Earth Day Stuff
I hate waiting for my computer to start up when I get to work. It just takes too long, and usually I'm too tired and impatient to deal with it in the morning – so, for the longest time I've just left my computer on 24/7. For the past couple of weeks I've been very diligent about turning it off to save energy, but that reintroduces the inconvenience of waiting for it to start up every day.
The solution? Last night I set up a scheduled task on a server computer (that needs to remain on 24/7) to use the WoL (wake on LAN) feature on my computer to turn it on 10 minutes before I get to work. This seems to be the most elegant solution, since it alleviates both the power consumption issue, and the inconvenience of waiting.
I've also just set up a co-workers computer to do the same thing (with a different schedule). And I could easily scale this setup to a quite a few computers if anyone else finds the idea attractive.
It's a small energy savings, but it's better than nothing.
Also, for those of you that have screensavers that appear after x-minutes of inactivity.. turn that nonsense off! Change the setting from "display screensaver" to "power off monitor". There's no reason to waste electricity showing an image of a dog licking your monitor when you're not at your computer.
Tags: earth day, energy saving, wake on lan, wol
x-f said,
Great idea, sparx!
April 23, 2009 @ 1:52 am
Cactus Joe said,
I like the screensaver tip.
April 23, 2009 @ 6:20 am
Cactus Joe said,
I am often shocked and awed when I stop for a minute and look around at all the energy being consumed in America. My solution to shrinking my ecological footprint was self-employment (www.cactusjoeproductions.com). In part, to do less driving. But largely because I could no longer ethically work for a company whose natural resource consumption seems limitless. At night, the grounds of the property were fully lit up like a Christmas tree. You can see the plant from miles away at night. Turning off computers was frowned upon. And every electronic shred of trivial information had to be PRINTED OUT to be read. This last was especially concerning when people would print PDF manuals of hundreds of pages they would never read, only to discard them in the recycle bins whose contents almost always went in the trash. Then people would print all manner of personal Internet downloads. I have nothing against that on principle (why not exploit THE MAN: http://redstaplerbrigade.blogspot.com). But then people just forget about the printouts and after just about everyone in the office has seen that the coworker is going to a Brewer's game, it's finally put not in the recycle bin, but rather in the tray of unclaimed print outs. This is like a limbo place for paper, not the same thing as a scratch paper bin (unheard of at that company), and once a document is there, it can literally be there for years. I have seen 5 year old print outs in that bin. Shocking. But awe inspiring.
April 23, 2009 @ 6:35 am
unlikelymoose said,
Hi Cactus Joe.
April 27, 2009 @ 10:10 am
spudart said,
I would like corporations to give employees an power strip off switch. So much energy is wasted by keeping things plugged in overnight. WTF. Turn it all off. ALL OFF. AAAAAAAAAAARGH. THIS MAKE ME ANGREE! ASJKLGAJKLHKL;ABVHKADSH
May 4, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
spudart said,
I AM SO ANGREE!!! kjasjkhhajkaklhjsv
there, now my other comment in another post which should have counted as two will count as two, because I just made this comment. And that is just as good as getting some ice cream in a cone and having that bit of ice cream left over in the cone at the end where it's like a special treat that you don't expect but sometimes you get but sometime there is no ice cream in the bottom of the cone and that's just i don't know what it is but it's something or maybe it's nothing after all.
May 4, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
unlikelymoose said,
Hi spudart.
May 4, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
spudart said,
moose, do you like my energy strip at work idea? I have implemented it at home, and saw great energy savings.
May 5, 2009 @ 9:43 am
sparx said,
Spudart.. I have a power strip under my desk. What would happen if you asked your employer for one? Or just ask someone in IT, they tend to be the ones that end up with dozens of unused surge suppressors just sitting on a shelf.
May 5, 2009 @ 9:50 am
spudart said,
I should just have one suppressor under my desk. What I would really like is a simple switch on my desk.
I wish homes had that too. Just one simple switch to hit when you leave the house.
May 5, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
sparx said,
What if you put the suppressor on top of your desk?
If your home had an off button.. what about your refrigerator and fish tank?!
May 5, 2009 @ 12:39 pm