Is it EASY to be GREEN?

Being GREEN these days is synonymous with having an eco-friendly lifestyle, but what does that mean? Where do you start and do you have time to join this movement of eco-friendly living?

For those of you who remember Kermit the Frog’s song – “It’s not easy being green” – we don’t have to blend in with nature and the leaves in order to help our planet. In fact, being green IS easy, easier than you think. Here are three ideas on how to start your journey to becoming GREEN.

The first step is to “divide and conquer”. We have 3 bins at home: blue box, green cart and regular garbage bin. Before tossing any garbage item, I make sure it goes into the correct bin. But what goes in each bin you may ask?

This is great reference page that shows you exactly what materials are acceptable for the blue box, green cart and regular garbage. Print it out and leave it on your fridge or near your recycling area as a handy reference:

http://www.halton.ca/ppw/waste/documents/acceptablematerials.pdf


Second, consider the commonly-heard phrase, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.

Reduce: How much of the Earth's resources do we use?
Reuse: Don't just throw it away. Could someone else make use of it?
Recycle: Can the materials be made into something new?

Our closets are probably the best example.

Every season or twice a year, clean out your closet. To make this process easy, use three laundry baskets and label them: Donate, Keep, Repair. Once you are ready, ask yourself ONE easy question and be honest! Have I worn this outfit in the last two years? If the answer is no, donate it. Check out for organizations in your local area that are in need of gently worn clothing. There are companies who help clothe people who cannot afford to buy business clothes for interviews. Others repair shoes and ship them to under-developed countries. Check out some eco-tips for reducing, reusing and recycling: http://www.globalstewards.org/ecotips.htm


Finally, “Buy Local”. If you don’t have access to a Farmer’s Market, you can still buy local fruits and vegetables since every supermarket now shows where the product comes from. Choosing fruits and vegetables grown in your area will also help your pocket book! Foodland Ontario also has a great guide of which fruits and vegetables are available throughout the year.


You can check out this guide: http://www.foodland.gov.on.ca/english/availability.html

When buying flowers, also ask where they are from. Some flowers are shipped from the other side of the world. Just think about all the fuel used to transport them! I have found a couple of supermarkets that own greenhouses and grow their own flowers and plants all year long! Also, buying flowers that are in season and grown locally will cost you less.


Start small, one area at the time, and before you know it, you are living GREEN!

Five things I learned at the Ontario SolidWorks UGM

I attended the Ontario SolidWorks User Group Meeting hosted by Chris White & Richard Matthews on March 4th, 2009. It was a great way to meet our customers, listen to what they were looking for in the software and learned 5 great SolidWorks tips that I would like to share with you. I have been using SolidWorks for over 7 years and was pleasantly surprise at the small changes one can make to optimize using SolidWorks.


1. Faster startup with SolidWorks


The SolidWorks RSS feeds in the task pane are a great way to read the latest news from SolidWorks, Technical Alerts and Community news. When launching SolidWorks, these feeds are refreshed and might slow down the startup. By disabling the RSS feeds on startup, SolidWorks will launch in a flash!

To do this: in SolidWorks, go to the Tools menu, Options, System Options, General. Disable “Show latest news feeds in task pane.”

Don’t worry; you can still read the latest news by opening the Task Pane and selecting the “Latest News” button under the Community box.

2. Colour-code open edges for surfaces

For those who import third party data on a regular basis, you will find this tip very helpful. When a solid is imported in SolidWorks, sometimes, there might be open edges or surfaces that need to be repaired and patched. How can one identify these? By changing the colour! Simple, I know.

To do this,
* In SolidWorks, go to the Tools menu, Options, Colors.
* Under “color scheme settings” locate “Surfaces, open edges”.
* Click on the Edit button to chage the colour. In this example, set to red.

If you want to test this, open the following part under the sample files in SolidWorks:
C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks\samples\tutorial\importexport\ importerrors.x_b

Note: When opening this part, don’t run the Import Diagnosis tool – check first the open surfaces as per the image below – all highlighted in red and easy to spot!

3. Embed an eDrawing to a PowerPoint® presentation

eDrawings is a great communication tool that can be used during design reviews or presentations. If you have published an eDrawing of your design, you can also add it to your PowerPoint® presentation. The full user interface will be available – markups, exploded views, measure


To do this:

* Open a new/existing PowerPoint® document
* Click Insert, Object.
* Select eDrawings Control for Object type
* Once the object is inserted, right-click the eDrawings Control box and select Properties.
* For FileName, browse to any eDrawings file, then click OK.
* Select EnableFeatures, then browse to the Property Pages dialog box.
* Set the options, then click OK.
* Close the Properties box.
* To view the eDrawings file: view the slide show (PowerPoint)


In the Property Pages box, you will be able to enable as many features as necessary during the presentation. Some users might not want to see the toolbars or the user interface. Others might want to make sure the files are open read-only. You have plenty of options through the Property Pages under the Enable Feautres area.


4. Task scheduler to rebuild components updates simulations & render.

The SolidWorks Task Scheduler lets you set up tasks to perform at a future time since it runs separately from the SolidWorks application. You can schedule a task to be performed only once or on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

For example, if you need to perform a resource-intensive task such as rebuilding a large assembly, you can use SolidWorks Task Scheduler to perform the job at off-peak hours.

You can use Task Scheduler to manage rendering tasks you set up in PhotoWorks or animation tasks you set up in Motion Studies.

You can also schedule tasks to update the SolidWorks Simulation analysis in SolidWorks part and assembly documents.

To access it:

Under the Windows Start menu go to:
SolidWorks/SolidWorks Tools/SolidWorks Task Scheduler.

5. Structural members (weldments) are meshed as beam elements by default.

In SolidWorks Simulation, when working with structural members (weldments), they are treated as beam elements by default. A joint is identified at free ends of structural members and at the intersection of two or more structural members. The program creates a node at the center of the cross section of each joint member. Due to trimming and the use of different cross sections for different members, the nodes of members associated with a joint may not coincide. SolidWorks creates special elements near the joint to simulate a rigid connection based on geometric and material properties.

Modeling with structural members (weldments) will save you time when analyzing your structures.

Is Yoda one of the best managers?

While watching a Star Wars movie, I heard a very wise little green man say a few things that made me wonder if I could apply his wisdom when managing my team members.

Here are my Top 10 quotes:

1. Try not. Do or do not, there is no try
   
2. Dwell on the could haves, we must not. Focus on the solution, we must.


3. Always in motion is the future.


4. [Luke:] I can’t believe it. [Yoda:] That is why you fail.


5. The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.


6. May the force be with you.


7. Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.


8. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.


9. You must unlearn what you have learned." "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will...


10. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

I will be expanding on each quote to see how we can link them to management.

Can green wrapping alternatives be stylish for the holiday season?

Did you know that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s there is a 25% spike in waste generation? Holiday gift wrapping is a great contributor to this waste generation during the holiday season.

As we are all trying to be more environmentally friendly, we have listed below a few ideas on how you can wrap gifts this holiday season and be green & stylish at the same time. This holiday season; let’s give a Gift to the Environment too!

There are two main ways we can be environmentally friendly:

§ Reusing existing supplies
§ Using reusable, eco-friendly products

Top 3 - Reusing existing supplies

1. Use your holiday catalogues

They're filling the mailbox whether we have requested them or not, and they are full of colorful pages. Use your favorite pages to wrap small gifts and you'll be surprised at how great they look. If you are giving candles, pencils, or anything cylinder, think about rolling a sheet around the object and then twisting the ends like a candy wrapper. If you are giving more than one gift, stack them and tie the bundle with a ribbon or some kitchen string.

2. Wrap with a map

Clean out the glove compartment and take an outdated or unused map on a new journey. Most maps are large enough to use for wrapping books, clothing, and a number of items. Gifts wrapped with maps can look quite sophisticated and are a creative idea for an office gift exchange. Maps also work well for more masculine looking gifts. If you want to embellish your wrapping, try a brown paper band instead of a traditional bow.

3. Newspapers and magazines

Old newspapers and magazines make great wrapping paper. Use the sports section of the paper for your brother, colour comics for the younger kids, glossy fashion magazine pages for your teenaged cousin. Tie with inexpensive yarn or ribbons you saved from last year. Looking for a gift-wrapping idea that’s really original and exotic-looking? Pick up some Chinese newspapers in Chinatown!


Top 3 – Reusable, eco-friendly products

1. Dishtowels, placemats, and table cloths

For the friend or relative who loves to cook, wrap gifts in pretty dish towels. Or give her a nifty, new kitchen tool that you’ve bundled into a set of placemats, then tie with recycled ribbon. Get that old tablecloth you haven’t used in five years, cut it up and use the pieces to wrap gifts. An easy way to do it is to gather the ends of the fabric at the top of the present, and tie them together with some raffia or ribbon recycled from last year.

2. Scarves, blankets, towels, and Christmas stockings

Make the wrapping part of the gift! Soft wrapping paper alternatives that are great gifts, like scarves, baby blankets, and beach towels It’ll give them a little hint as to what's inside, but your creative wrapping will get years of use. Tie the gifts with ribbon, string, twine or raffia. Christmas stockings are a great alternative as well.

3. Nature

Some of the best decorations for your gifts can be found in backyards, beaches and fields. Sprigs of berries, branches, shells and pinecones are naturally beautiful and don’t require any manufacturing at all … just a short hike.


A couple of things to keep in mind when wrapping gifts:

1. The key to using ribbon and string with a green mindset is to use pieces that are long enough to easily reuse. Bows always look pretty left with long tails, or you can wrap an existing length of ribbon twice around a small box.
2. Try opting out of tape by making tightly creased folds as you wrap, securing it by tying up the package tightly (in two directions) with natural twine or wool yarn that can be reused.
3. The next time someone gives you a present, save that paper (and the ribbons, too)!
4. If you can avoid wrapping a present, do so!