Saving energy through IT in an enterprise environment almost always comes at the expense of trading off something else. It could be security by not keeping machines on for patching, it could be accessibility by not keeping machines on for remote access, it could be inconvenience by having to wait for your computer to boot up and complete all of its start up tasks, or it could … [Read more...]
Book Review: Cut Your Energy Bills Now
The second in a series of three Green books (Got Sun? Go Solar being the first) I've been reading lately, Cut Your Energy Bills Now - 150 Smart Ways to Save Money and Make Your Home More Comfortable & Green by Bruce Harley, is all about the practical application. 150 ways to save energy and indirectly save money is right. The book is filled with common things that most … [Read more...]
Touring Blue Waters – The National Petascale Computing Facility
The NCSA held a community day yesterday at their new National Petascale Computing Facility located in Champaign, IL which will be the home of the Blue Waters Sustained Petascale Computing super-computer amongst other super computers. When the new hardware comes online next year it will be the world's fastest super-computer yet, powered by IBM's POWER7 systems. With the rest of … [Read more...]
Good in Theory, Poor Execution: A/C in the Home Office
This is one of those occasions where I get to tell you that I was wrong. I tried something and it failed. In theory it was sound, would have saved energy, and improved comfort. The plan was to add a window air conditioner in my office at home. With the weather we've already had before even getting to the hot summer months, it sounded like an ideal setup. Unfortunately, like … [Read more...]
Book Review: Got Sun? Go Solar
Got Sun? Go Solar by Rex A. Ewing and Doug Pratt (2nd ed.) doesn't exactly relate to IT like most topics here on 404 Tech Support but nor have we been strangers to talking about the saving energy and going green motives of the day. This book is an excellent source for that part where the "rubber meets the road" when discussing renewable energy. If you've been thinking about the … [Read more...]