Residents of the city of Rizhao claim to be the first Chinese to greet the sun each day as it rises from the Yellow Sea. In fact, the city’s name is a condensed form of the Chinese phrase ri qu shien zhao, which literally means “first to get sunshine.” They also make some of the best use of the more than 100 kilowatt-hours of power the sun pours down on each square meter of Earth over the course of a sunny day.

Though Rizhao’s 3 million residents are seemingly overshadowed by nearby Qingdao—a larger city famous worldwide for its eponymous beer (you might know it as Tsingtao)—Rizhao boasts perhaps a bigger distinction: It is the first city in all of China to pledge to become carbon-neutral.

That China has surpassed the United States to become the leading emitter of greenhouse gases is no secret. The Chinese curse on the climate will have to be reckoned with, but the Chinese also have a gift to give the world: developing cheap renewable energy sources, particularly solar power. Low-cost manufacturing in China is transforming the entire array of clean energy sources, like previously expensive photovoltaic cells—and, in the process, helping to clean up the world’s energy supply.

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These online editors provide an alternative to workstation photo editors such as open-source Gimp.

Photo and image editors are great for creating graphics for documents and web sites.

Backup of large files like Outlook .pst file and database files is enhanced by updating only the portion of the file that has changed.  With a DSL connection, an initial upload of files took 2-3 days for around 15 gigabytes.  Download speeds should be much greater if and when data recovery is needed.  An simple green Carbonite icon in the lower, right icon tray indicates that the backup is complete.  As I create new word processing and text files, the files are quickly backed up.  If you delete a file on your hard disk, Carbonite will keep the file for 30 days and then remove it from your backup.

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Images can be pasted from the clipboard or made accessible as a web link. Image annotation options include arrows and highlighting. The videos include computer mouse movement and sound as recorded through your microphone or headset. The video feature is very helpful for creating a brief tutorial on the fly and making it available as a web link that you can send in an email.

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