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Editor’s  note: Each week, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. This post was supposed to be for last week, but was delayed due to SxSW - please accept our apologies. This Last week, we asked the Beaconfire staff: How do you tech green?

Michael, Principal Consultant: I tech green by unplugging unused devices, buying highest efficiency models I can, and never computing on the weekends.

Kristin, Project Manager: Little things include:

• Manually start my backup right when I leave for the night, and have my computer shut down once the backup is done (rather than leave my computer on all night).
• Try and turn off as many of the blinky lights as possible when I’m not using them (monitor, etc)
• And, of course, try to turn off lights in unused offices and conference rooms

Mark, Functional Consultant: My biggest move towards going green (in general) is I moved into the city into an old house and take mass transportation to and from work everyday. By doing so, I’ve offset parts of my tech carbon footprint, including leaving my home computer on most of the time in case I need to remote in to it. Though I do set the home machines to sleep after inactivity and have moved to an LCD monitor.

David, Software Engineer: I have a ‘Watt’s Up power meter device. I have audited every appliance and electronic decide in my house for idle and peak power usage, shop at My Organic Market which purchases 100% wind power energy for it’s store, wait to order from Amazon and other retailers until I have 4+ items to ship, In addition:

• All my light bulbs are compact florescent and light to energy usage appropriate.
• Motion sensor front walkway light
• Water heater turned down
• Energy efficient windows,doors, washer dryer, fridge, Hot water heater
• Luckily had radiant hot water heating, which is superior energy usage to forced air.
• Luckily an east facing home with large windows
• Checked insulation in roofing and walls for air exchange.
• 7-day programmable thermostat for energy use only with people in the home.
• Cleaned furnace and A/C unit yearly for optimum efficiency
• Insulated A/C ducts to prevent cooling loss.

The net result is very small water and power usage. I’ve been researching solar panels for a while now and have a price point I’m waiting for.

Kate, Administrative Assistant: Well, frankly, I don’t do as much as I should. I do tend to think in terms of what’s going to keep the electric bill down, though, which helps a bit. This mostly includes keeping monitors off and making sure that the computer’s in ‘sleep’ mode when not in use.

John Brian, Marketing Consultant: This question actually came up as a result of an article about how a Second Life person uses as much energy as a resident of Brazil. For me, it’s mostly turning my computer when I can, though that can be tricky when you schedule defrags, downloads and updates to run while you’re sleeping or out. I also try to avoid leaving my peripherals plugged in except when needed - it’s not only good for the environment to not leave your cell phone charging all day, but it’s also often good for your battery’s lifespan.

At the office, we recycle paper, glass, and plastic, keep the thermostat turned down (or up) during non-work hours, encourage working from home, and use motion-sensor lights in conference rooms that people otherwise forget about. Most of us also have our monitors go to sleep when not in use, and when construction forced us to use the restrooms on the floor below, we lobbied to have the stairway unlocked so we didn’t need to take the elevator.

What about you, readers: how do you tech green at home or at work? Is there something Beaconfire should think about doing to be greener?

I’ve got friends who have a raccoon in their attic. They’ve been trying all sorts of stuff to get it out of there, but it’s being pretty stubborn and always seems to outwit (or at least be more patient than) them. The raccoon reminds me of domain name tasters - annoying critters who, no matter what you try to do to get rid of them (humanely, anyway), just won’t get out of the internet’s attic and stop chewing on our stuff.

Google and ICANN recently took measures that, combined, will hopefully put an end to (or at least a heavy price tag on) domain name tasting. This is good news in the face of the recent revelations that some domain registrars have been cheating the system (see my previous posts on domain name insider trading for more).

First, on the Google front:

Google is planning to introduce a system to detect a form of domain registration abuse known as domain kiting. In so doing, the company stands to lose millions in advertising revenue, though it may gain far more in user trust and goodwill. [h/t Ars Technica]

Let’s hear it for not being evil. The gist of the article is that Google plans to block adsense from serving ads on those domains that seem to exist solely to generate adword revenue. While there are still other ad providers who may not be as scrupulous, Google is the 800 lb gorilla of the sector, and losing this resource would cost domain kiters significantly.

If this wasn’t bad enough for virtual prospectors, ICANN is cracking down on the loophole allowing people to "return" a domain within 5 days with no charge:

Under the current rules, domain registrars have up to five days to sample domains before committing to purchase them, typically at a cost of around $6.25 per domain. An additional 20-cent surcharge per domain goes to ICANN, but the group has always refunded that fee if the registrar failed to purchase the domain within five days of claiming it.

Until now. The new policy would not refund the 20-cent fee.

While 20 cents may not be a lot to you or me when buying one domain at a time, according to the article, many tasters only keep 1 domain for every 100,000 they taste, adding $20,000 per domain to their costs.

Why are these moves great for those of us who just want to be able to buy domains for our campaigns and for the internet to be easily navigable? Follow me below the fold for some analysis…

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An important and highly useful evaluation framework for APIs is now available from Idealware — Getting Your Systems Talking: A Framework to Evaluate APIs and Data Exchange Features.

The API Framework includes an Excel evaluation tool you can use.

The creation of the framework was a collaborative effort led by Paul Hagen and Laura Quinn in partnership with NTEN. Beaconfire was the underwriting sponsor for the report and my colleagues Jeff and Alan were contributors.

APIs are all the rage … and for good reason. They represent a powerful and flexible approach to data exchange between systems. As we know from our own experiences, not all APIs are created equal. How do you assess if the API of a system you have is robust enough for your needs? How do you compare one against another? What’s important to focus on in these evaluations.

What Paul and Laura have put together with input from thought leaders across the sector is a highly useful framework for evaluating APIs. As Laura writes in the introduction:

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to evaluate data integration features. Some packages allow tremendous flexibility, some only allow a particular, prescribed method of data integration, while others don’t support any access to data at all. One may be powerful but completely undocumented (and thus nearly impossible to use), while another may provide access to only a tiny portion of the data that’s desirable or lack the scalability or security necessary in a robust system.

The framework for evaluation provides assessment criteria in six key areas:

• The APIs documentation
• API’s technology openness
• Security & privacy of the API
• Performance criteria (SLAs, managing traffic spikes, etc)
• API support — both from the vendor and the community
• Robust of API access and functionality

The report and rubric are a great contribution. Thanks to Paul, Laura, Jeff and all the contributors for this seminal effort.

There had been a lot of talk in my household, especially in the weeks leading up to the holidays, about the potential merits and downfalls of the new Amazon Kindle. For those of you who haven’t heard, this is the most recent wireless reading device to hit the streets. You know, a way to read all of your books without having to carry all of your books around. My Cousin Adam had been seriously contemplating the purchasing said device, but didn’t know if it would be $400 well spent. So we looked into it some, and I’m here to let you know what we came up with. (more…)

A few months back, I wrote a post linking to an AP story that suggested that some domain name registrars were using search queries to snatch up domain names that were about to be purchased. It seems that the suspicions discussed in the story were founded.

Earlier this evening, a story on Digg declared that Network Solutions was registering any domain name that was users searched for using their link to the WHOIS database. The comments provided copious examples of this practice, none of which are really appropriate to repeat here. I read the methodology described in the original linked post, and tried to duplicate it myself.

See how it turned out, and why you should be careful, after the jump…

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The words are evil and insidious. But at one point we all hear them.

The Web site is down!

It is especially bad when someone else notices this before you do. We�??re often left wondering: How long has our site been like this? Why hasn�??t our host called us? Why does the Internet hate me?

There are some free tools out there that may not be able to prevent your Web site from going down, but at least alert you when it does.

One of my favorite tools is Montastic.com. Signing up is fast and easy, and the interface is super-simple. You can monitor up to 100 sites with a free account. You can get alerts via email when your site goes down, or monitor your sites in an RSS Feed. Leave the Green Page up, and you will always be informed of the status of all your sites. And the site is just funny (with option buttons such as �??save�?� and �??save not�?�).

Slightly more complex, but also data-rich and informative, is Mon.itor.us. Sign up, and you can monitor sites, compare site up-time, get detailed reports, and receive email alerts when your site goes down. Mon.itor.us is not as easy to use at Montastic, but the reporting is more robust. And since both services are free, it certainly doesn�??t hurt to use both to monitor your sites.

AOL, the current owner of the Netscape browser, has announced that it will be discontinuing support for what was once the most popular browser on the Web. Since I’m on vacation, I’ll not take the time to respond to John Brian’s interesting take on Web Standards and why, in that particular light I am ecstatic to see Netscape roll over and go quiet. It is with mixed emotions that I bid farewell to what was once a really cool browser and, more recently, one of many browser-banes of my existence. RIP Netscape.

I have to admit, I’m often jealous of John Brian. He seems to always get the “cool” topics - Facebook, Social Networks, Google. But being as the world is on vacation this week, I’m going to take this opportunity to write about the new cool topic - Colocation. That’s “Colo” to the cool kids.

Okay, so figuring out your hosting solution may not be the most exciting part of putting together a Web application. But it may be the most important. But before you let your imagination run wild with images of AJAX fairies dancing in our heads, ask yourself one very important question �?? where is this gosh-darned thing going to live?

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Opera, the company making what is arguable the most standards-compliant (and least used) internet browser has filed suit in the EU against Microsoft arguing that it should be forced to make it’s browser render pages correctly. While there is certainly an aspect to this suit of Opera wanting to draw attention to it’s own browser, it is absolutely fair to say that Microsoft has done a terrible job supporting standards which would allow developers (that’s us) to build websites much more easily that look the same to all users (that’s us too) in all browsers.

Sure, the newest version (IE7) is leaps and bounds ahead of IE6, but it still lags seriously behind Firefox, Safari, and Opera in terms of reliability in rendering web pages. And though we do strive to make our sites work in all browsers, there is an inordinate amount of time spent tweaking things to work in IE. When we are forced to code outside of the standards, pages become heavier, less accessible, and often suffer reagrding Search Engine Optimization.

It would be unfair to say that all the other browsers work great and render the same right off the bat when I code a page (Safari still gives me the heebie-jeebies from time to time), but Microsoft has a log way to go in this respect.

In other respects, however, IE is great. I do use both, but tend to stick with Firefox due to its superior support for standard HTML and CSS, as well as the incredibly useful extensions that I rely on for building pages. For the average use I can see how using IE would be a no-brainer - since it comes installed on any Windows PC you buy - and that’s the gist of Opera’s suit:

Opera wants the EC to take two actions against Microsoft in response to the complaint. The first is fairly predictable: force Microsoft to either unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows or to have alternative browsers preinstalled on the desktop. The idea, of course, is that Opera would be one of those alternative browsers.

The second recommended remedy is a bit more subtle, but is also ultimately aimed at increasing Opera’s market share. Opera wants the EC to force Microsoft to follow “fundamental and open” standards for how browsers render pages. Although version 7 has improved the situation somewhat, Internet Explorer still significantly lags behind Opera, Firefox, and Safari when it comes to standards compliance (although no browser is 100 percent compliant). Since it’s still the dominant web browser with over 80 percent of the worldwide market, web developers are forced to make sure their sites render properly on IE, often to the detriment of standards compliance.

Full Ars Technica article

Web video has exploded over the past few years. The perfect storm of YouTube (and other video sharing sites), cheap video camcorders, rapidly growing broadband adoption (pdf), and a seemingly endless number star-wars kids and dogs on skateboards has created a web where video is becoming ubiquitous. Even long-term internet staples, like The Onion and MLB.com have added video content. And while some ISPs are arguing (pdf) that their tubes can’t handle the bandwidth from online video (an argument that is, incidentally, specious (pdf)), there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle with regard to online video.

That having been said, for all that online video can do - illustrate something better seen than read, empower users to create their own content, or destroy politicians with their own words - it has its weaknesses. In particular, video’s not great for skimming or sampling, it’s tough to reference, and can be tricky to pass around at the office or classroom (well, unless you’re our office - these three videos got quite a bit of play at Beaconfire last week). In addition, it can be tough to search a video library for a particular section - particularly if it’s an audio reference, searching may have to be done in real time.

MIT has found a way to mitigate this last problem, and they’re using their own video lectures as a guinea pig. From MIT’s technology review:

Announced last month, the MIT Lecture Browser website gives the general public detailed access to more than 200 lectures publicly available though the university’s OpenCourseWare initiative. The search engine leverages decades’ worth of speech-recognition research at MIT and other institutions to convert audio into text and make it searchable.

This is simply an amazing innovation. More on why this could mean an explosion for online video in the future below the fold.

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