It may seem pretty inane to be reviewing a water dispenser (yes, a plain old water dispenser). However, as a lot of my thinking in life and leading our office tends to be towards trying to do things simpler and smarter, this actually seemed to be the perfect topic. As we all know, the subject of water, especially water bottles, has become a mainstay in the green conversation. We were pretty happy at our office 2 years ago when we completely eliminated water bottles, even for visitors... switching to a water service and drinking, not out of dispensable cups, but rather glassware was a big step. But we knew more could be done...
People in our company kept reading that tap water was still the most earth friendly way to go. The gas (and pollution) consumed in delivery of water, the petro used in the making of the large water bottles (after so many uses, they do have to be recycled or thrown away), and other factors contributed to our thoughts. Furthermore, our office is pretty healthy, which means we all drink a lot of water. Our estimates of about $60 / month for water service soon shot up above $100 / month, and even then we would run out of water sometimes.
We all kept reading that tap water was close to the quality of bottled water, but our team still wanted filtered water. So what to do? We thought of putting a filter on the tap or even at the source in our tank, but both solutions yielded a problem: water not hot enough for tea (or hot chocolate in the winters). We have a lot of tea drinkers in our office.
Thankfully, I stumbled upon Greenway's Vitapur VWD8000W (and its sister the VWD8000W-F) at Costco one day. I cannot speak highly enough about this machine - it is a piece of technology that will make your office greener and reduce costs. If you are looking at it from a water quality point of view - it is filtered water (through your tap), on demand room temperature, cold water, and hot water. There is no changing of bottles anymore (backbreaking for a few in our office when we had the water service) and is good enough for a medium size office (25-50 people) or home.
We ordered the unit for about $300 from Costco. The unit paid for itself in about 4 months as we eliminated the $100 month water service we previously had (our water bill did not noticeably go up - water bill is measured in 1000's of gallons per cost increase, so we dont really see anything). Setup was extremely simple - we took it out of the box, connected it up to our water line under our sink in the kitchen, and we were up and running in about 15 minutes after unboxing. Everybody used it and loved it. The only complaint was that the water flow was slower than our previous machine (it was a change and any change is difficult for people). But within a week people forgot.
Now everyone in the Company is happy. We all know that we have reduced our footprint just a little more with this machine. Our CFO was happy by paying for the system almost instantly. Upkeep is a cinch too - just change the water filter once every six month, at a cost of $25 per filter.
In the end, if you are looking to become a little more green in your office or home or are looking to reduce costs of water (or both!), this Vitapur VWD8000W comes highly recommended. It gives you everything you need, including instant hot water, at a very low price and barely anyone will notice the switch (except for the their backs now that they no longer need to change the water bottles).
Product Review: Vitapur VWD8000W
iPhone 3GS review
I had the iPhone 3G 16GB. Was I happy? Of course. Could I resist upgrading to iPhone 3Gs? Absolutely not.
I walked into the Apple store a day after the iPhone 3Gs was released. I think a summary of the review is that, if you dont have an iPhone, why? Go get this now. If you do have an iPhone 3G, then it depends on how involved the iPhone has become in your day to day life. I am not going to talk about the basics (that is plays music, etc) but instead about what really differentiates this machine.
I travel... a lot. Not a lot of overnights, but a lot of day trips out and back. The iPhone is perfect for me. Of course, I use the email client, I use the iPod, I use many of the basic features. The iPhone has become central to my life at this point and is near perfect (just give me tethering already!). The NYTimes App and Wall Street Journal app (both free on iTunes) are central to my daily education. Furthermore, I now have gotten used to reading books on the iPhone (this took time - see my other upcoming posts on this).
The iPhone is amazing for 3 main reasons: the ease of use, the apps available, and now the speed. Truly, it is so easy my 18 month old has figured out how to do basic functions on this machine. I'll talk about the apps in a minute. But a major reason for me to upgrade was the speed. No longer do I wait what seems like forever for the NYTimes and WSJ app to open. The download speeds are so much faster. With the amount I use the machine, I probably gain 10 minutes a day in eliminated wait time!
But back to the apps - its about the apps. I have now been able to eliminate taking a turn by turn GPS with me while on a trip. I am using Gokivo (please see my review on this) and it works great for me. Additionally, I now am using RunKeeper (please see my upcoming review on this) for my workouts and I can play music while I run. Lastly, a plethora of other apps keep me constantly looking at the iPhone.
My biggest issue at this point, to be honest, is that I have information overload. On the NYTimes and WSJ apps, I can save the articles. I usually catch up on these on planes. But I can never catch up. I am in tune with the facebook app and Tweetdeck, but again, cant keep up! This is the current big problem I am trying to solve.
Therefor my advice is: If you dont have the iPhone, get on it! If you have the 3G, and you use it like crazy, like me, switch to the 3GS. If you are a light user of the 3G, then you are fine where you are.
The Michael Jackson Experience and the New Financial Systems
On June 25, 2009, the world definitely lost one of its greatest pop idols. Not a man to be set as an example - he was a tragic figure - the death and the events currently following his death are a microcosm of the sad life he lived. Soon, however, his songs will stand alone, people will forget his tabloid ways. And as always happens with time, the good experience people associated with Michael Jackson will be what is most remembered.
But his death was a major facebook and twitter moment, and pointed out to me, how much of a real time world we truly live in. It was about 4:30pm US EST when I left work on June 25. It probably took me 20 minutes to drive home. After getting home, I played with my 16 month old daughter for about 30 minutes and further read the mail and newspaper. Michael Jackson was pronounced dead at 5:26pm. By the time I got to my computer it was about 5:45. Upon firing up Firefox, and looking at my homepage, I saw the news on his death. I immediately went over to facebook to post the link and comment.
I was amazed by the amount of discussion on Michael Jackson's death already... pages of discussion. People had given their respects, their RIP's, commented on their favorite songs, and discussed the evils that also came with Michael Jackson. I couldnt believe, only 30 minutes after his death, I was late to the party! In the incredibly short time I was unplugged, (driving home listening to podcasts, and then playing with my daughter at home), I had fallen woefully behind.
In discussing this with a friend, who is a financial adviser (dont hold that against him!), we discussed how this realtime world impacts financial markets. Take that same piece of information, and make it something like "the Fed moves interest rates" - just a decade ago under Clinton, this would have taken at least 24 hours to have impact (10 years before that, maybe 2-3 days). At this point, if it wasn't already prefactored in before the decision comes out, it is put into the market within minutes.
I am not sure if this is good or bad. I am sure this causes us to move our markets much more wildly than they used to. Everything that I have been taught tells me that this is not good (calm thought through decisions are always the best for the long term). Decisions are made too instantly - in the case of hedge funds, when the market was freefalling, they were selling anything they could at any price. This even spilled over to stable government bonds... government bonds! The buyers of these also were looking for any liquidity and made incredibly poor decisions, causing the bond market to drop. On the flip side, a lot of buyers made a lot of money (there are always two sides to a coin).
Amazingly, for all that Michael Jackson was, and for the music he gave, I remember this moment... this being late to the party feeling for not knowing he was dead for 30 minutes. We have hit a point where all information is approaching zero in how close to real time it is. In some ways this is good to get timely information out to people, and to make all facets of life more transparent. But at the same time, this often leads to extremely poor decisions as people dont weigh information with other information. They are becoming decisions based on individual data points because they happen so real time, yet the decisions affect so many other factors and people.
