A laptop stand is one of the best laptop accessories for people who use their laptops on a frequent basis. The following ten tips will help you out with this purchase:

1. Choose whether you want a lap-based stand or a stand-up stand. Will you be sitting or standing when using this stand? A lap-based stand can also sit on a desk. A stand-up stand may be adjustable so that you can sit at it as well. Think about what will work best for you.
2. Find a stand with adjustable height. If you’re getting a stand that you can use while standing up then it should be adjustable to your height. This will also allow you to shrink the stand for easier storage when not in use.
3. Find a lightweight stand. If you’ll be using a stand that sits on your lap then make sure that it isn’t too heavy for regular use.
4. Look for other ergonomic features. You’ll be more comfortable and healthier if you do. A wrist rest is one of the most important ergonomic features.
5. Get a stand with wheels. This makes it so much simpler to move it around the house. You’ll be glad you added them.
6. Make sure that the stand has enough surface area. If you’ll be adding an extra keyboard, mouse or other laptop accessories then make sure there’s enough room for them on the stand.
7. Look for a style that suits you. There are so many different stands out there that you don’t have to sacrifice style when you buy one. Get one that’s cute!
8. Set a budget. Laptop stands range in price from below $25 to several hundred dollars. Set a budget to narrow down your options.
9. Get a bulk package with other laptop accessories. Sometimes this allows you to get a reduced price on everything that you need. For example, you might get a laptop sleeve, an extra laptop battery and your laptop stand at the same time.
10. Add an ipod dock. The newest laptop stands are coming with built-in ipod docks. Nice perk!

The blog Inspiration Morning posted the most lovely thought today and I just really wanted to share it:

“It is our desire that you become one who is happy with that which you are and with that which you have—while at the same time being eager for more. That is the optimal creative vantage point: To stand on the brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feelings of impatience, doubt, or unworthiness hindering the receiving of it—that is the Science of Deliberate Creation at its best.”
~ Esther & Jerry Hicks from Ask and It Is Given

They always have inspiring thoughts so I’d encourage you to check out their blog and/or follow them on Twitter @InspirationDay.

Not too long ago I mentioned a site here on the blog called Book Lovers Never Go To Bed Alone. It’s a photo-rich site of images showing books in various locations. Now I’ve come across another site very similar to this one that I’ll have to add to my RSS feed.

The site I’m loving is very simply called Bookshelf Porn. As the name suggests, it’s a site for people who adore looking at books. It shows images of books on shelves in all kinds of interesting ways. The image above, reposted from the site, is one of my favorites - open a closet door and find stacks and stacks of books!

I’m not sure quite what it is that draws me to these sites. They’re just pretty pictures and take only a moment to look at. I guess it’s that appeal of seeing books out there. You want to know what other people are reading. You want to see if anything in the stack is something that you’ve read before. You want to see what books catch your eye.

Or I do anyway.

Do you know of any other book sites like these?

Nothing too smart to share today … Just enjoying the holiday weekend and wanted to send a Happy 4th of July out to the world. What can I say, I’m a sucker for fireworks.

People who have extra room to spare in their homes have started to take advantage of that fact to earn a little bit of income. They rent out their space to short-term travelers, offering them better deals than local hotels with the added touch of a personal stay in someone else’s home. This works best for people living in tourist destinations because there is an endless stream of visitors who want to pay to stay with them. It also works best in cities like San Francisco and New York where many of the visitors are from foreign countries as staying with locals seems to be something that Europeans and other foreigners find more appealing than other Americans do.

Two new bits of news came out about this recently that show off the differences when it comes to doing this in New York and doing it in San Francisco:

1. AirBnB founder staying in others’ homes throughout 2010. The first bit of news is that the founder of the website AirBnB has decided to spend the rest of the year staying in the homes that are listed on his site. AirBnB is a San Francisco based website that allows people with space to connect with travelers. It’s a great site that I’ve used myself. It offers some measure of safety and security for connecting strangers from different locations and many of the homes on the site are homes that are ideal for visitors to stay in. The guy who runs the site is going to test it out himself by staying in various homes throughout San Francisco for the rest of the year and reporting back on his experiences. Most people that I’ve heard comment on this think it’s an interesting, fun experiment.
2. New York may legislate against short-term vacation rentals. The second bit of news comes from New York and is about new legislation there that may stop people from being able to use sites like AirBnB. If it passes, this bill would ban all short-term rentals that are for less than one month at a time. This means that individuals who are interested in renting out their room to travelers aren’t legally going to be able to do so. Plenty of people in New York are riled up about the controversial legislation but it does point to a difference in general between how this type of thing is dealt with in NY as compared to CA.

Earlier this year I wrote an article on the 10 Greenest Cell Phone Chargers for Dial-a-Phone (a leading UK mobile phone blog). That article was recently mentioned in an article about finding the greenest mobile phones which was published by a company called Vertatique. I always like to check out the articles that cite my own work so I ended up on the Vertatique site and got rather interested in what they do.

The companies tagline is “Green ICT: Sustainable Computing, Media, e-Devices”. I’m always interested in the new emerging green technology so I read some more. What I learned is that ICT (short for Information and Communications Technology) refers to many different ares of business technology that could be greener.

The five core areas discussed in-depth on the Vertatique website are:

1. Big Business Equipment. This refers to the major technology used by business and may include everything from biomedical technology to computer servers.
2. Little Business Equipment. Vertatique calls this “edge gear” but basically it refers to all of the small business equipment that you might use such as fax machines and phones.
3. Tools for Connectivity. There is some crossover here since you use phones and servers to connect with other people but basically this category encompasses all of the services that you use for making those connections.
4. Buildings. The buildings that you work in are part of the bigger picture of the world of ITC.
5. Human Behavior. The way that the people in a business behave is another aspect of ITC. The choice that ITC employees make have a big impact on the total eco-consciousness of the business.

There are some amazing animals in the world. Some of the neatest ones to look at are the ones that you can see-through. The jellyfish, for example, is a really cool example of an animal that you can see but you can also see through it. But not all transparent animals out there in the world were born that way. Some of them were made that way in a lab!

One of the trends right now is the trend towards intentionally breeding see-through animals. Two examples of see-through animals that were made in a lab are a see-through frog and a clear goldfish. One argument for trying to breed such animals is to allow students and researchers to gain an understanding of the inner workings of animals without actually having to dissect them.

Of course, there are always questions when it comes to the effect of doing strange things to animals in a lab. We don’t yet know the long-term effects of causing animals to become see-through. And we’re a long way from allowing for the creation of see-through mammals. But this is a trend that may be here to stay if for no other reason than there’s something magical and interesting about transparent animals.

Returning to the natural world, some of the most stunning creatures evolved to be transparent because it aided them in evading predators. One of my favorites (besides the jellyfish) is the clearwing butterfly. If I ever get a chance to travel to Costa Rica then I hope I’ll be able to catch an in-person glimpse of these pretty creatures with see-through wings. The sea cucumber, crayfish and squid are other examples of animals that can come in see-through varieties in nature. Sometimes nature is so smart!

Desperate for cash, the state of California is looking for ways to generate new revenue. One option that is being explored is to monetize license plates by adding digital advertising to them. Is this a smart, forward-thinking move or is it a far-fetched attempt to get funds?

Advertising is certainly a way that a lot of individuals and businesses generate income these days. Heck, Google’s made a big business off of the money-making properties of advertising. Mobile advertising is one of the hottest new emerging ways to make money. So it’s not too far off to think about the potential for generating revenue through digital ads elsewhere in the world.

But on license plates? Not surprisingly, the idea comes from Los Angeles (having been proposed by Sen. Curren Price), a city where people spend a whole lot of time sitting in traffic. The thinking surely has to be that instead of that time being totally wasted, you can use it to advertise what you want others to buy. It is possible that this would help to generate significant, much-needed income for the state. The new technology used to digitize license plates could also end up saving money for the state in the long-run if it streamlines the process of car registration.

Anticipating the arguments, it has already been established that the advertising would only happen while the car was not in motion. While the car was actually driving, only the license plate number would show. However, there are surely other kinks that would have to be worked out with this technology. After all, if you’re digitizing license plates then you may be opening up a whole new can of hacking worms that we aren’t prepared to deal with.

Still, it’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? Nevertheless, the proposal itself won’t be finalized until early 2011 so it will be a long time before this actually gets realized.

Non-compliance. It can refer to a lot of things but we most often hear it when we’re talking about taking your medications. People who choose not to take their prescribed medications as their doctors have ordered are guilty of non-compliance. Some say that’s their problem since they’re the ones who get sick from not taking their meds. Others, however, see it as a bigger social problem because these people who opt not to keep themselves well can end up costing the government a lot more in health care treatment down the line.

A lot of different things are being done to try to limit patient non-compliance. Enhanced education to alert patients about the importance of taking their medications correctly is one common approach. Sending text message alerts to patients when it’s time to take their meds is an increasingly common option. And now we’re starting to see patients get paid for taking their meds when they are supposed to.

One controversial new program uses a computerized pill dispenser system to enter people into a lottery system when they take their medication. Names are randomly drawn and money is awarded to the winner. This serves as an incentive for people to remember their meds. Of course, there is always the chance that these non-compliant folks aren’t ingesting the meds because they don’t believe they need them but the general idea is that forgetful patients will be more likely to remember their meds if there is monetary incentive to do so.

The controversy comes from the idea that you shouldn’t have to pay people to take their medication. Adults should take their meds because it’s what’s good for them. However, the programs seem to be successful in increasing medication compliance which could end up saving money for the government down the road. So is it a smart idea?

Prevention of disease is always smart. It’s a lot better to prevent it at a low cost than to have to pay a lot of money to treat it whether you’re the patient or the government’s health care program. There are probably better options for encouraging long-term medication compliance than paying people but there’s no doubt that money gets people to do things faster than most other things will. So maybe it’s not a great solution but it might be a smart one after all.

Via Neatorama

I’ve recently started checking out the details that are available on Jetsetter, the travel section of the Gilt Groupe website. Gilt Groupe is a deals site similar to Groupon except that the deals are immediately available (rather than requiring a minimum number of purchases before going live) and the deals are for high-end luxury items.

For example, the deal that’s happening right now is a deal that gives you a low cost on rooms at La Valencia in La Jolla (just outside of San Diego). La Valencia looks like a stunning resort with ocean views, lush landscaping and a history of association with Old Hollywood stars like Greta Garbo. You’re the one that will feel like a star with plush accommodations like these though. The deal allows you to book a room starting at $205 / night which is low for the San Diego area especially for a nice hotel like this one.

Amenities at this hotel include:

• Amazing rooms, many of which have ocean views.
• Whirlpool tubs in some rooms.
• Plush linens that you can sink into for comfort.
• Pool and jacuzzi on site.
• Fitness center.
• Aromatherapy toiletries.
• Concierge services.
• On-site massage therapy services.
• 3 terrific restaurants on-site.
• Walking distance to the beach.

I’ve never actually stayed in La Jolla but I’ve spent time there when staying in San Diego and definitely think it’s a great place for a vacation. The last time that I was in San Diego I went kayaking on the ocean at La Jolla, a popular activity here along with surfing and other water activities. La Jolla also offers shopping, golfing and other resort-style activities.

This is just an example of the types of deals that are offered on JetSetter. They’re offered for a few days at a time (this one can be purchased for another three days or so). They are available in exotic locations as well as easy-to-reach American cities. For people who want to enjoy luxury travel, this seems like it could be a smart buy. What do you think of Jetsetter so far?