Archive for the 'Practices' Category

Video: Google’s Energy Efficient Data Center

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

CNET’s Stephen Shankland collected a bunch of Google produced videos on YouTube that discuss Google’s energy efficient container data centers…
YouTube tour reveals Google data center designs
You can see of the videos embedded above.

PCs Left on Overnight Costs US Firms $2.8B/Year

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

From USA Today…
Leaving PCs on overnight costs companies $2.8B a year
We’ve always known this wasteful behavior has a cost associated with it. Now, it has a number assigned to it and it is a big one. Windows users can Hibernate their PC. It works reasonably well on XP and Vista though it is not 100% [...]

How Much Electricity Does a Mac Use?

Saturday, July 26th, 2008

I wrote an article for O’Reilly Media’s DigitalMedia Mac Center titled…
How Much Electricity Does a Mac Use?
I measured a bunch of electronic devices including a MacBook and iMac using the inexpensive P3 P4400 Kill-A-Watt measureing device. The results were, IMHO, quite interesting.

ExtremeTech Writer Reports on Converting His Home to Solar Power

Monday, July 21st, 2008

Interesting real-life report from ExtremeTech’s Loyd Case…
Going Solar: The Install
…where he describes the experience of converting his home to run mostly on solar power.

Automobile Gas Tip Myths Exposed

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

The gas saving myths discussed in this article are:

Fill your tank early in the day
Replace air filters for better mileage
Buy fuel additives
Turn of air conditioner and roll down windows

Auto advances make gas advice moot
Rolling down the windows probably probably disrupts the car’s aerodynamic properties. But, you would think cranking down the air conditioner would provide [...]

Video: Microsoft Windows Server Power Management

Friday, February 29th, 2008

Here’s a link to a video of a WinHEC 2007 conference presentation by Microsoft’s Stephen Berard about…
Windows Server Power Management
The video is just under 42 minutes long. Click on the PowerPoint tab in the right sidebar to see the slide deck for this presentation.

SmartPlanet: Top tips for recycling your tech

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Here’s some helpful advice from SmartPlanet.com…
Top tips for recycling your tech 

Data Center Journal: Six steps to halting data center energy waste

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

The six steps in this article are, surprisingly, all non-technical in nature. Skip to the end of the article to read the steps.
Six steps to halting data center energy waste

Sarah Perez’ 5 Ways to Practice Green Computing

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Found this blog item on Microsoft’s on10.net tech media site…
5 Ways to Practice Green Computing
Items 1 through 4 are common ones (Energy Star, put laptops to sleep, etc.). However item 5 is something I only learned about a week or two ago: Smart power strips. I definitely need to look for this.

The Cost of Leaving PCs On All Night (and Day)

Monday, July 9th, 2007

Treehugger has an interesting extrapolation of the cost of leaving PCs on all night at…
All-Nighter PCs Cost U.S. Businesses $1.7 Billion
The big problem is that many enterprise installation require you to leave your PC on all night to push out patches, install software, and run security checks (virus scans, etc.).
If you really want to see [...]