You have decided to make a big work decision and go green. That means you have taken the time to turn your office into an office that tries it’s hardest not to harm the earth. You know it’s a great decision but you may have a hard time convincing your employees otherwise. You may run into employee’s that find it a hassle, simply because they don’t understand. So here are several ways you can get your employee’s to go green with you:

Supply them: To help your employee’s get on to the eco-friendly band wagon, supply them with the tools to get there. There are plenty of eco- friendly office supplies sites that you can use, like pens, paper, toner, ink and other things. Most of the time, people have a hard time spending the extra penny on something eco-friendly, so look into buy coffee mugs and water tumblers so they aren’t using paper cups and what not.

Incentives: Just like when your company hit’s a team goal or does something well, you reward them. Host mini-contests that lean on the green side, the employee to use the least amount of paper, or that recycles the most while at work gets a small prize. (And don’t forget to give them an eco-friendly prize!)

Keep positive: Be careful not to harp on your employee’s, you don’t want to annoy them with your constant pestering. Keep it light hearted and fun. The more you make it an exciting and fun thing, the less they will resist. Make sure that you do not force your personal reasons on going green on them.

Educate: Teach your employees why you and your company have chosen the path you have. Leaving literature for them to read in the work/break room is a good start. Don’t be afraid to hold a small meeting on your decision. As stated before you do not want to bombard them with your personal views and what not, so focus on why it is beneficial within in the company and avoid talking about why ’you’ have chosen to be eco-friendly. Posters, brochures, occasional, email links and blogs will also educate your employees. The more they know, the more your employees will understand and want to be more green conscious.

Once your employees understand why eco-friendly is the best way to go, they most likely will jump on board. Remember to make it fun and don’t force your green ways on them. Good luck and have fun being an eco-friendly office!

This Guest post is by Christine Kane from internet service providers, she is a graduate of Communication and Journalism. She enjoys writing about a wide-variety of subjects for different blogs. She can be reached via email at: Christi.Kane00 @ gmail.com.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

How to get your Employee’s to be Eco-Friendly

Years ago a computer teacher told the class “You will not find a BUB on your keyboard!” Huh?? Blow Up Button – Ohhhhh! I’m not saying wordpress has a blow up button but if you don’t take simple measures – it might as well! WP hacks & crashes have become a concern the past week or more including sites like WooThemes and one of my own valued clients site and I’m sure that is far – far from the end of the list!

I feel it warrants some attention. I recommend a read through 4 Simple Ways to Secure (and Maintain) Your WP Site for some valuable information.

In a nutshell:
1. UPDATE, daily if needed: I know I sound like a broken record, but this is the most basic item on the list and it can literally make or break your site! WP 3.3.2 was just released and it addresses some important security issues – do not ignore it! Additionally, update plugins and themes as will. Remove any plugins or themes you are not using while your at it. WP is in the beta phase of 3.4 as well so look out for this.

2. Secure your computer – keep anti-virus software, and all software for that matter up to date, don’t ignore update messages there’s a reason they are there! Mac users beware! Viruses are gaining popularity. I had malware pop up the other day, it was written for Microsoft, it may not have hurt me but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t pass it along to others that have PC’s.

3. Passwords & Usernames: passwords, make sure they are secure, change them up, don’t use “admin” for your WP username, don’t use the same password everywhere, remove user profiles from your dashboard which no longer require access to your site.

4. Research plug ins & themes before activating them. Research the stability of a WP update before running it. Run a full cpanel update before a WP update. Don’t just install any plugin that you think will be neat to have. Read the details, research popularity, conflicts etc.

5. Hosting: Have a host that offers a standard cpanel and is secure. Run full cpanel back ups periodically and before doing WP updates. WP back up plug ins are good to have in place, but from experience when a full restore of your site is needed, the host needs the full back up. I have yet to find any use of the WP generated back up. IMPORTANT: I didn’t say don’t install/use them, I just said back up various ways. Find a host with 24/7 phone support as well as one recommended by friends and fellow site owners. There is nothing worse then discovering your site is down – having a host on the other side of the world – they only use a ticket system so no one to call – and when you get a response it’s too tell you they don’t have a security department – good luck with that!

All the above has NOTHING to do with how much traffic you get on your site! Too many people say, I don’t get much traffic – or my site isn’t that big. I don’t know why hackers and malware coders do what they do, but I promise they don’t care if you have high traffic or a huge page count. If your site is unsecured it’s fair game!

Trust me giving your WP site a little TLC is WAY better then waking up one morning and your whole site, all your hard work (and the hard work of your site designer) is gone! If you need help getting your site up to date Eco-Office Gals offers one-time or monthly maintenance services. Contact us at anytime.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Does WordPress have a BUB?

As most businesses begin looking to green solutions for sound business/environmental practices, as well as added savings, they often neglect to consider the very ground they walk on.  More often, we think of green solutions as they pertain to computing technologies and other similar technical advances like office automation and paperless transaction.  But by taking into consideration even the most basic elements of office design, one can drastically cut costs and build a greener business, literally from the floor up.

The following is a list of the top 3 most eco-friendly flooring options that you might consider for your business space.

Wool Carpeting

Wool isn’t just good for keeping you warm; it’s also a great option for your floors if you prefer carpeting.  Durable, soft, fire-retardant, and great for heat, humidity, and temperature absorption, wool is a great option for a number of reasons.  In the warmer months, wool floors will help keep the office cooler by wicking away humid moisture and repelling heat.  Conversely, in the cooler months, it will retain heat and keep the office warmer.

As it’s recyclable, stain resistant, and very renewable, wool becomes a great eco-friendly option for those in need of office carpeting.  Companies like Prosource Carpet offer great wool carpeting products as well as other green carpeting options for your consideration.

Bamboo

Not only is bamboo a beautiful choice for flooring, it’s also very easy to install and highly sustainable as it grows in abundance in the U.S. and abroad.  Cured bamboo, as is used in most flooring operations, is very resilient and is available in a large variety of styles and textures.  Bamboo flooring is becoming hugely popular for these reasons, and is both a great visual and environmentally sustainable way to dress your office.  Also, bamboo is a great choice for those suffering from asthma and allergies, which could be a great benefit for some of your employees.

Linoleum

Linoleum flooring, despite what many think, is actually made from renewable materials often including limestone, pine rosins, wood flour, and linseed oil, among others.  If you’ve ever seen or owned any linoleum floors, which you likely have, then you already know how durable and easy to maintain it is.  Another big perk for existing businesses especially is the fact that linoleum flooring is offered in just about any color conceivable, making it an easy match for any existing office décor.

While going green certainly doesn’t end with the physical designs and building materials for your business, it does make a great starting point, and can help guide you down a greener, more sustainable path in the future.  Choosing the right flooring for your business needs can be both a painless and beneficial process for all involved.  As far as your style and the environment are concerned, it should be a win-win for both.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Eco-Friendly Flooring: Top 3 Green Options for Your Business Space

Businesses these days are flocking to green options and to cloud services. Fortunately, the two are interconnected and, in many cases, complement one another perfectly. Innovative, progressive companies will look at a variety of ways to please their personnel and scale up their information infrastructure—be it investing in comfortable chairs for back pain or doubling down on new software. One of the best ways for a company to show its employees that it is committed to curbing carbon emissions and e-waste is to embrace cloud computing services in the office. Here are a few of the reasons why cloud services are eco-friendly:

Cut down on e-waste. Each year 20-50 million tons of electronic waste are dumped into developing nations, polluting their water sources and air. Many companies have committed to reducing their e-waste and a great way to do this is by eliminating the need for its sources, namely office electronic appliances such as mobile phones, computer circuits, printers, etc. While you may not be able to completely liquidate your office gear in exchange for cloud services, you can reduce it a great deal and significantly cut down on the lead, cadmium, beryllium, and BFRs (brominated flame retardants) that have to be disposed of. The use of cloud services should considerably cut down on your business’s annual e-waste.

Many cloud services use a pay-as-you-go model. This allows flexibility among your IT department, as you can pick and choose the applications and platforms you need. In other words, you don’t have to purchase an entire package of unneeded gadgets and circuits just to get the one you do need. Speaking of IT, you will likely be able to reduce your workforce, as many technical administration duties can be handled by cloud programs.

Cloud services cuts down on carbon emissions. Because real time communications, web conferencing, chatting, and synced mobile phones can eliminate the need for expensive business trips and unnecessary commuting, the cloud will reduce your carbon footprint as well.

The cloud saves paper. Sync your files online and collaborate in real-time. You won’t need to print the same document twenty times for slightly new versions, nor will you need to use barrels of ink simply to distribute a single office memo.

These are some of the environmental reasons to go with the cloud in your office. There are also practical issues of efficiency and performance. Ultimately, you want to balance your bottom line with your duty to run a sustainable eco-friendly business. Adopting cloud services is a great first step.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Why the Cloud is Green

We made noise and they listened!

“On January 18th, 13 million of us took the time to tell Congress to protect free speech rights on the internet. Hundreds of millions, maybe a billion, people all around the world saw what we did on Wednesday.”

This was unprecedented. Your activism may have changed the way people fight for the public interest and basic rights forever.
The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled.  “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd told the New York Times. ‘[PIPA and SOPA were] considered by many to be a slam dunk.’”

“’This is altogether a new effect,’ Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing ‘an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically’ in the last four decades, he added.”  — Fight for the Future

We ALL made a difference, I was saddened by a commenter on Facebook who stated:

“What will it change? None of the people voting are going to personally visit my blog and see whether I do/don’t like the bill. I’m of the mindset that if I don’t know enough about a topic to make an educated decision about it, I just don’t engage it. Which is also why I don’t vote.”

I tried to send her as much info as I could to change her mind about participating in the strike, I’m not sure if she did in the end or not. I’m glad so many people didn’t feel the same way. Thank you to everyone that knew they could make a difference!

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

SOPA: It only went as far as we let it!

If you come to Eco-Office Gals on January 18th – we won’t be here, along with many others in an effort to Stop SOPA. Here is a video with the basics. (Click through to post if you are viewing this in your feed)

So, what should you do? Come visit tomorrow, but all we will offer is a page where you can easily write congress, let your voice be heard! I don’t approve of censorship, neither should you! Learn more at Stop American Censorship. Join the strike, if you are using WordPress you can use the SOPA Strike plug in to black out your site, too.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

SOPA What is it? Why should you care?

I’ve been quiet over the holidays. Trying to keep up with work, holidays and life in general has been overwhelming. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was very nice, the kids had a great time that’s what really matters when it’s all said and done.

Just because things have been quiet on the blog-front doesn’t mean it’s been quiet around here. We’ve been working with some great companies on their new WordPress sites, mobile sites as well as trying out and gifting some awesome eco-friendly products. I wanted to take a minute to send out a big “thank you” to some great companies and let you know about some companies we’ll be featuring in the coming weeks.

First a HUGE Thank you to Kristin at the The GrapeSeed Company! Every year I work with a great green company to bring family, friends and clients a little eco-goodness. This year I teamed up with The Grapeseed Company, they offer premium eco-friendly vinotherapy spa & skin care for professional and personal use. Their line of bath & body treats are centered on the byproduct of wine in their new hometown, Santa Barbara, California. I was so giddy to send out mojito man shaving sets and shower sets to the special people in my personal and work life. I hope everyone loves The GrapeSeed Company as much as I have and if you haven’t tried their products before be sure to check them out!  Thank you Kristen!

Some more BIG thanks going out to some guys and gals I have gotten to team up with the past few months on projects and love working with them so much I want to share them with you!

Kendra Cote – Owner of Amathia Soaps, Kenna makes another awesome line of bath & body products which look and smell amazing and also found their way into many stockings this holiday! We first teamed up to launch her new website design which will be live very soon. Yet, as we worked together and chatted way too much on skype, I discovered she has a mad love for WordPress, too. We have been working on a few projects since and I can’t express how much I appreciate her! I know her true love is Amathia, but I hope we can continue to work on projects together when she isn’t knee deep in her suds. Thank you so much for all your help lately, Kenna!

Another Thank You going out to Applied Info-Systems. Applied Info-Systems pulled off a great mobile site design for a client in a crunch. Although EOG offers plug in set up for mobile versions of WP sites, this situation wasn’t going to allow for a quick and simple set up. Robert was able to create what the client needed, on the heels of the holidays and he did a great job! If you need to get your website mobile visit Applied Info-Systems for your mobile package solutions!

Tammy at Moonwell Designs has also been an awesome partnership for recent projects. I have teamed up with Moonwell Designs to offer logo design, ebook creation and much more. Her design skills are amazing and I’m so happy to have her to turn to for project needs. Thank you Tammy for all your help the past few months! Contact EOG for your design service needs – Tammy’s skills are sure to deliver!

Again a huge thanks to everyone for all of your help this year!

We have also been trying out some goodies from Shaklee, Naked Binder, Influenster & Fearless Chocolate we’ll let you know what we think of them soon!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays & Happy 2012 from Eco-Office Gals and the Smith Family!

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

A Post Holiday Thank You!

It’s that time again – A Fresh roll out from WordPress has been released! Some of the features include:

• Easier Uploading
  • File Type Detection – A single upload button.
  • Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader
• Dashboard Design
  • New Toolbar in the dashboard, combining the Admin Bar and admin header
  • Responsive design for some screens, including iPad/tablet support
  • Flyout menus, providing single-click access to any screen
• New User Experience
  • New feature pointers, helping users navigate new features
  • Post-update About screen
  • Dashboard welcome area for new installs
• Content Tools
  • Better co-editing that releases post locks immediately
  • Tumblr Importer
  • Don’t lose widgets when switching themes

You can view the full list of changes here.

I have installed the new version on Eco-Office Gals and everything is looking good! They did a nice job on the back end. Nothing feel apart on the front end. All seems good to go!

Have Eco-Office Gals Perform Your Updates

WordPress 3.3 is not a general maintenance roll out, so proceed with caution. Perform a back up, put your feelers out on your social networks and make sure no one else is experiencing issues, your plug ins and theme may also require updates to keep up with WordPress.

Eco-Office Gals can perform the update for you if you are not comfortable doing it yourself. The 1 hour minimum will include:

WP BackUp
Plug In Updates
Theme Update, if needed
WordPress Updated to 3.3

Upgrades with be performed on a first come first serve basis. Once you pay using the PayPal button found below I will need you to  provide me with your log in credentials. You can email them directly to jsmith (at) eco-officegals dot com if I do not already have them available.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Eco-Office Gals is not responsible for themes not designed by me. I will upgrade the theme if needed, but any conflicts, broken design elements, theme crashes, etc will not be covered by the 1 hour minimum. If your theme incurs any cost to upgrade it will be the responsibility of the client to purchase the upgraded theme and provide the files to Eco-Office Gals.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

WordPress 3.3 is here

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday… Let’s go with the HUGE EOG SALE! We’re combining all our affiliate savings to bring you and offer you’d be crazy not to grab! Build a great site on the best platform with wonderful hosting and a superior theme and save, save save!!

Hosting: 50% OFF ANY hosting package! {affiliate link}

Premium Theme: 25% Off any StudioPress theme with Coupon code THANKS {affiliate link}

FREE Installation! WordPress Installation – FREE with Hosting AND Theme installation FREE with StudioPress theme purchase!

Not a DIY’er?? Get all the FREE and discounted offers above and $200 off our Silver, Gold or The Works WordPress Design packages.

The Design services offer will be available thru Tuesday morning, but the other offers above are only available for a limited time, so don’t miss out on combining all these savings and saving BIG! Contact us today!

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Save Huge on Eco-Office Gals Services!

On Friday, November 25^th, 2011 HostGator will run this  awesome sale on their wind-powered hosting! 50% OFF everything!

HostGator is offering:

50% OFF on ALL hosting services. This includes shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated servers and Windows hosting! This does not include domain names. Visitors do NOT need to insert a coupon code to receive the special. The correct coupon code will automatically be inserted on all orders placed on Black Friday.

The discount applies to the clients first invoice. VPS and dedicated server hosting services are only available on a monthly basis, therefore the promotion will apply to only the first month.

This promotion will bring our already competitive hosting packages as low as:

Shared hosting: As low as $4.95 Now only: $2.48/month (pre-paid)

Reseller Hosting: As low as $24.95 Now Only: $12.48/month (pre-paid)

VPS Hosting: As low as $19.95 Now Only: $9.98/month (First Month)

Dedicated Servers: As low as $174 Now Only $87/month (First Month)

This is an incredible deal and it will only run for 1 DAY! Eco-Office Gals has been a huge fan of HostGator for years, the support is top notch, up-time is wonderful, and they’re 130% wind-powered. We have been a reseller/client for years now and we always highly recommend them.

Save Even More!

When you purchase hosting through Eco-Office Gals or our HostGator affiliate (confirmation required) we will install WordPress for FREE!

Want More? Take advantage of these great savings on StudioPress Themes and the great hosting offers above, Eco-Office Gals will install WordPress and your new theme FREE! Contact us after you have made your purchases and we’ll get you set up and ready to go.

Grab the savings before they expire!

WordPress and StudioPress free installation only, design services and support not included.

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

2011 Black Friday: Half Off Green Hosting!