Earth Hour: All Black on March 29 @ 8pm

Turn all your lights off March 29, 2008 at 8pm. It's called Earth Hour. Support this cause to raise awareness on environmental issues such as Climate Change, Carbon Footprint, and so on.
It would be a great time for a candle-light dinner date with your love, eh?
But for the skeptical ones, suggest to them to gaze at the stars on this hour. If the whole city participates in this event it would be a perfect hour for city-dwellers to get a good view of the constellations. Inform your local police about this event, though. And be safe.
Its not the actual energy savings that count anymore. Its about raising Global Consciousness on Ecology.

"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can do only a little."
- Sydney Smith

Links:
Earth Hour
Universe Today

Green Comedy (funny videos on alternative energy)

I just discovered this today - some funny videos to make the boring topic of alternative energy sound funny. They're the guys from alternativeenergy.com.
But I must warn you: they keep saying "alternativenergy dot com....alternativenergy dot com" it might annoy you.

link: http://www.alternativeenergy.com

More Options ▼ (Javascript Goodness)

iBlackle finally mimics the iGoogle 'More ▼' interface. I must say, those iGoogle interface developers are pretty good, but their wizardy will not escape the fangs of iBlackle code parody implemented in javascript.
So for all the fans of iGoogle, and of course for the rest of iBlackle fans (weeeee!), behold the 'More Options ▼ ' interface to make your iLife much sleekier!

A Hundred Green Tips!

The Green Tips now reaches a hundred-fold! If you havent noticed the 'iBlackle Green Tips' yet, well they're personally-written ecofriendly tips by your humble iBlackle Developer.
I painstakingly compile them as I go along with my journey into becoming an earth-friendly inhabitant of this planet.
These tips appear (via AJAX) at the bottom of the iBlackle logo. For any fellow developer who's curious about the backend/middle-tier technology behind it, well its Zoho Creator! Thank you very much Zoho for providing an awesome AJAx service! The only thing I'm not happy about is that you keep on resetting my ticket (w/c disables my AJAX) so it's really cumbersome for me to get a new ticket twice a month. I'm hopeful that things will get better, because now i'm planning to convert The iBlackle Green Tips into a widget!!!

Push Button Eco-Friendliness

I do not know how effective this gadget is but, if I will be given a free sampler, I would definitely give rave reviews (har-har) to this eco-button thingie. The question remains how fast it "wakes up" your PC from the "eco-mode" state. They say "instantly" on their website, but its all relative to me.
In the meantime, I will stick to my nifty technique of setting my Windows XP desktop to "Stand By" mode and turning off my monitor when I go out for lunch. To me, its just a glorified "Push Button" version of my tedious technique above.

iBlackle is Now on GreenMaven.com

GreenMaven has just included iBlackle in their roster of ecofriendly websites. Gee, thanks GreenMaven!
Well, of course greenmaven will be one of the priority sites in the iblackle search engine. See for yourself in iBlackle's Configuration.

links:
http://www.greenmaven.com
iBlackle Search Engine Configurations

iBlackle is now Open Source for Collaboration!

Happy New Year Planet Earth! I am greeting our Planet with open arms! That's right! Open! iBlackle is now OPEN for Collaboration! Anyone can add their ecofriendly websites to be emphasized in iBlackle's search results!
Here's how it works: When you volunteer to add your site(s) to iBlackle's database, your website(s) will be given priority by iBlackle's spiders and emphasized in the search results.
So if you like to join, please go to this page and click on the "Volunteer to contribute" link. Then you will be taken to a series of pages to complete your profile as a contributor to iBlackle. If you do not have a Google account, you will be prompted to get one.
But please take note that only Green Ecofriendly websites will be allowed to be included in iBlackle's priority list.
I will be reviewing the sites often to check the integrity of the list. I will also be adding sites that I feel is worthy to be included on iBlackle's priority list, and I will personally delete non-relevant websites! Basically, the only thing I ask is for contributors to put in sites that are truly ecological, and support environmental issues or must aim to save the planet. If you feel shy to contribute and just want to add your site or suggest new ones, just send them via this contact page and I will add them to the list.
This improvement will morph iBlackle into a "General Purpose Search Engine with an Ecological Vent". It means that iBlackle will still provide relevant results when queried with general keywords (since it uses Google's General Search Engine) but whenever someone searches for terms which are environmental or ecological, iBlackle will return results that are more focused on ecological issues as influenced by the volunteer community of iBlackle. The ecological sites of the active green community will be given priority in the search results.
In essence, iBlackle will morph into a community-based, human-powered, collaborative search engine on ecological topics, while remaining as a general purpose "re-packaged" google search engine.
So go ahead. Volunteer now! Add your favorite green websites to iBlackle!

Links:
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=005451225522983698504%3Azagxlwkyn5g

iBlackle to Fight Solastalgia

An article from Wired's January 2008 Issue by Clive Thompson mentions a new kind of depression - Solastalgia - the sadness caused by environmental change. Australia is suffering the most of it, the article writes. And it strikes me that Blackle, the original inspiration of iBlackle, hails from the land of Down Under. Even moreso that the man who coined the word solastalgia is an Australian.
As iBlackle's lone developer, I am neither Australian, nor am I Solastalgic, but I would like to make it clear that I feel the pain too. That's why I started iBlackle on a humorous vent 2 months ago.
Although iBlackle, as a parody - seems to be making fun of ecological websites, it maintains that the damage to our planet is no laughing matter.
In fact it stuck to my mind that John Doerr (the venture capitalist who inspired the developers of CO2Stats.com) literally cried at the end of his talk about the environmental crisis. Dude, he could be Solastalgic! Well, he cried out of passion, wherein I would have peed my pants out of nervousness when giving speeches.
The saddening environmental issues of our Planet is real and it is no joke. And that is why iBlackle is here: To counter the pain and misery caused by environmental damage, via the use of comedy and humor to at least quell the sadness, to educate the masses in ecological issues, and raise public awareness on environmental matters.
Do Not Be Sad: iBlackle is Here to Save the Planet and Fight Solastalgia!

CO2 Emissions Offset ( How to make up for farting too much )

Apparently, I farted a lot during the development of iBlackle, so I'd like to make up for the harm I did by installing the CO2 Emissions Offset on this blog & iBlackle pages. See the green widget below. Hopefully CO2Stats.com will really cancel out all the 'green pea gas' i made. And they better live up to their promise or else I might pass gas some more! It must've been the Green Pea Soup or the Lentil Soup that caused such toxic fumes in my bowels to emanate.
Lentil and Green Pea..."green" as it may seem, is not Ecofriendly. It contributes to Global Warming by causing too much fart, or CO2 emissions.
Imagine how HOT it would be if every person around the world ate Green Pea soup and Lentils simultaneously and then farted all at the same time - it would be global rotten hell!

Learn More Green Tips via iBlackle Naturally

I have been adding more and more green tips (70 of them so far) as I learn and compile them that I come across. Of course I try to shorten them as much as I can, or make them sound funny. Some are even original ones that I just thought of myself (such as the example above). But what's even funnier is that I have been finding myself practicing these tips from out of the blue, instinctively, effortlessly, and naturally.
I guess these green tips showing up just a little bit above the iBlackle search box (or below the logo) gets read via peripheral vision and somehow induces a subliminal learning effect on the mind. Whoa!
Case in point: Use iBlackle more and you'll learn to be ecofriendlier naturally!