Gwendolyn Bounds of The Wall Street Journal humorously recounts her captivation with energy-efficient appliances. With the new quiet dishwashers and washer/dryer machines available on the market today, it’s easy for anyone to become a little fixated on the appliances that help life, in its dirtier moments, hum along. If you’re a Boiler Room Junkie, there’s no fear in coming forward. After all, this is a green obsession.

http://online.wsj.com/video/confessions-of-a-boiler-room-junkie/45ABC8B3-5D7A-4409-B429-E3CD867EFFD9.html

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid96360194001?bclid=91018212001&bctid=105241440001

On July 19, House Beautiful’s Kitchen of the Year 2010 honor was given to a kitchen designed by Jeff Lewis of Bravo show Flipping Out. Lewis, who is in the business of real estate sales, created a modern kitchen tailored to his own needs.  His story reveals helpful rules for kitchen design:

1) Make it personal. (Use your own sense of style.)

2) Make it functional. (The practical use of space should dictate the choice of cabinets, islands, fixtures, and accessories.)

3) Make it inviting. (The kitchen tends to become the family or living room of the home, particularly on entertaining occasions. Everybody loves to congregate around food and refreshments.)

Information is everywhere, and it’s becoming more and more accessible in digital format. But we are still human beings, who operate on a need-to-know basis, most of the time. The iPad app called Flipboard takes this premise and delivers news and information pertinent to the individual reader in a magazine format.

For some, Flipboard is an easy way to stay on pace with friends’ and colleagues’ tweets and facebook updates. According to Walter S. Mossberg (”Your Own Digital Magazine,” The Wall Street Journal), the app needs tweaking, but “one of the more outstanding things about Flipboard is its ability to take plain-text tweets or Facebook updates and turn them into visuals of a shared photo or Web link in a status message.”

Basically, it’s a visual gateway of news that’s important to you. Flipboard is currently downloadable at The App Store.

There are flying creatures everywhere. In the spring and summer months, billions fly above our heads. Some travel far; some travel high. And some, like the ladybug, will land in the spaces we inhabit. Happy Summer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QxfOYhpjro&feature=youtube_gdata

More than 10 million Americans moved in 2008, based on Forbes’ crunch of IRS data. Forbes has created an interactive map that shows migration patterns of Americans within the United States.

Click on any county in the U.S. to see actual inbound and outbound movement. If your neck of the woods is getting more or less populated, check your feelings against the hard numbers.

To view the map, click on http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html?preload=41047.

Don’t let the master bedroom be an afterthought. Since it’s the place of rest and dreaming, invest more time, energy, and dollars into sprucing up this all-important room of the house.

Kristen Ueckert, a North Texas realtor, suggests helpful tips to mastering the master bedroom (”Easy Ways to Spruce Up Your Master Bedroom”). Here are a few notable ones:

1. Create a focal accent by painting the bed-frame wall an accent color.

2. Declutter. Store items in bins or baskets under the bed.

3. Mix and match linens and layer bed with pillows.

Invest in the master bedroom, for yourself and for the potential buyer, if your house is on the market for sale.

Blogging is both a personal and business matter. In either scenario, the purpose of blogging is typically to find, maintain, and grow a readership (or fan base). For those of us who want raving fans, Johnny Truant’s post, “The Insider Guide to Creating an Audience of Raving Fans,” (copyblogger.com) is worth a read.

Truant’s main point is that if we blog, the post should be readable for a general audience. Gaining followers, however, requires one more step. Truant suggests the “Easter egg,” the inside idea or comment that only 1% of general readers will get and love.

“If you place your Easter eggs well, you’ll get a cloud of people who read your stuff the way they would read anything else they were interested in. But at the center of that cloud will be your core fans. Your insiders. Your ‘club of you.’”

And to start creating that club of core fans, we need to be true to ourselves, our interests, and our own sense of humor. We can be many things to many people, but we can be truly spectacular to the few who share our passions.

How do you measure the happiness of a country? A little known nation called Bhutan has an index to measure “gross national happiness.” Hotelier Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality (based in San Francisco), illustrates the happiness equation as wanting what you have over having what you want.

In his TED talk, “Measuring what makes life worthwhile,” Conley argues that many of us are walking or running the modern treadmill, pursuing happiness with our sweat, blood, and tears. Getting what we want is the constant chase.

Mainstream economists measure success in tangible units of production and consumption. Conley says that it’s time to count the intangibles. Community and business leaders need to focus on creating happiness for customers, which is directly converted into tangible success. Today, Joie de Vivre Hospitality operates more than 40 hotels throughout California, including the famous Phoenix Hotel.

NPR’s Lynn Sydell reports that Dr. Jakob Nielsen, a product usability specialist, asked 24 individuals to read a collection of Hemingway stories  in traditional and non-traditional ways (”Reading A Book On An iPad Or Kindle? It Might Take Longer”). His small scale study indicates that the group took more time to read on an iPad (6.2% longer) and Kindle (10.7% longer) than they did with printed text. However, there was no significant difference in reading comprehension.

The reasons for the lengthier read time are not clear, but Nielsen points to readers’ feedback that the iPad was too heavy and the Kindle’s gray-on-gray lettering a bit hard on the eyes.

For traditionalists, this quick study confirms that the experience of a good read is sensory. Turning the page on a bound book feels much different than watching the virtual page curl (albeit beautiful). This is good news for everyone — the printed book and its electronic version will thrive, as long as everyone keeps reading.

NPR’s Lynn Sydell reports that Dr. Jakob Nielsen, a product usability specialist, asked 24 individuals to read a collection of Hemingway stories  in traditional and non-traditional ways (”Reading A Book On An iPad Or Kindle? It Might Take Longer”). His small scale study indicates that the group took more time to read on an iPad (6.2% longer) and Kindle (10.7% longer) than they did with printed text. However, there was no significant difference in reading comprehension.

The reasons for the lengthier read time are not clear, but Nielsen points to readers’ feedback that the iPad was too heavy and the Kindle’s gray-on-gray lettering a bit hard on the eyes.

For traditionalists, this quick study confirms that the experience of a good read is sensory. Turning the page on a bound book feels much different than watching the virtual page curl (albeit beautiful). This is good news for everyone — the printed book and its electronic version will thrive, as long as everyone keeps reading.