Your computer uses a lot of energy. If youre like most people, your computer uses energy even when youre not using it. People leave their computers on overnight to download movies, music, and games. It used to be that you had to turn your monitor off or it would burn a ghost image into the screen. Now monitors are much better, but still use a lot of energy. The brighter your monitor, the better its resolution, and the bigger its size? Chances are the more energy it requires. What can you do without actually becoming a Luddite? Easy!
Always turn your computer off. This should be obvious. You turn the light off when youre not in the room, you turn your car off when youre not driving it. The longer you leave your car running, the worse condition its going to be in so why leave your computer running? Your computer has mechanical parts, and your hard drive can only survive so many rotations. This does not mean hibernate your computer or put it into a sleep mode. Hibernate mode often doesnt work well anyway. Its always best to save your files and shut down your computer whenever youre not using it. This is not just good for the environment, but its good for your computer! Save money and turn your computer off.
Use power-saving modes. Often laptops have a power-saving mode which allows the battery to be juiced for an hour or so more by dimming the monitor. To be fair, we dont always want our DVDs to be dimmed when were watching The Matrix, but you can sacrifice some of the excessive lighting pretty easily.
Use Blackle. Googles white-themed search pages use a lot of energy. Someone did a calculation and realized how much energy could be saved by making that background black. Thus you have Blackle. So far theyve saved 1.4 million watt hours. Thats a lot! And you can contribute too! Personally, we appreciate dark (eco-friendly) themes like our own! ; )
Use Alternative Computing. Most computers are constantly buzzing away, whether or not youre doing anything. A significant number of servers use Linux, which is working towards a Green Linux project which is working to create a non-ticking kernel which will allow the processor to sleep between tasks. With many servers idling 85% of the time, this will drastically reduce e-waste. Just switching from Windows to Linux can reduce e-waste instantly by 50%!
Always turn your computer off. This should be obvious. You turn the light off when youre not in the room, you turn your car off when youre not driving it. The longer you leave your car running, the worse condition its going to be in so why leave your computer running? Your computer has mechanical parts, and your hard drive can only survive so many rotations. This does not mean hibernate your computer or put it into a sleep mode. Hibernate mode often doesnt work well anyway. Its always best to save your files and shut down your computer whenever youre not using it. This is not just good for the environment, but its good for your computer! Save money and turn your computer off.
Use power-saving modes. Often laptops have a power-saving mode which allows the battery to be juiced for an hour or so more by dimming the monitor. To be fair, we dont always want our DVDs to be dimmed when were watching The Matrix, but you can sacrifice some of the excessive lighting pretty easily.
Use Blackle. Googles white-themed search pages use a lot of energy. Someone did a calculation and realized how much energy could be saved by making that background black. Thus you have Blackle. So far theyve saved 1.4 million watt hours. Thats a lot! And you can contribute too! Personally, we appreciate dark (eco-friendly) themes like our own! ; )
Use Alternative Computing. Most computers are constantly buzzing away, whether or not youre doing anything. A significant number of servers use Linux, which is working towards a Green Linux project which is working to create a non-ticking kernel which will allow the processor to sleep between tasks. With many servers idling 85% of the time, this will drastically reduce e-waste. Just switching from Windows to Linux can reduce e-waste instantly by 50%!
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