The comedy team, Penn & Teller, assert in their cable show “Bulls**t” (bullpucky?) that recycling isn’t really all that useful and maybe not necessary.

Whether Earth wants plastic or not, recycling of inkjet cartridges is useful in many different ways. However, before you choose where to recycle your inkjet cartridge, do a little research to make your recycling efforts effective. Recycling won’t work if we don’t close loop. Many charitable institutions around world have initiated ink cartridge recycling programs, which fund hospitals, school activities and other social concerns. This type of funding cuts costs in many ways from tax breaks for charitable donations to lowering price that we have to pay for services funded organizations provide. In addition, remanufactured compatible inkjet cartridges are usually a fraction of cost of brand name inkjet refills.

Several inkjet printer manufacturers also maintain recycling programs. However, your recycled ink cartridge doesn’t always make it around loop.

Google Desktop Search Software can't find your lost keys or tell you where you left Tivo remote control, or that your glasses are on top of your head, where you left them. But beta software from Google Labs is nothing short of mandatory for those with more emails, Word documents, Powerpoint, Excel and PDF files than they know what to do with. That's me.

New fixtures in our lives can become near necessities pretty quickly. You know, like Tivo remote when you want to skip repetitive loud jingles in commercials. I've even begun to start reaching for that Tivo remote out of habit when I've missed an important news item on car radio! Wait, Back up!

I'll grin as I catch myself doing this, while wondering why that Tivo functionality isn't built into our new car radio. My wife has told me she does same thing. Now I believe I've been just as spoiled & smitten by Google Desktop Search!

Once you install software at http://desktop.google.com/ and try it a few times, you'll be hooked. In fact, if you're like me, you'll wonder how you got along without it! My wife is less impressed, but she also said to me, "I KNOW where stuff is on my computer!" That's because she only has emails and occasional Word documents and photos on her machine and knows where each of them are stored.

Those of us who use computer all day long, every working day, have multiple folders, long lists of emails, downloaded files, emailed receipts from online purchases, ebooks, PDF's, spreadsheets, client information and files, PowerPoint files, and web pages we've visited while doing work all day long.

Have you tried using Windows built-in search lately? The search function is accessed by clicking "Start" button, where you see option "Search" and then options including "For Files or Folders", then "On The Internet", then "Using Microsoft Outlook" and "For People". Clearly, you must know where your lost item MIGHT be & decide to search only there.

Your choices expand and you choose where to look from among MORE places your lost item MIGHT be found so Windows knows where to look. Choose from among "Look for Files or Folders Named" and then "Containing Text", infuriating "Look In" choices "My Documents" and "Desktop" and "My Computer" and "Local Hard Drives (C)", and inexplicably - "Browse"! Might as well do that first by opening every folder and browsing!

My experience has been that I don't remember where it is, and THAT is why I need to search for it! And most often, Windows search function fails to find what I've misplaced - BECAUSE I CAN'T REMEMBER WHERE IT IS, SO CAN'T TELL WINDOWS WHERE TO LOOK FOR IT! That is certainly NOT a useful search tool.

Google has completely resolved this problem and eliminated my frustration with Google Desktop Search Software. It's a 400k application that takes less than a minute to download on a dial-up modem! This powerful tool is tiny, fast and nothing short of amazing in it's functionality.

The first thing you see after installation is completed is a note in your browser window that says "Indexing has Begun" or something similar. I tried to use Google Desktop Search to find cached page of that window, but it didn't turn up. I went to their "Help" pages and found that it's because I am using FireFox Browser and "Web pages which you view in Firefox aren't added to your Desktop Search index". They apologize and promise future Mozilla Firefox support.