One of the best things about the Internet is that it brings the entire world closer together. When your job is environmental causes and spreading awareness about green living, you know just how important the Web can be to disseminate information. This is why no green or environmental awareness campaign should be without a website.

Getting Information Out

People need all the information necessary to make an informed decision. Because the media and advertising offers only one side of the story – the sensationalist version and the version that sells – it’s up to you to give the public the rest of the story. It’s not easy to combat information campaigns backed by big money. But with a Web site, you have maximum exposure for minimal cost. An article written on a pamphlet will only be read by a few. That same article posted on your Web site will be read by thousands. Those who want the information will be able to find it.

They say that pictures communicate a thousand words and in the green world that is true a thousand times over. Sometimes people need to see the devastation and damage alongside the statistics in order to understand what’s happening, who it’s affecting, and where.

Bringing Information In

Staying on top of developments out in the world, depending on how wide the scope of your campaign, is a crucial component of providing information. You need to have the most up-to-date information in order to remain on the cutting edge of developments in the movement.

With a Web site, there are a variety of ways to allow people to contact you and report updates and news in their area. A blog is the most popular forum, with different sections dedicated to different aspects of the cause or perhaps different states, cities, counties, or regions. Allowing visitors to your site to post what is happening around them is a great way to allow communities to be an active part of their local campaign. In fact, the Web is home to the newest incarnation of journalism: on-the-street eye witnesses reporting the news at a grassroots level in real time. Perfect for the green campaign!

Organizing the Masses

Another way that your Web site can contribute to the growth of your campaign is to assist you in organizing your greatest resource: people. Volunteers can sign up to man booths at fairs and concerts in their area or to head letter writing campaigns or to get local businesses involved.

You can have a form online for them to fill out with their information so that you can organize regional lists and find out their strengths, schedules, and specific interest in the campaign so that you can better utilize their skills.

Presenting Your Case

Finally, once you’ve organized the information in such a way as to educate those who are already interested in the subject can get informed, your focus should then turn to those you have to convince – the legislators.

With links to incredibly detailed maps on Google Earth, researched and recent statistics, personal testimonies of voters, petitions, graphics, and more, your Web site will not only increase the visibility of your campaign but inform the people who can help change the laws.

Hello!

I just read a post in the Guardian (UK newspaper) technology blog about a case of them finding out that a Gmail account had been entered by a Chinese hacker. That’s kind of scary for me, I don’t know whether it strikes you that way or not. I have about 15 Gmail accounts. In any case, being thoroughly British and complete, they also recommend a way to check to discover if your account has been hacked, and if so, what to do.

Here’s their conclusion:

Even so, it’s clearly a good idea to check your Gmail status from time to time.
To do that, log in, go to Settings on the top right, and scroll down to the bottom. There you’ll find some text in green telling you how much of your allowance you’re using; and below that a line saying “Last account activity: … minutes ago at this IP..” and a hyperlink to Details. Click that for a view of your account access history. And make sure that your Alert Preference is set for “Show an alert for unusual activity.”

And the source is http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/mar/25/gmail-china-hacking. I followed up and happily discovered that none of my accounts have been compromised by some Chinese or any other person or “bot”. Whew! I did discover that my ISP’s IP address range has expanded since I started with them, so I modified my account in StatCounter.com (free advert for a free service) to reflect that – it keeps me from counting my own hits on our websites’ statistics.

Thought you might like to know – and you can spread the word by telling people that you saw it first on Practical-Greenology-dot-com!

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Ciao for now,

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Craig for Sue & Craig Websites

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GoogleMail Hacked By Chinese?

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Hi again!

We (that’s Sue and I) have been doing some brainstorming about what we can do to improve our selection so that you get the best from us that we can deliver, and get it efficiently as well. What we have come up with now is to move all the posts – past, present, and future – from Green Home MegaStore into the Practical Greenology site (this one) and put the Green Home MegaStore back to it’s original purpose: a Green Home Store for your use and enjoyment. It will also put Practical Greenology back where it belongs, as a first-class discussion forum for new and obscure environmental things that might otherwise go unnoticed. There may still be a few posts on GHMS, but the majority of the posts will be here – at Practical Greenology – in the future.

We will also clean up the stores and make the entire process more enjoyable for you while you’re shopping. In the somewhat more distant future, we hope to install our own products for sale in the store, in addition to the things we have from other places. We will try to keep the system as simple as possible for this as well, since there’s no reason to make anything more complicated than absolutely necessary!

Remember this theme?

By the way, did you know you can get to Practical Greenology two ways? Yes, it’s true. both http://practical-greenology.com and http://practicalgreenology.com end up at the same place. Handy in case you can’t remember whether there’s a hyphen in the name or not. ;-)

It will take us some time to get all the changes made, but we think you will enjoy having everything centralised in the future. The themes on the two sites will remain the same, except we’re trying to keep up with the changes to Suffusion (the new theme for Practical Greenology) that seem to be coming fast and furious!

Ciao for now,

Craig for Sue & Craig Websites

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More New Year Changes!