both bamboo and cork are renewable and recyclable, and no trees are harmed in manufacturing cork. Empire Today also provides energy efficient window treatments that reduce harmful UV rays and ensure healthy air quality.

4. Unplug Everything – You stop using the things in your office as soon as you leave for the day, so why should they stay plugged in all night? Before you go home, shut down computers, unplug printers, and turn off lights to save energy. Using one power strip for multiple appliances makes it even easier to unplug at the end of the day.

5. Get a Plant – Putting a plant in the office increases air circulation, decreases air toxins, and helps reduce eye irritation from staring at a computer screen for hours at a time. Plus, it can make your office feel a little more like home!

Just because you don’t live in your office (hopefully!) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for the same opportunities to go green as you do at home. Making environmentally conscious business decisions, especially with big projects like remodeling, can have huge impacts on clearing out landfills and creating a greener, cleaner world.

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Eco-Friendly Flooring Options for the Office

Of course, they didn’t want to let the price increase without one last deal…

For a very short time discount code TEN will give you and extra 10% off your Pro Plus purchase!

On Tuesday January 31, 2012, the price goes up so don’t miss out. You know how much we love StudioPress at Eco-Office Gals and now you can have them all!

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Grab StudioPress Savings While They Last!

In order to get the right idea about your own carbon footprint and ways to lessen its size, take advantage of resources available to you online. In particular, utilize the following four calculators that can make it easier to determine how to go about leading a greener life:

Household Emissions Calculator: This handy tool provided by the Environmental Protection Agency estimates your household emissions based on the data you enter and provides you with possible solutions to lower these levels. It breaks it down in both a dollars perspective and an emissions perspective, which comes handy for those who can’t help but calculate the cost benefits of green living.

Fuel Economy Calculator: Choosing the most fuel efficient vehicle you can afford is easier than using Anywho’s reverse phone number finder thanks to the fuel economy calculator provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. Every car is cataloged, from the ’57 Chevy to the 2012 Toyota Prius. Say goodbye to the days of the gas guzzler!

Home Energy Saver Calculator: Utilizing a whole range of data from your zip code to the age of your home to the price of your current kilowatt hour of electricity, the Home Energy Saver Calculator gives you a concise formula for ways to save on energy. As user Nick Wilder said: “It is one government service that makes paying taxes worthwhile.”

Carbon Footprint Calculator: The only one not available through a government agency, this incredibly detailed service featured on the Nature Conservancy website calculates your entire carbon footprint. In addition to such specifics as estimated air travel, the Carbon Footprint Calculator also factors in your dietary habits, an often overlooked aspect of our impact on the environment.

You don’t have to attempt going green alone. In fact it’s probably in both your best interest and the best interest of the planet if you don’t. Take advantage of all the free information that exists online, but particularly the useful eco-friendly calculators that make going green a lot easier and a lot more effective.

Alex S. is a freelance writer who has a passion for being eco-friendly, in addition enjoys learning about business and technology.

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Use Online Calculators to Reduce Emissions and Save Energy

“On January 18th, 13 million of us took the time to tell Congress to protect free speech rights on the internet. Hundreds of millions, maybe a billion, people all around the world saw what we did on Wednesday.”

This was unprecedented. Your activism may have changed the way people fight for the public interest and basic rights forever.
The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled.  “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd told the New York Times. ‘[PIPA and SOPA were] considered by many to be a slam dunk.’”

“’This is altogether a new effect,’ Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing ‘an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically’ in the last four decades, he added.”  — Fight for the Future

We ALL made a difference, I was saddened by a commenter on Facebook who stated:

“What will it change? None of the people voting are going to personally visit my blog and see whether I do/don’t like the bill. I’m of the mindset that if I don’t know enough about a topic to make an educated decision about it, I just don’t engage it. Which is also why I don’t vote.”

I tried to send her as much info as I could to change her mind about participating in the strike, I’m not sure if she did in the end or not. I’m glad so many people didn’t feel the same way. Thank you to everyone that knew they could make a difference!

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SOPA: It only went as far as we let it!

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SOPA What is it? Why should you care?

Just because things have been quiet on the blog-front doesn’t mean it’s been quiet around here. We’ve been working with some great companies on their new WordPress sites, mobile sites as well as trying out and gifting some awesome eco-friendly products. I wanted to take a minute to send out a big “thank you” to some great companies and let you know about some companies we’ll be featuring in the coming weeks.

First a HUGE Thank you to Kristin at the The GrapeSeed Company! Every year I work with a great green company to bring family, friends and clients a little eco-goodness. This year I teamed up with The Grapeseed Company, they offer premium eco-friendly vinotherapy spa & skin care for professional and personal use. Their line of bath & body treats are centered on the byproduct of wine in their new hometown, Santa Barbara, California. I was so giddy to send out mojito man shaving sets and shower sets to the special people in my personal and work life. I hope everyone loves The GrapeSeed Company as much as I have and if you haven’t tried their products before be sure to check them out!  Thank you Kristen!

Some more BIG thanks going out to some guys and gals I have gotten to team up with the past few months on projects and love working with them so much I want to share them with you!

Kendra Cote – Owner of Amathia Soaps, Kenna makes another awesome line of bath & body products which look and smell amazing and also found their way into many stockings this holiday! We first teamed up to launch her new website design which will be live very soon. Yet, as we worked together and chatted way too much on skype, I discovered she has a mad love for WordPress, too. We have been working on a few projects since and I can’t express how much I appreciate her! I know her true love is Amathia, but I hope we can continue to work on projects together when she isn’t knee deep in her suds. Thank you so much for all your help lately, Kenna!

Another Thank You going out to Applied Info-Systems. Applied Info-Systems pulled off a great mobile site design for a client in a crunch. Although EOG offers plug in set up for mobile versions of WP sites, this situation wasn’t going to allow for a quick and simple set up. Robert was able to create what the client needed, on the heels of the holidays and he did a great job! If you need to get your website mobile visit Applied Info-Systems for your mobile package solutions!

Tammy at Moonwell Designs has also been an awesome partnership for recent projects. I have teamed up with Moonwell Designs to offer logo design, ebook creation and much more. Her design skills are amazing and I’m so happy to have her to turn to for project needs. Thank you Tammy for all your help the past few months! Contact EOG for your design service needs – Tammy’s skills are sure to deliver!

Again a huge thanks to everyone for all of your help this year!

We have also been trying out some goodies from Shaklee, Naked Binder, Influenster & Fearless Chocolate we’ll let you know what we think of them soon!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays & Happy 2012 from Eco-Office Gals and the Smith Family!

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A Post Holiday Thank You!

• Easier Uploading
  • File Type Detection – A single upload button.
  • Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader
• Dashboard Design
  • New Toolbar in the dashboard, combining the Admin Bar and admin header
  • Responsive design for some screens, including iPad/tablet support
  • Flyout menus, providing single-click access to any screen
• New User Experience
  • New feature pointers, helping users navigate new features
  • Post-update About screen
  • Dashboard welcome area for new installs
• Content Tools
  • Better co-editing that releases post locks immediately
  • Tumblr Importer
  • Don’t lose widgets when switching themes

You can view the full list of changes here.

I have installed the new version on Eco-Office Gals and everything is looking good! They did a nice job on the back end. Nothing feel apart on the front end. All seems good to go!

Have Eco-Office Gals Perform Your Updates

WordPress 3.3 is not a general maintenance roll out, so proceed with caution. Perform a back up, put your feelers out on your social networks and make sure no one else is experiencing issues, your plug ins and theme may also require updates to keep up with WordPress.

Eco-Office Gals can perform the update for you if you are not comfortable doing it yourself. The 1 hour minimum will include:

WP BackUp
Plug In Updates
Theme Update, if needed
WordPress Updated to 3.3

Upgrades with be performed on a first come first serve basis. Once you pay using the PayPal button found below I will need you to  provide me with your log in credentials. You can email them directly to jsmith (at) eco-officegals dot com if I do not already have them available.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Eco-Office Gals is not responsible for themes not designed by me. I will upgrade the theme if needed, but any conflicts, broken design elements, theme crashes, etc will not be covered by the 1 hour minimum. If your theme incurs any cost to upgrade it will be the responsibility of the client to purchase the upgraded theme and provide the files to Eco-Office Gals.

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WordPress 3.3 is here

Hosting: 50% OFF ANY hosting package! {affiliate link}

Premium Theme: 25% Off any StudioPress theme with Coupon code THANKS {affiliate link}

FREE Installation! WordPress Installation – FREE with Hosting AND Theme installation FREE with StudioPress theme purchase!

Not a DIY’er?? Get all the FREE and discounted offers above and $200 off our Silver, Gold or The Works WordPress Design packages.

The Design services offer will be available thru Tuesday morning, but the other offers above are only available for a limited time, so don’t miss out on combining all these savings and saving BIG! Contact us today!

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Save Huge on Eco-Office Gals Services!

HostGator is offering:

50% OFF on ALL hosting services. This includes shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated servers and Windows hosting! This does not include domain names. Visitors do NOT need to insert a coupon code to receive the special. The correct coupon code will automatically be inserted on all orders placed on Black Friday.

The discount applies to the clients first invoice. VPS and dedicated server hosting services are only available on a monthly basis, therefore the promotion will apply to only the first month.

This promotion will bring our already competitive hosting packages as low as:

Shared hosting: As low as $4.95 Now only: $2.48/month (pre-paid)

Reseller Hosting: As low as $24.95 Now Only: $12.48/month (pre-paid)

VPS Hosting: As low as $19.95 Now Only: $9.98/month (First Month)

Dedicated Servers: As low as $174 Now Only $87/month (First Month)

This is an incredible deal and it will only run for 1 DAY! Eco-Office Gals has been a huge fan of HostGator for years, the support is top notch, up-time is wonderful, and they’re 130% wind-powered. We have been a reseller/client for years now and we always highly recommend them.

Save Even More!

When you purchase hosting through Eco-Office Gals or our HostGator affiliate (confirmation required) we will install WordPress for FREE!

Want More? Take advantage of these great savings on StudioPress Themes and the great hosting offers above, Eco-Office Gals will install WordPress and your new theme FREE! Contact us after you have made your purchases and we’ll get you set up and ready to go.

Grab the savings before they expire!

WordPress and StudioPress free installation only, design services and support not included.

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2011 Black Friday: Half Off Green Hosting!