With clever scientists having worked out that computers & the Internet generally use power to function, the emphasis is now on computer users to go green!
How exciting an opportunity, and how intellect the wisdom being offered: this recent article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph (if you read the article, you’ll need to waste browsing time & electricity & trees scrolling to the end though, as they didn’t provide a link direct to the tips) provides some thoughtful ideas on being a green computer user:
· Turn your computer off when it’s not in use. Make sure that your operating system’s energy-savings settings are correct.
· Try to make your machine last as long as possible – if it has ground to a halt, consider reinstalling the operating system afresh, rather than buying a new machine.
· When the time comes to buy a new computer, explore the green policies of a machine’s manufacturer. Apple, Dell and Asus claim they are leaders in this field.
· The bulk of your computer’s energy use is dictated by your power supplier, and many electricity and gas companies offer tariffs that use renewable sources.
· If you have a website, remember that every uncompressed picture and every badly written bit of code has a direct impact on the environment and on the time it takes a site to load. If your site is speedy, it will usually help its search rankings, too.
· When disposing of unwanted electronic equipment, remember that recycling it intact, for other people to use, is usually much better for the environment that dismantling it.
Let’s take a moment to consider this advice:
· turn your computer off – how clever! Except for... (see below);
· try to make your machine last as long as possible – genius stuff, but no advice on how to run Vista, or even Linux on my top of the range ZX Spectrum+ 128Kb , so no help there;
· explore green policies – i.e. listen to any advertising claims from trendy manufacturers that know the mood of the public, and only buy from them (some computers use electricity, some manufacturers use waffle & clever advertising – but still need electricity to work);
· your computer’s energy use is dictated by its power supply (did you really think your keyboards & mouse were kinetic?) – look at your supplier, and use the one you can afford and that meets your needs;
· remember, large downloads use more computer processing – and they cost more in host-server fees, so you probably use them because you value the visual impact, but think about whether a small, grainy image would be helpful (is the picture of an ugly person? Save your viewers and the planet...);
· dispose of unwanted equipment by recycling – so criminals can recycle your banking information!
Hippie runs what he supposes is a relatively powerful desktop. Taking a glance at the taskbar at the bottom, Hippie had 11 icons – or programs – running at the moment this was prepared (and a laptop running alongside too. And two cell phones. Oops! Bad Hippie). To be green, Hippie could’ve saved this post; closed Word; opened a browser; found & copied a hyperlink; closed the browser; opened Word; pasted the link; and continued this exercise repeatedly. (Or perhaps used fewer words. Or not posted at all.) And sing to himself instead of running a music program while he was working. And close all those other programs he might need to switch to the moment the phone rings. And does Hippie really need 16 tabs open in his main browser? His screen (only one, as Mrs Hippie said he didn’t need a second monitor) can only display a few at a time, so perhaps Hippie should close the rest, and use History to open them when needed again (using Google isn’t green).
And perhaps Hippie could close all those hidden programs, running in the background too... like Skype – Hippie can always phone back, hoping the caller is only on Skype, but waiting patiently for a call at the precise moment he tries to call. Or the anti-virus program, hoping nothing nasty tries to access the computer while online.
Hippie doesn’t know what’s most genius about this study & advice list: recycling our secure information; keeping old computers to corrode in a dark corner of the house; the idea that Hippie should jump up and run over to the bookcase, browse a dictionary or encyclopaedia (he’d maybe eat more, given all the energy he’d burn jumping up & down) to check a simple fact; or turning off the computer when not in use?
Hippie supposes the genius advice is to turn off the computer when not using it – so obvious really, it probably escaped most of us.
However, Hippie demands a lot from his computer, and with the advent of multi-tasking (his Spectrum requires a cassette player, and about 20 minutes, to run a program, but only one program can run at a time, so no option about shutting programs down), power is used.
Hippie could go into Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Power Options, and change the power plan. This would make browsing a dictionary or encyclopaedia quicker too. But then, Hippie bought a powerful computer to use, not to preserve & recycle.
Hippie could turn his computer off when not in use. But then, it’s always in use: given all the applications running during the day (and music is played virtually 24 hours, with the TV program normally running too – it records the shows, but needs to keep checking the schedule to know when to record) Hippie doesn’t want slow performance by having malware or back-up programs running while he’s working. Therefore, they run at night, when slow performance won’t bother him. And then he might need to log in to his computer when away from the office, so needs remote access – not yet possible when the computer’s turned off!
Of course, the other possible outcome of trying to run too much when the computer’s limited power can’t cope is the “blue screen of death”. Will only require the system to restart, and have all drives checked for presence & performance...
The simple answer to all this: buy a computer only with power for what you need (or buy a second hand computer, and blackmail the previous owner with their browsing history); plant a tree; make your computer green, and ensure you never again see the blue screen of death (particularly for Mother Hippie, although it will probably need two computers, due to remote access):
open Notepad;
scroll to the Windows folder – somewhere like “C:\Windows”;
find a file called “system.ini” (you might find this easier if you have file extensions enabled, but do think about how much energy dispalying those four extra characters will require);
you should find something like:
[386Enh]
woafont=dosapp.fon
EGA80WOA.FON=EGA80WOA.FON
EGA40WOA.FON=EGA40WOA.FON
CGA80WOA.FON=CGA80WOA.FON
CGA40WOA.FON=CGA40WOA.FON
[drivers]
;
in the space above “[drivers]”, (paying attention to spacing, capitalisation, and spelling) enter two new lines (copy & paste uses trees to support the clipboard):
MessageBackColor=2
MessageTextColour=4
;
save your modifications to the system, and approve any checks MS decided to waste trees on to ask you about your changes.
Now, if your green credentials cause your computer to crash with a major system failure, you won’t get a blue screen of death – it too will be green (the 2 above) And if you’re color-blind, you probably won’t realise you missed a flash of text – no-one gets the chance to read it anyway, so you won’t be frustrated that it was displayed in red (the 4 above) text!
If you do see this screen so often you manage to read some text on it, give up on being green; change your settings back to full performance (Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Power Options); plant another tree; and try not to pass wind – at least not while you’re having sex, as that is most uncouth, and is bad for your home environment!
Hippie
p.s. Hippie only viewed 9 tabs (now blogger too, so make that 10) in his browser while preparing this post, so Hippie guesses he owes the world a leaf or two.
