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Landscaping software programs will help you to create the garden of your dreams but there are some programs that are a complete waste of money. What you obviously need to discover which programs are good before you buy them.

Unfortunately, a lot of the landscaping software programs that are commercially available for the regular consumer are not very that good. In fact, some of them are just plain terrible, and to buy them is to throw your money down the drain! They will have useless cartoon type drawings that are not clear-cut and that will not really serve any purpose at all. On the other hand, there are some of the more pricey commercial grade landscaping software programs that will blow you away with what they can do. What you may be looking for, is a mid priced product that just does what you need, and does it well.

What you should remember when you are using a landscaping software program, is that it won’t get out there and do it for you (it would be very expensive if it did!), it is only a tool to bring your ideas to fruition. If you are thinking of purchasing landscaping software so that you can just have your yard designed for you, then do not even bother buying it. If on the other hand you have some splendid ideas and you want to get them visually laid out so that you can see them, then a good landscaping software program might be for you after all. If you are short of pointers, go to a good outdoor landscaping website or get a book.

Before you commit to buying any landscaping software make sure you know exactly what it does. Don’t pay for things you will never use. This will let you see if the program will help you achieve what you want. Choose a landscaping software program that has advanced graphics. It stands to reason that the better the graphics are on your landscaping software the easier it will be to see the end result. Remember that this is what you need from any landscaping software program. If the landscaping software is not any good, then you might be better off using one of the drawing programs that can already be found on your computer.

Our recommendation of a good program at a fair price is the Punch Landscape Deck & Patio Design software. Comes in around $47, has good graphics and a lot of helpful tools you often only find in the more expensive software. Lets face it though, when you are looking for software, if there are two landscaping software programs and they look the same and they both have the tools that you need but one is cheaper, which one are you going to chose?

You will find many more articles on landscaping and design at www.outdoorlandscapingdesigns.com

Isn’t living off-the-grid every man’s dream? Rely on Yourself! Don’t pay for electricity anymore! Have power all the time, 24/7/365, no matter what is happening in the big wide world! It’s all so grandiose, and for most people, so completely out of reach.

But don’t get discourged; there are options available. Even someone in an apartment complex can do things that decrease their reliance on the grid. But first, let’s break the issue down into manageable pieces, with help from the experts at Evergreen Mountain Labs and http://www.EvergreenGasLabs.com, and look very briefly at each puzzle piece in turn.

There are basically five items to address in order to live completely grid free. You can explore as many of these ideas as you want to, but the secret is that you have to start somewhere.

1. Cooking
2. Heating, Cooling
3. Electricity
4. Food
5. Water, Sewer, Laundry

1.     Cooking Needs. It all boils down, no pun intended, to how you use what energy you have. Find the cheapest way possible to cook your food. For some people, this means investing in a wood stove. For some people it means getting a little propane camp stove and then stocking up on propane. For some, assuming that you get lots of sun, it means getting a solar oven. And for everybody, it means consuming more dried goods and fresh fruits and vegetables, and cooking less often, or only cooking one pot of stew or something in the morning, and then serving from it all day. Electric stoves aren’t really even an option since they just plain use too much electricity.

2.      Space Heating/Cooling.For living space heating and cooling, you need two or three things. If you can track down a wood stove someplace, and enough firewood to keep it running, do so. If you can be happy with a swamp cooler instead of an energy guzzling air conditioner, do it. And thickly insulate everything, with as much insluation as you can snag. It takes less energy to keep well-insulated stuff either hot or cold, than uninsulated stuff.

3.      Electricity. You simply have to have electricity to survive in today’s world. So the thing that we have to do is to minimize our usage wherever and whenever possible (heating, cooling, cooking, entertainment, laundry, etc).  And the first thing to remember is this, CONSERVE electricity however possible with energy efficient everything (including lights). The second thing to keep in mind is to NEVER use electricity to warm or heat anything up; it’s too wasteful. Explore other ways to do it. As for generating your own electricity (including you city dwellers), get at least one 12volt, deep cycle battery, one solar panel you can place in a window to keep it charged (or one of the small, pollution free generators being developed by Evergreen Mountain Labs), and a 300Watt AC inverter to power your clocks, radios, computers, and etc. If an item uses more than 3 or 400 Watts, you could probably live without it – with the one possible exception of your washer. You can find a small 3. If you buy a diesel generator, you can even run it on biodiesel that you make yourself or likely get for free from restaurants nearby.

4.      Food is a bit of a trick sometimes, but even in an apartment building, there are still ways that you can raise enough food for yourself to survive on. Unless you like mouse, meat is pretty much not an option in a city dwelling, so focus on vegetable plants instead. You might consider starting with tomato plants, grown upside down, out thru holes in the bottom of hanging pots. They grow like crazy if everything is right, and will cover many of your daily vitamin needs. The idea here is to focus on plants that produce a fruit or vegetable on an ongoing basis, without needing lots of space to do it in.

5.     Drinking water and sewer disposal can also be an issue sometimes, but there’s still hope, even for someone living in an apartment complex. Rain, melted snow, and even brook or pond water can all be boiled or filtered for use. So start by getting a drinking water filter and replacement cartridges (since distillers take power). As for your sewer needs, consider getting an indoor, odor free composting toilet, and you suddenly have plant fertilizer as well. Laundry, since it uses so much water, can sometimes be an issue. The only thing I can offer there is learn to do it by hand if the need arises, because your washing machine simply takes too much power

 By addressing all five areas of grid dependence in our lives, and by learning to conserve, live simply, and find other options, anyone, including people in apartments, can learn to live off the grid and be energy independent and grid free.

 Some of the products mentioned in this article are, or soon will be, available at http://www.SurvivalOffTheGrid.com, along with more info, ebooks, and more.