Ted Talks
The odd name TED Talks are a collection of presentations on Technology Entertainment and Design or TED for short. The hundreds of speakers have covered a massive range of subjects. The presentations are hosted in cities all round the world with most available online.

This is the really impressive part as it allows so many people get free access to these world class speakers. They maintain a top 10 for the popular talks that all have over a million views.

I happened to watch Rachel Sussman talking about the World's oldest living organisms and was impressed to know that there are three in Southern Africa including the amazing Pyrogenic Geoxylic Suffrutices more commonly known as Underground Forrest which is a tree that only has the very tips showing, the rest of the tree is underground, some are 13 000 years old.

Looking after your Small Business's books
No small business begins with a great accounting system. They are inspired individuals ready to take risks and do something they love. Often billing for their work is an afterthought and balancing those books is a chore.

But it is also true that no small business ever became a big one without a good accounting system, so what do you do if you are not small business accountant?

Here are three options.

Use Microsoft Excel or Open Office or a Google Doc spreadsheet, this is the most basic version and at least lets you keep track of income and expenses, as you improve your spreadsheet skills you can do more sophisticated operations, but you can run a growing business like this.

You could get a free accounting program like GnuCash which does do most of what you need as small and growing business, but you may need expert help to set it up.

You can buy a software package and it is not by coincidence that Pastel sponsors the Small Business Awards because they realise that their business can grow when yours does. They are a fantastic South African success story that started here and now operate in over 50 countries and while you must pay for this option, it also allows you to enroll in one of their training courses to teach you how to use the software and the principles involved in running the accounting for your business.

You could choose any of these options, but you must choose something or face your business never reaching its potential.

Looking for a Book?
Last week I mentioned that recording yourself reading on your phone would allow your kids to have a story read to them whenever they wanted. Assuming you can ignite their passion for books you may be looking to see where you can find lots of books.

Besides the massive variety available in book stores or your local library, you could also find almost anything from online book stores. Of course these all cost money so a cheap alternative is to look at what Google Books has been busy with.

They are looking to scan all books that have moved into the public domain or for which the copyright holders have given permission to be included. Currently there are over 10 million books available.

Another source is the World's largest library, the Library of Congress in America, they have over 32 million books resting on over 700km of books shelves. Their online site offers lots of interesting options.

Face in Space
If you have given up on trying to be popular on YouTube now that Justin Bieber has taken that spot with over 250 million views (highest ever) of one of his songs or resigned yourself to never having more friends on Facebook than Lady Gaga (she has over 13 million the most on Facebook) then you will need to find something else to make yourself stand out.

How about putting your face in space?

NASA as part of its final two Space Shuttle missions is offering you the chance to put a photo of yourself in orbit, it won't really do anything except to allow you to say that you have a picture of yourself in earth orbit.

If astrological vanity appeals to you then visit NASA and upload you mugshot. The next mission is set for November and neither Justin Bieber nor Lady Gaga are on board (yet!)

Teleconferencing
Meetings are never fun and having to travel to get to them is even worse. Big projects require lots of people and if they are not all in once place it makes everything that much easier, this is where tele or video conferencing can help.

Its fair to say nothing beats being in the same room during a meeting, but here are some options for when that is not possible.

The best quality and most expensive option is to use devices created specifically for this. A mobile option for anyone with a Smartphone (anything with a large colour screen these days qualifies) would be to use the conference option on the phone to call more than one person (each call costs the full amount, but the quality drops with each additional call). You could use a service that has you call a central number and enter a conference number to connect just those that you plan to talk to. This is also an easy option as it works well from a regular phone and can be arranged with the only cost being the cost of the call. Lastly there are software driven solutions which use internet data as a means of connecting. If all the people required for the meeting have a good laptop and fast internet access then a software option is best as you can share video and documents as well as talk to everyone.

A search of Teleconference solutions should give you plenty of options to choose from, all of them hopefully saving you from having to travel anymore than you need to.

Buying a solar geyser
The State would like to install 1 million solar water heaters by 2014. It’s a tall order given that since Eskom first offered the subsidy to convert to solar, less than 5 000 have.

The reason for doing so is simple, domestic use accounts for about 2000 MW of energy currently which if reduced would be like opening a new power station. The bulk of new low cost homes energy consumption goes to water heating costs, by ensuring new houses have solar we have some time to convert and replace the normal geysers and hopefully avoid the blackouts.

If you are now ready to make the investment in a greener technology or simply get some cash back from Eskom or want to spend less on your monthly electricity bill, the decision as to what system to use is still going to tricky.

Firstly the costs; a regular geyser suitable for a small family would cost around R5 000 to R8 000 to install. A solar version of similar capacity would cost from R12 000 to R20 000. The rebate from Eskom ranges from R4 000 to around R8 000 depending on efficiency. This is were its gets tricky, the more efficient systems are much more expensive and despite a greater rebate, you still have to have the cash to install the system while waiting up to 8 weeks for the rebate to be paid.

The best time to make the investment is when you are replacing your geyser, but I think there is merit to consider doing it when you buy a new property (you rarely know what shape the geyser is in) and even when selling as the perceived saving for the new buyer would persuade them to pay more of your asking price and invariably more than the installation cost.

In some cases you can also convert your existing geyser. This is quite a cost effective option but not as effective as the new systems.

There are no simple answers as some units require your geyser to be on your roof while others leave the geyser in the ceiling, and then there are different systems for heating the water which are quite technical.

Eskom's website is useful for seeing what price bracket you can afford; use the size of the rebate to determine the efficiency of the system and then contact the listed companies and compare their proposals to fit your needs.

An additional help which I think should get insurance companies to also support the switch to solar is that the more hi-tech systems are able to let you know when there is a problem to avert a burst geyser as well as inform you when you need to do maintenance. They also allow you to program the temperature settings to not keep the water so hot all the time.

If you are still not in a position to do the switch there is something simple you can do to save energy and money. Turn the thermostat down. It’s often set between 55 and 65 degrees Celsius which on its own would burn you. So turn the temperature down and don’t use the cold water. This works best if you only run one bath a day or if the family showers during a short space of time. The reason I say that is that your geyser fills up as you use it and the cold water that gets added reduces the temperature of the water already in the geyser.

See the World Cup stadiums from your desktop
South Africa is ready to welcome the World's soccer fans to the first World Cup held in Africa. You may have tickets to some of the matches, but very few of us will get the chance to visit all 10. Well you can do a virtual tour using specially created photos that create a 360 degree view.

You can now scan around the graceful bowl of the Cape Town Stadium without even going to Green Point, you can see the zebra shaded seats of the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit. You can look around the home of the Blue Bulls in the very blue Loftus Versfeld or the massive Ellis Park. You can see the brand new stadiums built for PE, Polokwane and Rustenburg or visit Bloemfontein and finally you can marvel at the 300m arch flying over the Durban Stadium or take in the view from the top. We will be adding the beautiful Soccer City later this week too.

There may be just over 50 days to go till kick off, but you can visit all the stadiums right now.

Remotes, remotes everywhere but no control
TV gets more interesting with the advent of TopTV on 1 May. It's another competitor to DsTV. It's not the first as there are religious services available using their own decoders, but it’s the first competitive commercial offering. South Africa is behind but still on track to switch to digital broadcasts in the next few years. What does this all mean? You TV room is going to start looking like a control room.

Let's assume you have DsTV, TopTV and the SABC channels. You would want to be able to watch them on you new telly and use your surround sound system. You would want to be able to record shows and play console games. Maybe you would like to access the internet via the big screen too.

What was the promise of the ideal TV setup now has you potentially having to handle 8 remote controls to cover your bases. You will need remotes for the: TV, Sound system, DsTV, TopTV, SABC, DVD player/recorder, Games console and Internet terminal. Crazy.

Manufacturers have long promised to make our lives simpler, but their inability to consider the consumer above their own commercial interest means that if you want to enjoy all the new technology you will have to get a new couch for your remotes. You may be able to reduce the numbers by buying you equipment from the same maker so that the remotes will control more than one device or you could get a universal control, but they don't work for everything and the ones that do are really expensive. In the end you will need to choose carefully.

Playing games to make a difference
While games should all be fun, they can also help make a difference. The most recent is to get Canadians to not mine their oil sands. Tar Nation is a novel way to get people to sign a petition and is more likely to get people that may not have got involved in an environmental issue to at least become aware that the issue exists.

Nokia has published a game for its handsets that teach you about Climate Change by playing a collection of mini games. Each has a bite size fact about an aspect of climate change the more and longer you play the more you learn and the issue and what you can do.

These activism games will not solve social problems but when part of the difficulty of making people aware about social issues, games like these may well get those that are the hardest to reach to at least engage.Try some more at Persuasive games and the parody of McDonalds

Save electricity, save money
By now, you have heard about what can help you reduce your electricity use and you also know that electricity is going to be going up by at least 25% over the next three years. Do you just pay or could you still make electricity savings and so save money.

The short answer is yes; as nothing helps you focus like seeing your money being spent. Efergy creates a range of devices to help you monitor you electricity consumption. By seeing how many kW/h of energy is being used you can calculate the cost and for the environmentally conscious the CO2 emissions. It will help with getting those family members that don't pay to see the effect of their consumption and it will let you see where and when you use the most.

Some of the devices connect to your PC which let you see how the use rises and falls during the day. Set yourself a target and it will let you know how well you are doing. Compare results with others and see if you are doing as much as you can. The units cost in the region of R1 000, but they won't save you electricity on their own. You will need to decide on a level you are prepared to accept for convenience and pay for, then it will help you achieve it.