Looking for an eco-friendly way to charge your laptop? Try the The Voltaic Generator. According to Voltaic Systems Inc., “It’s the first solar bag powerful enough to charge a laptop.” It includes nine solar panels on the outside of the bag that will fully charge an internal Li-Ion battery in five hours of direct sunlight. It will hold up to a 17-inch notebook and comes with a handy voltage selector that automatically delivers the required output. It’s a little pricey at $499.00, but then you can say that your computer runs on sunlight and sits in a bag made from 100 percent recycled soda bottles!

Voltaic is not the only super techno-geek on the planet, check out the other high-tech companies that are keeping it green.

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In an effort to save paper, I really try to keep the number of documents I print to a minimum, but I’ve kinda forgotten about all the ink or toner that gets used, too.

According to SPRANQ creative communications, we can save ink and increase the life of our ink cartridges by using a new font they’ve created called Ecofont. It’s a font whose letters have little holes in them. When used, it can save 20 percent of the ink or toner you might otherwise use up when printing your favorite standard font. Ecofont works best when using a point size of 9 or 10.

Download the font for free and give it a try.

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Last night I checked in on-line for a flight I have today and was surprised to find a new option: an e-boarding pass. That’s right, a paperless boarding pass. Basically, you enter information about your mobile device, your phone number and an e-mail account accessible from the phone. You then receive an e-mail with a link that launches your Internet browser and voila, you’ve got a paperless boarding pass. You can use the e-boarding pass at the security checkpoint and at the gate when you board the plane. 

Currently, Northwest Airlines offers this option in only a few select markets, but I really wonder about the possibilities.  According to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), there are an average of 28,537 commercial flights each day in the United States. While not everyone has a mobile device that would enable them to use this service, imagine being able to eliminate the need for paper on just half of those flights — that would save over 5.2 million pieces of paper per year. 

I continue to be amazed at the advancement of mobile device technology and the myriad ways these devices can make life a little easier — or at least make traveling a little greener. 

So the big question is, does it work? Well, I take flight in a couple of hours, so I’ll cover that question in my next post.

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An HP Pavilion notebook
that comes in a messenger bag
instead of a box with lots of styrofoam.

That’s the best packaging redesign yet.

Thanks to Brand Packaging.

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