GREEN COMPUTING
Your computer Chances
are you spend the majority of your day sitting in front of the keyboard,
and a few small changes can go a long way toward reducing its negative
impact on the environment.
As an added bonus,
doing your part for the environment will save you money, too. This Earth
Day, we've rounded up a few simple ways you can go green with your
computer.
Shutdown Your Computer Without Losing the Perks of an Always-On PC
Obviously, computers
require electricity to run, so shutting down, sleeping, or hibernating
your computer when you're not using it conserves energy. Every modern
operating system has its own settings for conserving power, so the first
thing you should do—if you haven't already—is open the power settings
of your computer and set them for optimal energy use. Set your computer
to put your monitor to sleep, spin down your hard drives, and put your
computer to sleep when you're not using it. Even better, since your computer uses less power when hibernating than when sleeping, set up your computer to hibernate rather than just go to sleep.
One of the biggest
turn-offs (no pun intended) about shutting down or sleeping your
computer is that you miss out on some of the finer things your computer
provides even when you're away. For example, if you're downloading a
large file, you may want the download to continue even when you're away.
Likewise, we've covered tons of ways toremotely
access your computer, all of which no longer work if your computer's
turned off. Luckily you can continue using your computer during these
times but still conserve power the rest of the time.
For example, Windows users should check out previously mentioned WinOFF,
which shuts down, restarts, and hibernates your computer (among other
things) after a certain amount of time, at a specific time, or when your
CPU goes idle so that your computer automatically shuts off at times
you don't need it.
If a download is what
you're waiting for, many peer-to-peer clients, like the popular
BitTorrent client uTorrent, can shutdown your computer when a download
completes so you can get your file and save energy, too.
Between WinOFF and
built-in shutdown features common to many apps, we've taken care of the
the download problem—but what about when you want to access your
computer remotely? If it's shut down, you can't very well get to it, can
you? Actually, you can, assuming you set up Wake-on-LAN on
your computer. Once Wake-on-LAN's enabled, you can turn your computer
on over the internet from anywhere—so there's no reason not to shut down
your computer when you leave the house.
Finally, if you're on a Mac laptop, check out previously mentioned SmartSleep to enhance your power-saving options.
Save Paper when Printing
When it comes to the
environment, one of the first places most offices can improve is the
giant pile of discarded paper by the network printer. Aside from obvious
things you can do on your own—like printing duplex, printing to PDF,
previewing before printing, and not printing hundreds of copies of an
email forward to plaster around the office—there are a few other tools
you can use to minimize wasting paper and ink when printing.
To save ink and paper when you're printing from your browser, use
previously mentioned Firefox extension Aardvark to tweak the layout of a page and remove elements—like ads and images—that you don't need on the printed page.
When you're not printing
from the browser, Windows users can save tons on ink and paper with
previously mentioned GreenPrint, a freeware application that
automatically identifies and removes unnecessary pages or space from
your printouts before they head to the printer.
If you're regularly
sending documents back and forth to other people or businesses, you can
also save a few trees and save a little time in the process with a
couple of office hacks. For example, rather than going through the
age-old print, sign, and fax dance handed down through the generations
by our forefathers, try creating a scanned signature and then sending scanned PDFs rather than faxes. It's quicker and it saves on resources and costs.
Turn Off Peripherals to Kill the Vampires
Now that you've put good
energy practices into use on your PC, it's time to move onto the
power-hungry peripherals you've got plugged into it. Whenever possible,
you want to turn off any peripheral when you're not using it—like your
printer or monitor. Likewise, you should be aware of any gear in your
computing setup that draws standby power (a.k.a., vampire power) even
when you've turned off the device in question. Vampires commonly stand
out as large, unsightly AC adapters.
While you could diligently unplug your wall warts or
keep them plugged into a power strip that you switch off when they're
not in use, you can go even further and automate the process with
gadgets like the Energy Saving Smart Strip (original post) and the Power Minder (original post),
both of which monitor your PC's power state and automatically shut down
other peripherals when you turn off your computer.For more on saving
energy at your computer, check out our top 10 computing energysavers.
Estimate Your Power Usage
It's one thing to know
your computer sucks down a lot of energy every month, but actual power
usage numbers drives the point home. Windows can install previously mentioned LocalCooling,
an tool that both helps you tweak your Windows power saving settings
and visualize the amount of power your computer consumes. Some users
reported inaccurate measures with the app when we first posted about it,
but the well-intentioned LocalCooling team continues in their efforts
to improve the application and help you save energy and visualize the
impact of your energy-saving.
If LocalCooling's not
giving you accurate results or you want to get a more definitive look at
your PC's power consumption, regardless of your operating system, this Coding Horror post demonstrates in detail how to determine and lower the cost of leaving your PC running (original post).
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