Wednesday 6 February 2008

Just like tortoises


Computers, just like tortoises, need plenty of time to hibernate. If you leave them on all the time they cost a small fortune in energy consumption and lettuce. Using Windows XP, and even better in Windows Vista, you can adjust the power settings on your pc and laptop so that no unnecessary energy is consumed and you can wake it up whenever you want to without re-starting it.

So why isn't this automatically applied to the Council's computers? A couple of weeks ago, I reported on a young employee in the Taxation Department who addressed Cabinet about the money (and energy) being wasted by lights and computers being left on when not in use.

At Council last week I made the above point to the Leader of the Council, who was taking questions on Cllr Copeland's portfolio in her absence. He didn't actually answer this specific point, but yesterday a Council internal publication came out asking for energy-saving ideas: so I gave them this one. Let's see if they follow it up.
Oh, and according to the BBC Breakfast programme this morning, if your tortoise wakes up early from its hibernation due to global warming, you can just put it in a box in the fridge.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Really, Microsoft should make the most energy-efficient settings the default setting.