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Making a website? PDF  | Print |  E-mail
Technology Stuff

I've learned a few things about making websites over the past few years. I made this one, for example...I'm no web designer or anything, but, there are some very powerful tools available these days, and some web hosting companies offer services that can make your website creation process far less painless than you might imagine.

Note: I did not say totally painless...nor did I say this would be a comprehensive, unbiased overviw. This is how I did it...

Here's a brief outline full of shameless plugs and product placements.

1. Domain Name

you need a domain name, liiiike, saaaay,  freerice.com , or maybe bloggerton.ca
There are a billion, gajillion, fafillion places to register a domain name. Well, at least 143,000,000

It might prove easier to register your domain name at the same place that will host your website. Try dreamhost or doteasy .

Dreamhost offers way way more for way way less, but they can only register .com, .org and .net addresses. If you're looking for a .ca address, Doteasy can do that.

If you like, you can register your .ca domain name with doteasy, and host your website on dreamhost. Little more complicated, but not that hard.

If you decide to register a domain name or host a website with Dreamhost or Doteasy, please tell them I sent you... seriously, we both get free stuff if you do. Seriously.

For Dreamhost , signup with the following promo code: EDHANLEY50OFF (you'll see a place for the promo code during the signup) This code will get you $50 off if you sign up for 1, 2 or 3 years of hosting
or
click here: Dreamhost note! don't use a referral code during signup if you click this link, as it contains the referral info already
or
tell them that ehanley_at_pathcom.com sent you (the '_at_' is an @) during signup

For Doteasy, click this link: Doteasy  and if you also mention www.autorickshaw.ca as your referrer 'buddy' you'll get extra storage space free. Currently 1GB extra storage.

2. Hosting

You need a place to host your site. See Dreamhost and Doteasy links above.   Dreamhost is very hip, super easy to use but is based in L.A. One word: earthquake . Doteasy is based in Canada, in case that's important... but, Dreamhost is 'green' i.e. carbon neutral, in case THAT helps you decide...plus Dreamhost offers a ton of stuff Doteasy doesn't, like free spam filtering, one click installs of many popular softwares (see below). Doteasy has been very reliable, though... Dreamhost can be cheaper.

3. Making a website

ImageYou need to take a long, difficult and boring college course in Hypertext Markup Language (html) programming, then buy some expensive software.

Kidding.

I use an open source content management system (CMS) called Joomla ! (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name...). If you can update your myspace/facebook page, you're already on your way.

Dreamhost and Doteasy both make it easy to install Joomla. Dreamhost via their famed 'one-click installs' (which include a bunch of other software, like blog software etc..click here to see the list), and Doteasy will install it for you. Dreamhost is a little more hands on, and more fun...

Learning to use Joomla (or any CMS software) initially isn't all that easy...to be honest, the learning curve is pretty steep, but it can be done.  

autorickshaw.ca , ed-hanley.com and dylanbell.ca are all Joomla sites I've had a hand in. I run autorickshaw.ca and ed-hanley.com, and I got Dylan started on his site, showing him the ropes initially. He's kicking butt on his own now, so...

4. Let me know if you'd like some help getting started.

contact me
 
Last Updated ( Monday, 25 August 2008 )
 
The case against bottled water PDF  | Print |  E-mail
Other Stuff

The case against bottled water

Canadians need to stop and think about the serious consequences of their water choice

From the Toronto Star, August 11, 2008

ImageCanadians have long been proud of the mighty rivers and beautiful lakes that make this country one of the greatest repositories of fresh water on the planet. So, it's a sad statement about our society that we are increasingly choosing to drink bottled water, often from foreign companies.

A recent Statistics Canada study found that three in 10 Canadian households used bottled water as their main source of drinking water in 2006. The study results are surprising, as there are so many good reasons to avoid drinking bottled water.

Many Canadians buy bottled water because they think it's safer and healthier than tap water. Certainly, advertising by bottled water companies – dominated by images of pristine glaciers and mountain streams – leaves consumers with that impression. The reality is that Canada's water supply – with rare exceptions – is extremely safe. Furthermore, according to Health Canada, there is no evidence to support the belief that bottled water is any safer than tap water. Indeed, if anything, our tap water may well be safer and healthier than bottled varieties.

The municipal water supply is more stringently tested than bottled water supplies. In Canada, the CBC reports that local water supplies are inspected every day while bottled-water plants are inspected just once every three years. In addition, according to MSN news, water-bottling plants are required to test for coliform bacteria just once a week whereas most municipal water systems test for the bacteria several times a day.

Consumers should also consider the safety and health risks posed by the bottles themselves. Many plastic water bottles are made using the chemical polyethylene terephthalate or PET. A recent study by Dr. William Shotyk, the Canadian director of the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Heidelberg, found PET bottles leach a dangerous toxin called antimony into the water they contain. The study found that the levels of antimony rise the longer water stays in the bottle.

Before reaching for bottled water, Canadians need to think about the serious environmental consequences of their water choice. These include: release of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from manufacturing, transport and marketing, which contributes to global warming; depletion of scarce energy and water resources; release of toxic chemicals into our air, land and water; and absorption of poisons into the food chain.

According to the Pacific Institute, the energy required to produce plastic water bottles for the American market alone in 2006 was equivalent to more than 17 million barrels of oil and created 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.

Producing bottles consumes a huge amount of water too, with the Pacific Institute estimating it takes three litres of water to produce one litre of bottled water.

It also takes energy to fill the bottles; ship them by truck, train, boat or plane to the consumer; refrigerate them; and recover, recycle or dispose of the empty bottles. The Pacific Institute estimates the total amount of energy used to provide a bottle of water to the consumer could be equal to filling 25 per cent of that bottle with oil.

ImageUnfortunately, most empty bottles – more than 85 per cent according to the David Suzuki Foundation – are thrown into the trash. These bottles don't just disappear – they either get buried in the landfill or they're incinerated. The buried bottles take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade and may leak toxic additives into the groundwater. The incinerated bottles release toxic chemicals into our air. Moreover, some of the bottles make their way into our oceans, where they break down into increasingly tiny pieces, and can enter the food chain when they're eaten by marine animals and birds.

The economics of bottled water are as startling as the health and environmental considerations. While we don't tend to think of it in this way, buying bottled water is an incredibly expensive habit: a bottle of water costs more than a litre of gasoline. If we buy a bottle a day for a toonie from the vending machine, we're spending more than $700 a year on water.

What's more, bottled water is an example of price gouging at its most outrageous. More than one-quarter of the bottled water consumed by Canadians is nothing more than filtered tap water. Two of the top-selling brands in Canada are Dasani, which is owned by Coca-Cola, and Aquafina, which is owned by its beverage rival PepsiCo.

As Pepsi was forced to admit last year, both brands take the water they bottle directly from municipal water systems; Dasani uses water from Calgary and Brampton taps while Aquafina uses tap water from Vancouver and Mississauga.

Shocking, isn't it? These companies are taking our tap water, which on average in Canada costs us less than one-tenth of a cent per litre, filtering it, although it is already perfectly clean, and selling it back to us at a markup that can be several thousand times its original price.

What's perhaps even more galling is that not only is the consumer paying exorbitant prices for filtered tap water but the taxpayer is also heavily subsidizing these companies on the back end by allowing them to draw water from municipal systems that were built with their tax monies.

From a marketing perspective, bottled water is unquestionably one of the great success stories of modern times. However, from a social, environmental and economic perspective, the success of bottled water has created a myriad of problems.

Responding to these problems, governments, universities, schools, companies and restaurants around the country have stopped buying and selling bottled water. They are thinking before they drink. You can too.
Last Updated ( Monday, 11 August 2008 )
 
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