How much do you use?

Energy, that is. I'm mostly talking about electronic energy usage, 'cause that's what I think about, but we must put this in context: it won't matter what state you leave your audio or PC in if your energy is flying out your under-protected windows or wasted heating the house when no one is home. Electronic usage changes create much smaller savings, but they are savings and They Add Up.


There is a cool calculator here that you can use to see approximately how much energy you use with your electronic equipment and even better, how much it costs per year. You can experiment with changing your usage and see what it might save you: http://www.mygreenelectronics.org/EnergyCalculator.aspx


A room with a TV, cable box, computer and cordless phone costs $25.96  each year even if they were never turned on! And technology choices make a difference - a 17" CRT (80W and very old school) costs $66  per year vs $29  for a 17" LCD  monitor (35W).  Be careful with large HD displays, however. They can burn watts like - nevermind, Watts burning... I'm back in time.......Sorry. Some HD displays use the same amount of electricity as a refrigerator.


If you buy a big HD display (and please do!) this season, be sure and have your AV Professional calibrate it for your viewing room. I'm thinking your display will not have to compete with 11 other displays at your house. Brightness often can (and should) be dialed down for better viewing. It also just happens to result in less energy used/wasted.


The AV industry is addressing energy usage; many pieces of audio equipment will have an Energy Star rating in the near future, and displays will cease their escalating energy usage if they want to sell to anyone in California. The California Energy Commission recently mandated stricter energy usage limits for displays. After 2011 no TV with a screen size under 58" may be sold there unless it meets these newly specified limits. 

Your keyboard is gross

Since it is not just flu season but swine flu, er I mean H1N1 season, thought I'd remind everyone that keyboards have often tested heavier in bacterial contamination than toilet seats.


I bring this up not to bring you down, but to encourage you to keep a pack of disinfectanl wipes handy and use them to wipe down your keyboard periodically. Always make sure your machine is off first, and don't press too hard or rub hard on the keys if you plan on reading them later. If you're not squeamish you can read about one of the studies here.


The wipes work great for germs and unsightly guk on keys, but an official keyboard cleaning entails first dislodging crumbs and stuff and vacuuming or blowing all debris away, then thoroughly cleaning keys and keyboard surface. Debris removal is important because the crumbs from lunch become a feast for bacteria.  I have known computer shops to run a load of keyboards through a dishwasher cycle and it worked great, but you have to know your keyboards.


If a clean keyboard becomes a priority for you, you can find purpose-built keyboards. Some are built to be waterproof, making cleaning easy. Another method is to kill germs with UV light  (See Vioguard at techgadgets here), and the most controversial is the nanosilver surface technology said to kill 99% of 650 bacteria within 24 hours. (See Samsung's Nanosilver laptop for example.)

The Best Reason Ever

The list of horrible things hackers can do using your machine is long, but this cuts to the chase and is the best reason ever for protecting your computer.

The Creepiest Hack 

12,000 laptops lost weekly in US airports

Dell released a study that blew my mind. Over 12,000 laptops are lost in US airports each week! Dude, seriously. The study breaks it down: which airports, where in the airport, if the laptops get reclaimed...Dell commissioned the report from Ponemon Institute Look for >"Airport Insecurity, The Case of lost laptops" from June 2008.


Their study included 106 major US airports in 46 states. Of the 12,255 estimated laptops lost each week, only 33% are reclaimed. Over 40% of business traveller respondents didn't have their data backed up, and 65% admit they didn't protect or secure the data on their laptop.

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