Miami Living Magazine

Willa Ford

Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.

Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/90637

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 91 of 115

TECH All About the Green Check out these 5 Apps to Help You Get Green Words by Craig Agranoff In today's world, there are two types of "green": eco-consciousness and money. We all want more of the two. The good thing is that you can be the good kind of green and save some green while you're at it. It's a win-win for everyone. Read on for five apps that will help boost your earth-friendliness, and your wallet. greenMeter so many wasteful solo trips. Carticipate is a handy app that acts as a ride-sharing system to help you find a ride or find passengers to carpool with. Just enter a destination and (if where you are now isn't your starting point) origination point, whether or not it's round- trip, and it shows you people in your area, using the app, that need to go to that same place. Carpooling is much easier with Carticipate, since this handy little app does all the hard work for you. Even better, it's free! Green Outlet Our cars are one of the largest pollutants we own –which is why improving your eco-performance should be a priority. The app greenMeter, ($5.99) for iOS devices, uses your phone's accelerometer to measure fuel consumption and carbon emissions. Simply enter a few details about your car, including the fuel it uses and what the weather is like, and this little app will guide you to better eco-driving. A simple gas-gauge type display shows you how well you're doing on the fly and after the trip. Handy charts and graphs can be consulted to show how you can improve your driving, and make your gas guzzler into a green machine. Carticipate conscious scientists behind GoodGuide created an app to help cut through the hype. This free app is available on both iTunes and for Android and works by using your phone's camera to scan the barcode of the item in One of the most costly forms of energy we use daily is electricity. Your power bill is likely the largest utility you pay every month. So, reducing it would lower your carbon footprint and raise your bank account —right? That's the idea behind Green Outlet. This informative $0.99 app takes the information you give it about your appliances (TV, DVD player, kitchen appliances, etc) and where you live and calculates your average monthly power bill. It then shows you how you can reduce that bill with simple measures like: using a power strip to shut down, "standby" mode for your plasma screen and DVD player or turning your computer off at night. Little things like charging your phone in the car, instead of from the wall, can mean big bucks over time. GoodGuide How green is that Speaking of cars, one way to significantly improve their efficiency is to fill them with people, so that you aren't making 90 MIAMI LIVING product, really? Often, marketing hype makes it difficult to tell whether one item versus another is more environmentally- friendly. The earth- question. Using GoodGuide, you can get the "green score" of just about any common item in the grocery store. Products are rated by health, social, and environmental impact and also include user-generated contribution, so you can see what others think about the products. The core scoring is done scientifically, but the user comments are very helpful in comparing items for functionality and convenience. iRecycle When it comes the time to get rid of those consumer products, do it the most ecologically sound way. By using the app iRecycle (free) for iOS and Android, you can find the nearest recycling center for just about anything. With news and tips from Earth911, this app is as informative as it is useful. To recycle, you simply tell it what the item is, using a quick category list that ranges from Automotive to Plastics. The app makes it easy to figure out what the recyclable is, at its essence, and then directs you to all of the nearby locations where you can recycle it. Very cool and user-friendly. ML

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Miami Living Magazine - Willa Ford