JOURNALISTS : 'TECH STUDENTS TUNE'

HOW do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Kendra Pierre-Louis who covers the environment and climate, discussed the tech she is using:

1. Kendra, what tech tools are most important for doing your work?

I use the standard suit of office software, from Google Docs to Office, depending on my specific needs. [Docs is better when it comes to edit trace, but I prefer Excel for certain things.]

I also use Tabula a lot to scrape data out of PDFs, and the Hemingway app to make sure that what I wrote is at least somewhat understandable. I appreciate the app's color coding of things as diverse as complex sentences and passive voice.

For recording interviews, I use an external recorder because I don't trust phone recording apps - I want to see that the device is actually recording.

If it's a phone call [or a Skype call], I'll use it with a pickup microphone. I've had my setup for about five years, which is pretty good run.

2.  You recently wrote about buying clothes that last. Is there a method to buying tech that lasts?

Tech has a tremendous footprint. One estimate by Lawrence Berkeley Lab said it took 70 billion  kilowatt-hours in 2014, or nearly 2 percent of the total electricity generation in the  United States that year, just to run the Internet.

And then. of course, there are the materials used to create tech. The lithium-ion batteries that are in so many things, like my wristwatch, my cellphone and your earbuds, typically contain cobalt, which was potentially mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo using forced child labor and in conditions that hurt both people's health and the environment.

Many companies will say the phones are recyclable, but even when they are recycled [and that process van be incredibly environmentally polluting as well], the metal is generally too low-grade to go into a new phone. All of which, yes, points to a need for tech that lasts.

I don't know if there's a method as detailed as the one I laid out in my article on clothes. I tend to say I hold on to electronics for years.

I once had a laptop that lasted nine years. Toward the end, people teased me about it because it was, physically speaking, a brick. I got my workout carrying that thing around.

Part of the reason it lasted so long was that I bought a machine that was faster, had a larger hard -drive and could expand its memory more than I needed. So as software and the Internet evolved to require more memory and higher processor speeds, the computer could handle it.

Also, I really took care of it. Every couple of years, I had tech-repair shops clean its insides to remove the dust that built up inside. You can also do this yourself, but I liked having a professional do it for me.

The secret is buying tech that really fits your uses, looking at reviews like the ones on iFixit, about how easy it is to repair and taking care of things once you have them. Put a case on your phone.

3. What does your eco-conscious tech setup looks like at home?

I thing the greenest things, I do are the things that I don't but, buy, honestly.

The honor and serving of the Tech We're Using, continues to Part 2.