GreenTechies.com » Press Release

1E NightWatchman Now Supports Vista Enterprise Power Management

Todd Ogasawara — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:19:38 +0000

From PC World…

Network Admin Program Eases Vista Power Consumption

1E estimates that 60% of U.S. workers who regularly use PCs do not turn them off at the end of the day. The 1E NightWatchman can schedule shutdowns as well as manage patching Windows.

Targus EcoSmart Notebook Cases

Todd Ogasawara — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 22:11:47 +0000

Found this in a New.com blog post…

Targus goes green with new laptop cases

Here’s the link to Targus’ press release. There’s no other product information on their site. Why is that manufacturer’s rarely have product information on their site right after a press release? You would think that would be when people are most interested to learn more about a product. The press release says that the EcoSmart cases are made of PVC-free material, which makes the production of EcoSmart cases less harmful to the ecosystem. In addition to the removal of PVC material, plastics used on the cases are recyclable and all metal hardware is nickel-free.

Corsair VX Series Eco-Friendly Power Supplies?

Todd Ogasawara — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 04:35:12 +0000

The press release for the Cosair VX Series power supplies says that these 450 and 550 watt power supplies (aimed at home theater PCs) are 80% more energy efficient (I guess compared to other power supplies since the press release doesn’t complete that train of thought). You can find the manufacturer’s product page at:

VX Power Supplies

On a related note, a friend mentioned to me that he recently bought an energy efficient power supply (different manufacturer), placed a meter on it and was surprised that it really did use less energy by intelligently monitoring the state of the system.

Verdiem Surveyor for PC Energy Management

Todd Ogasawara — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:47:22 +0000

I received information about Verdiem Surveyor 4.0 today. It is a server based power management application that manages PCs’ power settings.

Looking at its requirements (Windows Server, SQL Server), I began to wonder what its Carbon Footprint break-even point is. By this I mean, let’s say you use a small dedicated server (not sure if it can run in a virtualized environment) with dual 500W power supplies (1000W total). How many PCs does it need to manage in terms of regular power reduction to make up for the server’s own use of electrical power through direct use as well as indirect cooling costs? My suspicion is that this number is relatively large (say hundreds of PCs that are on 5 x 10 vs the 7 x 24 for the server itself).

Nokia Provides Energy Saving Alerts for Phones

Todd Ogasawara — Wed, 16 May 2007 19:58:06 +0000

Did you know that the various chargers you have for phones, notebook computers, portable game consoles and other mobile devices draws power even when it is not charging anything? That’s why it feels warm to the touch (or maybe even hot) all the time.

Some of Nokia’s new phones will alert customers to unplug the charger when they are not charging anything.

Nokia becomes the first phone maker to add energy saving alerts to mobiles

I just have my chargers on a power strip with an on-off switch and turn off the whole strip when not in use. This probably saves wear and tear of plugging and unplugging as well as time.